Mayor pushes for more cameras

D.C. Mayor Anthony A. Williams yesterday said the District should employ a “broader use of cameras” to help improve security.

“I think they can be used much more widely over more hours and certainly could be used, for example, in many of our neighborhood areas, our parks, our commercial districts [and] our recreation centers,” Mr. Williams said during his weekly press briefing.

The mayor issued his remarks when asked about last week’s London terrorist attacks. That city used its vast network of cameras to help identify four men thought to be responsible for placing bombs that killed at least 52 persons and injured hundreds of others.

“I do not think that the cameras are this big moral threat to civil liberties that people are painting them to be,” said Mr. Williams, a Democrat.

Mr. Williams would need approval by the D.C. Council to turn the District’s 14 surveillance cameras on full time. The cameras currently are used only during special events.

Council member Phil Mendelson, at-large Democrat and chairman of the Judiciary Committee, said the mayor’s idea is “worth looking at.”

“Obviously, the mayor’s comment was in the context of the London bombings, and that is a very different approach. That is going back to the tapes to place suspects at the scene,” he said.

Mr. Mendelson stressed that he is concerned about whether it would be an “efficient” use of police time and a loss of civil liberties for residents.

Stephen Block, legislative council for the National Capital Area branch of the American Civil Liberties Union, said he doesn’t object to an expansion of the closed-circuit television system in Metro stations but questioned the “security value” of the cameras in other areas.

“If the mayor means the expansion of cameras into residential areas — particularly in parks and thoroughfares — then there needs to be a full and public discussion,” Mr. Block said. “That and justification of the cameras’ security value must be addressed even before the civil rights issue.”

In an apparent attempt to ease civil liberty concerns, Mr. Williams said he would like to see the cameras sometimes manned by citizen groups.

“I think that is a distinction that makes a difference,” he said. “I think we should explore that.”

Edward D. Reiskin, deputy mayor for public safety and justice, said there are mixed feelings in the community and in the council about the cameras being on at all times.

“It is something that the mayor feels very strongly about,” Mr. Reiskin said. “It is my hope that we can find ways to do it which will satisfy those who have concerns about civil liberties.”

The District’s 14 surveillance cameras are mounted primarily on downtown buildings and are used for special events, emergencies and heightened terrorism alerts.

Kevin Morison, spokesman for Metropolitan Police Chief Charles H. Ramsey, said this is not the first time that the District has discussed using the cameras around-the-clock.

“A few years ago, police talked with the council about a pilot test program for around-the-clock surveillance cameras in a couple of areas suggested by residents,” he said. “The cameras would have served as a day-to-day crime deterrent, but nothing ever became of the talks.”

In May, Baltimore police began using 43 cameras to monitor and record around-the-clock everything that happens in a 40-square-block area on the West Side, site of light-rail and Amtrak lines, government buildings and cultural attractions.

Chicago has the largest police-camera network in the country, with more than 1,000 in use.