Small-town video surveillance

Small-town video surveillance is being funded using federal grant money either for community policing or homeland security. "Spokesmen for the departments of Justice and Homeland Security said they were unable to compile information about how many small-town camera programs the agencies had funded, or how much had been spent," the Washington Post's David A. Fahrenthold reported January 19, 2006.

Privacy advocates have expressed concern "that several of the towns have no policies about who or what could be surveilled with the cameras. That's in contrast to the District [of Columbia], where police have agreed to use the cameras only during demonstrations and civic emergencies, and not to arbitrarily monitor anyone because of race or gender," Fahrenthold wrote.

"So far," Fahrenthold reported, "Vermont has been one of the few places where police cameras have kicked up a public fuss. Last year in Brattleboro, public outcry helped shoot down a proposal for surveillance of a downtown parking lot." And now Bellows Falls, Vermont, "has decided it needs 16 of those," which will give the town "just three fewer police surveillance cameras than the District of Columbia, which has 181 times Bellows Falls's population."

SourceWatch Resources

 * Big Brother
 * Department of Homeland Security
 * Orwellian
 * police state

General Information

 * "Surveillance-free small town versus big city with ubiquitous surveillance," wearcam.org, undated.
 * Marcus Nieto, "Public Video Surveillance: Is It An Effective Crime Prevention Tool?" California Research Bureau, June 1997.

1995

 * Phil Patton, "Caught. You used to watch television. Now it watches you," Wired, January 1995.

2002

 * Carlton Vogt, "Privacy, police states, and the balance of power. Readers chime in on emerging issues in technology," InfoWorld, May 8, 2002.
 * Laurent Belsie, "The eyes have it - for now. As surveillance cameras proliferate, a band of skeptics is questioning the social impact of all this watching," Christian Science Monitor, November 7, 2002.

2005

 * Spotlight on Surveillance: "More Cities Deploy Camera Surveillance Systems with Federal Grant Money," Electronic Privacy Information Center (EPIC), May 2005.
 * Max Borders, "Let's Be Candid About Cameras," TCS Daily, May 12, 2005.
 * Bruce Schneier, "Surveillance Cameras and Terrorism," schneier.com, July 12, 2005.
 * "Brattleboro, Vermont police plan cameras downtown," Associated Press (policeone.com), August 18, 2005.

2006

 * David A. Fahrenthold, "Federal Grants Bring Surveillance Cameras to Small Towns. Village in Vermont Has Almost as Many as D.C.," Washington Post, January 19, 2006.