Pubdate: Fri, 29 Jun 2001 Source: Daily Courier, The (CN BC) Copyright: 2001 The Okanagan Valley Group of Newspapers Contact: http://www.theokanagan.net/ Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/531 Author: Ron Seymour PRETTY SOON THERE'LL BE SPYCAMS EVERYWHERE Smile You Teenage Drug Dealer, You, You're On Candid Camera! Spycams will soon become widespread throughout Central Okanagan schools, and the hope is they'll lead to the apprehension of drug dealers, vandals, bullies and thieves. The way was cleared for the installation of surveillance cameras at this week's school board meeting, where trustees almost reluctantly approved a policy permitting their use. Actually, trustees were playing a bit of catch-up, since some schools have already experimented with spycams. Police, politicians and principals who advocate their use prefer the term community safety cameras, but that's a mouthful as well as a bit of propaganda, so we'll stick to calling a spycam a spycam. Besides, surreptitious surveillance is the whole point of these cameras. They are designed to catch people doing what they shouldn't be doing - and advocates say they do that job wonderfully. "The cameras enhanced safety at the school, there's no question," Norm Bradley, former principal of George Elliot Secondary School in Winfield, told trustees earlier this week. "We solved crimes of vandalism and theft using the video cameras." Schools across North America are practically in a frenzy to install spycams, local superintendent Ron Rubadeau says. At one educational conference, he said, the principal of a school with 1,500 students boasted that the building had 445 spycams. He was boasting about that number because, increasingly, American parents are deciding where to send their kids based on how many spycams are in a school. It takes a contrarian to note that Columbine High School had plenty of spycams, which were absolutely of no use whatsoever in preventing a couple of teenaged gunmen from stalking through the campus and murdering their classmates. But, videotape from the Columbine spycams did provide a few creepy, voyeuristic thrills when excerpts from it were made public. Nevertheless, the prevailing belief among U.S. school administrators is that they have a legal requirement to make schools safe through the installation of spycams, so it's only a matter of time before the same view becomes widespread in Canada. At this week's school board meeting, several trustees expressed ambivalence toward the use of spycams. "In a perfect world, we wouldn't have any surveillance cameras," Moyra Baxter said. "I think video cameras give a false sense of security. To think they could prevent a horrendous act is wrong." Board chairman Eric Buckley was concerned that the proposed policy governing spycams did not explicitly describe the circumstances under which they could be installed. "The criteria by which the video cameras would be used is the most critical element of this debate," Buckley said. "Until those questions are addressed, I'm not prepared to discuss this policy further. And I'd even say we should take out the cameras that are already in use until we get this issue resolved." But the other trustees agreed with a suggestion from administration that individual school principals are best suited to make judgments about whether spycams are needed, how many should be put into use and where. "The people who work on the sites will determine where the cameras need to go," said trustee Don Ennis, a former principal of KSS. The policy as approved by trustees - with Buckley casting the lone dissenting vote - does provide some regulation concerning the location and use of spycams. Some of the rules: cameras can be installed everywhere and anywhere, including washrooms; cameras can be hidden; tapes may be used on Crime Stoppers. It may come as a surprise to those who advocate the use of spycams to know that no one will actually be watching the monitors. At least, not on a regular, on-going basis. The monitors will probably be placed in the school's office, but officials say they can't afford to pay anyone to sit there, full-time, watching what's on the screens. The tapes are really only for playback use, to aid in the after-the-fact investigation of crimes, fights and acts of vandalism. If any drug-dealing, window-breaking, computer-stealing teenage thug is stupid enough to do their dirty deeds in full view of a spycam, they'll be nabbed pronto. But what the tapes will mostly show is kids talking, walking and studying. They'll show our schools are safe, but we'll go right on thinking that they aren't. And, believing that, we'll keep putting up spycams to film phantoms. - --- MAP posted-by: Keith Brilhart