By Leah Caldwell and Forrest Wilder
May 2003; page 8; Number 1.
Issue

For the past several months, UT has been fighting tooth-and-nail to keep the locations of security cameras secret. To recap: about five months ago, The Daily Texan filed an open records request with UT, asking for the disclosure of security cameras on campus. Since then, the Texas attorney general has ruled that the University must provide the requested information. In response, UT filed a suit against the attorney general, which they lost. Then they filed an appeal, which they also lost.

Instead of complying with the law, UT has decided to change the rules to suit its clandestine interests. In a last-ditch effort at the Capitol, the University's lawyers are trying to tag a provision onto HB 1191, a bill that would close off public access to government in the name of "security." So far, they have been unsuccessful. The UT amendment was shot down on the House floor, but they're still trying to get it reinstated in a select subcommittee where the bill is currently stalled. All this backroom wrangling should be something of an embarrassment since it only confirms civil libertarians' suspicions that UT has something to hide.

Are they afraid of disclosure because, as some have suggested, the cameras trained on the MLK statue were inoperable when it was egged? Or is it because UTPD has installed a campus-wide network of cameras spying on employees? (In June 2002, UTPD admitted that it had set up a hidden camera at J.J. Pickle to spy on workers). Or is it because UT has allowed its own police force to team up with the FBI and spy on international students using cameras to monitor "suspicious" behavior like attending an antiwar rally (see the article in this issue on the Joint Terrorism Task Force)? Or does the prospect of explaining to parents and alumni how dozens of cameras (that may or may not work) make us any more secure unnerve the administration? Whatever the case, all of these are reasons for disclosure rather than justifications for secrecy.

When asked about the whereabouts of cameras, UTPD Chief Jeffrey Van Slyke bluntly said, "I don't know where the cameras are." The UTPD specifically monitors a select number of security cameras on campus. "[UTPD] is not in the camera business," he said. He claims that the department maintains its surveillance system "to provide a secure environment."

To prove it, Van Slyke offered us a tour of the police station. Inside, monitors displayed live shots of the MLK statue and the business office. In the emergency conference room, we saw four Panasonic televisions monitoring and filming the football stadium. Van Slyke awkwardly manipulated the joystick on the control panel and was able to zoom in close enough "to see nametags." The resolution of the displays is high quality, not the blurry imaging akin to a Stop N' Go surveillance system.

It is evident that there are many more cameras on campus other than what UTPD maintains. Van Slyke pointed out that they can be installed by private contractors without UTPD's permission.

If Van Slyke is not privy to the locations of the cameras, then who is? It seems to be a decentralized effort, where departments or offices maintain their own surveillance systems. Rather than some campus Panopticon, surveillance seems to be a piecemeal affair with perhaps dozens of different groups or individuals setting up their own miniature spying fiefdoms. In this case, there's no system of accountability over when, where and how surveillance is deployed.

An article in The Daily Texan on February 14 by Jonathon York sheds some light on the subject. Apparently, Information Technology Services which, according to their mission statement, is a division at UT in place to provide "technological infrastructure," in fact deals with an array of campus security issues, including the installation of video surveillance systems. According to their website, ITS can set up a library, parking garage or "securitysensitive area" with a video closed circuit TV (CCTV) upon request. The CCTV "gathers digital images from one or more remote cameras and subsequently transmits the image to a monitor or a personal computer for recording and playback."

ITS appears to have no guidelines for determining the legitimacy of requests. Like a pharmacy that doesn't require prescriptions, ITS doles out cameras to anyone who comes along with a request. Even more disturbing, "security-sensitive areas" seems to be a catch-all for just about anywhere a camera can be installed. Some auditorium- style classrooms are now outfitted with video surveillance, allowing someone to spy on students for no discernible reason.

In York's article, William Stephens, an ITS systems engineer, is quoted as saying, "My concern is there's no real policy on how these [systems] are managed. The University should have a policy." What Stephens hints at is the frightening idea that no one seems to know who is using the cameras. We know that ITS puts them up, but then what? No one should be comfortable with the idea that they are being watched, much less by someone unknown.

For more information on security cameras and to learn how you can fight for disclosure, please visit:
http://www.utwatch.org/security/cameras.html.