Community activists and police in crime-plagued New Orleans are pleased that public street surveillance video cameras are helping catch criminals. You always want more cops in big cities, but you don't always get them. If this helps, and it sure seems to, I'm all for it. But beware: the policy blue-noses are already playing the "Big Brother" canard.

The man marched down the street in daylight, armed with a paintball rifle that had been converted to shoot with lethal force. He then blasted a newly installed camera in hopes of freeing the drug-ridden neighborhood from police surveillance. But the shooter's image was saved on the camera's hard drive. "All it did was get him arrested," chuckled New Orleans' chief technology officer, Greg Meffert. "The camera immediately notified the police and tracked him until he was caught." And when they got him, they found he was wanted on a murder warrant.

The arrest was the first success story from a sophisticated new crime-fighting system of cameras that New Orleans is installing citywide. The bulletproof cameras can monitor an eight-block area, communicate with the authorities and provide evidence in court. Police hope the system will catch crooks in the act and serve as a crime deterrent in a city long plagued by drugs and murders.

Civil libertarians are calling it Big Brother in the Big Easy, expressing concern about an invasion of privacy and the potential for misuse by police. City officials insist there are tight controls, and they are encouraged that dozens of community groups have signed up to pay $5,000 apiece to get cameras installed on their street corners.

"Maybe the ACLU doesn't have people dealing drugs in their neighborhoods 24 hours a day," said Lisa Martin, who has a camera in her neighborhood. "We asked for a camera, we wanted it. We don't want to be afraid to go outside."

Street safety pales next to the theoretical abuses of surveillance feared by the ACLU, which sniffs that there should just be more cops on the street. Guys, guys, guys. There can NEVER be enough cops on the street in New Orleans (most especially); or most other U.S. big cities. The cameras aren't THE silver bullet; no one thing is. But they can help. Whose side are on you on? The criminals, or law-abiding residents? Um, wait. I guess we know the answer already.

Funny thing; surveillance camera footage shown on TV recently led a gas station wallet-swiper in suburban Seattle to turn himself in to police.

Posted by Matt Rosenberg at March 11, 2005 01:28 PM

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