Washingtonian August, 2001 SECTION: Pg. 38 LENGTH: 3194 words HEADLINE: Someone's Watching you BYLINE: By Mark Francis Cohen; Washington journalist Mark Francis Cohen profiled America Online executive and sports-team mogul Ted Leonsis in the December issue of The Washingtonian. HIGHLIGHT: Smile -- you're caught on camera a lot more often than you might think. BODY: YOU'RE AN UNSUSPECTING character in an ongoing drama. Every day, over and over, a metal device the size of a shoebox observes your activities. It happens when you're walking down the sidewalk, driving your car, riding in an elevator, fondling a candy bar in a convenience store, shopping for clothes. At one time, God was out there watching, and the thought of doing something wrong was a heaven-or-hell question. Now the specter of morality is a little machine fitted with an eye -- an automated camera. Surveillance society is here. Dozens of video cameras record your image during a typical day, experts say. Cameras don't discriminate -- they just whir away. If you ride Metro to work, you may be shot by the department's surveillance machinery more than 30 times. The New York Civil Liberties Union figured out that a person was taped about 73 times daily walking the streets of New York, where 2,400 cameras are perched on buildings. No similar study has been done in the Washington area, but many experts believe that the number of times a person is viewed is even greater here. This is a city swimming in surveillance. It would be very hard to nail down how often you're caught on camera, especially when you couple traffic, retail, and corporate cameras with those used for covert operations by federal agencies and foreign governments. Embassies are epicenters of scrutiny. "You can't go downtown now without finding cameras all over the buildings," says Richard W. Chace, executive director of the Security Industry Association, a trade group in Alexandria. "There's no point at which you're not on camera when you're outside. Sometimes the cameras are hidden. Sometimes they are very overt. It depends on whether the people watching want to tell you, 'Hey, we're looking at you.'" PEOPLE TEND TO THINK THAT PRIVACY IS ONE OF THOSE American sacred cows like the right to drive a car. But privacy is elusive. And with technology moving faster than regulations, privacy as we've come to understand it is slipping away. As Scott McNealy, head of Sun Microsystems, infamously put it two years ago: "You already have zero privacy anyway. Get over it." You're going out to lunch with a friend, and you need cash. So you dart over to an ATM, punch in your identification number, scrunch up your face, tap your fingers, adjust your eyeglasses, and glance back at the people lined up behind you. All the while, your transaction is recorded and you are videotaped. The bank knows where, when, and who gets money from this machine and how that person looks and behaves. Were you nervous? Were you alone? In the Washington area, Bank of America has 312 cash machines, which people visit some 67,000 times every day. Nationally, the company has nearly 14,000 ATMs and about 3 million daily visitors. So what does the bank do with this monstrosity of data? Good question, and don't bother asking. The bank -- like every other company -- doesn't have to tell. "Our ATM cameras are always on," says Scott Krugman, a Bank of America spokesman. "We won't disclose any more information about the cameras than that. We're not going to discuss how long we keep the tapes or any other details. It would be bad for security." SINCE THE 1970s, CLOSED-CIRCUIT TELEVISION TECHNOLogy has become increasingly sophisticated, making it easier for businesses, individuals, law-enforcement agencies, and governments to keep tabs on people. Camera images are clearer, lighting isn't much of an issue anymore, and angles are satisfyingly wide. Surveillance mechanisms have become cheap to produce and affordable to own. Go into almost any store where electronics are sold, and for less than $ 100 you can get a surveillance camera that will let you check on your children as they play in their room, monitor your driveway where your car is parked, or observe your next-door neighbor as she scoops her newspaper off her front steps. Cameras have been shrinking in size as well as price so that their presence is practically undetectable. But they are nosing in all over the place. Businesses bought $ 807 million worth of closed-circuit television equipment last year, according to the Security Industry Association -- three times what they spent a decade ago. An estimated 1 million cameras are being used by companies across the country. These electronic eyeballs silently patrol building entrances and parking lots, department stores and mall plazas, convenience stores and cash machines, limousines and hotel lobbies. If you get too wild at, say, a Washington Redskins game, look out. A surveillance-camera operator who's been watching you might notify a security guard, who could escort you to an on-site detaining cell. CAMERAS