New York Plans Surveillance Veil for Downtown

[cal04]

Source: NYTimes

By the end of this year, police officials say, more than 100 cameras will have begun monitoring cars moving through Lower Manhattan, the beginning phase of a London-style surveillance system that would be the first in the United States.

The Lower Manhattan Security Initiative, as the plan is called, will resemble London’s so-called Ring of Steel, an extensive web of cameras and roadblocks designed to detect, track and deter terrorists. British officials said images captured by the cameras helped track suspects after the London subway bombings in 2005 and the car bomb plots last month.

If the program is fully financed, it will include not only license plate readers but also 3,000 public and private security cameras below Canal Street, as well as a coordination center staffed by the police and private security officers, and movable roadblocks.

“This area is very critical to the economic lifeblood of this nation,” New York City’s police commissioner, Raymond W. Kelly, said in an interview last week. “We want to make it less vulnerable.”

Read more: http://www.nytimes.com/2007/07/09/nyregion/09ring.html?hp

[TechBear_Seattle]

1. "Those who would give up essential liberties for a little temporary safety...."

Is it fascism yet?

[ixion]

2. this place looks less and less like a free republic every day

:-(

[billyoc]

3. Ach, what a scam. Have you seen downtown lately?

It looks like Belfast in the '70s. :eyes:

[Mind_your_head]

4. Less vulnerable to what?

Airplanes that fly into tall buildings? I don't think survelliance cameras on the ground would matter. So, again, I ask the question, "vulnerable to WHAT?"

What are they afraid of...REALLY.

[SayWhatYo]

5. Only in America....

oh, and England.

[Ilsa]

6. Everyone should don a black robe and the same mask and

parade around the sidewalks of lower Manhatten for this terror fiasco. Next thing you know, they'll have them so terrified they'll be begging for RFID chips to be implanted.

[defendandprotect]

7. Actually, the "terrorists" are in the Executive Branch -- Oops!!!

Cheney has been fingered by a number of people in government as having pulled off 9/11 --
I agree.

And why have we so quickly forgotten the "nervous breakdown" that the Vice President and President had last weekend as they attempted to bow out of the Executive Branch?

No one's interested in that bit of insanity any longer-- ???

[benEzra]

8. "Welcome to City 17. It's safer here."

Would this mean that every Wall Street broker, every tourist munching a hot dog near the United States Court House and every sightseer at ground zero would constantly be under surveillance?
...
The Police Department is still considering whether to use face-recognition technology, an inexact science that matches images against those in an electronic database, or biohazard detectors in its Lower Manhattan network, Mr. Browne said.
...
Mr. Browne said that the Police Department would have control over how the material is used. He said that the cameras would be recording in “areas where there’s no expectation of privacy” and that law-abiding citizens had nothing to fear.

"Welcome to City 17. It's safer here."





Sounds like someone in NYC is enamored of the people who came up with this gem:

[Boo Boo]

9. Suicide bombers don't worry about getting caught. /nt