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A story featured prominently in the Sunday edition of the Los Angeles Times — "Lancaster, Pa., keeps a close eye on itself" — highlights the elaborate $3 million system of 165 closed-circuit TV cameras that will make Lancaster the most watched small city in the U.S.
That kicked off an immediate backlash and a fear of surveillance among various Web sites, blogs and critics. MSNBC commentator Keith Olbermann used the story in his "Worst Person in the World" segment Monday night, calling out the "citizen patriots of Lancaster, Pennsylvania" and criticizing them for spying on each other.
Lancaster Mayor Rick Gray said it was good to have an outsider write a story that allows locals to step back and look at and debate the cameras. But he said he felt the article had a sense of "big-city condescension" for Lancaster.
"I've been in Los Angeles, and that's certainly no jewel," Gray said.
Much of the criticism of the city's surveillance system centers on the Lancaster Community Safety Coalition, a quasi-public entity that monitors the cameras, yet doesn't have official government oversight.
Gray said he had not thought of a government oversight committee for the surveillance system because most of the money for it comes from the private sector.
Major donors to the project include High Industries, Fulton Financial Corp., Armstrong World Industries, Engle-Hambright & Davies Inc., Lancaster developer Rob Ecklin (chairman of the Lancaster Alliance), Auntie Anne's Inc., and Milton Morgan Sr., chairman of the board of J. Walter Miller Co., a brass and bronze foundry, along with the James Hale Steinman Foundation and the John Frederick Steinman Foundation.
The county has contributed $500,000 in the last two years; the city, using bond proceeds from its capital budget, contributed $100,000 in 2008 and $200,000 this year.
Gray, who called the surveillance program a "work in progress," said the vast majority of people he talks to ask why there's no camera in their neighborhoods.
When he was first came into office, Gray said, he was skeptical about the effectiveness of installing cameras and concerned about privacy issues. But he said he sat down and read the program rules and regulations and was reassured.
Gray said there still are civil-liberty questions that need to be discussed and issues camera operators must be sensitive to.
"We have to respect people's privacy, and we have to make sure that there isn't any misuse of this type of information," Gray said.
Bob Drogin, the Los Angeles Times reporter who wrote the story, said he thought the camera issue was worth exploring.
He worked on the story for two weeks at the beginning of June, coming to Lancaster for a few days to interview people associated with the system and look at the logistics of the program.
Drogin said he also went in search of people opposed to the cameras. He said he received calls from dozens of people expressing their concerns with the surveillance program.
They included a cross-section of people, from a tax lawyer and a CEO of a company to a software entrepreneur and a laborer.
"It seems to me there are valid arguments on both sides," Drogin said. "It's just an unusual situation, and my job as a newspaper reporter is to write about situations that are different."
The story found an ever-widening audience when it was picked up Monday by the Web site Drudge Report, which gets millions of hits each day. It also ran in newspapers in Chicago, Seattle and Orlando, Fla.
Drogin said the privately funded camera system is unique in American cities and that the ACLU has been following the issue closely to see if there are any legal challenges.
Most cities have a sworn officer monitoring the cameras who can be held accountable, Drogin said, and most communities also do not have live surveillance of the cameras.
Drogin said he received several e-mails from people across the country concerned about the story, including a few from Lancaster.
One woman from Pittsburgh wrote to him that she'll never come to Lancaster to visit because of the cameras.
Don Skolnik of San Diego was so moved by the story that he wrote a song titled "In Lancaster PA" and sent it to Drogin.
Skolnik visited Lancaster more than 30 years ago while living in New Hope and said he wondered what had changed so much to put so much fear into local residents.
He said the Founding Fathers, some of whom came to Lancaster during the Revolutionary War, would be amazed and dismayed by the almost lackadaisical approach to privacy issues today.
"It just shows how far our country has gone toward a different direction," Skolnik said.
E-mail: myoder@lnpnews.com
