The first town hall meeting of the newly formed Lancaster Citizens for Sensible Security (LCSS) was held in the Unitarian Universalist Church at 538 W Chestnut St. The meeting was moderated by Barry Russell, a city resident who serves on the LCSS Committee. With over 55 local citizens in attendance, the purpose of the gathering was to hold a respectful, open dialogue regarding the Lancaster Community Safety Coalition’s (LCSC) installation of 120 public security cameras.
Representatives of the LCSC were invited to participate in the event; however, none were able to attend.
The meeting began with a presentation from LCSS committee members, detailing their case against the presence of such an extensive surveillance system in Lancaster City. Through the course of the LCSS presentation, a variety of facts and figures were presented to call the legitimacy of the LCSC project into question. Some of these included:
• Bosch Securities, the firm being commissioned to install the system, holds two seats in the LCSC board; Steve Ressler, a Bosch employee, is an LCSC trustee
• A British report stated that, with their broad surveillance apparatus, only 3% of crimes are solved by use of video cameras
• There is scanty evidence of crime rate reduction in areas under surveillance (e.g. San Francisco)
• The presence of cameras can simply replace old problems with new ones—like in Atlanta, GA, where traffic light-monitoring cameras have reduced the running of red lights while increasing the number of rear-end collisions
It was made clear by LCSS presenters that their concern, ultimately, does not lie with the general use of isolated surveillance cameras. Their issue of greatest concern was the use of an integrated “blanket” surveillance system, through which an individual can be followed all throughout the city streets—from store to car to house and so on. The danger of blanket surveillance, presenters argued, is that camera operators are endowed with the power, not only to observe the behavior of a passerby, but also to determine their residence, their place of work, their very identity.
Renee Baumgartner, one of the LCSS presenters, explained the political philosophy that underlies the group’s opposition to blanket surveillance: “[‘Mission creep’] is a documented phenomenon where a force changes the primary focus [of an effort]. What is the force that causes the primary focus to change? That force is human nature….Human beings can’t resist taking full advantage of what they have, without stopping to think about whether they should.”
In the case of Lancaster’s blanket surveillance system, Baumgartner explained, the original “mission” of the system could steadily “creep” into new applications, such as face recognition, litter enforcement, and special taxes based upon one’s particular vehicle usage. All of these applications are either technically feasible or already being implemented elsewhere.
Following the LCSS presentation, the floor was opened to nearly an hour of public comment. Perspectives ranged from several enthusiastically pro-camera citizens to one man who characterized the project—as well as much of Lancaster’s local law enforcement system—as blatantly treasonous.
One commentator defended the LCSS position against those who would consider it unreasonable: “I think a lot of people, when they talk about this to friends, are often told, ‘Oh, you’re just paranoid about it. If you weren’t doing anything wrong, you wouldn’t worry.’ But reasoned paranoia, or reasoned caution, is the basis for every great thinker on the planet that’s ever been here. And it’s the basis of our Bill of Rights, and it’s the basis of our Constitution.”
Another local man made a simple assertion to challenge the effectiveness of video surveillance: “Camera’s in places don’t really solve crime. If that were to happen, people wouldn’t rob Turkey Hills.”
The meeting was concluded with an invitation to sign a petition for “an immediate halt to the operation of the video surveillance conducted by the LCSC” until appropriate regulations and restrictions are set in place. Guests were also encouraged to continue following the activities of the LCSS by visiting lancasterpeace.org.
