I am quoted in a DC Examiner story about Mayor Fenty’s plan for a city-wide surveillance system, “New rules proposed for spy net.”

The Fenty administration has proposed new standards for a consolidated spy network of more than 5,000 closed-circuit cameras that should take effect in time for the presidential inauguration in January.

The Video Interoperability for Public Safety system, or VIPS, links 5,200 District-owned closed-circuit television cameras within a single monitoring office under the Homeland Security and Emergency Management Agency. The goal: Assist Homeland Security “to rapidly identify and respond to emergency circumstances that occur within the District.”

Every camera in a school, in a jail cell, in a government building, outside a public housing project or attached to a traffic light has been integrated into the network. The police department’s crime cameras, which require passive monitoring only, are not included.

As I told the reporter, there are numerous problems with the proposed regulations (pdf) for the city-wide camera surveillance system. The proposed regulations have few changes from the emergency rules that were self-imposed by the Fenty administration in June. Those emergency rules were created without input from the public or the DC Council. After five months and much public and Council review and criticism of the emergency rules, the Fenty administration has not addressed the substantial privacy and civil liberty questions that have been raised.

The emergency regulations (pdf) set out in June were vague as to the purposes of the system, as are these current proposed rules. But notice that in June, the Fenty administration said that one purpose was to “enhance public safety.” The Fenty administration was questioned as to what measurements would be used to evaluate whether the centralized surveillance system could be judged effective at enhancing public safety. The “enhance public safety” purpose is gone from the new proposed rules. Why? Is it because numerous studies (pdf) by law enforcement officials have shown (pdf) that camera surveillance systems do not have a significant effect on crime, and the Fenty administration knew it couldn’t actually prove the massive camera system would actually enhance public safety? (more…)

I will be on “The Power Hour” radio show on Friday, October 17 at 9 am ET. The topic is the NSA’s warrantless wiretap program.

I am quoted in the USA Today article, "TSA tests scanner for car bombs." The Transportation Security Administration is currently testing the use of Backscatter X-ray technology on civilian cars. "The Transportation Security Administration (TSA) is running a test at a North Carolina ferry terminal of a 21-foot-high arch-like machine that shoots low-intensity X-rays at cars as they pass through." Officials are considering broad deployments of these drive-through X-ray machines at airports across the country. It is disturbing that individuals could be forced to drive through such machines merely because they are dropping someone off at the airport. Read the rest of the story here.

Congress is not yet back in session, but it is September, and Privacy Lives returns from its vacation refreshed. The blog will be updated more regularly, and hopefully, it will give you something to talk about in the comments. 

I’m quoted in a Washington Post article, “License Plate Readers To Be Used In D.C. Area.” Officials in the D.C. metro area “plan to install about 200 automated license plate readers on police vehicles and alongside roads in the Washington area to thwart potential terrorist attacks, dramatically expanding the use of a high-tech tool previously aimed at parking scofflaws and car thieves. [...] The readers will scan the license plate of every vehicle that zooms by and run the numbers through federal criminal databases and terrorist watch lists, Reardon said. Maryland, Virginia and the District could plug in additional databases.”

The expansion of this technology raises a number of questions. What happens to all this data? “[A Virginia police officer] said that at least in the short term, officials don’t plan to store data on the scanned license plates, except for those associated with terrorism or other crime.” But that is “in the short term.” What prevents the officials from changing their minds and keeping track of every vehicle that passes by these readers — even if the drivers have done nothing wrong?

Also, will this really work to find terrorists? The license plate readers run the names against the terrorist watch lists, which continue to be proved full of problems. Will that lead to numerous individuals being detained because of mistaken matches? Senators, nuns, and federal air marshals have been caught in the watch list mess. The public needs to know much more about this program in order to learn if it is worth the costs paid — in terms of civil liberties and diverting funds from other, more proven, security programs.

AmericaBlog has published a post I wrote about the security problems of a company running one of the federal government’s “trusted traveler” programs. The company lost a laptop with sensitive data on 33,000 program applicants.

ACLU Guest Post: “Trusted Traveler” Program Suspended After 33,000 Customers’ Records Went Missing