Desertdog
Member
NYPD flips on surveillance cameras to fight crime and terror
By TOM HAYS
Associated Press Writer
http://www.newsday.com/news/local/w...,3037922,print.story?coll=ny-region-apnewyork
NEW YORK -- Along a gritty stretch of Knickerbocker Avenue in Brooklyn, police this month quietly launched one of the nation's most ambitious plans to combat street crime and terrorism.
And there were no cops in sight.
Peering down from lamp posts about 30 feet above the sidewalk were three wireless video recorders, each emblazoned with "NYPD" and equipped with two zoom lenses.
The cameras were the first installment of a high-tech surveillance program to place 500 cameras throughout the city at a cost of $9 million. Hundreds of additional cameras could follow if the city receives $81.5 million in federal grants it has requested to safeguard Lower Manhattan and parts of midtown with a surveillance "ring of steel" modeled after security measures in London's financial district.
Officials with the New York Police Department _ which considers itself at the forefront of counterterrorism among U.S. cities since the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks _ claim the money would be well-spent. They say revelations that al-Qaida once cased the New York Stock Exchange and other financial institutions shows terrorists have a fixation on Lower Manhattan.
"We have every reason to believe New York remains in the cross-hairs, so we have to do what it takes to protect the city," Police Commissioner Raymond Kelly said in remarks last week at Harvard University's John F. Kennedy School of Government.
Law enforcement and transportation agencies already have about 1,000 cameras in the subways, with 2,100 scheduled to be in place by 2008. An additional 3,100 cameras are monitoring city housing projects.
The department believes its 500 security cameras on the street will deter crime in busy commercial districts once potential robbers and burglars realize they could be caught on videotape. The plan for Lower Manhattan, if funded, would rely on a more sophisticated closed-circuit system that would allow officers to monitor live feeds inside a command bunker.
New York's approach isn't unique: Chicago spent roughly $5 million on a 2,000-camera system. In Washington, D.C., Homeland Security officials plan to spend $9.8 million for surveillance cameras and sensors on a rail line near the Capitol. And Philadelphia has increasingly relied on video surveillance.
Privacy advocates in New York have depicted the NYPD's camera binge as Big Brother run amok. The plan, they say, needs more study and safeguards that would preserve privacy and guard against abuses like racial profiling and voyeurism.
The department "is installing cameras first and asking questions later," said Donna Lieberman, executive director the New York Civil Liberties Union.
Police officials insist that law-abiding New Yorkers have nothing to fear because the cameras will be restricted to public areas. The police commissioner recently established a panel of four corporate defense lawyers to advise the department on surveillance policies.
"The police department must be flexible to meet an ever changing threat," Kelly said. "We also have to ensure whatever measures we take are reasonable as the Constitution requires. That's the only way to retain public support and preserve individual freedoms."
Lieberman, while conceding cameras can help investigators identify suspects once a crime has been committed, argued they can't stop crime in the first place. She cited a 2002 study that concluded that closed-circuit systems used in 14 British cities had little or no impact on crime rates _ just as it didn't keep terrorists last year from bombing the London subway system.
"The London experience shouldn't be misconstrued that the 'ring of steel' prevents terrorism," she said. "But that's how it's being pitched."
Police in New York were impressed last summer by reports that their British counterparts drew on 80,000 videotapes to identify and retrace the routes of the suicide bombers and the suspects in a failed follow-up attack. NYPD officers were dispatched to London last September to study a system which photographs virtually every person and car entering the City of London, home to the financial district and landmarks like St. Paul's Cathedral.
In Lower Manhattan, police envision a closed-circuit system that would monitor a series of fortified check points leading in and out of a roughtly one-square-mile district south of Chambers Street. Another set of cameras would read license plate numbers so they could be cross-checked with a database listing cars that have been stolen or linked to criminal or terror suspects.
Timothy Horner, a specialist with the Kroll security firm and former NYPD captain, said the measures make sense.
"It's not a cure-all, and the department is not thinking that way," he said. "But we really want law enforcement to use whatever tools they can to keep us safe."
