Transcript 

ANDREA THOMPSON, co-anchor:
The job of the police is to make life safer for everyone they watch, right?

STEPHEN FRAZIER, co-anchor:
Soon they'll have their eyes on a lot more people, though, and this is not without controversy. Here's Renay San Miguel to bring us that story.

RENAY SAN MIGUEL reporting:
Well, once again, we're doing the balancing act between security and privacy and it's in Washington, D.C. Technology may be the new security blanket for governments, corporations and, who knows, maybe the rest of us in the wake of September 11th. Since I've been here at HEADLINE NEWS, I've focused on things like biometrics, the science of using fingerprints or optic retinal scans instead of ID cards. And we've talked a lot about Internet security since terrorists have supposedly used the Web to try to gather information on potential U.S. targets.

Washington, D.C., which felt the wrath of the September 11th hijackers directly along with New York, is taking a controversial step to try to make its streets more secure. The Wall Street Journal reported today that D.C. police will soon turn the switch on what the paper calls the most extensive camera surveillance network in the country. And as we saw with the anti-terrorism Patriot legislation after the attacks, moves like this bring us back to the what-price-security question.

The ACLU had problems with some of the electronic eavesdropping and immigration measures in the bill and they als--they also have co--mentioned concerns about what DC has planned for its cameras. The ACLU's Barry Steinhardt, for example, is quoted as saying, "The cameras will likely be abused, even though the courts say if you're in a public place, you give up a certain amount of privacy."

Well, that's not what the people at Axis--Axis Communications are pr--focusing on. (Visuals of the Axis Communications Web site) Axis provides network surveillance systems around the coun--around the world and is currently monitoring the Media Center at the Winter Olympics in Salt Lake City. A spokeswoman for Axis sent me an e-mail today on this; she wanted to point out that, in the United Kingdom, network surveillance systems have helped reduce car crimes by 80 percent, robberies by 68 percent and criminal vandalism by 59 percent. And Axis says that the public is slowly starting to embrace surveillance systems. But you will probably want to keep your camera on this issue anyway in the months ahead.

That is Hot Wired for this hour. Andrea, back over to you.

THOMPSON:

Thank you, Renay.