(MintPress) – City buses across the U.S. will soon be equipped with audio surveillance devices, a measure that has raised alarm among citizens and rights group calling the surveillance an invasion of citizen privacy. City officials and law enforcement claim that the new equipment will help thwart crime.
However, the proliferation of surveillance technology in public spaces could make the U.S. more like England and other European countries that have become “surveillance police states,” by the accounts of Privacy International and other rights organizations. The U.K. has been labeled one of the most invasive countries, monitoring citizen movement in public spaces more than any other country. Despite mounting public opposition, the Federal government’s Department of Homeland Security is providing partial funding to a handful of major cities, including San Francisco, Eugene, Traverse City, Columbus and Baltimore, to help with the installation of new surveillance equipment.
Further crackdowns on civil liberties
“Plans to implement the technology are underway in cities from San Francisco to Hartford, Conn., and Eugene, Ore., to Columbus, Ohio,” reported the Daily.
Most city buses are already equipped with video surveillance equipment allowing law enforcement to track and thwart theft, vandalism and other crimes. The new audio upgrades take state surveillance to a new level, allowing law enforcement to listen in on bus passengers’ conversations.
This continues a trend of increasing state surveillance in the U.S. In the years after the Sept. 11 attacks, the Department of Homeland Security conducted warrantless phone taps under the Patriot Act, listening in on conversations of those supposedly connected to terrorist organizations.
Public surveillance cameras have become a popular addition to the law enforcement arsenal even though a 2009 report by the American Civil Liberties Union found that they did not offer any improvements to public safety. More than $300 million in federal grants have been provided to U.S. cities, allowing for the spread of cameras to cities big and small in all 50 states.
Civil liberties groups have already lined up in opposition to the upgrades, claiming the development erodes citizen rights under the guise of increasing security. “This is very shocking,” said University of Pennsylvania privacy law expert Anita Allen. “Its a little beyond what we’re accustomed to. The adding of the audio seems more sensitive.”
Corporations are set to benefit handsomely from lucrative city contracts. Previously, city officials in Concord, N.C. used part of a $1.2 million federal stimulus to outfit public transportation with new audio surveillance equipment. In larger cities, like San Francisco, the upgrades will lead to millions of dollars in contracts to private security firms.
City officials in California’s fourth most populous city recently approved a $5.9 million contract to install audio surveillance devices on 357 buses and trolleys. The funding comes from a grant made available by the Department of Homeland Security.
Comtrol, a device connectivity manufacturer, is expected to be one of the recipients of city contracts.
According to its website, “As public transportation is becoming more popular in North America, following successful models used in foreign transportation systems can help guide our decisions and processes concerning public safety initiatives,” said Comtrol’s page on Transportation and Bus Surveillance: Mobile Security.
Learning from Britain
The U.S. is following a troubling trend in European countries, where the proliferation of state surveillance has become an undue intrusion into citizens’ lives. The use of public audio surveillance drew public condemnation in the U.K. most recently during the summer Olympics.
Former Home Secretary David Blunkett called his government’s surveillance proposal “simply unacceptable,” saying the plan “smacked of the surveillance state.”
Elaborating further in a BBC interview, Mr. Blunkett said the idea modeled the authoritarian state created in Aldous Huxley’s “Brave New World” novel.
“As you walk down the street you expect to be able to have a private conversation,” he said.
These warnings underscore previous legislation that has made the U.K. a virtual surveillance police state where public spaces are among the most highly monitored in the world.
A 2006 report for the Information Commissioner conducted by the Surveillance Studies Network found that there are 4.2 million public surveillance cameras around the U.K., approximately one camera for every 14 citizens in Britain.
By 2016, the report predicts that “shoppers could be scanned as they enter stores, schools could bring in cards allowing parents to monitor what their children eat, and jobs may be refused to applicants who are seen as a health risk.”
This corresponds to the findings of Privacy International, a rights organization monitoring government surveillance. In a recent ranking of government surveillance, Privacy International found that the U.K. is “the worst” Western democracy at protecting individual privacy.
Crackdown on communications
While government surveillance does not in itself constitute a form of censorship, the worry among civil liberties organizations, like Privacy International, is that the proliferation of clandestine monitoring will lead citizens toward behaviors of self-censorship, when individuals perceive that their speech is being listened to.
Privacy is not a right guaranteed explicitly by the U.S. Constitution, but most jurists, including more conservative Supreme Court judges, believe that privacy is included in the shadows, “the penumbra,” of the Constitution.
This is reflected in the recent opposition demonstrated by elected officials in both houses of the U.S. Congress condemning possible Internet regulation by the United Nation’s technical body, the International Telecommunications Union.
The U.S. House of Representatives unanimously passed a Senate resolution earlier this week, rejecting any regulation of the Internet by the United Nations. More than 1,900 delegates from 194 countries are currently discussing possible U.N. regulation at an 11-day conference in Dubai.