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City Of Raleigh Quietly Installs Spy Cameras Downtown, On Police Cars

By Edward James, The Raleigh Telegram

Thursday, April 1, 2010

RALEIGH - The City of Raleigh has quietly installed two video cameras in downtown Raleigh to videotape possible crime in the Tarboro Street area. In addition, the Raleigh Police Department has also installed license plate scanners on some police cars to automatically run the license plates of parked vehicles as they drive past them.

The measures have been put in place largely without much public debate or any announcements to the general public and have been quietly implemented by the Raleigh Police Department.

Unlike stoplight cameras that only take photos of offenders, the use of such technology has become controversial because its record information about individuals who may not be breaking the law and stores it with the police department.

The North Carolina chapter of the American Civil Liberties Union has already objected to the Raleigh Police Department’s data retention policy, largely because the department refuses to create one.

The Raleigh Police have admitted they don’t know how long they’re going to keep videos or license plate data or how they’re going to use the information.

Fixed Cameras In Downtown Raleigh

The two fixed cameras installed in downtown Raleigh in a high crime area are the first to be used solely by the Raleigh Police Department to specifically provide surveillance on citizens in a public area.

The black bubble cameras are mounted on two different telephone poles on city property on Tarboro Street.

The police department says that the two cameras are part of a larger plan to reduce crime in the Tarboro Street area between St. Augustine College and the Cookout hamburger grille at the intersection down the street.

Several violent crimes have taken place in the area including some shootings. The department says that there were four murders in the area and three of those remain unsolved.

In an email from Police Department spokesperson Laura Hourigan, she said that in part, the cameras were installed as a “deterrence of crime.”

Hourigan said that the cameras were actually asked to be installed by some members of the Tarboro Street community.

The recommendation to install cameras was put forth by some residents of the College Park and Idlewild neighborhood at a meeting on December 16th, 2008 at the Tarboro Road Community Center, said Hourigan.

“Participants were divided into work groups where they came up with a list of priorities for community policing efforts,” said Hourigan. “The installation of cameras in public locations where high incidents of crime and public disorder are reported was one of these priorities.”

The installation of cameras are part of a comprehensive effort to reduce crime in the area, said Hourigan.

Other measures include putting in a temporary substation and police command vehicle in the area (see photo), community officers in the area, increasing foot and bike patrols and expanding youth activities. The police department said that the measures helped reduce violent crime by 34% from 2008 to 2009.

The police department said that the cameras cost around $4,545 each and were paid for by grants from outside the police department.

Information about who is watching the cameras and how long they will be storing the video information seems to hard to come by.

“Since this is a pilot project, the RPD has not yet made final determinations about the storage of video and the monitoring of the system,” said Hourigan.

In addition, the department did not disclose if they will be installing more cameras around the city.

“This pilot project will be evaluated by the Department to determine whether it is an effective policing tool,” said Hourigan.

However, in an obscure line in a City of Raleigh Newsgram newsletter from February 19th of this year, the City of Raleigh stated otherwise.

In an article entitled “City of Raleigh Approves Federal Legislative Agenda” that outlined the city’s “wish list,” the item declared that city leaders are already seeking $5 million in federal funding to expand video and license plate reader programs for use by the police.

“[The city is requesting in appropriations from Congress] more than $5 million for the purchase and installation of wireless IP video infrastructure, fixed license plate recognition cameras and touch screen laptops in police vehicles,” said the newsletter article written by city employees.

License Plate Readers

In addition to the video cameras, the Raleigh Police Department has also started using a new license plate reader technology.

The technology used by the Raleigh Police Department involves a camera mounted on a police car that reads license plates as they drive past parked cars.

Similar technologies exist that can be mounted on stationary objects such as bridges that can read the license plates of moving cars.

According to an article posted this week on WRAL.com, the Raleigh Police Department recently started using the new technologies. The reporter was shown how the readers work as a Raleigh police officer drove his squad car through an NC State University parking lot.

“With this technology, it can read hundreds of plates in a couple of seconds if there are that many plates for it to see,” Officer John Maultsby told Sloane Heffernan of WRAL-TV.

Five police cars have been equipped with the devices so far, at a cost of $18,000 to $20,000 apiece.

The limited purchases were been funded by the NC Governor’s Highway Safety Program, but as stated above in the city’s newsletter, the Raleigh Police Department is seeking up to $5 million to expand the programs.

No Public Debate

Other than the Tarboro Street neighborhood meeting and the obscure line in a city newsletter that mentioned future funding requests, The Raleigh Telegram could not find any mention of the use of the police video technologies.

According to our records dating back to 2005, in regards to the official introduction of these electronic and video surveillance devices, the City of Raleigh has held no public hearings, never held public information sessions, or even announced their use in a press release.

Raleigh Police Department spokesman Jim Sughrue confirmed to The Raleigh Telegram that no press releases were sent out by his department on the technologies.

“We hadn’t yet done a release on the LPR cameras...but a reporter heard that we were beginning to install the first units and called to ask about them,” said Sughrue in an email to the Telegram on Wednesday, March 31st.

ACLU Requests Data Policy

Although the use of the video technologies are already in place, what the Raleigh Police Department does not have in place is a data retention policy that has been released to the public.

In other words, currently there are no guidelines on how the police can use the video or data gathered by these new technologies.

In regards to the videotapes provided by the Raleigh Police cameras on Tarboro Street, spokesperson Laura Hourigan simply told the Telegram that no such policy exists right now.

“Since this is a pilot project, the RPD has not yet made final determinations about the storage of video and the monitoring of the system,” she said.

In regards to the license plate readers, it’s also not known what the department will do with the information once it has been collected or how long they will retain the data.

“A police spokesman said the license plate information will be stored and used in a legal manner,” said WRAL in their story on the new readers.

The American Civil Liberties Union or ACLU has voiced concern over that lack of a data retention policy to the Raleigh Police Department and has even cited a North Carolina police chief who also brought up privacy concerns.

In a letter sent in October of last year and again in January of this year, the ACLU said that while use of such technology is legal and could be a useful law enforcement tool, there are concerns over collection of data on law-abiding citizens.

“We write instead to your department’s assertion that it does not currently maintain a substantive data retention policy,” said Katherine Lewis Parker, legal director for the ACLU in the letter.

“The rapid emergence of [plate reader] technology over recent years means it’s only a matter of time before outside parties see the utility in acquiring access to such data,” she added.

In a statement to WRAL, the ACLU said that there is no need to retain data that is not part of an ongoing investigation.

“If an officer does not get a hit when scanning a plate, then there is no legitimate reason for law enforcement to keep it on file for any length of time,” said Jennifer Rudinger of the NC ACLU office.

In the letter to the Raleigh Police, the ACLU cited the Wrightsville Beach Police Chief’s own statements when a license plate reader was installed on a bridge on the way to the beach.

“[The data] could be used...to analyze patterns of movement or personal associations,” said Wrightsville Police Chief John Carcy in an article that appeared last year in the Wilmington Star News. “...A lot of people might say it’s Big Brother at work.”

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