BY FRAN SPIELMAN City Hall Reporter
fspielman@suntimes.com



Blue-light surveillance cameras in Chicago's high-crime neighborhoods will someday be augmented by "covert" cameras that "fit inside of a match box" and keep the bad guys guessing, Police Supt. Jody Weis said.

Now that crime-ravaged communities have been saturated with hundreds of blue-light cameras, Weis says it's time to take Big Brother technology to "the next level."

That means surveillance cameras similar to the hidden cameras used to snare corrupt politicians.

"They are incredibly small. I've seen some that would fit inside of a match box. . . . These can be secreted in locations that nobody would ever detect. It's amazing where we're going with technology," Weis said during a taping of the WLS-AM Radio Program, "Connected to Chicago."

Blue-light cameras virtually announce their presence, giving drug dealers and gang-bangers a heads-up to move out of range. Covert cameras keep them guessing, the superintendent said.

"You use the covert [cameras] to perhaps push them into an area where you have coverage. If we can interrupt their intelligence cycle, we will have the upper hand," he said.

Last week, Mayor Daley ordered a review of the Chicago Police Department to make certain "every dollar possible" of its $1.2 billion a year budget is spent fighting crime.

How can the department afford the next generation of surveillance cameras at a time when it's operating more than 2,000 officers short of authorized strength?

In part, by swapping some of the blue-light cameras for the covert kind, Weis said.

"Some of these covert cameras — because they're not across the network — are not that expensive. You don't need that many because they're not in place forever. Maybe you need a total of 50," Weis said.

"We put some here. We move it around. We run the operation. We arrest a lot of bad guys. Then we see where there's another uptick, and we move 'em somewhere else. It's kind of like mobile pods, but they're covert. The bad guys will never know they're being watched," he said.

Ed Yohnka, a spokesman for the American Civil Liberties Union of Illinois, questioned how much video surveillance will be enough for the department.

"They seem committed to running light years ahead of other cities" even though there is no evidence that surveillance cameras trigger a reduction in crime, Yohnka said. He added that the advanced surveillance technology is an invitation for abuse by rogue officers.