Surveillance Society: The debate over privacy vs. security

In the United States, there are an estimated 30 million surveillance cameras shooting 40 billion hours of footage a week. While some of these cameras help prevent theft and crime, for the most part, they are just filming average citizens going about their daily activities. There is a debate over whether the use of cameras infringe on our rights of freedom and privacy, or do they bring about greater security and deter terrorists by catching them prior to any catastrophic event. “The debate over surveillance pits the tangible benefits of saving lives and dollars against the abstract ones of preserving privacy and freedom.” If surveillance was being used solely for terrorism and protecting citizens, then there would not be a debate. Often times, information is sold to companies for market research and when put into the wrong hands, surveillance footage can be used for malicious practices.

The definition of privacy changes to fit with the times. Because there is no clear definition of privacy, many argue that having surveillance cameras does not invade privacy because people know they are in use. Everyday, people voluntarily give up private information. “To get a good job, to get health and life insurance, to get bank credit, to get a credit card, you need to reveal personal information. Every time you make a purchase other than with cash you convey information about your tastes, interests, and income that may well end up in some easily accessible database.” The only difference between this and surveillance cameras is that you voluntarily give out information because it benefits you. Having health insurance gives you peace of mind when you are sick. When you go outside for a walk, is it necessary that you are being recorded for reasons you do not even know about? Having surveillance cameras can make good citizens feel like common criminals because they are not given any privacy to go about their lives.

In 1890, Justice Brandise defined privacy as the “right to be left alone.” As technology changes, so does the definition of privacy. In 1977, Whalen V. Roe determined people had the right to informational privacy and the interest to avoid the disclosure of personal information. In 1994, the right to informational privacy included the Right to Financial Privacy Act which prevented the government from going through an individuals financial records. In 2001, after the attacks on 9-11, the government passed The Patriot Act. “This act augments the powers of government agencies and police regarding information-gathering, arrest and imprisonment, making it possible to bypass the courts.” At the time The Patriot Act was put in place, people were still panicked over 9-11 and welcomed government interference to feel safe. Nine years later and with minimal results on catching terrorists, this Act has allowed the government to have too much power over who they choose to watch and for what reasons. People like to blame The Patriot Act for the increase in cameras and wire-taps, but this has been going on for decades prior to 9-11. “Judge Posner, in a 1984 Seventh Circuit opinion, declared that 'television surveillance is exceedingly intrusive...and inherently indiscriminate, and...could be grossly abused-to eliminate personal privacy as understood in modern Western nations.” Even though privacy is an abstract concept, it does exist, but we are getting less of it every day as new surveillance techniques surface all over the world and people allow it to happen without putting up a fight.

The best argument for surveillance is that it increase security and prevent crime. “Preemptive security strategies necessary to prevent catastrophic attacks inherently involve some form of preventative surveillance and investigation, which will require tempering rigid privacy expectations that are based simply or arbitrarily on keeping information secret.” While this can be true for preventing terrorist attacks, it does not necessarily apply to ordinary, every day events that are being caught on film. Britain has 4.2 million closed-circuit television(CCTV) cameras, about one for every 14 people, where the average citizen is caught on camera 300 times a day. However, there have only been 3 percent of crimes solved through the use of CCTV. In a 2003 study on the effects of closed-circuit television, there was no evidence that CCTV had any effect on crime in the U.S. It concluded that CCTV is most effective in reducing crime in parking lots, like burglaries and muggings. However, there were no effects when it came to violent crimes.

In Chicago, there are an estimated 10,000 surveillance cameras. “Cameras have recorded drug deals, bike thefts and a holiday bell ringer dipping his hand into a pot outside a downtown store. Footage from a camera on a city bus helped convince a suspected gang member to plead guilty to shooting a 16-year-old high school student in 2007.” The Chicago police said they have made 4,000 arrests since 2006 with the help of cameras. While cameras may be successful in a highly populated urban city, this case, when compared to other cities, like London, seems to be the exception and not the rule when it comes to cameras catching criminals.

