One snapshot at a time, our civil liberties waste away
By MARY JO MELONE
Published July 27, 2003
The bailiff told me to stop, and I did.
After I passed through the metal detectors at the Pinellas County criminal courthouse the other day, he said I should stop and look straight into a camera.
At least he didn't ask me to smile.
It was no ordinary camera. This one had colorful lights attached. The lights are there, I was later told, to get my attention.
My attention was gotten, all right. I felt a little chill after I had my face scanned to see if I might match up with some felon on the loose.
I'm wondering now what might have happened if I had refused to pose. Would the bailiffs have thrown a net over me, cuffed me and hauled me away? Is refusing to have your face scanned by government officials now a crime in the Florida Statutes?
No, but even the camera system's No. 1 Pinellas advocate, Sheriff Everett Rice, admits "it smacks of big brotherism."
Thank you, sheriff, for trying to understand.
The facial recognition system scans a face and tries to match it to any of thousands stored in the camera. The cameras have caught on like kudzu in Tampa Bay. Lucky us: We seem to worry less than the rest of the country about turning our civil liberties into a pilot project.
The cameras are not only at the Pinellas courthouse door, which hundreds of people pass on their way to criminal court each day.
The cameras are also at the jail, where arrestees have their photos taken. The cameras are trained on the jail visitation center, in case any fugitives come to call.
They are at security checkpoints at the St. Petersburg-Clearwater International Airport. By fall, the cameras may be in Pinellas deputies' cars, so officers can photograph and identify people they stop.
In 2001, the cameras were used to scan the faces of those at the Super Bowl, and that year they started rolling on Seventh Avenue in Ybor City, where they are still used.
They were installed at the St. Petersburg-Clearwater airport in January 2002.
They went into the Pinellas jail visitation center in April 2002, and the jail itself two months later.
They went into the Pinellas courthouse three months ago, in April.
The results?
You can cut it any way you want. The word that fits is flop.
Only twice - in Pinellas - were people stopped on what appeared to be outstanding warrants. But it turned out the information was out of date. Both individuals had already taken care of their legal problems when the cameras caught them.
Yet Rice insists, "It's too early to say they're not working."
But it's not too early to say somebody ought to be looking hard.
Even he admits the cameras are not likely to catch bad guys in some places - like the courthouse and the airport - because they rely on a small database of only the most serious felons.
The largest database is at the jail, and that's where the cameras have been most successful.
Of course. Where else would you find criminals?
You could certainly see investigators using the cameras as a way to chase down a lead, like trying to match a photograph from a security tape of a bank robber.
And sadly, in a post 9/11 world, you can even see the cameras at airports.
But on the streets?
Rice says he wouldn't do what Tampa has done, training the cameras on Seventh Avenue.
But just how different a place is the courthouse? Even Rice admits it's comparable to a town square. "The courthouse," he says, "is about the most public place there is."
Thank you again, sheriff, for trying to understand.
But all this experiment has shown is that felons are not inclined to enter the courthouse under their own free will.
As for the rest of us, there's good reason to get a chill when you look into that camera. Nobody should be forced to prove he's not a criminal before he's allowed to enter a public place.
