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Gaithersburg considering street cameras
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Related Topics: BALTIMORE
BALTIMORE (Map, News) - Gaithersburg leaders may turn to surveillance cameras on city streets and license plate scanner systems that check plates regardless of suspicion of guilt.
City leaders are now considering a budget that sets aside federal grant money for both the cameras and the scanner systems. District police already use surveillance cameras, and Baltimore police use both the cameras and a version of the license plate scanner systems.
Gaithersburg Police Chief John King says the city will likely place cameras in crime hot spots like the Lake Forest Mall bus terminal, where gang-related stabbings occurred last year, and in the Old Town neighborhood, but officials will consult with community members first.
“We plan to get community input to confront the Big Brother issue,” King said. “In a lot of places where these things have been deployed, their presence alone makes people feel safer and deters crime.”
King said leaders haven’t picked the camera or license scanner system model yet.
“We’re looking for smart technology that can help us with analytical things too — something we could program to flash when certain things occur, like when people run,” King said of the cameras, since they will be monitored by desk clerks handling other tasks at the same time.
The most basic version of the license plate scanners is hooked to patrol car computers, scanning a street’s worth of plates at a time and running checks to see if vehicles are registered to people with suspended licenses or warrants out for their arrest. Later versions can record all licenses passing through a neighborhood if officers are fighting a crime wave in a particular area.
Councilman Henry Marraffa said he’s OK with restricted use of the cameras but uncomfortable with the scanner systems.
“I am still of the old-school opinion that you’re innocent until you’re proven guilty,” Marraffa said. “And to randomly search plates until you find something wrong — I don’t agree with that.”
kmiller@dcexaminer.com
Comments from Examiner Readers
8:27 PM MST on Wed., Jul. 9, 2008 re: "Gaithersburg considering street cameras"
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6:10 AM MST on Wed., May. 28, 2008
re: "Critics cite privacy concerns over D.C. surveillance plan"
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5:18 AM MST on Wed., May. 28, 2008
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6:12 AM MST on Tue., May. 27, 2008
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6:10 AM MST on Tue., May. 27, 2008
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5:54 AM MST on Tue., May. 27, 2008
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Examiner Reader said:
Please stop the madness. You cannot take pictures of license plates. Do you know how many of my undocumented, paper challenged brothers have license plates that don't match the car they are attached to? Ike stop beating Tina and pay attention here! Thanks, Gus, Kerry, Kim, and Liza!
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Examiner Reader said:
Could this article possibly be more biased against cameras? I don't think so. Ever heard of balanced journalism????
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Willie said:
As a law professor, Mr Rosen is certainly familiar with court rulings related to expectation of privacy in public places. The Supreme Court has continuously upheld that there is no reasonable expectation of privacy in a public place. If the good professor Rosen is worried about surveillance cameras in public areas, he should not do anything illegal there. At the same time, video surveillance is a tool to be used by law enforcement, nothing more. It can document illegal activity and help identify perpetrators but no video camera I know can make an arrest or physically deter or stop an assault. I would hope that the DC Police view video surveillance as an additional tool and not a substitute for the presence of actual physical law enforcement officers in the area.
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Doktor Jon said:
The quote by Philip K. Eure, the exec. director of the D.C. Office of Police Complaints that “With the city’s plans to Londonize its use of cameras, I think there will be complaints in the future", somewhat depressingly suggests that there is an intention to slavishly adopt video surveillance operations, in a similar fashion to those deployed both in London and throughout the U.K. Given that historically there have been (and continue to be) serious operational issues with the way that video surveillance has been deployed, it would have been hoped that the authorities in D.C. would learn from our experiences, to ensure that these problems are not similarly replicated. The issues of crime displacement, and "lottery surveillance" are very well understood by some on this side of the pond, yet the correct and appropriate application of this technology, isn't simply a cost dependent exercise, but it's potential success is equally based on knowledge and experience. Jon CCTV Advisor, UK
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Homnoir said:
correction: thining=thinking
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Homnoir said:
Just because i don't want to be observed a la Orwellian society, doesn't mean I'm afraid of being observed commiting a crime. Shallow thining leads us into a false sense of security whereby we think that closer monitoring of daily activities will lead to overall crime decrease. Addressing societal problems from a macro perspective will lead to crime decrease. These cameras watching everything you do, all the time, is just plain ol Bush-style security and that ain't hitting on a damned thing - it doesn't work.
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Examiner Reader said:
This is another pathetic arguments from the civil do gooders, stay in your house if you are afraid you will be observed commiting a crime.
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