"They that can give up essential liberty
to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety."
-- Benjamin Franklin, 1759 Historical Review of Pennsylvania
Most New York University students
will tell you that at some time they have been solicited by a drug dealer
in Washington Square Park. Less students realize, however, that those
who appear to be drug dealers are usually police officers whose every move
is being watched from cameras in the trees. Both the police operations
and the network of cameras are based out of a big blue police truck which
is permanently parked on Washington Square South. The inherent contradiction
that it is a vehicle which does not move is indicative of the contradictions
that surround its use.
If you approach the truck
from the rear, you will be greeted by the words "Keep Back." The
bright blue vehicle stands out very much in the surrounding green and grey
scenery, especially considering it is the base for undercover operations
in the park. There are window air conditioners, like the kind you
see in apartments, hanging from the sides. Leaves, dirt and grime
have collected around the metal supports that reach the ground underneath
the truck, alluding to the length of time for which the truck has been
stationary. A large bundle of orange and black cables protrude from
the top of the truck and go into the overhanging tree. These wires
separate into a web that covers the entire park, connecting all the video
cameras to the surveillance equipment in the truck. Within the truck
are one or two police officers who watch over the incoming video.
The cameras in the park can
zoom to objects up to a mile away, can rotate freely, and can see at night.
Police officers in the truck control them, and the video from them is recorded
and kept for seven days. Often the cameras are focused on the undercover
police officers in the park, who, dressed as stereotypical drug dealers,
offer marijuana and other drugs to passersby. They whisper "smoke,
smoke," to students, tourists and locals alike. There is, of
course, a certain amount of profiling that goes on here. The "drug
dealers" will probably not offer drugs to an old lady in a fur coat with
a nice hat and gold earings, but probably will solicit a college student
with dreadlocks and baggy jeans. In this public space the public
is divided into those who look like they might be interested in drugs and
those who don’t. Shouldn’t public space treat all who occupy it equally?
As a culture we like to think
that stereotypes aren't important, and people like to think that stereotypes
are insignificant to them and they make no judgments upon them. But
in this case stereotypes play a big role. The "drug dealers" must
look sufficiently authentic in order for someone to try to buy drugs for
them. This is why the police often use convicted drug offenders as
undercover agents in the park. The convicts can use the operation
to fulfill a community service requirement, and they fit the stereotype
of the drug dealer. In his essay, "Just Walk On By: A Black
Man Ponders His Power to Alter Public Space," Brent Staples discusses his
experience of "being perceived as dangerous" (602) by white people on the
street who feel threatened by his presence. People see him walking
behind them late at night and think to themselves, "mugger," because he
is black and has a certain kind of hair or wears a certain kind of clothes.
In Washington Square Park, the police rely on just this kind of stereotypical
association to catch people buying drugs, but unlike Staples' essay, fear
is not desirable, because the "drug dealers" need to be somewhat approachable.
In the essay, Staples feels "alienated" (604) by the reaction of white
pedestrians to his appearance, so it is logical to assume that certain
emotions are also raised in the "drug dealers" in the park. The stereotyping
that is used and therefore encourage by the police makes people feel alienated.
Staples' essay brings to
light a contradiction between theory and practice in the police operations
in Washington Square Park. The "drug dealers" are there to catch
people buying drugs, and ultimately to rid the park of drug related activity.
The reason this is desirable, and the reason the whole counter-drug program
was started by Mayor Giuliani and his police commissioner, is to make people
who live near the park (mostly wealthy white people) feel safer there.
But the undercover program puts people in the park of the same profile
that make the locals uncomfortable and requires that they act as drug dealers,
effectively ensuring that the very behavior they are trying to discourage
will be very apparent in the park while the operation continues.
If the goal is to prevent passersby from having drugs offered to them,
placing somebody there whose specific purpose is to solicit drugs is hardly
a solution. Also, the security cameras in the park, which were intended
specifically to discourage the sale of drugs, have been used to convict
people of other small crimes unrelated to the sale of drugs. For
instance, Detective Michael Singer tells a story of a woman who was handling
her baby very aggressively, and the cop on duty noticed on the video monitor
and approached her and asked her to be gentler with the child.
So much of Washington Square
Park has to do with security. Security is so significant in the park
that it has a very noticeable physical presence. As you enter the
park you can see grey steel barriers at each entrance. During the
day one or both of them will be open, but at night they are closed.
They do not literally prevent anyone from entering the park, they merely
discourage it. The park officially closes at midnight, and afterwards
it is patrolled by police. This is a limitation on the public space,
affecting its availability for use. Though the gates close, the surveillance
does not. Look up at any point in the park and you may see some cables
running through the trees, or even a black orb that encases one of the
eleven security cameras.
Washington Square Park was
the first public park in New York City to have security cameras, and since
their installation in 1997, the city government has installed around 300
more cameras around the city (this does not include the thousands of privately
operated cameras). All this has been done with very little community
discussion, and in most cases the public is not consulted in advance of
the cameras being installed. The negative aspects of video surveillance,
such as invasion of privacy, are rarely considered.
When a camera that can zoom
powerfully and indiscreetly upon anybody up to a mile away at any time
of day, whether or not the park is open, a certain degree of privacy is
lost. The argument can be made that this is public space and anything
done there is subject to public display, but consider the example of Madelyne
Toogood, who was caught slapping her baby in a Kohl's parking lot in Indiana
in 2002. It is undeniably a good thing that her behavior was noticed,
and the video surveillance accomplished that, but it was not necessary
or helpful that the tape was distributed to every major news station in
the country. There are private things that occur in public spaces
and they should not be broadcast publicly. The police officers sitting
in the surveillance truck on Washington Square South can easily watch a
couple making out in the corner of the park if they choose to. It
is made clear in American law that there needs to be some protection of
privacy in public. The fourth amendment protects from illegal search
and seizure, but the founding fathers clearly could not have thought of
video surveillance.
Washington Square Park is
a prime example of the inherent ironies in certain methods of security.
There are less drug dealers and if anything happens in the park it can
be monitored and recorded, but not prevented, and the appearance of drug
dealers remains and is even more consistent thanks to the efforts of the
police, in addition a certain amount of privacy is lost with video surveillance.
So maybe there is less crime in general, but giving up civil liberties
for the purpose of security is to be victim to the crimes that have not
happened.
Winter 2004
