MSNBC A surveillance camera disguised as a street lamp looks down on pedestrians in New York City. There are now more than 3,000 video surveillance cameras on the streets of New York.

Warming to Big Brother Skittish public, police turn to high-tech crime fighting; but at what cost?

MSNBC by Bob Sullivan - Nov. 14 — Khalid al-Midhar was on an INS “watch list” — and being hunted by the FBI — when he boarded American Airlines Flight 77 on Sept. 11. A simple computer link between federal agencies could have stopped al-Midhar’s suicide mission cold. Frustrated investigators and a nervous American public are wondering why such an intelligent network of police data isn’t already in place. But a project to create that kind of gigantic database is now being built — it’s called Golden Shield, and it’s been designed by the Chinese Communist Party’s police agency to control Chinese citizens.

THE PROJECT DESIGN for Golden Shield, as described by Canadian watchdog group Rights & Democracy, could easily be confused with some of the proposals for digital police work that have surfaced in the United States since Sept. 11.

“The aim is to integrate a gigantic online database with an all-encompassing surveillance network, incorporating speech and face recognition, closed circuit television, smart cards, credit records, and Internet surveillance,” says Rights & Democracy researcher Greg Walton in a recent report. Golden Shield will “promote the adoption of advanced information and communication technology to strengthen central police control responsiveness and crime combating capacity.”

Two months ago, even the thought of such a project in the U.S. would likely have elicited immediate outrage. Even today, as just described, Golden Shield might not sound very palatable.

But piece by piece, a skittish American public seems willing to go along with many of Golden Shield’s tactics. A Harris Interactive poll taken in late September showed 86 percent favor use of face-recognition technology in public places; 68 percent favor implementation of a national ID card; and 54 percent approve of expanded government monitoring of cell phones and e-mail.

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At the same time, Congress and the federal government have acted to broaden police powers over only scant objections. The euphemistically named “USA Patriot Act” was signed into law Oct. 26, giving law enforcement a wide swath of new data collection powers. More quietly, the Justice Department recently took a bite out of traditional attorney-client privilege rules. A new federal rule lets government agents monitor chats between people in federal custody and their lawyers if the attorney general deems it “reasonably necessary in order to deter future acts of violence or terrorism.”

“People are concerned about safety now and will put up with more invasions of privacy,” concedes Richard Smith, former CTO of the Privacy Foundation and now an independent security consultant operating ComputerBytesMan.com. There is little debate that known terrorists should be kept off of commercial airplanes, and that technology which might help should be used. But how far America should tilt toward Golden Shield, and how effective computers can really be in fighting crime, are topics of hot debate.

Here are some increased powers of investigation that law enforcement agencies might use when dealing with people suspected of terrorist activity, which would also affect our civil liberties. The Harris Poll asked 1,012 adults to approve or disapprove of each proposal.

Expanded under-cover activities to penetrate groups under suspicion 93% 5% 1%
Stronger document and physical security checks for travelers 93% 6% 1%
Stronger document and physical security checks for access to government and private office buildings 92% 7% 1%
Use of facial-recognition technology to scan for suspected terrorists at various locations and public events 86% 11% 2%
Issuance of a secure I.D. technique for persons to access government and business computer systems, to avoid disruptions 84% 11% 4%
Closer monitoring of banking and credit card transactions, to trace funding sources 81% 17% 2%
Adoption of a national I.D. system for all U.S. citizens 68% 28% 4%
Expanded camera surveillance on streets and in public places 63% 35% 2%
Law enforcement monitoring of Internet discussions in chat rooms and other forums 63% 32% 5%
Expanded government monitoring of cell phones and email, to intercept communications 54% 41% 4%

Surveillance video companies like Colorado-based Loronix Information Systems Inc. stand to gain the most financially from a newly digitized police force. The biometrics industry alone is expected to grow from $200 million this year to about $2 billion in 2004, according to research firm Morgan Keegan & Co.
Allison Gapter, Loronix spokesperson, says technology doesn’t really change police work or add a layer of intrusive tactics — it simply only optimizes work that’s already being done.

“It’s really no different from having a super security officer who can remember all the faces walking by as you walk into the airport. Imagine a security expert flipping through a mugshot book. All you are doing is automating that,” Gapter said.

Meanwhile, lawmakers are trying to ensure that investigators and law enforcement officers can legally take advantage of high-tech crime fighting techniques, a major goal of the controversial Patriot Act. Howard Schmidt, director of security at Microsoft and president of an industry coalition devoted to cybersecurity, said he felt the the Patriot Act merely helps level the electronic playing field between criminals and law enforcement.

“Regarding the USA Patriot Act, I don’t know if I would use the term ‘expanded authorities.’ There’s nothing in there that changes thresholds. If you need a wiretap, there are still the same requirements,” said Schmidt, who is also a special agent for the U.S. Army reserves and an FBI consultant. Instead, said the law takes away some advantages that had been gained by criminals exploiting legal confusion created by new technologies, he said.

For example, in the past, a wiretap order for a cell phone user only applied locally — if a suspect flew to another jurisdiction agents were required to get new wiretap order from the local federal court. “That really inhibited the ability to track people down.”

Such orders and search warrants are essentially portable now, making chasing criminals through cyberspace much easier. “That’s the concept behind what’s being done. But it’s same threshold of evidence required to get the court order.”

