NN TO BUY CLOSED-CIRCUIT CAMERAS TO TARGET DRUG DEALERS

NEWPORT NEWS -- Drug dealers will soon be on surveillance camera in Newport
News.

The Newport News Police Department plans to spend $100,000 to buy a
closed-circuit camera system that it will post on street corners and other
public places known for drug dealing.

Neighborhood Crime Watch organizers praise the cameras as a valuable tool
to combat crime when police officers must be elsewhere, while
privacy-rights advocates caution against potential abuse and questionable
effectiveness.

City Council agreed during a Thursday meeting to buy the cameras. No
council member spoke against the purchase, which will be paid for with
money seized from criminals.

"I don't want to make this secretive so that citizens think we're spying on
them," said Police Chief Dennis Mook. "This is no different from sitting in
an unmarked van with a video camera - only you don't have an officer there."

Mook said the department tested a camera for two months at the corner of
19th Street and Jefferson Avenue in the East End.

The disguised closed-circuit cameras can see about 1,500 feet and boast
night vision, 24-hour recording capability and bullet resistance. They are
movable and can be set up in a different location in about six hours.

The cameras cannot pick up sound and do not include facial-recognition
software, which Virginia Beach uses on the Oceanfront in hopes of matching
mug shots to faces in the crowd.

Virginia Beach also operates closed-circuit cameras - like the ones Newport
News wants - on the Oceanfront. Baltimore, Washington and many other large
cities also use the cameras.

Mook said Newport News would focus the cameras only on public places.

"There is no expectation of privacy in a public space," he said.

Groups such as the American Civil Liberties Union oppose surveillance
cameras in most locations.

They say cameras have a "chilling effect" on public life by discouraging
people from acting like themselves for fear of being mistaken for a
criminal. Also, the groups say police officers can misuse the cameras to
track people not suspected of crimes.

Cedric Laurant, of the Electronic Privacy Information Center in Washington,
said research has found that surveillance cameras do little to reduce
crime. Rather, they simply encourage criminals to go elsewhere.

"It's a waste of money if you want to make the whole city more safe,"
Laurant said, "but not if you want to make a specific area more safe."

Amy Condon, who heads the Ivy Farms Crime Watch, doesn't worry about the
cameras affecting her public behavior. After all, she said, so many cameras
already follow residents in stores, banks, parking lots and other places.

"We need anything we can get. Drugs are everywhere," Condon said. "And if
I'm out in public, I'm not going to do things I don't want people to see,
anyway."