01/21/06  Surveillance Cameras, DART rail, etc.

		Surveillance cameras can be great tools for spying on people and things.  However, folks at certain intelligence agencies know how to use them intelligently.  It appears  the Dallas City Manager's Office does not get the point.			01/21/06  Officer CS:    The proposed camera system is closely modeled after Chicago's program started some years ago. The cameras there have distinctive police markings and a flashing strobe light on top. The casings are bullet proof, even up to .50 caliber. The locations are advertised. The cameras are located strategically so as to push crime from main thoroughfares into the side streets, where awaiting officers can clean up the leavings.    The idea is not some super-secret surveillance. The cameras are used to create a crime-free, or most likely a reduced-crime, zone.    While details are being worked out on the protocols for monitoring and oversight, the plans are in the works.      Privacy issues are not applicable. Expectation of privacy is the legal standard used to measure governmental intrusion. In a public place, you have no expectation of privacy. This would also apply to red-light cameras, but that's another email for another day.
Intelligence agencies do not show photos of what the cameras look like and how they are installed.  They don't inform the public as to the "exact" locations they will be installed.  They don't "hard wire" the cameras such that they remain rather stationary.  It's a smart move to have them self-powered, hidden and to have them move around as needed.

Cameras can be disabled easily by the public if the public knows where they are.  High powered pellet guns, rifles, and high powered laser beams can easily disable cameras.  The preceding "weapons", as some might call them, are carried without permit/ license in most cities.  Those who have been in Dallas for any length of time have even witnessed select individuals carrying shotguns on the streets (blocking traffic) undeterred by the Dallas Police Department. 

That said, if the city is going to spend money to go into the surveillance camera business, the city should perhaps discuss it in "very" closed session, and not in front of four local news media cameras. 

Rad Field