80 Eyes on 2,400 People
If terrorists come to tiny Dillingham, Alaska, security cameras will be
ready. But privacy concerns have residents up in arms.
By Tomas Alex Tizon, Times Staff Writer
March 28, 2006
DILLINGHAM, Alaska — From Anchorage it takes 90 minutes on a propeller
plane to reach this fishing village on the state's southwestern edge, a
place where some people still make raincoats out of walrus intestine.
This is the Alaskan bush at its most remote. Here, tundra meets sea, and
sea turns to ice for half the year. Scattered, almost hidden, in the
terrain are some of the most isolated communities on American soil.
People choose to live in outposts like Dillingham (pop. 2,400) for that
reason: to be left alone.
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So eyebrows were raised in January when the first surveillance cameras
went up on Main Street. Each camera is a shiny white metallic box with
two lenses like eyes. The camera's shape and design resemble a robot's head.
Workers on motorized lifts installed seven cameras in a 360-degree
cluster on top of City Hall. They put up groups of six atop two light
poles at the loading dock, and more at the fire hall and boat harbor.
By mid-February, more than 60 cameras watched over the town, and the
Dillingham Police Department plans to install 20 more — all purchased
through a $202,000 Homeland Security grant meant primarily to defend
against a terrorist attack.
Now the residents of this far-flung village have become, in one sense,
among the most watched people in the land, with — as former Mayor
Freeman Roberts puts it — "one camera for every 30 residents."
Some don't mind, but many others are furious and have banded together to
force the city to take the cameras down.
"You better smile. You're on camera," says Roberts, 64, a barge captain.
Roberts himself isn't smiling as he points out a single camera on the
side of a building. The camera is aimed toward an alley.
"It's amazing, isn't it?" he says. He drives around town in his pickup,
spying on the cameras that he believes are spying on him. "Everywhere
you look, there's one looking at you."
Roberts, mayor of Dillingham from 1972 to 1978, says the cameras
constitute an invasion of privacy, and beyond that, they're just plain
creepy. He scratched together a petition demanding removal of the
cameras and collected 219 signatures within days. He carries the ragged
sheaf of names next to him in the truck.
The City Council, which supports the cameras, threw out the petition,
claiming Roberts did not follow the law, which requires that the
signatories be registered voters. Now Roberts is working with others to
put together a legal petition to force the issue on the October ballot.
Roberts climbs out of his truck and slams the door.
He is a square-jawed man with a slow, deliberate way of talking. He
looks out at Nushagak Bay, which remains frozen until the end of April.
No boat can enter or leave the harbor until the ice breaks up. He shakes
his head. "This is Dillingham, Alaska, folks," he says. "I don't think
we have to worry about Osama bin Laden."
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