House Bill 1948 – which passed both the Illinois House and Illinois Senate unanimously – requires agencies that own or have access to certain kinds of video surveillance cameras to disclose (on an annual basis) to the Illinois Criminal Justice Authority (ICJIA) the number of cameras they own or have access to, and their privacy regulations, if they have any. The bill also requires this information to be posted on the website of the ICJIA. The legislation is an effort to ensure a small measure of transparency in the operation of these powerful, technologically-sophisticated cameras. The ACLU and the sponsors of the bill believe that the public should know how many cameras the government is operating.

Governor Pat Quinn’s amendatory veto of House Bill 1948 shortchanges the public’s ability to see a complete picture of the breadth and reach of surveillance in Illinois today. The Governor’s amendatory veto allows for the holding back of information about the number of cameras that governmental agencies can access.  The Governor’s changes require only the disclosure of cameras owned or that are under the direct control of an agency. This definition fails to capture, for example, private surveillance cameras in the City of Chicago that are not owned by the City but are integrated into Chicago’s extensive surveillance system.

Moreover the Governor excludes from application of the bill correctional facilities, county or municipal jails, courthouses, police stations, power plants, water treatment facilities and airports purportedly due to a concern that the reporting of the number of cameras owned by an agency poses a public safety threat. It is difficult however, to discern when location of the cameras is not disclosed, how the disclosure by an agency such as IDOC of merely the total number of cameras owned or accessed, presents any risk to public safety since the aggregate figure shows no breakdown of how many cameras are located at any site.

Read or listen to WILL-AM 580's story about the veto.

Rex Huppke reports about San Francisco's Bay Area Rapid Transit (BART) system's recent decision to shut down its cellular phone towers for several hours last week. The decision came in response to a protest that had been planned for Thursday in light of a fatal police shooting. Huppke spoke with the ACLU of Illinois Communications and Policy Director Ed Yohnka:

"I would say that the one thing that you don't want is for government to be able to shut down access to these communication platforms simply because the outcome might be embarrassing to governmental entities," he said. "If you're shutting it down in order to quell some violent outbreak, that's something that I think is a very narrow and fact-specific case that I think people of good will could argue about. The situation with BART, they were embarrassed by these protests. The notion that that embarrassment becomes the trigger for closing off dissension or protests, that's troubling."

Read the whole thing.

WILL-AM Radio 580 reports about Governor Pat Quinn's recent veto of a security bill that had passed unanimously in both houses. The bill (HB 1948), sponsored by State Rep.  Naomi Jakobsson, would require police agencies that utilize video surveillance to disclose information about the number of cameras used, as well as any privacy regulations, to the Illinois Criminal Justice Information Authority, and to post this information publicly online. The act of releasing this data would provide the public with critical information about video surveillance across Illinois. However, Gov. Quinn's decision to veto the bill was based on a concern over "security risks."
Rep. Jakobsson says,

"We just want the public to know how many there are, how many the state has, and I think when the governor said this is a matter of security, that’s really far reaching,” she said. “We’re not asking to identify where any of them are, he doesn’t want the department of corrections to have to disclose - we never asked them to disclose.”

Read and listen to the entire segment.