Smile, you’re on “Candid Camera!” Or, if you attended the Sept. 10 performance of “Beetlejuice” at the city of Denver’s Buell Theatre, that might be better stated: Smile, you’re on “Jersey Shore!”

People were understandably shocked by the cringeworthy behavior of a Colorado congressperson that was laid bare for all the world to see by surveillance-camera video in an embarrassing incident now teasingly referred to as simply “BeetleBoebert.”

But many were just as surprised to learn that video of the incident existed in the first place. And, as is just the way in 2023, they are divided between those who believe that recorded surveillance of public crowds is a good thing – and those who believe this is yet another infringement on our personal freedoms.

In this case, both beliefs are absolutely valid. And they can live peacefully alongside one another.

One thing we all should be able to agree on: When something truly bad happens – perhaps not, say, lewd acts of physical intimacy involving an elected official, but anything constituting actual criminal behavior wherever people are gathered – it’s a good thing that such evidence exists, and justice can be done.   

“Every major venue in town now has some sort of audience surveillance system in place,” said Brian Kitts, Director of Communications for Denver Arts & Venues, which manages the Denver Performing Arts Complex (including the Buell Theatre), the Colorado Convention Center, Red Rocks and others.

The city has cameras in and outside all those venues. That’s why media outlets around the world were able to show the full progression of Rep. Lauren Boebert’s deplorable activities, from vaping at her seat, to getting mutually intimate with her date, to being escorted from her seat, to pulling the “Do you know who I am?” card in the lobby, to, finally, her walk of shame outside the Buell.

Increased surveillance is an emerging safety tool that shouldn’t require much justification – especially in a state like Colorado, where in 2012 a gunman set off tear gas and shot multiple firearms into the audience inside a Century 16 movie theater in Aurora, killing 12 and causing 70 to be injured.

Movie theaters, especially large chains, are increasingly using cameras to record and monitor patrons during film screenings. Some might believe movie theaters, or schools, or sports arenas, or libraries, or grocery stores, have no right to record or monitor people without their consent. But legally, they do. And they don’t have to tell you, just like Home Depot doesn’t have to tell you they have cameras set up to capture evidence of shoplifters.  

Privacy laws are set by individual states. In Colorado, for example, if you record a conversation using your phone, only one party has to be aware that it is being recorded. It might be ethically dubious for you to record a conversation with an unknowing participant without telling them. But the law is only concerned with protecting you both from your conversation being surveilled by any outside party, including the government, without either of you knowing about it.

Where did all of this videotaping start? To some extent, it’s been going on since the advent of video cameras. But the practice became far more widespread after the 9/11 attacks, said Kitts. Putting cameras in movie theaters started up in the late 2000s as a proactive response to a huge surge in film piracy, when the advent of  broadband high-speed internet connections allowed scofflaws to record cheap knockoffs of entire films and distribute them all over the world. Back-room cinema employees now routinely monitor audiences like security guards to see what you might be doing with your cell phone.

I can personally attest that this is a thing. Last year, I wrote a story about Grammy-winning Denver vocalist Dianne Reeves’ contributions to “The Woman King” soundtrack – and then I went to see the film at a local Harkins. When the film ended, I pulled out my cell phone and took a photo of Reeves’ name in the scrolling credits. I thought it would be fun to send it to her as a keepsake.

But when I got up from my seat, a Harkins manager and two security officers were waiting to escort me to a tiny interrogation room right out of a TV cop show. They gave me the speech about how recording the movie was against the law and that I could face criminal charges and fines if I did not pull out my phone right then and there and delete the video in their presence. They were A LOT nicer when I showed them that all I had on my phone was one photograph of Dianne Reeves’ name (and that I was a Harkins Rewards member!). But I did have some trauma flashback to that time when 9-year-old me got pulled into a back room at Eakers department store with a neighbor kid who, it turns out, had stolen something – and we were both told that the Arvada Police were going to lock us up and throw away the key (which turned out to be a far more effective crime deterrent than any video camera.) But I digress.

Kitts says filming crowds at Red Rocks goes back at least 20 years, and that filming at the Denver Performing Arts Complex began around 2015. Even more cameras were installed there in 2018 after a security guard was found murdered inside the city-owned parking garage at 13th and Arapahoe streets. Video taken at the sold-out Louis Tomlinson concert in June turned out to be instrumental in piecing together what went wrong when hail – some reported as big as an apple – began falling at Red Rocks, injuring 100 people.

Video saved the day when gunfire broke out at the Denver Nuggets’ championship celebration, injuring 10 in Lower Downtown. And just 10 days ago, a perfectly positioned video camera allowed Denver police to identify Keanna Rosenburgh as the suspect in another LoDo shooting that injured five people.

But there is always a tradeoff in these matters, and the issue of our ever-eroding personal freedoms is a legitimate concern. After 9/11, for the 15 seconds that we seemed to come together as a nation, trading privacy for national security was briefly seen as an acceptable and even patriotic tradeoff. But in the years since, the issue has become more about trading privacy for consumer ease, which is a lot more problematic when it comes to the First Amendment.

I addressed this very conundrum in a 2016 play I wrote called “Waiting for Obama,” centered around a Colorado Springs couple. Here’s a brief excerpt:

HANK: This is about rights, Martha. And everywhere you look, our rights are being infringed.

MARTHA: How, dear?

HANK: How? Every time you drive through an intersection, look up and wave. The cops are taking pictures of you. Even when your cell phone is turned off, the phone company knows exactly where you are. Every time you turn on your computer looking at your quilts on Pinterest, know that your every keystroke is being recorded.

MARTHA: Well I imagine the government must be very bored spying on my quilts.

HANK: Every time you click an ad on one of your pages, Martha, those bloodsucking marketing companies are paying thousands of dollars to know it. They are targeting you, and you don’t even know it. You want my advice? Pay cash for everything. 

MARTHA: Honey, are you mad at the government … or at Google?

The bottom line is, in 2023: You don’t cross the street without being filmed. The question is whether knowing that becomes an effective deterrent to bad or criminal behavior. And if having that evidence makes it easier to clarify – or prosecute – that bad behavior. Both answers would seem to be yes. 

But there are other advantages to surveillance, Kitts said. “By monitoring those cameras in real time, we can see what gates at Red Rocks are moving slowly, or if traffic is backed up somewhere, and we can move additional staff there.”

Kitts sometimes hears from people once they learn they have been filmed and are concerned about who might ever see that footage. “And 99.9 percent of the time,” he said, “the answer is no one.” The city keeps footage for about six weeks before it is recorded over – but that varies from venue to venue. Videotape is most often requested, he said, when someone has become involved in a fight, or has been assaulted.

“Lawyers are always eager to get their hands on the tape,” Kitts said.

“Really, if you are ever in a situation where you have been wronged – you are always glad that tape exists.”