Installing cameras is more cost-effective than hiring people. “A camera with artificial intelligence can be there 24/7, doesn't need a bathroom break, doesn't need a lunch break and doesn't go on vacation.” Also, having a suspect caught on film can reduce court costs because it takes less time to hear a guilty plea. In England, “A court hearing with a guilty verdict saves around ₤3,000- ₤5,000.” While these may save costs in the long run, the U.S. government is shelling out big bucks to have surveillance cameras installed on street corners and traffic lights. “The federal government has given states and local governments $300 million in grants to fund an ever-growing array of cameras.”

So, just how often are we being watched? There are the obvious traffic cameras that can catch you running a red light and the cameras that record over cashier's registers to make sure no one is stealing, but what, or who else is out there watching your every move? Phone companies, like AT&T, are sharing information about customers to the government. AT&T was sued by the Electronic Frontier Foundation based in San Francisco for allowing the National Security Agency almost unlimited access to monitor customers' e-mails, phone calls and Internet activity.

Many police officers have license-plate readers (LPR) in their cars that give them the option of scanning 10,000 license plates in a given shift. Prior to LPR, a police officer might have been able to check a couple dozen plates. “A computer screen mounted in front of the glovebox flashed black-and-white images of every photographed plate; low alarms droned for problem cars. Over the course of a couple hours we didn't net any car thieves or kidnappers, but Dodge's LPR identified dozens of cars with suspended or revoked registrations.” LPR do not prevent crime, instead they help make law enforcement easier. LPR are not so much an invasion of privacy but more of a nuisance because you should have all your car records up-to-date. Also, they are about as intrusive as a road block put up by police to check for registrations and inspection.

Hotels, banks and many retail stores are using software from the company 3VR called “Searchable Surveillance Systems.” This technology creates a template of every face that passes in front of the camera so that personnel can go through records faster to identify any suspicious people and activity.
“The solution of 3VR and other similar companies is software that automatically analyzes and tags video contents, from the colors and locations of cars to the characteristics of individual faces that pass before the lens. The goal is to allow rapid digital search; instead of functioning like a shoddy library, 3VR hopes to be 'the Google' of surveillance video.”

This is high-tech equipment. No longer are the fuzzy gray and white images recorded by old cameras. Facial recognition software is rather new even though it has been talked about for years. As the technology advances, so does the reach of what the camera can record. What is to stop a camera from capturing images of the hotel room from the hallway? Also, most people may not be aware of how powerful the cameras are. We can accept that there are cameras in place for security, but when they are as sophisticated as remembering your face, there should be information attainable for people to know.

The work place is where most people spend their time. For at least 40 hours a week, people are at their jobs, being watched with technologies that can track everything they do on their computer. The company, Raytheon Oakley Systems, created software that monitors computer use remotely and with little detection. Originally developed for the government, it is now used by ten Fortune 100 companies. “A 2005 survey by American Management Association and the ePolicy Institute found that 36 percent of companies monitor workers on a keystroke-by-keystroke basis; 55 percent review e-mail messages, and 76 percent monitor Web sites visited.” Companies have the right to know what their employees are doing while sitting at their desks. If someone is looking at pornography instead of working, there should be consequences. However, it is the fact that companies use programs where employees have no idea how much they are being monitored that brings on privacy issues. Like most of this debate, if companies and law enforcement were more transparent about what they are doing, then it would not seem as though we are all delinquents and they are waiting for us to do something wrong.

The most current example of the debate over privacy and security is happening right now in Pennsylvania. Michael and Holly Robbins with their son, Blake Robbins, a sophomore at Harrington High School in Rosemont, PA, is suing the Lower Merion School District for spying on him with the built-in Web cam on the school-issued laptops given to students. This civil law suit has also brought on an investigation by the F.B.I.

Starting in 2008, the school district issued school-owned laptops to 2,290 high school students. When the students were given the laptops, they signed an outdated Internet policy that did not even discuss laptops or the software that was installed on them. In 2009, when the laptop program expanded to Lower Merion High School, the district sent a letter telling parents that students could not download games and they had to pay a $55 insurance fee if students wanted to bring the laptops home.

