he explosion of public-surveillance cameras in our society is probably inevitable. Security cameras are everywhere, from supermarkets and department stores to gambling casinos and banks.
In some cities (not Palo Alto, yet), cameras click when someone runs a red light, and a camera takes your photo every time you use an ATM machine. Say cheese.
The public seems to accept -- or is resigned to -- the omnipresent use of such cameras. But what are the limits to privacy? When does public surveillance invade one's right to freedom from being watched? And does a local public agency have special obligations to acknowledge, respect and even defend such individual rights?
The Weekly last week broke the news that some city officials have quietly installed small, inexpensive cameras at strategic locations, such as in City Hall stairwells and garage and at the entrance to Foothills Park. About 30 of the $50 to $75 cameras have been deployed, accessible by computer by any city official with the password.
It is startling and discomfiting that this occurred without a policy-level discussion. The news should stimulate a thorough review of surveillance policies, all the way up to the City Council.
The city placed a more expensive, motion-sensitive camera along San Francisquito Creek to watch for future incursions by mountain lions. A second such camera is being used at undisclosed locations for specific surveillance missions.
But does the creekbed camera affect people's attitudes toward hiking in the creek, invading the natural slice of wildness in the urban landscape?
Post 9/11 sensitivity has fueled the camera-heavy approach to security and blunted public reaction. Yet we can't help but feel a dangerous precedent is being established, one that almost certainly will have long-range implications for the very sense of freedom for which America stands, and which we think Americans value.
Police Chief Lynne Johnson demonstrated sensitivity when she initiated a discussion with the city's Human Relations Commission earlier this year about how to use cameras without impinging on personal privacy. But no policy recommendations have yet resulted.
Those in the Information Technology and Utilities departments who have been installing cameras also have apparently shown discretion, avoiding the more public areas in favor of stairwells and other hard-to-monitor locations, such as utilities substations.
But we are on the brink of being able literally to track individuals from place to place at any time -- linked computers can actually put a name to a face without the individual ever knowing it.
The law governing such pervasive surveillance is in its infancy, and will in part emerge from experiences and policies in communities such as Palo Alto. There is a fine but definite line between using such technology in specific situations (under clearly defined guidelines) and scanning the entire population all the time -- which should be declared unacceptable.
That way lies the loss of any sense of privacy and the ultimate erosion of our cherished American freedoms of movement, assembly, association and privacy.
