Re: Chicago: Still keeping an eye open for "public ownership"

["Devine, James" <jdevine@xxxxxxx>]

>The reason you see all
those "bad driver" reality shows is, I believe, because the English have
been selling their tapes of astoundingly stupid road maneuvers.<

they wouldn't have this problem if they learned to 
drive on the correct side of the road!

Jim Devine jdevine@xxxxxxx &  http://myweb.lmu.edu/jdevine 



> -----Original Message-----
> From: PEN-L list [mailto:PEN-L@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx]On Behalf Of Kenneth
> Campbell
> Sent: Tuesday, September 21, 2004 12:57 PM
> To: PEN-L@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
> Subject: [PEN-L] Chicago: Still keeping an eye open for "public
> ownership"
> 
> 
> These Daley chaps sure seem to be uni-focused, huh? I usually 
> only hear
> about them when it involves installing police presences a la 
> 1968. But,
> then, maybe the media only reports on them, nationally, when a Daley
> does this sort of things? We have correspondents in Chicago who could
> perhaps address that...
> 
> The article mentions London's use of CC cameras. (The reason 
> you see all
> those "bad driver" reality shows is, I believe, because the 
> English have
> been selling their tapes of astoundingly stupid road maneuvers.)
> 
> What I wonder about is the acceptance that the streets really 
> belong to
> the city, as Mr. Daley is suggesting. What does that even 
> mean? Can the
> city resell images it captures from anyone who dares use the street?
> (Not surprisingly, the English courts have had to grapple 
> with this one
> sooner.)
> 
> Ken.
> 
> --
> The city owns the sidewalks. We own the streets
> and we own the alleys.
>           -- Richard M. Daley
>              Mayor of Chicago, 2004
> 
> 
> --- cut here ---
> 
> Chicago Moving to 'Smart' Surveillance Cameras
> 
> By STEPHEN KINZER
> The New York Times
> September 21, 2004
> 
> 
> CHICAGO, Sept. 20 - A highly advanced system of video 
> surveillance that
> Chicago officials plan to install by 2006 will make people 
> here some of
> the most closely observed in the world. Mayor Richard M. Daley says it
> will also make them much safer.
> 
> "Cameras are the equivalent of hundreds of sets of eyes," Mr. 
> Daley said
> when he unveiled the new project this month. "They're the next best
> thing to having police officers stationed at every potential trouble
> spot."
> 
> Police specialists here can already monitor live footage from about
> 2,000 surveillance cameras around the city, so the addition of 250
> cameras under the mayor's new plan is not a great jump. The way these
> cameras will be used, however, is an extraordinary technological leap.
> 
> Sophisticated new computer programs will immediately alert the police
> whenever anyone viewed by any of the cameras placed at buildings and
> other structures considered terrorist targets wanders aimlessly in
> circles, lingers outside a public building, pulls a car onto the
> shoulder of a highway, or leaves a package and walks away from it.
> Images of those people will be highlighted in color at the city's
> central monitoring station, allowing dispatchers to send 
> police officers
> to the scene immediately.
> 
> Officials here designed the system after studying the video 
> surveillance
> network in London, which became a world leader in this 
> technology during
> the period when Irish terrorists were active. The Chicago 
> officials also
> studied systems used in Las Vegas casinos, as well as those 
> used by Army
> combat units. The system they have devised, they say, will be the most
> sophisticated in the United States and perhaps the world.
> 
> "What we're doing is a totally new concept," said Ron Huberman,
> executive director of the city's office of emergency management and
> communications. "This is a very innovative way to harness the power of
> cameras. It's going to take us to a whole new level."
> 
> Many cities have installed large numbers of surveillance cameras along
> streets and near important buildings, but as the number of 
> these cameras
> has grown, it has become impossible to monitor all of them. 
> The software
> that will be central to Chicago's surveillance system is designed to
> direct specialists to screens that show anything unusual happening.
> 
> Mr. Huberman, a 32-year-old former police officer who is also what one
> aide called "a techno geek," said this new system "should produce a
> significant decrease in crime, and from a homeland security standpoint
> it should be able to make our city safer."
> 
> When the system is in place, Mr. Huberman said, video images will be
> instantly available to dispatchers at the city's 911 emergency center,
> which receives about 18,000 calls each day. Dispatchers will 
> be able to
> tilt or zoom the cameras, some of which magnify images up to 
> 400 times,
> in order to watch suspicious people and follow them from one camera's
> range to another's.
> 
> A spokesman for the Illinois chapter of the American Civil Liberties
> Union, Edwin C. Yohnka, said the new system was "really a 
> huge expansion
> of the city's surveillance program."
> 
> "With the aggressive way these types of surveillance 
> equipment are being
> marketed and implemented," Mr. Yohnka said, "it really does raise
> questions about what kind of society do we ultimately want, and how
> intrusive we want law enforcement officials to be in all of 
> our lives."
> 
> The surveillance network will embrace cameras placed not only by the
> police department, but also by a variety of city agencies 
> including the
> transit, housing and aviation authorities. Private companies that
> maintain their own surveillance of areas around their buildings will
> also be able to send their video feeds to the central control 
> room that
> is being built at a fortified city building.
> 
> The 250 new cameras, along with the new system dispatchers will use to
> monitor them, are to be in place by the spring of 2006. A $5.1 million
> federal grant will be used to pay for the cameras, and the 
> city will add
> $3.5 million to pay for the computer network that will connect them.
> 
> This project is a central part of Chicago's response to the threat of
> terrorism, as well as an effort to reduce the city's crime 
> rate. It also
> subjects people here to extraordinary levels of surveillance. Anyone
> walking in public is liable to be almost constantly watched.
> 
> "The value we gain in public safety far outweighs any 
> perception by the
> community that this is Big Brother who's watching," Mr. Huberman said.
> "The feedback we're getting is that people welcome this. It makes them
> feel safer."
> 
> One community organizer who works in a high-crime neighborhood, Ernest
> R. Jenkins, chairman of the West Side Association for 
> Community Action,
> said the 2,000 cameras now in place had reduced crime and were "having
> an impact, no if's, and's or but's about it." Nonetheless, Mr. Jenkins
> said, some people in Chicago believed the city was trying to 
> "infiltrate
> people's privacy in the name of terrorist attacks."
> 
> "I just personally think that it's an invasion of people's 
> privacy," Mr.
> Jenkins said of the new video surveillance project. "A large 
> increase in
> the utilization of these cameras would oversaturate the market."
> 
> City officials counter that the cameras will monitor only 
> public spaces.
> Rather than curb the system's future expansion, they have raised the
> possibility of placing cameras in commuter and rapid transit 
> cars and on
> the city's street-sweeping vehicles.
> 
> "We're not inside your home or your business," Mayor Daley said. "The
> city owns the sidewalks. We own the streets and we own the alleys."
>