Houston adding 180 security cameras downtown

[alp227]

Source: Houston Chronicle

Houston is adding 180 downtown surveillance cameras despite shrinking national security grants and research showing that video feeds only sometimes improve public safety.

By early next year, the Houston Police Department will have nearly 1,000 camera feeds available. Most record public areas around downtown, stadiums and event spaces like the George R. Brown Convention Center and the Theater District.

"With all the homeland security requirements that we have - we have more critical infrastructure to protect than New York City - we can't do it without video," said HPD Chief Charles McClelland.

Federal Homeland Security grants first issued in 2003 sparked a rush in many American cities to expand video surveillance networks in an attempt to deter or help apprehend terrorists. With cameras in place and police agencies collaborating at unprecedented levels, local departments also have used the video networks to combat local crime amid shrinking patrol budgets in many cities.

Read more: http://www.houstonchronicle.com/news/politics/houston/article/Houston-adding-180-security-cameras-downtown-5092962.php?t=baee70d61fd4bfc38c

[blkmusclmachine]

1. 9/11, was it the beginning, or the end?

[billhicks76]

3. Ah yes the drug war

They will spend all their time locking up the little people for weed offenses...911 money well spent...what a disgusting, corrupt fraud our country has become. Most cops dont want to lock people up for weed unless they dont like them to begin with but we all have seen what happens when people re just following orders or trying to make a living. We need real CHANGE now...not FAKE change. Obama are you listening??? Maybe you could let another HSBC off the hook while your Justice Dept destroys lives by the hundreds of thousands....and yes it is your Justice Dept now...take a stand...dont be afraid...you took this job and if your too afraid to handle it and fight for whats right then it shouldnt have been yours to begin with...its not a resume booster. At least JFK was a real warrior.

[dballance]

2. The end. The Terrorists have won.

If, indeed, it was terrorists who did the job. I'd like to see those 28 pages on the Saudi's involvement that have yet to be released.

[jsr]

4. Spreading the eyes and ears of the surveillance state to every corner in America