Internet surveillance under fire

Jeffrey Libby

Monday, Dec. 3, 2001 | 9:12 a.m.

Boulder City, a town of two streetlights and nominal crime, is asking its Internet-savvy residents to help police its streets and parks.

The City Council on Tuesday approved $70,000 to install six video cameras that will monitor traffic, a park restroom and utility stations.

The cameras will broadcast live video to Boulder City Police and to the municipal website 24 hours a day, seven days a week. Anyone with Internet access will be able to tune in and keep watch. If residents see something suspicious, city officials encourage them to call the police.

The American Civil Liberties Union says use of the cameras may not only be illegal in some cases, but it also has eerie undertones of Big Brother, the party leader of a nightmarish world without privacy or diaries described in George Orwell's "1984."

"It's bad enough when these types of cameras are used by law enforcement officials who are trained professionally," Gary Peck, executive director of the ACLU of Nevada, said. "But the potential for abuses -- for voyeurism and racial profiling -- increases exponentially when you broadcast video and invite the general public to police as well. And that's above and beyond the general invasion of privacy posed by the cameras."

City Council members, who approved the money last week, defend the plan as a way to to ensure safety at Boulder City's intersections along Nevada Highway -- the main street through town -- and at remote utilities and parks that the small police force cannot effectively patrol.

Boulder City Police Chief William Turk said he hopes a camera planned for the restrooms at the Veterans Memorial Park will curb vandalism.

"I would be very hesitant to use anything with overtones of 1984," Councilman Bryan Nix said. "The idea here is to provide the police force with more coverage. If there's a problem, they can dispatch someone."

As for the camera at the park restroom, Nix said, "People at a park expect to be looked at. I don't think of it as an evil thing to have some eyes around the city."

Nix and Mayor Bob Ferraro both say the cameras would not be used to write tickets for traffic violations. The state Legislature passed laws in 1999 that prohibit such uses.

But Nix also said the cameras could be used to spot potential traffic hazards such as "a red truck that blows through an intersection every night at 5." If that sort of incident were observed, Nix said, police could send an officer there.

JoNell Thomas, a board member of the ACLU, said Nix's example goes beyond regulating traffic flow. It could be seen as a use of the cameras for law enforcement, she said.

But beyond legal concerns, Thomas said, are considerations of efficient use of resources.

Police forces in other states have tried cameras and abandoned them after finding they did little to increase arrests, she said.

Her group is opposed to the cameras, Thomas said, but has not yet decided to take any official action.

"We have very grave concerns about putting cameras in public streets and public parks," she said. "Park vandalism has been an issue since ancient times, and we've been able to survive without this kind of intrusiveness on people's lives."