NYC 911 to Accept Cellphone Pics and Video

SpaceAdmiral writes "New York City is developing a plan to allow images to be sent to 911 emergency operators from cellphones. This will likely give emergency operators better information to pass along to responders. They're also planning on implementing a program of street-corner video cameras, as seen in the city of London. According to John A. Feinblatt, Mayor Michael Bloomberg's criminal justice coordinator: 'The more information that the police have and the more quickly that they get it, the more likely that they are going to fight a crime.'" How practical do you think it is to expand this sort of project to cities across the country? Moreover, is it worth the expense?

Comments

Camera Fun

[McFortner]

I for one welcome our Dispatcher Overlords. Oh, wait, I'm a Dispatcher! BOW DOWN BEFORE ME SWINE! McF

Re:Camera Fun

[Columcille]

Well all of this surveillance is the fault of the tin-foil-hat people. Their campaign has been far too successful and there are too many people these days wearing their hats. The aliens, working through human government leaders, need new ways to monitor our brainwave patterns. These kinds of things are just a start of the next phase of their new monitoring tactic. If you want to see less of these cameras, stop wearing your tin foil hats!

Re:Camera Fun

[Anonymous Coward]

Turns out all you have to do is click the "reply" button, which happens to be only labeled as the "rep" button when using Opera on OSX with default Mac fonts. And, yes, I know, I had a couple grammatical errors, plus I spelt original, frequent, surveillance, ourselves and paparazi incorrectly. Bah-humbug. Each to his own

911 Abuse: The Next Generation

[bluemonq]

Considering how often we hear about people calling 911 for driving directions or other ridiculous reasons, I can't help but wonder when dispatchers will start getting stuff like tubgirl...

Planning on doing what where?

[icepick72]

From the posting: They're also planning on implimenting a program of streetcorner video cameras,

... and a spell checker to provide correct spelling for Slashdot posts.

Re:Well that's shweet and all

[alshithead]

"okay try this in a week you are seen on camera in

1 chemical supply store
2 a hardware store
3 a gun store
4 "with" a person of interest

So on the basis of this "evidence" during a sweep you get given a ticket to Gitmo as being part of a terrorist plot"

Well, that's an awful lot of coincidences isn't it? That's why I spread out my suspicious activities over months, if not years.

Re:Well that's shweet and all

[Breakfast Pants]

"The amount of hypocrisy on this site never ceases to amaze me."

Hey guess what, the people posting comments on this site aren't all the same person. I mean wow, the parent was like "blah blah blah" and then you were like "blah blah blah isn't a good argument!" What hypocrisy! This site just disagreed with itself!!11

Re:Ummm... what?

[molotov303]

Police in this country haven't cared about "fighting crime" for a long time. They merely exist as a means to generate municipal revenue through parking and traffic fines.

I've been robbed twice and hit by a drunk driver. In all three cases I called police, and the disbatcher explained to me that they no longer respond to calls about those sorts of crime.