ARE DEPLOYED WIDELY BY LOCAL, STATE, and federal authorities. Government buildings and offices, airports, subway stations, train terminals, and post offices are studded with cameras, both hidden and obvious. Metro has artfully posted 1,494 cameras to guard the mass-transit system. That's roughly 18 closed-circuit TV cameras for each of its 83 stations. The cameras are monitored by station managers. Area transportation departments are big users of camera technology to pinpoint traffic congestion, dispatch ambulances to accidents, and adjust traffic patterns by informing drivers via electronic message boards. Along roads and highways into DC, the Virginia Department of Motor Vehicles has planted 110 remote-control cameras that have the capacity to zoom in and around targets; officials monitor the action inside a $ 40-million surveillance center near the Pentagon. In Maryland's Montgomery County, 109 closed-circuit video devices observe car congestion at intersections. Transportation officials say they don't record what's seen by the cameras unless police ask them to. But much of what the cameras pick up is viewable on the Internet, and there's nothing preventing someone from downloading images of people in their cars. Next time you're driving through the intersection of Bradley Boulevard and Seven Locks Road in Potomac, smile and wave. A camera there broadcasts images live to the Web at www.dpwt.com/jpgcap/38.html. HOW DID WE GET HERE? A WALL STREET JOURNAL poll found that the single biggest worry for Americans was an impending loss of privacy; it was considered a bigger threat than war. During the same decade that surveillance technology became more affordable, events conspired to convince us we needed these devices. In 1995 Timothy McVeigh, in the worst case of domestic terrorism to date, blew up a federal office building in Oklahoma City. McVeigh was brought to justice in part because a McDonald's security camera linked him to the truck that exploded and pulverized the building. Another defining moment was the Louise Woodward trial, in which an au pair was accused of abusing -- and ultimately killing -- an infant in her care. And then there was the shooting spree at Columbine High School in Colorado, in which 13 people were killed. Columbine had 17 cameras in place when its students were gunned down. Videotapes were used to determine that Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold were solely responsible for the assault. In the aftermath of these tragedies, it suddenly seemed that such heretofore benign people as students, babysitters, and delivery drivers were all potential threats. Police, security guards, and parents can't be everywhere, but hidden cameras can. The City of Baltimore, which began using video technology in 1996, relies on cameras to patrol streets more than any other place in the country. An organization of Baltimore business leaders worked with police to launch the Video Patrol Program. The effort began with 16 cameras. Now 48 electronic eyes scan the streets in three neighborhoods. Crime rates in these areas have dropped 30 to 40 percent, officials say. Tapes are erased after seven days unless they are needed for evidence. "It's been a huge success," says Frank Russo, a former director of public safety at the Downtown Partnership of Baltimore who is now with the DC Downtown Business Improvement District. The organization had planned to put up cameras in the area near MCI Center and Chinatown but recently abandoned the campaign. "The District has resisted it quite a bit," says Russo. The big obstacle to installing surveillance cameras was the cost, about $ 10,000 a camera. But as prices continue to drop, analysts believe, more cities like Washington will use them. Mounting a video camera is substantially cheaper than hiring an additional police officer. Great Britain relies on video equipment to safeguard its citizens more than any other country. Fears of IRA terrorism contributed to its adoption, and the government has spent more than $ 1.5 billion to spread the technology. Police say the cameras have markedly reduced street crime. In Northampton, England, crime fell 57 percent after surveillance cameras were installed. British authorities have dreamed up an eerily Orwellian slogan for Operation Camera: "Nothing to Hide, Nothing to Fear!" Opponents of the technology argue that the statistics lauding the cameras are flawed. The cameras don't suddenly convince criminals to become law-abiding citizens, they say. Rather, crime is pushed to another block or another neighborhood. If crime is moving from one place to the next, then how many cameras does it take to make a building, a street, a city secure? CAMERA TECHNOLOGY ISN'T FOOLPROOF. RED-LIGHT CAMeras, which videotape cars and their drivers when they run red lights, were set up at 39 intersections throughout DC in August 1999. Overall, the program has been a success. The city has collected $ 9.1 million in fines and mailed out almost 200,000 violation notices to drivers. The District also is