Will Leaf, the freshman heading the petition to remove Thurston security cameras, responds to Amanda Crowe’s Dec. 4 column:
“The Constitution forbids unreasonable searches exactly because people who have nothing to hide are still threatened by a flawed government. GW administrators should teach students to respect civil liberties by replacing the intrusive and ineffective hallway cameras with UV Dye traps designed to stop false fire alarms.”
Read the full column here.
Commentary from the opinions editors, op-ed columnists and The Hatchet's Editorial Board
Director of the GW Institute for Nanotechnology Michael Keidar spent the last three years developing a cancer cell-killing medical device that he said could revolutionize the disease’s treatment worldwide.
The problem with growing up is that there is always someone telling us we are not old enough. And yet, you would think that as young adults, we would finally be over it.
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As camera flashes flickered over a sea of tassels, two Columbian College of Arts and Science professors urged graduates to cast their fears aside and forge fresh paths to success.
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I think you forget about the whole contract you signed with the University when you decided to come here. They have the right, as the owners of the building and the property, to put whatever they want anywhere they want, which would even include your room if they wanted to. Private apartment buildings have security cameras in their hallways as well, but you aren’t petitioning them. Your argument using University of Michigan and American as misplaced as well because Michigan is not in a city not nearly as dangerous as DC and American is a much more closed campus than GW. I think your main problem with the cameras is how they are used, which I agree is ineffective, but that does mean removing them altogether. I think your petition should be aimed more at a more effective use of the cameras instead. And it doesn’t help your argument at all by jumping to enormous conclusions such as “Also, it seems likely that students who live under heavy surveillance during their first years of independence will be more willing to accept serious privacy abuses like warrantless wiretaps, detainment without charge and online privacy violations later in life” without any proof.
I completely agree with you, Will. Keep fighting the good fight.
Please, all of these “privacy concerns” are totally misplaced. There are several simple realities which work against this argument. First, you live in a part of Washington D.C. where you can barely walk outside without being captured on camera. The IMF, World Bank, and almost every private business office have a slew of cameras watching the streets. Second, Thurston is not the first dorm to have cameras installed. Anyone who is a junior, senior, or alumnus knows that Hall on Virgina Avenue had cameras on each and every floor. I only recall them being used twice, once to capture a girl who purposefully destroyed a radiator in a hall and caused the flooding of four dorm rooms, and the second time to stop a group of students who were dealing drugs out of their apartment. Third, if you go to any apartment complex, you would notice a ton of cameras. GW, like any landlord, could be held liable if a student is hurt on their property. Cameras allow the university to avoid liability, false lawsuits, and help catch truly culpable parties.
Finally, you seem to think, erroneously I would argue, that you have some right-to-privacy in the hallway. In a public space where you could encounter literally any one of hundreds of people, this misconception is as wrong as it is silly.
Complain about the $50,000 a year tuition, the fact that you pay home tuition rates while studying abroad at universities which cost 1/10 as much, or the fact that SJS does not open their records for scrutiny.
The cameras are a huge privacy violation. Furthermore, and counter-intuitively, they do not make us safer – the UK has more cameras per capita than anywhere else and has huge crime rates. Many studies have been done on this using detailed objective data, instead of just hunches.
It is sad that American students don’t receive a proper education about our constitutional rights – if we did, we wouldn’t even need this discussion that was resolved a long time ago.
For an excellent articulation of the privacy issues we face (including camera issues), watch the 5 parts of this presentation by Prof. Jonathan Turley http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UzvHoCzHAwk&feature=related and then come and discuss the issue once you are more informed.
George Patsourakos
George Washington University should not have surveillance cameras in its dormitory hallways. Having these cameras infers a lack of trust for the students living in such a dormitory. Moreover, this surveillance is a violation of a student’s right to privacy. Banks and stores have surveillance cameras, in order to assist law enforcement personnel to apprehend robbers and shoplifters. There is no such need for these cameras in a dormitory hallway!
Last year, it was the surveillance cameras that assisted GW’s law enforcement personal to identify and catch the thief in Ivory Towers.
http://media.www.gwhatchet.com/media/storage/paper332/news/2007/09/13/News/Upd-Arrests.Suspect.For.Residence.Hall.Thefts-2966731.shtml
There are many irrational arguments for cameras on this blog. Here are some of them:
1. “We signed a contract to live by GWU’s policies, so we cannot complain.” While we did give up some (but not nearly all) rights by coming to GW, that does not mean we should unquestionably accept GW’s policies. If they were breaking the law, we would sue them, not try and convince them to change their policy. We are trying to improve GW by pressuring the administration to voluntarily change their policy.
2. “Other places have cameras.” Obviously other places on Campus and in D.C have surveillance cameras, some of which are appropriate, and some of which are not. The fact that we already live in a partial surveillance society just reinforces the need for action. While cameras are appropriate in some places, the right to spend time in our community spaces without being watched by the police outweighs any questionable security benefits the cameras offer.
There are totally public spaces and totally private spaces, but there is also everything in between. Just because lots of GW students and guests can go in the hallways does not mean that the community should have constant police surveillance. We are safe at GW, and we should take reasonable measures to make us safer without giving up our communities’ privacy.
Don’t accept cameras in the hallways, and don’t accept totally false arguments like an above posters, who falsely believe that private institutions can put whatever they want wherever they want without protest.