Brookline may ax town cameras
Project sparked privacy concerns
The town of Brookline appears likely to shut down the dozen surveillance cameras it installed along major intersections just two months ago.
Town Meeting members rejected the project Tuesday, calling for an end to the controversial practice that has drawn the ire of some privacy rights advocates.
Under the resolution passed Tuesday night, Town Meeting members urged the Board of Selectmen to immediately end the one-year trial period that was enacted in January.
The selectmen will probably go along, one key member said.
"I'm suspecting that we'll pull the plug on it," said Nancy Daly, chairwoman of the selectmen, adding that the pilot program was set in motion provided that Town Meeting could have its say on the matter this spring.
Brookline was among nine communities in the Boston area that received the cameras last year as part of a $4.6 million federal grant from the Department of Homeland Security, an effort aimed at aiding in evacuation planning coordinated through the Boston mayor's Office of Emergency Preparedness.
The rejection is unusual, but not unprecedented. In February, the Cambridge City Council halted the activation of eight surveillance cameras in the city out of concern for possible invasions of privacy.
Similar grants have doled out tens of millions of dollars in recent years for placing surveillance cameras across the country, from Pittsburgh to St. Paul, spurring concerns from the American Civil Liberties Union and other privacy advocates that the cameras usher in a "surveillance society," where every aspect of private life is monitored and recorded.
Brookline Police Chief Daniel C. O'Leary, who has maintained that the cameras are necessary to monitor traffic and provide real-time images that could help investigate crime, said the equipment is not meant to keep tabs on residents.
"I'm disappointed it turned out that way," O'Leary said after the vote. "A lot of people, I think, looked at it on a philosophical basis, not as a public safety tool."
Locally, many cameras were put up on roads, bridges, and buildings in Boston, Chelsea, Everett, and Revere just before the Democratic National Convention in 2004.
In the second phase, plans called for the original group of communities to get additional cameras, including nine additional devices in Chelsea and Revere. Brookline, Cambridge, Quincy, Somerville, and Winthrop also received equipment during the second phase.
That second phase also included 30 additional cameras in Boston, which had installed 44 of the devices using Homeland Security Department funding.
Still, the Brookline resolution marks the first time that a Town Meeting form of government has debated and rejected government surveillance cameras in a town's public spaces, said officials at the Massachusetts chapter of the ACLU.
"I think people in town put a lot of time and energy into thinking about the questions that had been raised and responded appropriately," said Sarah Wunsch, a Brookline resident who works as an attorney for the ACLU. "In many places, there isn't the opportunity for the community to weigh in on these issues." 