MBTA to Add 1,000s of Security Cameras, Including on Buses, Trains [POLL]
The MBTA plans to double the number of cameras watching riders. Many riders say that's fine with them, but a civil liberties advocate urges caution.
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At the lower bus way of busy Forest Hills station, it's hard to find riders who are upset about the T's plans to double the number of security cameras.
Roslindale commuter Hector Serrano said there's balance between the safety the cameras are said to offer and the potential invasion of privacy.
"In life you have to give something to get something," he said under the watchful eyes of at least two overhead cameras.
The T plans to add thousands of cameras—they won't say exactly how many—via millions in federal grants, the Globe reports.
The new cameras will go in places they haven't been before, like inside buses and trains. One civil libertarian warns that the cameras haven't been proven to deter crime and that they come with a heavy cost of accepting a surveillance state.
In a blog post on boston.com, Kade Crockford of the American Civil Liberties Union says the T has told us nearly nothing about how it plans to use the cameras.
Will it implement advanced biometrics, allowing agents to identify you and pull up your file with a simple click? Will it use advanced video tracking analytics that allow monitors to search thousands of cameras for spontaneous gatherings, perhaps a crew of people walking to a bar, or an impromptu protest? We simply don't know.
But moving through the crowd of residents waiting for a bus today at Forest Hills, people from nurses heading home to Hyde Park to young men on their way home to Dorchester after a basketball camp, no one said they were worried about the new cameras.
The T touts cameras as helping solve crimes like a recent stabbing at Ashmont Station. A suspect was found after his image was caught on security cameras and publicized.
The T clarified that it doesn't plan to put cameras on existing trains — they'll only install them on new subway cars that are purchased in the future.
[Editor's note: This story has been updated with a clarification about cameras in subway cars.]
Sparky
9:33 am on Friday, July 20, 2012
The fact remains that good service and addressing the aging,crumbling infrastructure are the main concerns of the public, not security or the T's ability to technologically monitor remotely via cameras. Again, the T spends the riderships & public's money on foolishness. A patrol person in each station would avert most of what the cameras will do, and patrols give a real person a job. The fact remains that the T is top heavy with managment that can't manage the system to run properly, like get people where they want to be on time! That's the bottom line, transporting people in a timely and efficient way. I am more concerned with safety concerns doing with system failures, distracted drivers, and the potential for a chunk of concrete falling on me, than I am fearful of another person in a station or on a train harming me. I will never use the T in Boston. Too many times in my youth it caused me to be late. The inefficiency is renowned, most of the stations horrid or filthy and fetid. Newer stations are of poor designs and function uselessly as stations, like most of the outdoor platforms along the Orangeline or the Kenmore station that took about 10 years to complete, like the Arlington St. stops that were used by the contractors as their private parkings spots for about 4 years. The T is an abomination. Perhaps they install cameras anticipating public outlash and the mobilization of the citizenry against them!!! Welcome to the Big Brother solution to everything!!!!!!
Michael Barry
12:50 pm on Friday, July 20, 2012
I totally agree, except this money comes from the federal government and is only for enhanced security since boston is a terror target.