By TOM HAYS
Associated Press Writer
http://www.newsday.com/news/local/w...,3037922,print.story?coll=ny-region-apnewyork
NEW YORK -- Along a gritty stretch of Knickerbocker Avenue in Brooklyn, police this month quietly launched one of the nation's most ambitious plans to combat street crime and terrorism.
And there were no cops in sight.
Peering down from lamp posts about 30 feet above the sidewalk were three wireless video recorders, each emblazoned with "NYPD" and equipped with two zoom lenses.
The cameras were the first installment of a high-tech surveillance program to place 500 cameras throughout the city at a cost of $9 million. Hundreds of additional cameras could follow if the city receives $81.5 million in federal grants it has requested to safeguard Lower Manhattan and parts of midtown with a surveillance "ring of steel" modeled after security measures in London's financial district.
Officials with the New York Police Department _ which considers itself at the forefront of counterterrorism among U.S. cities since the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks _ claim the money would be well-spent. They say revelations that al-Qaida once cased the New York Stock Exchange and other financial institutions shows terrorists have a fixation on Lower Manhattan.
"We have every reason to believe New York remains in the cross-hairs, so we have to do what it takes to protect the city," Police Commissioner Raymond Kelly said in remarks last week at Harvard University's John F. Kennedy School of Government.
Law enforcement and transportation agencies already have about 1,000 cameras in the subways, with 2,100 scheduled to be in place by 2008. An additional 3,100 cameras are monitoring city housing projects.
The department believes its 500 security cameras on the street will deter crime in busy commercial districts once potential robbers and burglars realize they could be caught on videotape. The plan for Lower Manhattan, if funded, would rely on a more sophisticated closed-circuit system that would allow officers to monitor live feeds inside a command bunker.
New York's approach isn't unique: Chicago spent roughly $5 million on a 2,000-camera system. In Washington, D.C., Homeland Security officials plan to spend $9.8 million for surveillance cameras and sensors on a rail line near the Capitol. And Philadelphia has increasingly relied on video surveillance.
Privacy advocates in New York have depicted the NYPD's camera binge as Big Brother run amok. The plan, they say, needs more study and safeguards that would preserve privacy and guard against abuses like racial profiling and voyeurism.
The department "is installing cameras first and asking questions later," said Donna Lieberman, executive director the New York Civil Liberties Union.
Police officials insist that law-abiding New Yorkers have nothing to fear because the cameras will be restricted to public areas. The police commissioner recently established a panel of four corporate defense lawyers to advise the department on surveillance policies.
"The police department must be flexible to meet an ever changing threat," Kelly said. "We also have to ensure whatever measures we take are reasonable as the Constitution requires. That's the only way to retain public support and preserve individual freedoms."
Lieberman, while conceding cameras can help investigators identify suspects once a crime has been committed, argued they can't stop crime in the first place. She cited a 2002 study that concluded that closed-circuit systems used in 14 British cities had little or no impact on crime rates _ just as it didn't keep terrorists last year from bombing the London subway system.
"The London experience shouldn't be misconstrued that the 'ring of steel' prevents terrorism," she said. "But that's how it's being pitched."
Police in New York were impressed last summer by reports that their British counterparts drew on 80,000 videotapes to identify and retrace the routes of the suicide bombers and the suspects in a failed follow-up attack. NYPD officers were dispatched to London last September to study a system which photographs virtually every person and car entering the City of London, home to the financial district and landmarks like St. Paul's Cathedral.
In Lower Manhattan, police envision a closed-circuit system that would monitor a series of fortified check points leading in and out of a roughtly one-square-mile district south of Chambers Street. Another set of cameras would read license plate numbers so they could be cross-checked with a database listing cars that have been stolen or linked to criminal or terror suspects.
Timothy Horner, a specialist with the Kroll security firm and former NYPD captain, said the measures make sense.
"It's not a cure-all, and the department is not thinking that way," he said. "But we really want law enforcement to use whatever tools they can to keep us safe."
You gotta love departments that wont hire more cops and feel technology will solve their problem. My cousin is a cop in Chicago and he told me that one of the camera got stolen and was found in a dumpster behind a white castle. Needless to say there are no suspects at this time.
