Proposed Surveillance System Angers Bristol Township Residents

The prospect of Bristol Township receiving a state-of-the-art surveillance system brought some residents into a heated conflict with members of town council during a meeting.

Bidding for the installation contract of the proposed surveillance cameras Thursday evening brought with it a flurry of questions from residents: Where will they be placed? Who will operate them? Will the recorded footage be public record or hidden away in the depths of the police department?

Of the many questions posed, few were answered as the debate soured into a shouting match between one resident and the council.

"I don't think people in the township deserve to be watched," 29-year-old Croydon resident Wayne Turner said.

"I have a question for you: What if somebody hit your car when it was parked in the street during the middle of the night? Wouldn't you want to know who hit you?" said council president Rick Pluta, almost shouting to get in over Turner's distraught and rapid-fire questioning.

The surveillance system in question is a series of 20 digital closed circuit cameras, otherwise known as CCTVs. They would be provided by a $400,000 Department of Justice grant the township received late last year. The cameras would be scattered throughout the township in undisclosed locations -- likely perched on street lamps, utility poles and within municipal-owned lots.

The mystery of where the cameras will be and who they will be pointed at is what put Turner into a fury. Turner, the volunteer secretary of the quasi-legislative township transitional committee, said he sees it as an infringement of his right to privacy.

"(The cameras) might as well just be a guy with a video recorder watching over a playground. It's creepy," Turner said.

Many of the residents attending the meeting nodded in agreement, murmuring back and forth to each other about privacy rights as Turner and Pluta verbally volleyed.

"This is something the residents wanted," Pluta said. "Numbers shown to this council showed a decrease in crime rates in areas with ( CCTVs  installed)."

CCTVs are not a new thing to the area. In 2006, Philadelphia installed 18 cameras in various high-volume intersections. According to a 2008 Temple University study on the cameras' effectiveness, the areas that had cameras installed actually saw a 13 percent drop in crime over the two-year period.

Despite the decrease in reported crime, like Turner, many civil rights activists said they fear the privacy issues that come with being surveyed 24/7. Currently, both the American Civil Liberties Union and Electronic Frontier Foundation oppose CCTV use in the United States, seeing it as a violation of the rights to privacy and against unwarranted search and seizure.

The United Kingdom is often regarded as the pioneer of CCTV use for criminal prevention purposes. According to the CCTV User Group, the UK currently employs 4.5 million cameras -- one camera for every 13 citizens.

The bidding on the project was postponed for a later date. Currently there is no clear indication on when or where these new surveillance systems will be popping up in Bristol Township.