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San Francisco’s plan to give police officers real-time access to personal security cameras is a way to stop crime and violate people’s rights, an advocate for regulating surveillance technology says.
“We know these systems don’t work and it’s political theater, but we’re paying a real price in our civil rights, not just in dollars and cents,” Albert Fox Kahn, executive director of the Surveillance Technology Oversight Project, told Fox. News.
San Francisco’s new district attorney, Brooke Jenkins, has proposed laws that would allow the police department to directly monitor privately owned security cameras and camera networks for “matters of public safety” and ongoing felony or misdemeanor violations.
Former U.S. Attorney Brooke Jenkins says he will remember District Attorney Chesa Boudin during an interview on May 26, 2022 in San Francisco.
(AP Photo/Heaven Daily, File)
Additionally, the statute allows police to “collect and review historical video footage for the purpose of criminal investigation.”
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“We’re being taken for a ride,” Fox Kahn said of the proposed legislation.
“In the past, we’ve seen many cities waste millions of dollars on cameras that compromise our privacy but fail to keep us safe.”
Foxconn points out that cities like London and New York have invested heavily in surveillance infrastructure in the past without having any real impact on crime rates.
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Jenkins, 40, was sworn in as London Mayor last week and vowed to crack down on crime in the city.
“I believe this policy will help address the existence of open-air drug markets that facilitate the sale of deadly fentanyl,” she wrote in a letter to City Supervisor Aaron Peskin.
“Another area where the proposed policy could help is mass organized retail theft, as we saw in Union Square last year, or neighborhood efforts, as we saw in Chinatown,” she continued.
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Foxconn pointed out that San Francisco already has countless public safety cameras that seem useless in curbing the city’s rising crime rate.
“We throw a lot of good money after bad instead of realizing how problematic this plan is,” he said.
Not only is this change ineffective at stopping crime, Fox Kahn said it also violates civil rights.
“When we have a society where everyone is photographed, our every move is monitored, that’s not a democracy, that’s a dictatorship.”
Brooke Jenkins is expected to be named San Francisco’s new district attorney after her former boss, Chesa Boudin, was ousted in a June recall election.
(Fox San Francisco)
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“We’re throwing away the Fourth Amendment. We’re breaking the bill of rights, and we’re getting nothing in return,” he continued.
As more private companies continue to partner with government agencies in surveillance operations, citizens should be concerned about their liberties, Fox Kahn said.
“Unless we protect, unless we carve out a space for privacy, we’re going to move into a society where none of us really want to live,” he said.
The city’s Ordinance Committee is scheduled to vote on the revised proposal next week.
The San Francisco District Attorney’s Office did not respond to a request for comment.
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