Photo credit: Contribute
Froma Harrop
In front of me is a “traffic summons” from the city police, with three photos: two of the back of my car and one close-up of my license plate.
“Please note that the vehicle described and photographed herein was detected and recorded by a school zone automatic speed monitoring system as exceeding the legal speed limit,” it reads.
In my words, they added, “If you send me $50, I will forget all about this. This ticket is not considered a ‘traffic infraction’ so it will not affect your insurance premiums.”
Cameras are everywhere. They take pictures of the license plates of every driver on the road. There are cameras in stores recording the actions of shoppers and shoplifters. In New York City, for example, cameras are installed throughout the subway so that those committing violent crimes can be quickly apprehended.
Some civil liberties advocates complain that these cameras invade privacy. When my city began installing them, I had a tense conversation with a colleague who opposed them as a form of government surveillance. I asked him, “If a city could afford to station a police officer at every intersection, and one of them saw someone jumping a red light and followed him, would that action be considered an invasion of the driver’s privacy?”
The Chicago Tribune reported on how “automated license plate recognition” is helping police solve violent crimes. A teenage boy accused of shooting and killing a young mother was arrested while driving a stolen car. A man wanted for murder was tracked by license plate cameras. And police tracked the car of a man who kidnapped a woman.
Nevertheless, privacy advocates have filed a lawsuit in Illinois, arguing that the cameras violate constitutional protections against unreasonable searches. “This system brings Big Brother to Illinois,” Stephanie Scholl told the Tribune.
Big Brother comes from George Orwell’s dystopian novel “1984,” which depicts an oppressive future where government surveillance is rampant, but Big Brother’s gaze extends into people’s homes, where police can’t search them without a warrant.
There should be no expectation of privacy on public roads or other public places. Any human could be there, so why not a camera? Some privacy advocates argue that police stalking your ex-wife could abuse the system by tracking license plates. There are laws in place that prohibit such behavior.
CCTV cameras are ubiquitous in Britain. In modern British crime novels you’ll often find a detective turning to his subordinate and asking, “Have you checked the CCTV cameras?”
Some civil liberties advocates told a congressional committee that the terror attacks were a “price worth paying” to prevent mass surveillance by the Secret Service, but the public reaction was not positive.
Going back to the traffic citation, which stated I was going 31 mph in a 20 mph speed zone, the citation arrived in the mail long after the violation.
I drive down that street a lot and don’t remember why I was there that day, and I also thought the 20 mph speed limit there was too slow, and in any case, school was out at the time, but I didn’t question the citation. I was guilty as charged, and therefore liable to pay the fine, which I did.
But here’s where the camera made a crucial difference: Recently, a man with a machete raped a 13-year-old girl in a park in Queens, New York City. An initial sketch based on the victim’s suspected characteristics didn’t offer much. But when police released surveillance photos, neighbors quickly recognized the rapist and called 911. He has now disappeared from the streets.
If the cameras are monitoring public spaces, that should be fine.
—Froma Harrop is a regular columnist for Creators.
