Big Brother: Are Surveillance Cameras Worth it?

May 7, 2010— -- In the aftermath of the attempted car bombing in Times Square, the debate surrounding the increasing use of surveillance cameras has once again moved to center stage.

Just days after Faisal Shahzad allegedly drove a bomb-equipped Nissan Pathfinder into the popular New York landmark, Sen. Charles Schumer, D-N.Y., and others called on the Obama administration to provide at least $30 million in additional funding for a surveillance program to blanket midtown Manhattan with security cameras.

"There is nothing more important than keeping New Yorkers safe from an attack. If anything was made clear on Saturday night, it's that New York is a target. We need to do everything in our power to deliver the funding to protect New Yorkers," Schumer said in a statement.

Although law enforcement officials and politicians insist that security cameras are a valuable tool for keeping the public safe, privacy advocates and some security experts say the cameras not only degrade privacy, but divert resources away from more effective approaches to security.

Soon after the failed bombing attempt Saturday, New York police reviewed footage from a reported 82 surveillance cameras trained on Times Square. But privacy advocates were quick to point out that the network of cameras did nothing to thwart the attack or immediately apprehend the suspect.

"Times Square is a good example of why these don't work," said John Verdi, senior counsel for the Electronic Privacy Information Center. "It's blanketed with cameras… and yet none of these cameras contributed to preventing the bombing."

Even though, intuitively, it makes sense that cameras would help prevent crimes or catch suspects, he said the data doesn't bear this out.

A 2009 study conducted by California's Center for Information Technology Research in the Interest of Society examined the effectiveness of San Francisco's network of security cameras and found that they didn't reduce violent crime but helped reduce other crimes, such as pick-pocketing and theft.