(The Center Square) – American Civil Liberties Union of Illinois Policy Director Ed Yohnka is among those leading the resistance against a city ordinance that seeks to require all licensed Chicago business owners to maintain security cameras around where they operate.
The proposed ordinance was introduced earlier this year by city lawmakers after a West Side store worker was shot and killed while on the job at an establishment where security cameras were inoperable. The measure would require companies to maintain surveillance that covers all entrances and exits, including public sidewalks near doors and parking lots.
“Once again, we’re being told that more cameras in Chicago will equal more public-safety and the math just simply doesn’t add up,” Yohnka told The City Square. “Since the early 2000s, Chicago has added an integrated surveillance camera system of upwards of 80,000 cameras and none of those cameras have ever yielded the promised public safety.”
Yohnka said public safety is not created by more surveillance.
“A business has a right to decide whether or not they want to create a surveillance web around their business for their clients and customers,” he said.
Yohnka also took offense to a provision in the measure that would give the Chicago Police Department added subpoena power by stipulating that businesses have to maintain recordings for at least seven days and provide the footage to any local, state or federal law enforcement agency that subpoenas any of it within 21 days.
“This particular measure would have granted independent subpoena power to the Chicago Police Department to gain access to video,” he said. “That’s something the Chicago Police Department has never had and frankly given the history of Chicago’s police in terms of abusing powers, this doesn’t seem like a very good idea. I mean every business in Chicago that wants to have a surveillance camera system already has one. I don’t know what the benefit is of forcing people who’ve opted against something to spend the money to opt in.”
In the end, Yohnka said that the overall value of security cameras in Chicago has long been oversold, arguing that data shows such video is rarely used to actually convict anyone of a crime.