deploying six cameras programmed to photograph vehicles breaking the speed limit. One is on Florida Avenue near Gallaudet University, while the other five are affixed to undercover cars, allowing police to monitor different areas throughout the week. But recently a group of red-light cameras had to be repaired. They had mistakenly identified 20,000 drivers as red-light violators when they had been obeying traffic rules. The fines were waived, but the experience raises questions about the integrity of the technology, which is being deployed by Lockheed Martin. Faulty technology is not the most serious problem. In April, a former teacher was charged after he was caught secretly videotaping cheerleaders at sports events and posting video clips of the young women on the Internet. But police couldn't just arrest the man, who had worked at an all-girls prep school. Sure, he had videotaped the 53 Long Island cheerleaders -- and discrete areas of their bodies -- against their will. But it was done in public, and no law prevents someone from videotaping people, secretly or not, in public. Prosecutors decided to arrest the music teacher for publishing a Web site, www.cheervideos.com, and charging viewers a $ 13.95 membership fee to see the images. They cited laws that forbid making money off someone's picture without that person's consent. It is the first time that Suffolk county has used such laws in a videotaping case. The man has pleaded not guilty. "The community is outraged at what they perceive to be an invasive act," the teacher's attorney said. "But I think it's important for everyone to remember that these were pictures that were taken at a public event." Like a squirt gun under water, the legal constraints on videotaping are practically useless. The Fourth Amendment, which protects people against unreasonable searches and seizures, has been interpreted as allowing people complete freedom to use cameras in public, as long as it is not done in places like a doctor's office. While audio eavesdropping is illegal, there are no restrictions on capturing video footage. Since most surveillance cameras are not fitted with audio capabilities, there's almost nothing abridging their use. In other words, Linda Tripp may have been violating the law when she tape-recorded her conversations with Monica Lewinsky, but she could have videotaped the former White House intern to her heart's content. BUSINESSES HAVE EQUAL FREEDOM to videotape you while you do your job. The 1986 Electronic Communications Privacy Act ensures employee privacy, but it's limited to eavesdropping on private telephone calls. Many companies use cameras to watch employees. Anyone can buy a hidden camera from Radio Shack for $ 69. An American Management Association survey of large companies last year found almost 75 percent of them spy on people in some manner. Businesses cite the need to thwart theft and maintain productivity. "What does this do to our society?" asks Robert Ellis Smith, publisher of Privacy Journal. "It gets people used to being on camera. It modifies people's behavior." Consider the woman in Florida who caught her boss videotaping female employees in the bathroom a few years ago. She grew suspicious after she noticed that he ran into his office every time a woman entered the restroom. She checked and discovered a camera behind the bathroom's air conditioner that was wired to the boss's office. When she alerted the police, she was dismayed to learn that the man couldn't be arrested: He hadn't broken any laws. Because of the case, Florida passed legislation forbidding taping in a restroom. But because the law was passed after the manager was caught, he was never charged with wrongdoing. And he kept his job. THE INTERNET HAS BECOME A repository for reams of camera footage. The freedom to publish on the Web has spawned a growing peeping-tom genre. Hundreds of low-minded individuals -- including many in the Washington area -- publish sites, such as www.upskirt.com, on which you can see video clips of unsuspecting people -- or exhibitionists. Some of these sites are sponsored by people who think their lives are so interesting that you'd want to spend time watching them. Others, like the site published by the former music teacher, charge users a fee. The porn sites often blur the faces of the women, making it hard for police to do anything about it. The images almost always have been acquired in a legal way. In a more wholesome vein, live Web cams are popular, offering real-time views of places all over the world. There are bay cams, beach cams, and stadium cams. Discovery Channel hosts several engaging Web cams in Washington. Area meteorologists have them aimed all over the place. There are a few Internet cams at the National Zoo. At a number of Internet sites, including www.townhall.com and www.nbc4.com, you can see live shots of tourists taking in the Washington Monument, people near the White House, and areas around the Capitol. Colleges like Johns Hopkins and George Washington University are saturated with Web