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170 surveillance cameras on one block?! NYC now Camera City

By Matthew Sweeney and Marlene Naanes | msweeney@am-ny.com, mnaanes@am-ny.com

August 22, 2008

They're everywhere and they're watching. New York has become Camera City as our every coming and going is recorded.

Dropping off at the dry cleaners? Getting a cup of coffee at Starbucks? Crossing the street? Smile, for better or worse you're on someone's security camera, whether it's the city's, shopkeepers' or some nutjob's. A single busy block in Manhattan can contain hundreds.

"You don't know who's watching you," said Nicole Labruto, 24, of Woodside, Queens. "You don't even know if there's a tape in there. It's creepy."

For other New Yorkers it's added security.

"Unless you're doing something wrong, you shouldn't worry," said Tracy Sugalski, 28, who lives near Union Square. "It sounds like a lot, but in New York City aren't we always being watched?"

In 2005, the NYCLU counted more than 4,000 street level cameras from the West Village down to Battery Park. The group also found that the 292 cameras along 125th Street in Central Harlem recorded nearly every movement on that busy street.

"I would believe the number has dramatically increased" three years later, said Matt Faiella, staff attorney for the NYCLU.

There's no definitive count of cameras in the city, though they are concentrated in busy commercial areas and areas considered sensitive terror targets.

The cameras have myriad uses. The NYPD wants to install thousands to protect the city against terrorism. A single camera in the elevator of a Crown Heights apartment building helped catch a suspect in the brutal mugging of an elderly woman this week. And on Wednesday, Long Island police arrested a magician for secretly filming a mother and her two young daughters as they undressed in a changing room at his home office.

Placement of cameras is governed by the reasonable expectation of privacy, which does not extend far beyond one's home, hotel rooms, bathrooms, gyms, and changing rooms. Streets, stores, and the workplace are not private. For security and surveillance experts, the real question privacy starts after the images are taken.

"I go into hotels all the time, I see digital video recorders with burners in there," said Desmond Smyth, president of SecureWatch 24, a Manhattan-based security company with some 11,000 cameras. "It's just amazing to me. That's where their liability is. Who's to say these guys aren't just watching pretty girls?"

To ensure the images are not abused, Smyth's company uses software to restrict playback and copying, he said. The primary purpose of a security camera is to be noticed and act as a deterrent, he said. Yet he has assisted thousands of requests for video from police and also given tape over in accusations of police brutality.

"These things are tools and if they're in the wrong hands they're dangerous," he said.

The NYPD's recently released plan to protect the city by installing some 3,000 additional cameras in the city raised concern at the NYCLU because it takes a new step in surveillance by creating a database of license plates and people's movements. The police said the images, including license plate captures, would be erased after 30 days. The NYCLU's concern is they have not seen any written policy that described how the images would be protected and if they would be shared with other agencies.

"Living in a surveillance society is a big change for most New Yorkers," Faiella said.

A number of factors have led to the increased presence: the post 9/11 increase in security, higher quality and lower cost of technology, and a greater interest in protecting property as the economy declines. At Spy Store in Greenwich Village, Bob Leonard, a retired police officer, sells everything from security cameras to hidden body cameras.

Leonard has been in business for nearly two decades and expects his customers to be aware of the law. He said it's logical to expect that illegal use of cameras has increased as they have proliferated.

"Nobody comes in and tells me 'I'm going to put this in the girls' gym,'" he said. "Voyeurism has been around a long time but the good of the cameras far outweighs the few who abuse it. Same as a baseball bat."

In one square block in the Union Square area, amNewYork counted 170 surveillance cameras. Here's a breakdown of them:

- 54 are in Filene's Basement, the store with the most

- 9 are outdoors.

- 3 are in the L train subway station.

- The best hidden cameras are the small square ones hanging on the ceiling of Shoe Mania.

- The most extensive surveillance can be found at Basic Plus, a small hardware and locksmith business with four cameras monitoring customers and numerous others for sale.

Compiled by Marlene Naanes