Cameras in DC To Track Every Move

Thousands of cameras are in Washington D.C., but not the kind found around the neck’s of overly anxious tourists. Earlier this week the city announced that the more than 5,000 video surveillance cameras scattered throughout the city will be consolidated into a network monitored by D.C.’s Homeland Security and Emergency Management Agency. The move will save the city an estimated $800,000 dollars and supposedly decrease crime and deter terrorism.

There is no immediate indication that cameras are located on GW’s campus or in the Foggy Bottom community. Rather, the 5,266 cameras are focused near public housing projects, public schools, transportation hubs, and correctional facilities, according to the D.C. Homeland Security and Emergency Management Agency. Nevertheless Big Brother may be watching as students venture into the city.

Inevitably, the increased surveillance is raising some eyebrows. Lawmakers and action groups are concerned that the cameras violate privacy rights while not deterring crime but simply moving it to other neighborhoods. Also, according to the Washington Times, D.C. installed cameras in 2006 under the condition they would be “passively” monitored by Metropolitan police officers. The switch to monitoring by a central agency is a violation of the original agreement, officials claim.

D.C. is not the only major city to use video surveillance. New Orleans, Los Angeles, Philadelphia, and Baltimore have a monitoring system. Chicago has a system of 2,000 cameras and London boasts 500,000 cameras, some of which were used to identify four suicide bombers who killed 52 people in a 2005 subway attack.

Still, as Art Spitzer, legal director for the American Civil Liberties Union of the National Capital Area told the Times, "You put a camera here, it's not so bad, you put a camera there, it's not so bad. But then it turns out all the sudden, we find out there are 5,200 cameras. That's a big number."

- Jesse Regis