cams. Not everyone thinks this is a good idea. "I don't think by virtue of being out in public people have consented to being recorded," says David Sobel at the Electronic Privacy Information Center, a nonprofit group in Washington. "We really need to have a public debate about the pros and cons of this technology. We shouldn't just wake up one day and find out this technology is all over the place." THIS IS THE WORLD YOU LIVE IN: NARcotics agents fly helicopters over your home at night, and with infrared cameras they scan your house for drugs. It's called thermal imaging, and it is used to spot things in the dark and pick up clouds of high energy use. Last year Barry Kaufman, a 45-year-old man living in Silver Spring, was arrested for growing marijuana. Montgomery County detectives had been doing helicopter sweeps of his neighborhood with thermal-imaging cameras and saw that his house was emitting an unusual amount of energy, typical of light bulbs used to grow marijuana. Police returned with a warrant and seized growing equipment and 200 pounds of marijuana. Earlier this summer the Supreme Court ruled that police cannot use thermal-imaging devices without a search warrant. Writing for the majority in the 5-to-4 decision. Justice Antonin Scalia said the government must obtain a warrant to rely on "a device that is not in general public use, to explore details of the home that would previously have been unknowable without physical intrusion." Whatever the legalities of thermal imaging, a new generation of camera surveillance is upon us. At last January's Super Bowl in Tampa, the FBI, working with local authorities, secretly used video cameras to record every person who passed through the turnstiles at the stadium. The officers were shooting people's faces and transmitting the information to state-of-the-art computers. In seconds, using facial-recognition technology called biometrics, the machines compared a visitor's features, or faceprint, to those of known criminals. The idea was to identify terrorists and violent criminals before they got past the arena's front gates. Similar biometrics technology is already in place in many airports and casinos. SO YOUR LIFE IS BEING RECORDED ON camera. At work, at home, on the street, in a store, you are being treated like a suspect member of society. Just how closely can you be tracked? The movie Enemy of the State depicted government spies as having the technology to watch and record your every move. By flipping switches and spinning a few knobs, agents would position satellites to pinpoint your exact location, down to reading the time on your watch. But satellites aren't that sophisticated, and positioning them takes time and is very expensive. Still, as Evan Hendricks, editor of Privacy Times, a newsletter in Washington, explains, the federal government is the place where much of this surveillance technology originates and is first being tried. When you get down to it, Washington is an unusual fishbowl. "We don't know all the places security agents and counterintelligence agents are using this technology," Hendricks says. "Common sense tells you they've got to be using this technology extensively without our knowledge. Who else has the means and motivation to do this?" And high tech or low, there's little question that pressures will increase to make more extensive -- and more effective -- use of surveillance equipment. As police began searching for Chandra Levy, the missing government intern, they discovered that her Adams Morgan apartment building used cameras to patrol public areas of the building. But the search did not begin until a week after Levy's disappearance, by which time much of the videotape had been recorded over. Not long afterward, a transit police officer was shot in the U Street Metro station. The officer died several hours later. The shooter escaped. His image was captured -- but not recorded -- by the station's cameras. Transit police are now calling for the installation of cameras that record images, rather than merely display them, throughout the Metro system. GRAPHIC: Picture 1, In a parking lot; Picture 2, at a Bethesda intersection; Picture 3, in a 7-Eleven; Picture 4, in the Metro; Picture 5, entering the Passport Office downtown; Picture 6, in a post office; Picture 7, at an automated teller machine; Picture 8, in an office-building lobby; Picture 9, inside the MCI Center; Pictures 7 to 9, SURVEILLANCE MODEL: GAGE SHERIDAN/T.H.E.; Picture 10, at a Union Station Amtrak gate; Picture 11, shopping at Union Station; Picture 12, at McDonald's; Picture 13, at the Washington Monument; Picture 14, entering the Indian Embassy; Picture 15, visiting the pandas at the zoo; Picture 16, at Reagan National Airport; Picture 17, in a limousine; Picture 18, A surveillance camera photo of a Ryder rental truck minutes before the federal-building bombing in Oklahoma City was used to link Timothy McVeigh to the crime. JUSTICE DEPARTMENT/AP; Picture 19, in a hotel lobby; Pictures 1 through 19, by James Kegley LOAD-DATE: August 3, 2001 |