Chelsea to mount security cameras citywide

Boston Globe |  June 4, 2005
By Suzanne Smalley

Chelsea officials plan to install 34 round-the-clock surveillance cameras that cover the entire 1.8-square-mile city, in what they call an innovative anticrime and antiterror strategy that is a model for larger cities in the region.

City Manager Jay Ash said yesterday that the digital cameras will be used as a routine part of daily police work in this city of 35,000. Officers watching in real time will be able to see crimes as they unfold, zooming in on suspects, panning out for a wider view, and reviewing the situation frame by frame.

''Any police officer working will have the ability to call up images on their laptops in their police cars," Ash said. ''You want to know what you're getting into before you get into it."

Also, the cameras can store images for more than a month, allowing investigators to scour footage for leads and evidence, Ash said. Many of the 34 cameras, he said, can be moved from one problem area to another, and a number of them will also have 360-degree filming capabilities.

But critics say the project has the potential to become an Orwellian abuse of power. Carol Rose, executive director of the American Civil Liberties Union chapter in Massachusetts, said it will be critical for Chelsea officials to develop written rules limiting who has access to the cameras' images and for how long they will be stored, a process Ash said is underway.

''Otherwise, we're going to a pure surveillance society where the government is watching your every move," Rose said. ''I don't think that's good law enforcement or consistent with American values."

Susan Gallant, president of the Chelsea Chamber of Commerce, said that she doesn't know the specifics of the cameras plan, but that ''anything they can do to eliminate crime in Chelsea is positive."

Ash said 27 of the crime prevention cameras have been paid for with $250,000 in city money and will be installed over the next two months. Seven additional cameras, bought with federal homeland security money, will be mounted in Mary O'Malley Park and along Chelsea Creek, both overlooking Boston Harbor and the Tobin Bridge near tanks filled with liquefied natural gas, Ash said.

Chelsea officials haven't finalized the cameras' locations, but Police Chief Frank Garvin said he believes they will be most effective in crime hot spots.

''This will act as a deterrent," Garvin said. ''When we have problems with certain areas and gangs, vandalism, drug-trafficking, graffiti, anything, we'll be able to monitor the situation."

Chelsea officials said they envision a network of cameras by which police will be able to link their 34 cameras with the 282 existing cameras scattered throughout Chelsea Housing Authority buildings and potentially with dozens more in Chelsea's public schools and private businesses.

Ash said Chelsea is far ahead in the development of its surveillance system than the eight other municipalities in a metropolitan Boston homeland security partnership. Other cities have expressed interest in following Chelsea's lead and ultimately sharing images in one vast network, he said. ''There are discussions of how this can be replicated throughout the region."

Carlo Boccia, the director of both Mayor Thomas M. Menino's Office of Homeland Security and the metropolitan partnership, said the first step to broaden their use is already planned.

Within a year, Boccia said, the nine cities in the partnership will be dotted with a total of 100 to 200 cameras, initially focusing on harbors. Boccia said the cameras will be ''interoperable," so that what's happening in Chelsea can be seen by officials in Boston or Everett and vice versa.

''If we had a major incident and we needed to monitor public safety and first-responders, we could monitor their activities across the land and water," he said.

The network will cost at least $1 million to mount and maintain, and it will be funded by federal homeland security money. The nine communities in the partnership are Boston, Chelsea, Revere, Quincy, Brookline, Cambridge, Somerville, Everett, and Winthrop. Boccia said the regional system will include posts for additional cameras so that they can be added to monitor crime, traffic, and the transport of hazardous materials.

From a privacy standpoint, the cameras are legal because they will be mounted in public space, and they are akin to police officers standing on corners, Rose said. But the idea of such a vast network is troubling, largely because the technology's storage capabilities could allow abuses, she said.

''What people in Chelsea need to ask is: How long will it be stored? Who has access to the film? Do you need a subpoena, or can anyone go and look at it?"

In England, where surveillance cameras have been used extensively for years, there have been unauthorized releases of footage, including an infamous video that showed couples having sex.

But Ash dismissed such concerns, saying Chelsea officials have consulted with police in Chicago and New Orleans -- where cameras have helped reduce crime, he said -- about how to ensure citizens' privacy rights are protected.

Patrick Camden, a Chicago police spokesman, said cameras were first installed about three years ago. There are 30 now, and the city plans to add more. The cameras are paid for with the assets seized from drug dealers. Chicago officials contend the cameras are partially responsible for a 27 percent decrease in homicides and a 25 percent decline in shootings in the city in the past two years, he said.

Surveillance cameras are being used more often during major events across the country. Three years ago, police in Washington, D.C., set up the most extensive network at the time, linking hundreds of government video cameras.

Boston has used surveillance cameras only during the Democratic National Convention and special events, such as the Patriots and Red Sox victory parades, said Michael McCarthy, Boston police spokesman.

He said 10 cameras will be installed in parts of Chinatown in the coming months as part of a crime prevention effort in the area.