WHO'S GOT AN EYE ON YOU? SECRET CAMERAS ARE EVERYWHERE.

Byline: Andrea Cavanaugh Staff Writer

Smile!

If you're making your way around Los Angeles - or any metropolitan area in America these days - there's a good chance your movements are being recorded by a surveillance camera.

Once limited mostly to banks and convenience stores, the beady eye of the surveillance camera has appeared nearly everywhere over the past decade. Cheaper surveillance systems and heightened fears of terrorist attacks have created a world that is increasingly captured on camera.

``If you're outside doing anything, you're being recorded 50 percent of the time,'' said Paul Ramos, vice president of sales and marketing for Fairfax Electronics, a Los Angeles company that sells security systems.

``If you're shopping or attending an event, it goes up to 90 percent. Yes, Big Brother is there, and Big Brother is strong.''

Perched on rooftops and under eaves, cameras discreetly rake shopping centers, stadiums, office buildings and parking lots.

Police say surveillance cameras, whether installed by businesses, homeowners or local governments, act as a powerful law-enforcement tool and crime deterrent. Law-abiding people have nothing to worry about, said Lt. Paul Vernon of the Los Angeles Police Department.

``When people start talking about Big Brother, I say, 'I've got nothing to hide.' Those cameras aren't looking into my home, and if they were, it would be pretty boring.''

Although law-enforcement agencies hail the technology as a labor-saving device that allows them to patrol much larger areas with fewer sets of eyes, many civil libertarians view surveillance cameras as a creeping erosion of privacy rights.

``How would you like to be followed around by a slimy guy in a raincoat who records everything you do? It's a technological version of a slimy guy in a raincoat,'' said privacy expert Lauren Weinstein, who is producing a radio series about technology's impact on society.

``The difference is, you can't see it, you don't know what it's pointed at, or how long the images are going to be stored.''

The mostly unregulated recording takes place with a tacit nod from the U.S. Supreme Court, which has indicated again and again that people have no reasonable expectation of privacy in public places.

Government agencies across the United States are installing cameras in as many public areas as possible, but they are still behind the curve compared with European cities, Ramos said.

In Los Angeles, surveillance devices increasingly are used by government to patrol public places. Several recently installed cameras along Hollywood Boulevard scan stretches popular with tourists and criminals alike.

And, buoyed by the success of a surveillance program at crime-plagued MacArthur Park west of downtown, the LAPD recently unveiled a camera system capable of scanning thousands of license plates per hour and employing controversial facial-recognition software to pinpoint known criminals.

Once clunky and obtrusive, some surveillance devices are now so small they're nearly undetectable. And the days of scratchy, black-and-white images recorded on videotape are long gone. Advances in technology mean crystal-clear digital pictures that can be reviewed in real time - as they occur.

``These are beautiful tools,'' said Ramos, whose company sells 20 to 30 surveillance systems each month. ``It's the ability to be anywhere in the world and see what's going on, and also review what happened yesterday, or last week, or last month.''

Although the cameras raise the hackles of privacy advocates, most people don't mind being recorded everywhere they go, said A. Michael Noll, a communications professor at the University of Southern California.

Graduate students polled about privacy issues routinely rank surveillance cameras nearly at the bottom of a long list of concerns, he said.

``Most people just don't care about being on camera,'' Noll said. ``In Los Angeles, they probably enjoy it. They probably see it as a screen test.''

Northridge resident Rochelle Matthews sees it as an invasion of privacy. The 37-year-old insurance agent said she doesn't like being under constant scrutiny.

``What are they looking for? I don't think everything needs to be patrolled. People need and deserve privacy.''

Chatsworth resident Leanne Vince said she doesn't mind being recorded when she ventures out in public. Only criminals need to worry about being under surveillance, the 35-year-old music company executive said.

``It doesn't bother me at all because I'm not doing anything wrong,'' she said. ``If I'm at the grocery store and they're following me, so what? It's technology. You take the good with the bad.''

But Weinstein cautioned that constant surveillance can cause the shadow of suspicion to fall on the innocent when innocuous activities are misinterpreted.

``A lot of people don't care, but they haven't thought about it,'' he said. ``The dark side of this stuff isn't discussed.''

The benefits of surveillance cameras, such as capturing Oklahoma City bomber Timothy McVeigh on film just before he picked up the rental truck used in the bombing, far outweigh the privacy concerns, Noll said.

And the concerns of those ``screaming about Big Brother'' may be overblown, Noll said.

``If someone were tracking me down the street, I might care,'' he said. ``But there aren't enough people at the other end to be watching all this surveillance.''

Armed with that knowledge, experts are now developing software that alerts authorities when certain types of behavior are detected.

Weinstein cautioned that the practice of recording people in nearly every public place could escalate out of control.

``It's always a balancing act,'' he said. ``It's not to say you have a total expectation of privacy in public places, but there shouldn't be none.

``Unless we want to live in a pervasive surveillance society where all of your moves are tracked and recorded, we'd better start putting rules in place.''

Andrea Cavanaugh, [phone]

andrea.cavanaugh(at)dailynews.com

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Photo:

Banks of security camera monitors help U.S. Customs and Border Protection officer Avita Jaswal track conditions at Los Angeles International Airport's Tom Bradley Terminal.

Evan Yee/Staff Photographer