Big Brother for the Olympics? No, thank you

IAN KING
CNews
May. 12, 2006

In the debate over Vancouver hosting the 2010 Olympic Winter Games in Vancouver, bid opponents raised the spectre of increased police presence and intrusion as a downside of hosting the world.

That was one of their better arguments, and Chief Constable Jamie Graham has given new life to their concerns.

Graham, undeterred by past failures to make police cameras a part of the Vancouver landscape, is now trying to use the Olympics as an excuse to bring in Big Brother.

Last weekend's assault of a bus driver and transit supervisor has also raised the possibility of installing cameras on buses in Vancouver.

Both proposals should be shot down before someone takes them seriously.

The Vancouver police board rejected a proposal to install surveillance cameras in the Downtown Eastside four years ago.

A major reason for nixing the proposal was that cameras would simply displace crime into areas without surveillance.

No win there, but that hasn't rattled our top cop's efforts to poke his nose into your business.

CBC News reports Graham saying, "You know, I'm moving more and more into that attitude that, 'Look, if you're not doing anything wrong you don't have anything to worry about.'"

Ah, yes, that old canard. Remind me again where we've heard that before; I recall that it was a rather popular line in the old Soviet bloc. If I'm not doing anything wrong, why do you want to watch me like a hawk?

The flip side of Graham's flippancy toward civil liberties is that police cameras treat everyone who passes by them as a suspect, an insult to the idea of presumed innocence.

Not only do they treat everyone as a potential criminal, they're inefficient.

Cameras are to law-abiding citizens as drift nets are to dolphins.

They ensnare everyone, cluttering sightings of real suspects with a whole bunch of rather ordinary people doing ordinary things.

Don't confuse Graham's musings with a shopkeeper installing cameras on their premises. What someone does on their own property is their own business. Going to the local 7-Eleven doesn't put you under police surveillance. The only time the cops see that video is when a crime has occurred.

Cameras are last century's technology, a relic of when cell phones weren't everywhere, and when calling 911 required finding a pay phone.

Now, it's convenient to alert the police to suspicious activity or a crime in progress; they don't have to be the only ones doing the work.

As for the argument that cameras get convictions, consider me deeply skeptical. Cameras can only watch and record - they can't intervene in a crime scene.

That's what a police officer can do, and it's why I'd rather see money spent on more officers on the street rather than automated surveillance from a bunker.