PUBLIC transit, to be attractive, must be safe. And while the odds of being beaten or robbed on a Winnipeg Transit bus might be remote compared to the chances of an injurious collision whenever you drive a car, sometimes the stranger sitting across from you can be scary. He might even do something crazy — like punch the driver in the face.
That's what happened Monday night when a Winnipeg Transit driver pulled over and ordered a drunken lout to leave the bus. The enraged passenger responded by attacking the driver's head, breaking his glasses. The driver managed to bounce him from the bus, leaving the man in front of City Hall, before hopping back aboard and taking off south down Main Street to recommence his scheduled run. The police — headquartered just a block away — soon arrived at the scene to find a suspect exactly where the driver left him, waiting for the next No. 11 Portage.
Drivers, Transit officials and members of the Amalgamated Transit Union appeared unanimous in supporting the installation of closed-circuit television surveillance cameras in all 500 Transit buses at a rock-bottom cost of $1.1 million. Perhaps as part of Transit's keep-it-slow philosophy, the installations are expected to take six years.
No one, however, offered to explain how a surveillance camera might have prevented this unfortunate incident. Would the drunken assailant, who had the gall to attack the driver before a bus filled with eyewitnesses, have been deterred had he known he was being watched and recorded? There are already stickers on the insides of Transit buses warning passengers that "audio-video recording equipment" is being used. Would a video recording have helped aid in the suspect's prosecution? Eyewitness testimony and his arrest at the crime scene would make this one an open-and-shut case. Perhaps we should believe that the long arm of the law would reach out of the camera's lens and smack ruffians before they have the opportunity to offend. In any case, the ostensible benefit of surveillance cameras is that they make places safer. This has not been proved true. In Britain, the most surveillance-happy society in the world, studies have shown that crime can actually increase when cameras are installed, even as neighbouring districts see their crime statistics fall. With moot benefits, if any, it seems they might be drastically outweighed by the drawbacks.
In January 1997, The Economist, covering the explosive growth of security cameras in Britain, wrote, "The public may not be worried, but it should be. The way in which CCTV is operated should disturb anyone who values civil rights."
Coupled with face-print recognition software, surveillance technology can also mean the instant identification of anyone. Nearly all of our mugs are in the databases of the driver licensing or passport bureaus, which eventually could be linked with databases containing our medical, employment, legal, banking and tax records, for starters. Stalker's delight? Maybe. But at the end of this technological road, you wouldn't even bother paying a bus fare, for it would just be deducted from your bank account automatically upon boarding.
Unbeknown to the privileged NFL fans who attended the 35th Super Bowl in January 2001, their faces were being scanned and compared to a database of known criminals. Imagine a future when you are sitting down for a Moose game at the MTS Centre and then accosted by a uniformed constable and told, "You have three outstanding parking tickets from 2006."
There's something inherently creepy about a big black eyeball staring at you. Recently, at the Millennium Library, I sat reading newspapers when I felt I was being watched. Looking around, I didn't see anyone looking at me, until I looked up at the wall and saw a small, black, half-globe. Upon closer inspection, I noticed it had a surveillance camera inside. Does the library expect there to be a brawl at the newspaper racks — perhaps over the last remaining copy of Saturday's Free Press? Or was the camera looking out for would-be larcenists bent on boosting the latest New York Times?
Either way, I don't feel any safer. Before Sept. 11, 2001, surveillance technology was something of a contentious issue. Now there's no argument — the more surveillance we have, the better, is the common consensus. But — and this is perhaps owing to a high school infatuation with Orwell — the notion of a society where Big Brother is always watching has to me, always seemed anathema to lovers of liberty.