What the district failed to do on multiple occasions was inform students and parents that they were using a software program called LANrev that had a feature on it called Theft Tracker. The school district purchased this program in 2007 for $156,357. In a memo to her boss, Information Systems Coordinator Carol Cafiero described the software, “If a computer is stolen we can mark it stolen on the LANrev server...And then the laptop will take screen shots and pictures of the user with the built in camera.” Once a laptop was turned on and connected to the Internet,the district could use the Theft Tracker program to record the computer's Internet address, capture a screen image and a Web cam photo. The program recorded this information every 15 minutes until the laptop was shut off by the user. Once the photos were taken, they would be sent to the school's server, then the program would erase the file on the laptop without the user ever knowing they were being watched. There were some guidelines so not just anyone could run the program. Only Cafiero and Network Technician Michael Perbix could turn it on. Both employees worked in a technology office that was not on any school grounds. Also, only 10 people in the district had the authority to tell them to do the scans.

On November 11, 2009, Harrington High School Assistant Principal Lynn Matsko called the Robbins family and Blake to her office to confront Blake on suspicions of possessing drugs and drug dealing. The Theft Tracker program was used on Blake's computer, not because they thought it was stolen, but because his family did not pay the $55 insurance fee and it was suspected Blake was bringing the laptop home. The program captured images of Blake holding what looked like pills in his room. Later, it was found that they were not pills but Mike & Ike candies. Also, there was a screen shot that captured a text between Blake and another student that staff members thought posed a threat to Blake. However, when confronted by the assistant principal, the focus was not on Blake's safety but his improper behavior; which, by the way, was not done on school grounds, but in his own home.

Based on the reports from the ongoing investigation, the Web cameras were activated 146 times during the last two years and took nearly 56,000 images. Out of those 146 times, 48 times images were recovered and 68 times only the Internet address was known. There have been at least five instances were the Web cams were left on for days or weeks after the student had found their missing laptop. There are 13,000 images from these instances. The school district's lawyer Henry Hockeimer said that no images appeared to be “salacious or inappropriate,” but that still does not justify the use of the program that has now been shut down by the district. The majority of images that were recovered came from six laptops that were stolen in September 2008. 38,500 images were recovered from a six month period. Police did charge a suspect in March 2009 for the stolen laptops and the school was able to get five out of the six laptops back. However, there are still 15 occurrences when the program was activated that investigators have been unable to determine the reasons behind why the students were being monitored.

There had to be a better way for the school district to keep track of the laptops. The school district had the best of intentions, but when put in the wrong hands, created a bad situation. The abuse of power happens in a lot of cases, and it is evident in this one. Currently, there is an investigation to see if Carol Cafiero had turned the program on from her home computer. There is supposedly an e-mail between her and another employee discussing how watching the program and the Web cam photos were like having their own personal soap opera. These are real students, not some characters on a reality TV show! These are people who have a right to privacy when in their own homes. If the school district was so afraid of computers being stolen they should have never let them leave the building. No one can say they are against technology in the classroom and that it helps improve students' skills. However, when used for more than just education there is a line being crossed. The school district had no right to turn the Theft Tracker program on for reasons more than a computer being stolen; but they did. They were so sneaky that they did not even inform anyone that this program was being used. People would have probably understood the need for the program, but when you do not even give them that option, you strip them of the choice of having privacy and their fourth amendment rights.

There are some positive aspects to having surveillance cameras, but the overall abuse and neglect tend to overshadow them. People are passively accepting that surveillance is part of their lives, but I do not think they know all the facts. Something that can start out innocent, like giving students laptops, can quickly turn into a spectacle over rights and freedom. We can have surveillance that works if there is more transparency. If law enforcement is using cameras to fight drugs or have less foot patrol, then say so. Don't go around the subject and avoid the truth. Without transparency, we are all victims to the abuse of power in the wrong hands.