At first glance, the guy in the white polo shirt and khaki pants looks like anybody else walking down Broadway.
He’s looking forward. He walks with purpose. Now, he’s stopping to answer his phone. But a closer look reveals something unsettling: The slightly distorted image is actually me.
I was captured walking to work this week by a surveillance camera perched outside the Cozy Soup N’ Burger, a diner near Astor Place. It’s a route I’ve taken countless times before, but never had I noticed the two cameras trained on the sidewalk outside.
It turns out those cameras are far from alone. On my typical route to work, encompassing just four blocks from my apartment to the nearest subway station, I come under the unblinking eyes of a staggering 15 surveillance cameras.
It’s not only Big Brother who is watching.
These days, cameras peer out from everything from bodegas to restaurants to traffic poles.
“Surveillance cameras are now a part of our way of life,” said Mitchell Moss, a city expert and director of NYU’s Rudin Center for Transportation Policy and Management. “Cameras have become the way to manage the public spaces of our city.”
The benefits of cameras came into focus in dramatic fashion this month when surveillance footage led to the capture of the suspected killer of Leiby Kletzky, the 8-year-old Brooklyn boy who was found dead and dismembered.
There is no definitive count, but it is likely there are now tens of thousands – if not hundreds of thousands – of cameras in the city.
In 2006, the New York Civil Liberties Union launched an effort to tally the number of surveillance cameras. But the search was called off after staffers counted 8,000 between the base of Manhattan and 14th St.
“We realized they had become too numerous for us to count,” said executive director Donna Lieberman.
The vast majority were put in place in the wake of the 9/11 attacks, experts say. In the years since, they have become crucial law enforcement tools – but the proliferation of cameras in the city is not universally supported.
Lieberman points out there are still scant procedures in place to monitor those who are responsible for handling the endless amounts of footage. “People don’t expect and shouldn’t have to expect that there’s going to be a permanent record of every step they take, every smooch they give to a lover, every kind of bar or restaurant they walk into,” Lieberman said. “The possibilities of abuse are just mind-boggling.”
I’m probably better off adopting the “ignorance is bliss” mentality.
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11 Responses
I for one have no problems with cameras pointed at me. I have nothing to hide and don’t do anything to be ashamed of. We have all seen in the Leiby Kletzky tragedy how those cameras can be helpful in crime fighting. Let the Civil Liberties crowd scream….better to have them than not.
lookin good
“It’s not only Big Brother who is watching.” That might be true but “Big Brother” is the only one that matters!
What about Shabbos? Can a Jew have a camera in his ownership taking pictures on Shabbos. Can Jews walk by and activate cameras?
#1 is that all your freedom is worth “i have nothing to hide” so if your pulled over by a cop for speeding and he asks if you mind if i search your car you’ll just say “sure i have nothing to hide”, well i for one have something to hide and its called my privacy. Once you let them do things because i have nothing to hide then, what happens when you do have something to hide? then my friend it will be to late because you gave up all your rights cheaply all in the name i have nothing to hide. I truly hope people start to be more mindful about giving up their rights so cheaply. P.S the video that help in the leiby case was private video which i support not video cameras owned and run by Government which i dont support
“הסתכל בשלושה דברים ואי אתה בא לידי עבירה: דע מה למעלה ממך” – “עין רואה” “ואוזן שומעת” וכל מעשיך בספר נכתבין” (אבות ב א).
!!! עיין רואה … וכל מעעשך בספר נכתבים
I would believe him if he weren’t posing.
“you gave up all your rights cheaply”
What rights? There is no “right” not to be photographed in a public place by either the government or a private individual.
A security camera poses no more of a threat to civil liberties than does the thousands of ways data is collected and sold.
Everytime you use a supermarket “membership” card (the one they scan at checkout), data is collected about your shop[p[ing habit and then sold to direct mailers and other marketing companies.
#5 — The cameras discussed in this article are also mostly private video for security purposes used by businesses.
Although I do agree that giving up freedoms in the name of safety is a slippery slope, I have no problem with videos in public places. If you are doing something in public, I don’t see how you can call it a privacy issue. Public streets are not your private domain.