FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

February 8, 2006
Contact: LORA GELLERSTEIN, CHIEF LEGISLATIVE AIDE -- #(631) 854-4500

CAMERA CREW
"Safe Communities Initiative" Surveillance Camera Program Finally Gets Green Light

When most people go to the movies they expect their action and drama to stay on the screen. But a stabbing at a movie theater in Huntington Village last year was all the proof the Democratic Majority Leader Jon Cooper (D-Huntington) needed to be convinced that cameras (outside the projection booth) could help keep the peace and maybe even save lives. Yesterday, Cooper’s colleagues joined him in unanimously approving his legislation (I.R.1024) establishing the "Safe Communities Initiative" task force to explore the best technology and most appropriate safeguards for the use of surveillance cameras to deter and solve crimes in Suffolk County. It will lead to a pilot program later this year in high-crime areas of the Town of Huntington.

"Surveillance cameras are already used everywhere in the business world," says Cooper. "If we all agree they’re a valuable tool to prevent shoplifting, then why wouldn’t we want to use them to keep our streets safe, capture a criminal or help save a life?"

There are sure to be Orwellian apprehensions from civil libertarians about the use of cameras as surveillance tools by law enforcement personnel. But in this post- September 11 world, many people see surveillance cameras as an essential tool in fighting terror, foreign or domestic. A 2004 Reader’s Digest Family Index survey found that 69 percent of respondents approved the placing of surveillance cameras in public places. Cooper promises that protocols will be established to allow the footage to be kept for only a limited time and then destroyed.

"I fully respect the line between public safety and personal privacy," says Cooper. "As important as surveillance cameras are in fighting crime, equally important is the written policy regulating their use. It will clearly delineate and prohibit all unacceptable viewing techniques." Cooper also points out that the cameras will only be placed in appropriate public areas where a police officer, or a private citizen with a video camera, could likewise be found.

Dozens of cities and towns across the nation, including Chicago, Los Angeles, Baltimore and New York City, have created effective electronic surveillance programs. Last July, Scotland Yard used security cameras to identify and subsequently capture several perpetrators of the London subway and bus bombings. Cooper believes that these cameras would be essential weapons in the fight to deter and combat gang-related violence, drug dealing and other types of street crime that accompany creeping urbanization. And, as the costs of providing police protection to Suffolk’s nearly 1.5 million residents continues to rise, surveillance cameras would also allow authorities to make more efficient use of their manpower resources.

"Suffolk County has all the public safety problems of any metropolis but on a larger geographic scale," Cooper declares. "If we really want to control street crime from Melville to Montauk with our limited resources, having a battery of surveillance cameras in high-crime areas is like having a squad of beat cops who work around the clock and only need to be paid once."