Say No to Video Surveillance

An increasing number of California cities are investing millions of dollars in surveillance camera systems, helped in large part from substantial grants from the Department of Homeland Security. 

We all want and deserve safe communities. But video cameras are just not the answer. The facts are that they do not work, they sacrifice privacy, and are ripe for abuse.

Our 2007 report, Under the Watchful Eye, finds that most cities install cameras with little or no public debate about the high costs and relatively few benefits of these systems and make no plans to evaluate effectiveness.

Studies from around the world have shown that cameras are a bad investment for preventing, reducing, or solving crime. Scarce public safety funds would be better spent on hiring more experienced police officers and on less expensive and far less intrusive measures, such as improved lighting, which has been found to reduce all crime (including violent crime) an average of 20%.

Once cameras are installed, you don’t know how cameras will be used or abused. Modern day cameras can zoom in with the push of a button to see the book you are reading, who you are talking to, or hugging goodbye. Everything the cameras sees can be stored on a hard drive or in a central database for perpetuity. A sociological study of the British surveillance cameras showed that people of color were two-and-a-half times more likely to be monitored and one in 10 women were monitored entirely for voyeuristic reasons. In the Bay Area, a police officer was suspended from the department for using surveillance cameras to ogle women at San Francisco International Airport.

On this page, you'll find resources and tools to help you bring the facts to light and demand real solutions to make your community safer, rather than allowing your city to waste precious community safety dollars on expensive, ineffective, and intrusive cameras.

For more informaiton about video surveillance, see the National ACLU video surveillance site at www.youarebeingwatched.us.