Lockheed Martin Hardware to Protect NYC Transit

Gerhardius writes "Lockheed Martin has been awarded a $212 million contract to provide cameras and sensors for New York City subways, bridges and tunnels." The entire program is being conducted under the guise of anti-terrorism and includes plans for a possible wireless network which would allow cellular phones to be used in case of emergency.

Comments

The guise of anti-terrorism?

[bhirsch]

I would love to hear what the "real" reason is for cameras in subways. Maybe if I put on my tin foil hat it will come to me.

1. Cameras in subways
2. ...
3. Profit!

What New York City reminds me of

[br00tus]

I live in New York City. I didn't go into Manhattan (the main borough of New York City, and where the WTC was) for months after 9/11, but when I did there were troops everywhere. When I walk into one of the main train stations nowadays, Penn Station, I often see police walking in a group with German shepherds, which reminds me of old black-and-white filmstrips of a police force of another country patrolling with German shepherds, and the association is unpleasant. I also still see uniformed troops carrying rifles, which reminds me of my travels in third world countries. Which is to the point, the US is beginning to look more and more, visibly, like one of the third-world banana republics I have visited. I've even heard talk on TV and the radio of creating "free trade zones" so the US can do more manufacturing work. I've passed by free trade zones in third world countries - usually they are big factories surrounded by shantytowns, the police presence around which is akin to what the police presence was like in Northern Ireland years ago. I don't think all of this is a new phenomena, it seems like the US has been on the same course since the early 1970s in all things economic, military and political.

As far as to some of the people here talking about terrorism, I find this quite ridiculous. There is a complete blackout in the US media as to what is going on in most of the world. Osama Bin Laden was a Saudi, his main demand since US troops entered Saudi Arabia were for them to leave. Nothing happened so, if it's true Al Qaeda did 9/11 (which seems the most likely hypothesis to me), then it was due to his desire for the US army to leave Saudi Arabia. The US could care less, but less than two years after 9/11 the US did leave, so Al Queda got what it wanted out of 9/11. This has not been discussed at all in the US corporate media of course. Nor why the US has military bases in Panama, Colombia, Cuba (where the US is torturing prisoners, a base the Cuban government has been asking the US to leave for years), the Philippines and so forth, and why everyone who wants the US military to leave these places is a "terrorist" or drug dealer or Islamic radical or whatever. It's all a lot of nonsense. The US military is all over the world for the benefit of the richest 1% of Americans, it is horribly oppressive, and I along with other people around the world are fighting to roll back this evil empire. Create all the rationalizations you want, mod me down to -1 Flamebait so people won't read this, but we will act and we will win.

Headline is misleading

[Anonymous Coward]

To say that they are "protecting" NYC's transportation is a statement of opinion, not of fact. The fact is, they are spending ~$200mil to install cameras and sensors. Whether they provides any protection or not is a separate question. My opinion is that this will have no value at all, other than for Lockhead Martin shareholders.

London has the most extensive cameras-and-sensors system ever in the world. It did not prevent a deadly series of bombings. It didn't do anything to protect the life of an innocent passenger who was killed by London PD. In fact, now that the London cops killed that guy, all five cameras in the area of the shooting mysteriously didn't work, so there's no footage of the actual killing!

Why do American taxpayers keep on footing the bill for these boondoggles? When will it stop?

When I think about it with a clear head, it seems like there are a few good ways to prevent terrorism that might actually work that we should try:

• Stop buying oil, from the Middle East or from anywhere else. Our oil habit pours trillions of dollars into the hands of the Saudis and their friends, and some of these trillions of dollars trickle down into Al Queda. We should stop it at the source.
• Stop it with the interventions, foreign aid, and military adventurism. Every time a US soldier kills an Iraqi, ten family members become candidates for Al Queda recruitment.
• Teach Americans that we are all individually responsible for observing and reacting to problems. The problems of 9/11 could have been nipped in the bud if the passengers on those planes had fought back. And don't tell me that they couldn't have known; you can be sure that if hijackers had tried to take control of an El Al flight, before or after 9/11, there would have been a riot and some dead hijackers and none would have ever made it to the cockpit.
• As part of "teaching individual responsibility", we need to reform CCW laws in major metropolitan areas like NYC and California. Responsible citizens, with arms ready to go and proper training, can stop an attack as it begins.

It seems to me that pouring money into Lockhead Martin to try to solve this no better than doing nothing, and could be worse.