-Caveat Lector- http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/chronicle/archive/2002/09/09/BU.DTL
Surveillance Society Don't look now, but you may find you're being watched Benny Evangelista, Chronicle Staff Writer Monday, September 9, 2002 These days, if you feel like somebody's watching you, you might be right. One year after the Sept. 11 attacks, security experts and privacy advocates say there has been a surge in the number of video cameras installed around the country. The electronic eyes keep an unwavering gaze on everything from the Golden Gate Bridge to the Washington Monument. And biometric facial recognition technology is being tested with video surveillance systems in a handful of places such as the Fresno airport and the resort area of Virginia Beach, Va. "Our business is booming," said Ron Cadle, an executive with Pelco, the Fresno-area firm that is the biggest supplier of video security equipment. "Since the terrorist attacks, people are not only using video surveillance to protect their property and inventory," Cadle said. For example, "a lot of people are now using video to make sure someone who walks into a de- partment store isn't a known terrorist or felon." Privacy rights advocates say that the increase in video surveillance has not turned the United States into a "Big Brother state" yet, but they fear Sept. 11 has opened the door to creating a "surveillance society." "It definitely could become widespread," said Jay Stanley of the American Civil Liberties Union. "Everybody's using the threat of terrorism to justify a lot of things that don't have a lot to do with terrorism." Video surveillance cameras began appearing in banks and other commercial buildings in the 1960s, but began to proliferate in the last decade as digital technology produced cameras with higher resolution at cheaper prices. Even before Sept. 11, the security industry conservatively estimated that there were more than 2 million surveillance cameras in the United States, and video equipment purchases made up the biggest slice of a $40 billion-a-year industry. Although there are no current estimates, a group of anti-surveillance activists who have mapped the location of cameras in Manhattan since 1998 say they've seen a 40 percent increase in new cameras in New York's financial district since last September. The terrorist attacks have led to a "rapidly expanding use" of closed- circuit video cameras and related technology, according to a March 2002 report by the research bureau of the California State Library. And studies show that a majority of people support the expanded use of video surveillance of public areas and of facial recognition technology to pick out suspected terrorists, said Marcus Nieto, the report's co-author. Nieto has been monitoring video surveillance since 1997, the year public opposition forced the Oakland City Council to withdraw its plans to set up a video surveillance system. "Before 9/11, cameras were something people didn't give much thought about, " he said. "Post 9/11, people are more accepting of cameras. There used to be vocal opposition. It's now passive." Potential terrorist targets such as bridges and airports are beefing up video security. Oakland International Airport, for example, has already begun replacing 60 older surveillance cameras with higher-resolution digital color cameras, new color monitors and digital video recorders. Earlier this year, Washington officials activated a state-of-the art command center that can monitor 12 cameras throughout the Capitol Mall area and has the capability to tap a network of other video surveillance cameras throughout the city. The ACLU and EPIC, the Electronic Privacy Information Center, argue that the system can be used to infringe on citizens' rights and are pushing for regulations and public oversight of its use. "It's open-ended surveillance," said EPIC President Marc Rotenberg. "It's the digital electronic equivalent of allowing police to go through your home without a warrant." Stanley, public education coordinator of the ACLU's newly-created Technology and Liberty program, said numerous studies have documented the misuse of surveillance video. The studies found that minorities were more likely to be targets of video surveillance and that one in 10 women were targeted by the predominantly male security monitors for "voyeuristic reasons," he said. Technology now being developed will make video surveillance equipment even more powerful. High-definition television, or HDTV, equipment makes it possible for surveillance cameras to capture an image of a person 3,000 feet away with as much detail as one taken by an older analog camera at 30 feet, said John Burwell, an executive with SGI. The Mountain View firm known for high-tech computer graphics developed an HDTV surveillance system with the Naval Research Laboratory that gives equally high resolution. "If you watch 'America's Most Wanted,' you get clips of (surveillance) video that are fuzzy," said Burwell, SGI's senior director for government and industry. With HDTV, "you can get crystal clear data," he said And a small Reston, Va., firm called ObjectVideo has created "video content analysis" technology that can, for example, automatically alert security officials whenever a surveillance camera detects a truck that has moved into an unauthorized area. "There are increasingly more cameras being installed and fewer people to watch them," said John Clark, an ObjectVideo vice president. "The ratio of security video feeds to eyeballs is going the wrong way." But the most controversial video surveillance technology has been biometric facial recognition, which can identify individuals using the unique distances between specific points on a person's face. Critics maintain the technology is inaccurate and intrusive. So far, facial recognition systems from makers such as Identix Inc. and Imagis Technologies Inc. have only been installed in a handful of systems, mainly for test purposes. For example, passengers moving through the security checkpoint at Fresno Yosemite International Airport are scanned by a system called PelcoMatch, which uses Pelco's cameras and Identix's Visionics facial identification technology. Facial scanning is voluntary for the passengers, who still pass through metal detectors and undergo other security checks. "We're trying to get testing done and get the Transportation Security Administration to buy into it," said Cadle, the PelcoMatch project leader. "Then every airport in the U.S. will have it." And this past weekend, police in Virginia Beach, Va., began formally using a Visionics system that's plugged into a 10-camera surveillance network that has been used since 1993. Police use the cameras to control traffic and crime in a 42-block area filled with hotels, restaurants and bars. Police added three of Pelco's most advanced digital cameras to help scan a database of 2,500 people wanted on various warrants, said Deputy Chief Greg Mullen. In preliminary tests, the system correctly identified nearly nine of 10 people, Mullen said. Mullen said citizen groups like the NAACP and local Hispanic and Filipino organizations are part of the design and oversight of the system. "We know it's not going to be perfect," Mullen said. "But from my perspective, if I'm looking for a criminal or looking for a runaway or missing child, I'd rather have a seven- or eight-out-of-ten chance of finding that person than a zero-out-of-ten chance." E-mail Benny Evangelista at [EMAIL PROTECTED] <A HREF="http://www.ctrl.org/";>www.ctrl.org</A> DECLARATION & DISCLAIMER ========== CTRL is a discussion & informational exchange list. Proselytizing propagandic screeds are unwelcomed. Substance�not soap-boxing�please! These are sordid matters and 'conspiracy theory'�with its many half-truths, mis- directions and outright frauds�is used politically by different groups with major and minor effects spread throughout the spectrum of time and thought. That being said, CTRLgives no endorsement to the validity of posts, and always suggests to readers; be wary of what you read. CTRL gives no credence to Holocaust denial and nazi's need not apply. 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