Community Magazine October 2012

With the increasing ubiquity of surveillance cameras, some rights advocates are claiming that the perceived benefits of an abundance of cameras is not worth the risks to our privacy. In a recent assessment, the New York Civil Liberties Union (NYCLU) published a report which concluded that, “In certain situations cameras do afford us an important sense of safety: when they watch the entryway of our apartment buildings or the loading dock of our businesses. But there is an equal, if not greater, number of situations in which cameras become not protective, but invasive.” At the same time, elected officials from both parties and at every level of government seem to be funding and promoting the addition of more cameras throughout the city. City Councilman James Vacca, responding to heightening drug and gangs crimes, told reporters that he demanded more security cameras for the area. And city lawmakers have recently put forward a security initiative that they believe will, at a minimum, help make identifying criminals easier, and, hopefully, also provide deterrence. On a state level, over the past six years, dozens of New York synagogues and other Jewish organizations have been awarded federal grants worth tens of millions of dollars from The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) for “target hardening” equipment and upgrades, which have largely consisted of surveillance cameras DAVE GORDON Protection? You try to be discreet as you enter the psychiatrist's office; it is a private matter, after all. And when you lost your temper at your kids in the parking lot, you were relieved that no one else was around. But even when it appears that no one can see you, or that you're alone, chances are that someone or something is really watching you. Thanks to ever present security cameras, video footage of any of us in, what may sometimes appear to be compromising or embarrassing situations, may very well exist in all kinds of places. These recordings are often owned and controlled by private individuals, who have few legal obligations and little oversight with respect to what they do with these videos. 38 COMMUNITY MAGAZINE