The Department of Homeland Security may have its eyes on Syracuse University in the future. 

The Syracuse Police Department has requested city approval to receive an $84,400 grant from the New York state Office of Homeland Security to fund five security cameras that would record activity at the SU steam plant and the Carrier Dome. The proposal has prompted both outcry and approval from Syracuse residents. 

‘The Syracuse Police Department is just looking to keep us safe,’ said Common Councilor-at-Large Bill Ryan, chair of the Public Safety Committee, during Monday’s Common Council meeting. 

The current proposal would place surveillance cameras at Pioneer Homes, a government public housing project bordered by East Adams Street, Renwick Avenue, and Taylor and South Townsend streets. The range of the cameras’ sight would reach to the Dome on Irving Avenue and SU’s steam plant on Taylor. The cameras’ line of vision would be narrow enough that nearby SU residences Lawrinson and Sadler halls would not be captured, Ryan said. 

Syracuse Common Council held off on voting on the grant at Monday’s meeting pending further discussion, but the item will appear on every biweekly meeting agenda until it is approved, denied or withheld. There is no timeline for when it must be voted on or if there will be public hearings on the matter, Ryan said after the meeting. 

Though the grant comes from the Department of Homeland Security, it would be SPD’s responsibility to implement and monitor the surveillance system, said SPD Cpt. Richard Trudell at a Common Council study session Sept. 22. 

One of the stipulations of the grant, officially called the State Law Enforcement Terrorism Prevention Program grant, is that it be used for terrorism prevention-oriented planning, organization, training, exercise and equipment activities, according to the New York state Office of Homeland Security website. Protecting key infrastructure, like the steam plant and the Dome, falls under those guidelines, Trudell said. 

Ryan said one of the reasons the Dome and the steam plant, specifically, were chosen to be monitored is because they are the most likely targets of terrorist activity in Syracuse. 

‘If you look at where a terrorist could inflict the most pain and destruction, they could attack the 40,000 people in the Dome on a Saturday football game,’ Ryan said. 

Attacking the steam plant would also greatly impact the city, Ryan said, because it provides steam to the university, Crouse Hospital, the State University of New York College of Environmental Science and Forestry, Syracuse VA Medical Center and Upstate Medical University Hospital.

But Ryan added the reasoning behind choosing the Dome and the steam plant was partly a manufactured justification to fit the definitions of the grant. 

William Snyder, a faculty member at SU’s Institute for National Security and Counterterrorism, said SPD’s reasoning for watching the Dome is consistent with Homeland Security guidelines, as city monuments and places of large public gatherings are considered potential terrorist targets.  

‘It’s not like the locals are being creative in justifying how they’re using the cameras,’ Snyder said. ‘It’s not inconsistent with how other communities are using these grants.’ 

Another reason for the proposed location is its proximity to Seymour Dual Language Academy on Shonnard Street, Trudell said. To achieve the lowest costs, the technology for the cameras would need to transmit to monitoring systems already set up in schools like Seymour. 

Because the cameras would be physically located on city property, the city would not have to seek the approval of SU to set up the cameras, said SU Department of Public Safety Chief Tony Callisto. 

The proposal to receive the Homeland Security grant comes amid already growing controversy over a proposal to place nine other security cameras throughout the Near Westside using a $125,000 Department of Justice grant. The grant for the Near Westside cameras was approved at the Aug. 2 Common Council meeting.

In response to the controversy, Common Council has postponed voting on the placement of the nine cameras twice this month.

Civil liberties groups throughout the city are decrying the plan to install the nine cameras, as well as the possibility of the five Homeland Security-funded cameras. Barrie Gewanter, director of the Central New York chapter of the New York Civil Liberties Union, said she thinks it’s suspicious SPD did not mention the Homeland Security grant during the public hearing on the Near Westside cameras Sept. 21, the day before the grant was first proposed to the council. 

‘The police obviously have plans, we just don’t know what they are,’ she said in an address to the council Monday. 

Should the Common Council approve the grant, SPD would need to seek additional approval from the council before installing the cameras. Once the grant is received, it is a possibility that the cameras will not be pointed at SU buildings, that the grant would not be used at all or that the grant would be used to fund something other than security cameras.

Even though the council would only approve receiving the grant at this point, Gewanter urged the council not to approve it, because it would then be much easier to authorize the cameras without proper public discussion if the funds are available, she said. 

Gewanter also took issue to the proposed location of the Homeland Security cameras and said it does not fit with SPD’s plan to locate the other nine cameras in areas of the city where the most shots have been fired. 

‘Certainly Pioneer Homes is not a terrorist target,’ she said. ‘If the Dome and the steam station are, I suggest police place cameras there instead.’ 

But some Syracuse residents said they support the cameras as a means to protect the city. Robert Griffith, a Syracuse resident who is a U.S. Navy veteran, said he is for anything that has the potential to stop violent crime. 

‘Nobody’s been shot or raped by the Dome, but there’s already cameras over there, so I don’t think a couple more would be an affront to privacy,’ he said. 

SU’s DPS is in the midst of a 12 to 14-phase project to install surveillance cameras on campus, according to an article published in The Daily Orange in February. Cameras have already been placed at the entrances and exits of residence halls and on the ground and walkways at South Campus. 

SU students are split on their approval of the prospect of Homeland Security-funded cameras monitoring the Dome. 

Michelle Tivnan, a sophomore environmental engineering major, and Stephanie Gomez, a junior biochemistry major, said they think the cameras would benefit SU in light of the off-campus robberies and burglaries that have targeted students over the past couple of years. 

‘It’s a little bit invading privacy,’ Gomez said. ‘But at the end of the day, it’s going to help.’

Cassandra Baim, a sophomore English and textual studies major, said she generally thinks security cameras are an invasion of privacy, but her main objection to the proposal is that she thinks it would be a waste of money. 

‘If you point cameras at the Dome, you’re not going to get much, just a video of a dome-shaped building,’ Baim said. ‘SU isn’t public property, but outside is a bit more public. It sounds about as voyeuristic as someone sitting on top of the Dome and looking down.’ 

rhkheel@syr.edu

Published on September 28, 2010 at 12:00 pm