Columnist Jeff German: Sounding off on cab cameras

Wednesday, June 15, 2005 | 10:45 a.m.

I didn't think it was possible for the debate over cameras in cabs to get any messier.

But I was wrong.

I almost felt sorry Tuesday for the bewildered members of the Nevada Taxicab Authority Board, as they set out on an uncertain course, bombarded by all sides, to write a new camera regulation that protects the drivers and the public's privacy.

The Legislature last week killed the old regulation, approved back in October, because of concerns that it failed to impose safeguards over the use of cameras that record sound.

Tuesday's hastily called special meeting was supposed to be short and sweet, a mere formality of scheduling a public hearing to discuss ways to address the Legislature's concerns. The hearing was set for July 11.

But as the meeting came to an end two hours later, it was painfully obvious that the industry was more divided then ever.

Drivers were sniping at companies. Companies were sniping at drivers. And companies were sniping at each other.

The five-member board, meanwhile, the one that has been kowtowing to the politically connected companies for months and months, looked as though it lacked the mettle to take them on this time, too.

One board member, Carolyn Sparks, sheepishly glanced toward me in the back of the room and asked the "media" for suggestions to get the board out of this mess.

It wasn't exactly a confidence-booster in the board's regulatory abilities.

But since she asked, I would recommend listening to one of the last speakers of the day, cab driver Greg Bambic, who has been in the trenches all these months fighting for cameras in cabs.

"Audio recordings don't belong in cabs," Bambic told the board. "You're asking for a big amount of trouble if you don't rule out audio."

That's the bottom line here.

The board's decision to go beyond the simple requirement of still digital cameras and allow some companies to install more complex video cameras with sound is what got it into this mess.

Concerns about sound are going to hold up the regulation again in the weeks ahead.

Two of the most unlikely, but influential, allies spoke out Tuesday against the unbridled use of cameras with sound.

Both gave compelling arguments warning of the potential for abuse -- but for very different reasons.

There was Kevin Efroymson, a battle-tested lawyer for the five Frias companies that are looking to keep the camera regulation on ice at any cost. Together, the camera-less Frias companies make up 33 percent of the industry.

And there was Gary Peck, the executive director of the American Civil Liberties Union of Nevada, which is looking out for the rights of the millions of tourists who come here each year on the marketing hook that, "what happens here, stays here."

Powerful casino and tourism industry leaders are in Peck's corner. And so are some of the lawmakers who killed the original regulation last week.

Add an indecisive group of regulators to the mix, and it all sounds like a recipe for a disaster the taxicab industry can't afford.