Senator Joe Lieberman, in the wake of last week’s terrorist attack on Glasgow’s airport and the foiled plots in London, has proposed expanding the use of surveillance cameras nationwide in the U.S. He cites the effective response of British law enforcement to the attacks, and believes that “we can do it without compromising anybody’s real privacy.” The senator’s intentions are noble, but his proposal is badly flawed.

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Surveillance cameras do have forensic value that can help authorities catch suspects after crimes have already been committed. The problem with this is that, for obvious reasons, suicide attackers tend not to worry about being caught afterwards. Antiterrorism strategies should be geared towards prevention; that is how lives are saved. The U.K. contains over 4.2 million surveillance cameras — one for every 14 people — and the Glasgow attackers still eluded detection until it was too late. The only reason there were no fatalities was the attackers’ own amateurishness.

In a further blow to the perceived effectiveness of surveillance cameras, Clive Norris of the Sheffield University Centre for Criminological Research testified last year that researchers found that Glasgow crime did not decrease after cameras were installed city-wide. It actually increased by nine percent.

The senator’s proposal for stepping up surveillance has other problems besides ineffectiveness. Corruption could become an issue. This has already happened in a number of U.S. cities that have installed cameras at traffic intersections to deter drivers from running red lights.

Authorities in Lubbock, Texas, actually shortened the yellow lights at intersections where they had placed cameras. This increased the number of red light violations, which nicely padded the city’s revenues. Worse, traffic accidents at those intersections increased. The cameras actually made drivers less safe. The problem wasn’t fixed until an investigation by a local television station brought the matter to public attention. It is worth asking if cash-hungry governments can resist similar temptations with terrorism surveillance cameras.


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