Max Borders: Not all police cameras are created equal

Oddly, a number of citizens are crying foul — arguing that somehow civil liberties are being violated, or that Big Brother is watching. “I am a little worried about the civil rights of the citizens of D.C.,” a District resident told a local radio station recently.

But is anyone concerned about the liberties of Alan Senitt, whose throat was slit by assailants in the driveway of a Georgetown home? Or justice for reporter David Rosenbaum, who was bludgeoned with a metal pipe and left to die on the sidewalk? (Note: His assailant was later discovered by a surveillance camera at an ATM machine.) And these are just the most visible cases.

There have been a number of home invasions, robberies, muggings, rapes and murders in a city already known for its crime. So when police implement relatively low-cost measures to prevent such crimes and to bring criminals — particularly violent ones — to justice, is it appropriate to whine about civil liberties?

Let’s be clear: I consider myself a libertarian — not just of the “civil” variety. But I also understand the distinction between public and private spaces.

The thoroughfares that people use to go to and from work, and upon which so many crimes are committed, are public property. So whether we use beat cops to monitor these spaces or cameras, concerns about civil liberties often turn out to be the product of a fetish. There can be no expectation of privacy in public places (hence the term). And while we might appreciate the healthy suspicion of government, such concerns simply don’t apply to surveillance cameras used to monitor our streets. Indeed, these are rarely used for remote real-time monitoring, and are instead used for preventive and evidentiary purposes.

But the same thing cannot be said about speed cameras.

While speed cameras are also “public” in the sense I mentioned before, the trouble is that they function differently in terms of justice — including the judicial process. That is, while surveillance cameras are used to collect video data that may be helpful for those investigating crimes after the fact, speed cameras act as police officer, judge, jury and executioner. And that’s wrong.

In fact, the company that manufactures the cameras — Affiliated Computer Systems — gets $29 out of every ticket issued in D.C.

The problem with this sweet deal is that some citizens are paying with their civil liberties, not just their fines. After all, in the U.S., a person is innocent till proven guilty, right? The burden is supposed to be on the state. But with speed cameras, people must go to great expense to dispute the tickets, but they must also provide evidence to support a defense like: “That’s not my car in the picture.” Guilty till proven innocent? That’s not supposed to fly in America.

Also, speed cameras — not to mention the humans behind the scenes — are prone to error. Radley Balko, an analyst for the Cato Institute, writes: “A recent BBC study of mobile speed cameras revealed significant accuracy problems. One researcher was able to clock a stationary wall at 58 mph. The Australian government has begun paying $26 million back to motorists who were issued tickets by faulty cameras. A Canadian town recently recalled 6,800 tickets issued by cameras. The Washington Times has reported several incidents in which D.C. motorists were ticketed for cars they no longer own or drive, or that are inoperable.”

So apparently, not all cameras are created equal. Leaving aside the perverse incentives that are created by a private company colluding with government to turn a profit on speeders, the civil liberties affronts by speed cameras seem unavoidable. So in conversations about municipal cameras, we have to make a finer distinction than just evoking the latest Big Brother trope. We have to be cognizant of the system of justice operating behind the camera eye. After all, people’s rights are what’s really at stake here.

Max Borders is a writer based in Virginia.