Revere, Everett officials OK with surveillance
Anticrime cameras trump issue of personal privacy
Despite privacy concerns raised in two nearby communities, Revere Mayor Thomas Ambrosino has an offer for officials in Brookline, who appear likely to pull the plug on a dozen surveillance cameras that were installed there two months ago.
"We'll take more if they want to get rid of theirs," he said last week. "We'll gladly take them."
He's not alone. "If it was up to me around here, I would try to get some more," said Everett Alderman Jason Marcus, chairman of the city's public safety committee.
Brookline, Everett, and Revere are 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 Mayor's Office of Emergency Preparedness in Boston.
Similar grants have distributed tens of millions of dollars in recent years for placing security cameras across the country, from Pittsburgh to St. Paul.
But along the way, the controversial practice has drawn the ire of some privacy rights advocates, spurring concern that the equipment could usher in a "surveillance society," where every aspect of private life is monitored and recorded.
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 devices in Chelsea and Revere.
Brookline, Cambridge, Quincy, Somerville, and Winthrop also received equipment during the second phase.
In Somerville, which installed seven cameras last year, mostly along major intersections such as Davis Square, Deputy Police Chief Paul Upton said the department has "had no issues, no complaints" on what he describes as "a very, very functional public safety tool."
"I think it's something new, and I think it's something people haven't quite adjusted to yet," Upton said.
"There may be some concerns out there by some individuals, but after they get used to the system, they'll find those concerns really weren't justified."
In Revere, where 16 cameras have been installed with federal funding, Ambrosino said: "I don't think anyone here sees it as a real intrusion in privacy, given that we are basically watching public areas.
"It would be no different than if we had a police officer on the street, which most people cry out for."
That same sentiment hasn't carried throughout the region. Brookline Town Meeting members passed a resolution earlier this month calling for an end to a one-year trial of the cameras, and in February, the Cambridge City Council halted the activation of eight surveillance cameras in that city.
"I doubt very much that the decision in either case was based on the effectiveness of the surveillance cameras," said Jack Levin, a Northeastern University professor of sociology and criminology and codirector of the Brudnick Center on Conflict and Violence.
"More likely, many of the residents became very much concerned about an abridgment of their civil liberties and decided that the cameras were not worth losing those rights."
Thomas Nolan, an associate professor of criminal justice at Boston University, said he is surprised more communities haven't raised similar concerns, which he attributes, in part, to a heightened awareness of the surveillance cameras in communities that have sought input from residents.
"It is something that people should be very cautious about, and if it's a policy that's going to be adopted, there should be significant levels of meaningful, public discussion on the topic," said Nolan, who is a 27-year veteran of the Boston Police Department. 