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photo: GETTY IMAGES (CHICAGO, MILLENNIUM PARK)
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Chicago Is Watching You By WILLIAM M. BULKELEY
A giant web of video-surveillance cameras has spread across Chicago—aiding police in the pursuit of criminals but raising fears that the City of Big Shoulders is becoming the City of Big Brother. While many police forces are boosting video monitoring, video-surveillance experts believe Chicago has gone further than any other U.S. city in merging computer and video technology to police the streets. The networked system is also unusual because of its scope and the integration of nonpolice cameras.
The city links the 1,500 cameras that police have placed in trouble spots with thousands more—police won’t say how many—that have been installed by other government agencies and the private sector in city buses, businesses, public schools, subway stations, housing projects and elsewhere. Even homeowners can contribute camera feeds. ‘A MODEL FOR THE COUNTRY’ Rajiv Shah, an adjunct professor at the University of Illinois at Chicago who has studied the issue, estimates that 15,000 cameras have been connected in what the city calls Operation Virtual Shield, its fiber-optic video-network loop. The system is too vast for real-time monitoring by police staffers. But each time a citizen makes an emergency call, which happens about 15,000 times a day, the system identifies the caller’s location and instantly puts a video feed from the nearest camera up on a screen for the emergency operator to see. The feeds, including ones that weren’t viewed in real time, can be accessed for possible evidence in criminal cases. A police spokesman said the system has “aided in thousands of arrests.” Video cameras caught 16-year-old Michael Pace, an alleged Chicago gang member, opening fire with a .40-caliber handgun on a city bus in a 2007 incident that claimed the life of 16-year-old honor student Blair Holt and wounded four others. Last July, Mr. Pace pleaded guilty to murder on the eve of his trial, and the video was released during a hearing where a judge sentenced him to 100 years in jail. The city is “allowing first responders access to real-time visual data,” says Ray Orozco, executive director of the city department responsible for the system. “Chicago understands the importance of networking instead of just hanging cameras,” says Roger Rehayem of IBM, which designed the system. Former U.S. Homeland Security chief Michael Chertoff has called Chicago’s use of cameras “a model for the country.” ‘ENOUGH IS ENOUGH’ That worries some Chicagoans. Charles Yohnka, director of communications and public policy for the American Civil Liberties Union of Illinois, says, “With the unbelievably rapid expansion of these systems, we’d like to know when enough is enough.” The ACLU has called for the city to disclose how many cameras are in the system and what the capabilities of the system are, as well as who is allowed to look at the video feeds and under what circumstances. Mr. Yohnka said that he isn’t aware of any abuses in the use of the video but that “political surveillance” of opponents could be tempting for office holders. In other cities, there have been reports of male police staffers ogling and tracking women who aren’t doing Mr. Orozco dismisses worries about privacy abuse. The department logs in all users and can monitor what they are doing, he says, assuring accountability. He also says access to the command center is tightly controlled. Chicago says that it only networks video cameras in public areas where people have an expectation they may be seen. None of the cameras record speech, because that would violate wire-tapping laws, although some can detect the sound of gunfire and breaking glass. “People want these cameras in their neighborhoods,” said Mayor Richard Daley in a prepared statement. “We can’t afford to have a police officer on every corner, but cameras are the next best thing.”
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