ON THE EVE of a groundbreaking Portland City Council vote to allow police surveillance cameras in Old Town and Chinatown, the Portland Police Bureau sought to dispel mounting privacy concerns by spelling out, for the first time, a comprehensive policy for how and when officers can record citizens.
The “draft” rules—issued by Police Chief Mike Reese on Tuesday, May 29—came a day before the city council was expected to approve both the bureau’s request for the Old Town cameras and a separate federal grant that would fix up the cops’ surveillance airplane.
The council, pushed by police accountability and civil liberties advocates, decided to ask for the detailed policy back in April.
“There’s a little bit of voyeur in all of us,” Commissioner Dan Saltzman, worried about privacy abuses by cops, said at the time.
The proposed rules include provisions that attempt to address those concerns, such as banning recording of “private areas or areas where a reasonable expectation of privacy exists” and insisting that cameras would be used “to monitor public spaces where known or suspected criminal activities have existed.” The rules also place limits on how long the bureau would be permitted to keep recordings, both from surveillance cameras as well as things like “assemblies, protests, and demonstrations”—30 days, unless used in a criminal case.
Reese and Mayor Sam Adams, the city’s police commissioner, had initially hoped the council would approve the surveillance camera plan without any discussion, placing the bureau’s request on the council’s “consent agenda” in April.
But after Portland Copwatch’s Dan Handelman and the American Civil Liberties Union of Oregon asked to discuss the camera program, Reese showed up at council and defended his request as a way to help fight drug crimes in Old Town.
He said the bureau was looking at having a pair of cameras watching the public right of way, with the cops who walk the neighborhood able to check the feeds on smartphones.
“It has an impact on criminal behavior,” Reese said at the council meeting last month.
But when commissioners like Saltzman and Amanda Fritz insisted on seeing a privacy policy before saying yes—”those are answers I need,” Saltzman said—Adams relented by postponing the vote and asking Reese to give over what his colleagues asked for.
Privacy advocates remain skeptical, even with the new rules in hand. Members of the Oregon Progressive Party, as of press time, were planning to protest outside the Wednesday, May 30, council meeting.
Handelman says he appreciates the city’s effort but complains the new policy is still too loose when it comes to defining things like “criminal activity.”
“It still seems like there’s too much wiggle room,” he says. “Say jaywalking happens on a corner. Are you going to put cameras out there, too?”
Wonderful. So these pigs now have to spy on us 24/7. Führer Reese and the Portland Stasi want to turn Portland into downtown London, with a bee-hive of cameras on literally every street corner.
Funny thing is, cops don’t like it when you WATCH THEM. JoeAnybody knows that, more than most folks here.
United States of Surveillance:
http://i61.photobucket.com/albums/h78/Damo…
Unless the camera caught footage of you getting beat down? Then you would give them mad props. Also, YOU with the double standards! Why is it everyone should have a registered account? So YOU can keep tabs on them? You are no different you fucking freaky ass voyeur. Your version of freedom is no different.
To sum it up, you are a hypocrite.
You’re still anonymous even with a registered account, you fucking idiot.
I also don’t like this “criminal activity” bullshit, what the fuck does that mean? So spitting in the gutter will get you a fine? One would think these cops have enough on their plates already, being that there is a murderer still on the loose, ya remember the one that killed the bowling alley security guard. Or did that happen too long ago for the cops to care anymore?
Hey “Fuck it”, here’s some advise for ya: BLOW IT OUT YOUR ASS, LOSER!
Stick to just using ONE account.
And get a better screen name.
There should be a camera on every corner of old-town. You don’t like it. Stand two blocks away and handle your shit.
Well maybe you should move to China or England, since you love being surrounded by surveillance cameras 24/7, then.
Maybe you should suck a dick cliff.
If i did, so what? You a homophobe, too?
If I told you to eat shit, does that make me fecesphobe? No it does not. Fuck you and SUCK a cock. Black boy.
The above commenter loves to eat smegma.
So NOW you’re equating sucking cock – which is something that arguably 60% of humans have done at some point – to shit-eating??? Now you sound like the christian fascist who jumps from Gay marriage straight to bestiality.
You’ve got issues, and your racism doesn’t even seem to be the worst of ’em.
I work in the area and I see no less than 5 drug transactions on a daily basis. All I have to do is look out my window at any given time and see people smoking crack, selling crack or who knows what else. Not to mention having to be aggressively confronted by crazy people under the influence. The fact that they are installing cameras gives me a small feeling of safety. It’s sad that my first thought was “if something bad were to happen to me at least there is a possibility the assailants could be identified on camera”. As a woman in this neighborhood it is a battle to just walk to work, let alone walking home when the sun goes down. To everyone bitching about loss of privacy – do you really think you’re not being tracked in one way or another already? There are cameras everywhere. Google keeps record of everything you have ever searched for ever. Your phone calls have been listened to. This camera idea is not the beginning of some fascist society, this is an effort to try and clean up this part of town. Whatever ideas they want to try in hopes of making this neighborhood safer – I am all for it.