POLICE SLAMMED AS PEEPING TOMS

Surveillance cameras may help chase criminals from a downtown park, but
they won't erase crime, civil libertarians say.

Drug dealers will simply move away from Kerry Park to other areas that
aren't monitored by cameras, a spokesman for the B.C. Civil Liberties
Association says.

And Dale Beyerstein believes that apparently high public support for the
cameras will drop if people fully consider the implications of "state
voyeurism".

"You ask people if they support installing security cameras to reduce
crime, and a lot of them will say yes. But you ask the same people if the
police should be able to watch them, anytime they want, and they'll say
no," Beyerstein said Thursday.

"What we're really talking about with these kind of surveillance cameras is
a form of state voyeurism that's a real invasion of people's privacy,"
Beyerstein said from Vancouver.

The association also suggests the poor quality images taken from security
cameras will be of limited use as evidence in criminal investigations.

"The pictures produced by these cameras tend to be really grainy and fuzzy
and taken from funny angles," says Beyerstein, who added some studies
suggest that less than 60 per cent of people can be identified from
security camera images.

Kelowna RCMP, who installed the security camera above Kerry Park three
weeks ago, defend the use of the cameras as a reasonable and effective way
to catch criminals without invading the privacy of law-abiding citizens.

"The cameras would only be used in public places where people would have no
expectation of privacy anyway," RCMP Const. Doug Brecknell said.

Images from the camera, mounted in a small black bulb on a lightpole, are
transmitted back to the detachment where they're monitored by staff.

"It's the same as me actually standing in the park seeing what's going on,
except that I'm watching from the police station," Brecknell said.

When officers at the station suspect people at the park are engaged in a
crime, such as drug trafficking, they alert members of the RCMP bike
patrol. Several people have been arrested in the past three weeks, and it's
possible images from the camera will be entered in court as evidence,
Brecknell said.

While security cameras in gas stations and even banks do often produce poor
quality pictures, the one mounted in Kerry Park is state of the art. The
camera can zoom in from a wide-angle to a detailed close-up.

"It takes amazing pictures," Brecknell said. "Very clear and crisp and sharp."

Surveillance cameras are becoming more common in many European and U.S.
cities. Crime often does drop in areas where they've been installed,
Beyerstein says, but there's rarely an overall reduction in the crime rate.

"All that happens is that people doing these kinds of crime just move a few
blocks away."

Kelowna RCMP acknowledge that may indeed happen, and say they'll deal with
it as best they're able. "There is always that concern when you install
security cameras in one area, but our job is to create as many safe
environments for the public as we can," Brecknell said.

The camera and monitoring system, valued at about $15,000, were loaned on a
trial basis to the RCMP by the manufacturer, Vicon. The test is expected to
last several more weeks. After that, it's possible Kelowna city council
will make a decision on whether to buy the cameras and install them
permanently in Kerry Park and other downtown locations.

Though the Civil Liberties Association objects to the surveillance cameras,
Beyerstein doubts there are any legal grounds for a court challenge.

"The B.C. Privacy Act is a pretty vague piece of legislation, and I don't
think the cameras raise any search and seizure issues under the Charter,"
he said. "It's a matter of public policy, not law."