Op-Ed by 2 FBI veterans on the limitations of video surveillance - Entering the Networked World. DON'T PANIC!

Topics: Security & Insecurity,Insights, Privacy & Liberties, Surveillance, Panopticon, Public Safety

This Sunday's Newark Star Ledger carried the essay "Cameras alone won't stop crime" by former FBI Drector William S. Sessions and former Special Agent Michael German. The authors were addressing Newark City's interest in using cameras after the August 4th murder of three college students and the injuring of a fourth. (By the way, there were two security cameras by the school where the shooting occurred. But the cameras were not functioning.)

Interesting essay and, given the law enforcement and intelligence background of the two authors, well worth reading. It is important to note that they are not against all use of surveillance cameras. Rather it is the unrealistic expectation that cameras alone will protect society from crime and terrorism. Emphasising the cameras may both give a sense of false security and divert money from more effective security resources.

Many Americans have been looking at the UK's recent experiences with terrorism incidents and believe that the extensive video surveillance systems, in themselves, would keep their communities safer. Sessions and German address that perception:

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Some proponents of extensive video surveillance claim that there are lessons to be learned from London's recent encounters with domestic terrorism. But what we have learned is that those events clearly demonstrate the limits of such systems. Those observations should cause Newark residents real concern as they invest in similar technology.

Newark officials should recognize that even the United Kingdom's 4.2 million surveillance cameras did not stop the July 2005 subway bombings. Last month's unsuccessful car bombings in London and the Glasgow airport attack weren't thwarted by cameras either. Sorting through hundreds of thousands of hours of footage -- consuming the energies of count less law enforcement agents -- ultimately proved useless in preventing such attacks. Indeed a recent study by the Home Office in London -- the British equivalent of our Department of Homeland Security -- found that, even though video surveillance accounts for nearly three-quarters of their crime prevention spending, the cameras have "no effect on violent crimes."

[Sessions & German may have been referring to the 2002 Home Office report "Crime prevention effects of closed circuit television: a systematic review". [pdf] -JDA]
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Then they point to the historical effectiveness in US cities of "the combination of good community policing, dogged investigations based upon probable cause and reasonable suspicion, and the cooperation of an informed populace". The last item may be the most challenging of the three given social problems such as the "stop snitching" mindset and frictions between the some communities and the police.

Both authors are members of the Constitution Project's Liberty and Security Committee. The Project has recently released "Guidelines for Public Video Surveillance." [pdf] Some good insights in the guidelines. I appreciate the efforts to develop a framework for using video surveillance in an open society.

J.D. Abolins