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That may be a tough case to make. Under U.S. law, citizens have no reasonable expectation of privacy in public spaces like the Raymond James Stadium. Furthermore, as Colatosti points out, the Super Bowl surveillance isn't the first of its kind, only the most dramatic. The Viisage system is already deployed in some 70 casinos across the country, from Atlantic City to Los Vegas, to identify cheats and card counters. A similar system has been used for the past two years in a tough section of East London called Newham, where British police attribute a drop in crime to the 300 cameras.
Colatosti insists that the issue is not privacy. "It's simply the fear of change and technology," he says. "Once you've adapted, you look back and say, 'I was afraid of what?'" Perhaps. No one disputes that the deployment of cheap, ubiquitous video cameras has made an environment of near total surveillance technologically feasible. Whether that's a good thing or a bad thing, however, depends on how much you trust the cameraman.