Posted on 01/18/2007 1:05:44 PM PST by SmithL
The San Francisco Police Commission on Wednesday night approved Mayor Gavin Newsom's request to add surveillance cameras at eight additional high-crime street corners.
The 25 new cameras will be added to the 33 already in place at 14 locations.
After a four-hour City Hall hearing that drew more than 100 people, the commission voted 5-0 to approve the cameras, with two members absent. Members, though, conceded that they do not yet know whether the anti-crime cameras are effective. They expressed disappointment that the mayor's office had not provided more information about whether the existing cameras have deterred crime.
"I'm willing to give it a try as a pilot program to see if it works," said Commissioner David Campos, who said he was swayed by the dozens of residents asking for help fighting crime in their neighborhoods. Dozens of others spoke against the cameras.
The commission added a condition, requiring that the cameras be turned off during permitted, political demonstrations.
Police anti-crime cameras have become increasingly common around the Bay Area and the country in recent years, igniting a civil rights debate that is particularly sharp in San Francisco.
"Whose rights are important? Not the rights of those selling drugs and shooting people in our neighborhoods," Aleta Dwyer-Carpenter, 59, a property management director for the Chinatown Community Development Center, said in support of the program.
She said people already are photographed at sporting events, toll booths and public meetings.
"When you're out in the public, there is no expectation of privacy," Dwyer-Carpenter said. "This is 2007."
...Due to privacy concerns, San Francisco is uniquely passive among cities with police cameras. Officers here don't monitor the cameras, and thus cannot steer them. They can request to view footage only if they believe...
(Excerpt) Read more at sfgate.com ...
The commission added a condition, requiring that the cameras be turned off during permitted, political demonstrations.
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Obviously to hide the perversion during those gay day parades.....sick
What are they looking for, Smokers?
Probably- the claim, of course, is for Suspicious Activities, but I suspect it's more for intimidation than anything else. The British Isles have become slavishly PC at government levels.
They don't want to arrest violent anarchists who cheer on acts of terrorism when they are only going to drop the charges (from a lack of will to prosecute) later.
I work here in San Francisco. The "camera off" during protests had nothing to do with "gay parades". It was put in because our local "protesters" are convinced that the cops have nothing better to do that track lefties all day.
I don't know why they are bothering. In SF, no one can even LOOK at the cameras while they are recording. They can only look at the film if they are looking for evidence of a PAST crime. What's the point?
I walk from my office every day to the BART train station three blocks away. I must go through two blocks of drug dealers, hookers, and loitering "youth" at 4 in the afternoon. The police are never here. People have been shot in broad daylight at this intersection, but the drug dealing and loitering go on 24 hours a day.
The cops can do nothing because these are "people of color", and to "harrass" them would be un-PC.
The whole project is a joke. And so is this town.
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Sorry you have to experience this in "Utopia".
bkamkr
From the top down, they look like
Sinatra
Reagan
Arnold
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