Whizzy technology can also provide unexpected advantages in the fight against criminals, she said. Loronix cameras are wired throughout a Washington Mutual bank in Los Alamedos, Calif. in an experiment with local police. A wireless network broadcasts images of what’s going on inside the bank to police officers outside — cops can watch a bank robbery unfold from laptop computers across the street. And if they have to approach the bank, video can even be displayed on Compaq handheld iPaq computers.
Mike Sullivan, a Naperville, Ill.-based police detective and nationally-known police technology consultant, says cops must be able to use high-tech gear to protect themselves.

“There can be a great officer safety benefit ... Police can know if they are walking into an ambush situation at the bank, for example, or can see if they are dealing with a hostage situation,” he said.

Cameras in airports or banks are one thing; cameras in public places seems to be another. When Florida authorities wired the Super Bowl this January with cameras and used face recognition software, public sentiment raged against the idea. At the same time, Tampa’s installation of cameras at public places revealed that local governments in the U.S. are already willing to do what might once have sounded Orwellian — watch their citizens remotely.

Loronix practices what it preaches — presence of video cameras is a way of life at the company. Visitors to the Loronix Web site can poke around the cubicles and hallways of the company’s Durango, Colo., offices, noting when employees get up for coffee or just wander around.

“We are just used to it,” she said, explaining that workers there don’t seem to mind. “If I had something to hide it would bother me ... but if you have nothing to hide it certainly becomes a non issue.”

But the issue is about more than hiding, argues Smith, the privacy consultant. When people know they are being watched, there is a so-called “chilling” effect, Smith says. People can’t act like themselves, and basic freedoms are eroded. Public exposure also offends our natural need for privacy, Smith says.
“People say they don’t have anything to hide and aren’t worried until their teen-aged daughter gets photographed ... and then they scream about it,” he said.

But beyond the privacy concerns, Smith and others skeptical of a newly digital police force point a more practical issue — does this stuff really work? When America is wired for safety, will we really be any safer? Or will we have created a network that is only effective in catching petty criminals and tracking the movements of law-abiding citizens, while emboldened terrorists outsmart the systems and exploit a false sense of security?

“What scares me is how superior we assume we are to terrorists, and that our technology will save us,” said Joel de la Garza, a security consultant with Securify.com. “You are not going to catch these people that way. They are just too savvy.”

For example, Hollywood movie plots make obvious that cameras on street corners can easily be foiled. Facial recognition programs have notorious failure rates, de la Garza says. And even worse — video networks designed to help police could actually help the bad guys. Bank systems broadcasting video could be hacked, making the scene available to the criminals, too.

Carole Samdup, spokesperson for the Democracy & Rights watchdog groups, thinks extensive police monitoring technology has already demonstrated its ineffectiveness.

“All this technology has existed for years and we still haven’t arrested anyone (using it),” she said. “Even Timothy McVeigh was under surveillance. We are trying to kill too many birds with one stone here.”
Boaz Guttman, former terrorism investigator in the Israeli police force, has used video camera evidence to investigate crime and hunt down suspects, but says they are only effective after a crime and are of little use in preventing terrorism.

“Video cameras in football stadiums prevent hooligans. Really? It helps get evidence after the big fight, no more,” Guttman said. He feels the same way about about wiretapping and other electronic monitoring.
“There is no miracle at all with wiretapping. It did not prevent crime even in Red Russia. ” he said. “What if terrorists use coded messages. He calls the bomb ‘cake’ and the target ‘my mother in law.’ You can intercept ‘til tomorrow, ‘til next week (and not stop terrorism),” he said. “If somebody thinks that with all this tracing alone, he will defeat terror .. as I said to an important person in your country ‘Sorry you are sleeping in the middle of the day.’ ”

Even Schmidt concedes high-tech crime fighting is no cure-all. “We see this more times then not,” Schmidt said. “Things people perceive as being done for feel-good reasons, thinking that technology is the panacea. Technology is not the panacea ... technology is generally just an aid .”

But the march of technology is often irreversible, and increased police monitoring and cross checking among federal agencies seems inevitable — and sometimes just plain common sense. Few would contest the kind of law enforcement database linking which might have stopped al-Midhar on Sept. 11. And the less controversial provisions of the USA Patriot Act were designed simply to clarify evidence-gathering rules in the complex new world of Internet communications. For example, Sullivan said, Internet service providers were allowed to divulge information on customers’ Internet travels to interested marketing companies or any almost other entity except law enforcement — which needed a court order to obtain such records.

“To say that every citizen in the country can have that information except for a police officer, is that making your data any more private?” he said.

Some newfangled security measures even have support among the staunchest privacy advocates.
Smith, for example, is generally in favor of more intense security measures at airports, such as the use of face scanning at airports.

“But the things we do have to make sense. For example, at first we banned curbside check-in, but then it came back because that didn’t make sense,” he said.

Holding the line at privacy invasions that “makes sense” is the most subtle of standards, a fine line that police, governments, and citizens will now try to walk in the post Sept. 11 world. Libertarian cries of absolute privacy sound empty these days, with the knowledge that Khalid al-Midhar and other plane hijackers exploited America’s lax security measures. At the same time, what’s to keep overzealous investigators from using the Anti-terrorism Act to create America’s version of Golden Shield? Sullivan, the techno-savvy police investigator, says the Supreme Court will play the crucial role in picking through those issues.

“The crux of the difference (between the U.S. and China) is the Supreme Court,” said Sullivan. “Ultimately they will decide what’s Constitutional and what’s not. We have the ability as U.S. citizens to cry foul. In China, citizens do not.”