DERBY — Vermont’s congressional leaders have yet to hear whether the public comment period will be extended on a controversial plan to line the northern border with video-surveillance towers.
That news came at a press conference held Monday by federal and local officials, along with Attorney General TJ Donovan, to restate their opposition to the proposal.
“These towers threaten not only to change the landscape of these border communities — quite literally — they add to the unsettling sense of a militarized zone in otherwise peaceful communities,” said Diane Derby, a representative for U.S. Sen. Patrick Leahy, D-Vt.
“Residents going about their normal business should not be subject to the eye of a roving, sensor-equipped camera when they walk out their door,” Derby said.
Rep. Peter Welch, D-Vt., organized the event and was joined by Derby, a representative for U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., Donovan and area legislators. Vermont ACLU director James Lyall also spoke to the crowd of about a dozen people outside the Derby Line Village Hall Monday morning.
Leahy, Sanders and Welch requested more time for public comments on March 17, two days after the original comment period had ended. They made the request after local people told them they’d been blindsided by the U.S. Customs and Border Protection plan.
The federal proposal calls for eight camera sites in Vermont and two in New York. Towers equipped with video cameras would be installed in Derby, Franklin, Richford and Troy. Antennae bearing the equipment would be added to existing buildings in the village of Derby Line and in Highgate.
The highest tower, in New York, would reach 180 feet, while towers in Vermont would reach a maximum of 120 feet.
The plan has been the subject of recent local debate in Derby, where a temporary tower stands in Letourneau’s Field, the proposed site of the larger, permanent tower.
Privacy concerns
Residents and officials believe the towers could compromise the privacy rights of people living nearby.
“When we’re talking about surveillance cameras that are going to go miles into Vermont, it raises serious privacy concerns for Vermonters,” said Donovan, who argued in public comments March 15 that federal officials had not done enough to justify the plan.
The proposal brings concerns about property values, too, he said, and about the ability of residents to preserve “the quiet enjoyment of their life.”
The attorney general also questioned what would happen with data collected by the surveillance towers.
“Where does it go, how long is it kept for and who’s able to access it?” he asked.
In previous meetings with local residents in Derby, Customs and Border Protection officials have denied that the devices would be used to monitor residents’ day-to-day activities.
“To be quite frank, I don’t care what’s going on in people’s backyards,” Erik Lavallee, the acting Border Patrol agent in charge of the Newport station, told residents mid-March.
Lavallee and agency leaders have maintained that the towers would make it easier to track illegal activity in rural places along the border with Canada and free up agents.
‘Kind of a history’
But Keith Beadle, a Derby Line Village trustee, expressed caution about taking border officials at their word.
“We have kind of a history of Border Patrol telling us one thing, and then it turns out to be something different,” Beadle said.
He described requests by border officials over the years to add gates and cameras on side streets within the village. Officials had told village trustees they would be given devices to open some of the gates, he said, but then later asked for the devices back.
Beadle said he did not hear of the border-tower plan before seeing news reports about it, echoing a concern from other local residents that they were never contacted about the idea.
“If we say, ‘OK, put up your tower,’ what’s going to be the next thing?” Beadle asked.
“They’re going to tell us, ‘This tower is going to make you safer,’” he said. “Well, 10 years down the road, is there going to be something else that maybe is going to be even more invasive? You can be safe for only so long, and then you have to be free.”
Much of the discussion Monday centered on a sense of Vermont values — unbothered living — and the importance of local decision-making.
“You move here for quality of life, and we’re losing it,” state Rep. Lynn Batchelor, R-Derby Line, said, noting that she receives constant emails about the issue. “That’s it.”
Welch said officials in Washington, D.C., shouldn’t make decisions like these, especially in a vacuum.
“Do we really think D.C.’s got the best interests of the community of Derby Line in mind when they’re making some of these decisions?” he asked.
