Who's Watching You: Do Cameras Keep You Safe Or Invade Your Privacy?

You can find them on your I-Phone, blackberry, or home computer. These days, cameras are everywhere, and you may not even know it. Since September 11th, more cities are using the technology to keep watch on your safety. Newschannel 7 wondered: does all the surveillance cross the line of your personal privacy

To find out, our cameras followed Greenville businessman, Jay Handler, on a typical day. The goal: to catch all the cameras that caputured him on a daily basis. Handler is a salesman, who typically travels for his job in cell phone marketing. From the moment he got in his car, it didn’t take long to find a few cameras: from the dozens on the highway dotting his drive to work, to the bars he calls on for his job. First stop: Rendezvous on Pelham Road in Greenville. Here, owner Tom Meilinger has invested in a 5 camera system. Handler was caught on 4 of those cameras, in just the 10 minutes we were there! For Meilinger, the extra security gives him more comfort. "Just more peace of mind if there's an incident or something, you can go back and look at it,” he says. “Just letting employees know they're being watched."

At the next stop it was the same story. Croc’s Sports Bar on Pelham also has several surveillance cameras. Owner Dave McGraw says it’s a necessity. “We were not here one time, and someone broke in late at night,” he says. “He walked right past the camera.”

When it comes to safety, though, there’s one place that has every corner covered. In the past 6 years, the city of Greenville has spent nearly $700,000 on the technology. As we walked around downtown, Handler says, “Just the idea that as I walk down the street, I’m being photographed 15-20 times every step I take.” After being caught everywhere from parking decks to street intersections, our salesman starts to wonder: is it too much? “It definitely makes you think. How many times? Where are they? What are they looking at? Are they keeping a copy? What are they doing with them,” Handler says.

In all, Greenville has 115 cameras all over the city. They are all centralized through the dispatch department at the police department. There, on a big screen, workers can monitor different cameras at different times of day. “We think having this deters crime,” says Corporal Jason Rampey with the Greenville police department. Not only do the cameras prevent crime, Rampey says they help solve cases too. Over the years, the video has been used in countless cases. In June of 2007, the city searched for a pair of graffiti vandals that were spraying up downtown parking garages. Police found the culprits, thanks to identifying them on surveillance cameras. Also recently, the cameras caught a mob of teens as they swarmed downtown. City leaders used the evidence to pass a curfew for teens. Rampey says, “When you look at a monetary standpoint, it's pretty expensive, but when you look at solving a case where someone is hurt severely, it's priceless. You can't put a value on someone's life."

Still, some say that value comes at the cost of privacy. The ACLU has fought surveillance systems nationwide, and in South Carolina. Victoria Middleton, with the SC branch of the ACLU, says the answer to crime is more officers, not more technology. “If someone is really bent on committing a violent crime, he or she is going to do it regardless of whether a camera is there,” says Middleton.

Handler sees both sides. At the end of the day, his camera count was surprising. Nineteen highway cameras spotted him on the way to work. Nine more cameras caught him at the businesses he visited. Four cameras found him on downtown streets, and one extra camera caught him at the ATM. The total: 35 cameras in a typical day. For Handler, it opened his eyes, but he says the technology is worth the price, if it means keeping his safety on the record. “It’s not going to change where I walk, or what I do,” he says.

View the map for some of the camera locations around Upstate S.C. and Western N.C.

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