CAMERAS KEEP AN EYE ON PUBLIC IN NY PARK

Surveillance Draws Mix Of Feelings: It Can Boost Safety But Invade Privacy

As David Brand ambled into Washington Square Park recently to enjoy a
midafternoon cigar, he was oblivious to the presence of two small police
surveillance cameras posted nearby, capable of following him wherever he went.

"Are they really up?" he asked, trying to locate the cameras in the trees
and the light poles scattered throughout the Greenwich Village landmark. "I
don't know whether to feel good or bad about it."

Although Brand couldn't spot them, two cameras on light poles at the south
end of the park represent the latest innovation in a police move against
drug dealers, beer guzzlers and others involved in what city officials call
quality-of-life crimes.

Brand, 47, a psychologist with an office two blocks away, described himself
as someone who has always been tolerant toward drug users, a sensibility
going back to his student days in the 1960s at the University of Michigan.

Yet he said the Washington Square Park scene had for several years "had a
very different feeling from the '60s."

"Here it has been big business, and it's hard to walk more than 10 steps in
the park without someone coming up to you and offering `Smoke! Smoke!' It
becomes a little unnerving, especially for people with children," he said.

His ambivalence about the latest innovation of Mayor Rudolph Giuliani put
Brand squarely in the middle of a developing debate over the police use of
cameras trained on city residents in public places.

And, perhaps unexpectedly, the middle is where many in Greenwich Village
find themselves on the issue.

Arthur Strickler, who manages the local community board, said he had not
figured out where he stood. But the big surprise to him, he said, is that
in a neighborhood that has long sheltered artists, beatniks, hippies and
other civil libertarians, he has received only a few calls about the issue.

The cameras have been quietly accepted, he believes, because the drug
situation has gotten so bad, making a walk through the park like "running a
gantlet. They operated as if the park were their own private store. Those
arrested would be back on the street the next day."

In August, police responded by deploying several uniformed, plainclothes
and undercover officers. More than 70 people were arrested, and this has
all but shut down drug selling in the park, Strickler said. The improved
atmosphere has muted opposition to the cameras.

Norman Siegel has a problem with it.

"It's an undemocratic and Orwellian approach to governing," said Siegel,
head of the New York American Civil Liberties Union. "Our concern is that
we are witnessing an incremental repressive surveillance practice in the
name of fighting crime."

To Siegel, the most distressing thing is that very few seem to share these
concerns.

Copyright © 1997 Post Dispatch