New York Plans Surveillance Veil For Downtown

News.com is reporting that a security system modeled after London's "Ring of Steel" is coming to New York City. The plan, to include license plate readers and over 3,000 public and private security cameras, aims to aid officials in tracking and catching criminals. "But critics question the plan's efficacy and cost, as well as the implications of having such heavy surveillance over such a broad swath of the city. [...] The license plate readers would check the plates' numbers and send out alerts if suspect vehicles were detected. The city is already seeking state approval to charge drivers a fee to enter Manhattan below 86th Street, which would require the use of license plate readers. If the plan is approved, the police will most likely collect information from those readers too, Kelly said."

Comments

safety first

[Anonymous Coward]

Anything that helps keep me safe against terrorism is alright in my book.

Re:safety first

[an.echte.trilingue]

Anything that helps keep me safe against terrorism is alright in my book.

Hell no. Have you read what this system does? It reads (and presumably records) every license plate number driving on city roads. I think the risks here are too obvious for me to have to detail.

I will take freedom and risk over a police state and big brother any day.

Re:safety first

[Foobar of Borg]

What risks? How is your freedom impaired? There's no freedom from being identified in public.

So, you are not going to call the police if I follow you everywhere you go in public, along with writing down and posting everything you do to the internet? After all, you are in a public space, and why should you worry if you have nothing to hide?

Re:safety first

[The PS3 Will Fail]

"So, you are not going to call the police if I follow you everywhere you go in public, along with writing down and posting everything you do to the internet?"

Many people make money doing just that. Have you started a campaign to get newspapers who employ such journalists shut down as a criminal enterprise?

Re:safety first

[AlHunt]

I will take freedom and risk over a police state and big brother any day.

Did you ever think about the irony of cops who treat every traffic stop as if they've just pulled over a mass murderer? Approach from both sides, stay behind the driver, weapon holsters unsnapped, at the ready, hand sometimes on their weapon while they assess the threat level and decide if the occupants have guns - meanwhile, the driver is sitting there, probably having seen stories about excessive force used by police, and he *knows* that person walking up behind him is in fear for their life AND that they have a gun.

Re:safety first

[Lumpy]

Yes and terrorists are too stupid to use a rental car or steal a license plate or make up a fake one.

Thank god that terrorists are too stupid to do things like that as it would nullify the system and it's only use would be to help supress political dissidents.

Re:safety first

[0xABADC0DA]

The problem is that everything you do that you don't want at least one person to know about is a potential way to blackmail you. For example, do you limit your donations to the Democrats to less then $250 because you know your Republican boss can check online to see which employees to fire or not promote or not give a raise to? That's an implicit blackmail.

Then there is explicit blackmail, like the person with access to the database that sees who is driving in crackville and threatens to report them, unless. Or the person who makes obvious 'detours' to his secretary's apartment every so often.

Privacy is like bees. A particular bee or any given sting might seem like a small problem, but once you get a whole cloud of them around you then your only chance is to freeze and hope your clothes don't look pretty in ultraviolet. It's not even so much a slippery slope as it is a death by a thousand cuts.

Re:safety first

[Artifakt]

With current tech, everywhere is public. Night Vision, Low Light CCD, Thermal Imaging, chemical sniffer chips, millimeter wave radar, low and high altitude photo surveilance with 100x or better zoom, Computer programs that can supposedly tell the difference between the green of a pot plant and some other weed from 10,000 feet away (and that have a 20%+ false positive rate).
      Data mine all these, and every single person in the area will do something that constitutes probable cause, a dozen times a day. I don't usually use 'alls' and 'everys' like that, but just to take one example - how many people drive past multiple elementary schools on their way to and from work, every day? No kids of his own, passing by two schools and seven day care centers on the way to work, slows down responsibly, route is two blocks longer than the computer generated shortest route (but is actually a few minutes faster with the usual traffic), that's enough. Many judges would issue a warrant to search a home or tap a PC connection just for that.
      Any time the IRS thinks you may have failed to declare income, they could easily get a court order to use that camera footage to see if your spending habits reflect being paid possible extra cash under the table. Right now, they have to justify the costs of an investigation, but here, a state government is doing the work, and the funds are coming from the Homeland Security dept. so it's suddenly a lot easier to afford. Again, it's a method that will generate a whole lot of false positives. (People who live outside of camera zones usually don't bother as much to drive there to shop, except possibly on days when they are doing a whole lot of shopping. Drive 40 miles each way for a special all day shopping trip and get a lot of things you've waited months for. The IRS will usually assume that's the way you spend money every Saturday.). So now the IRS is tending to selectively suspect people who live in suburbs, small towns and the country, probably totally without realizing they are biased that way.
      The point is, if you accurately describe your own lifestyle, I can show you how Law Enforcement could over-react to it. Nobody is completely average in all respects. A hobby as innocent as model railroading sounds to some suspicious types like a good way to attract potential child victims for molestation. If nothing else, you post on Slashdot. Somewhere within the group of people who can access those video records, there's a federal agent who considers Slashdot a hotbed of Libertarian radicalism.
      Occasional surveilance, i.e. by police patrols, doesn't tend to trigger paranoia in cops (usually). Near constant surveilance, accompanied by data mining techniques that routinely produce spurious signals from random noise, will. You, me, and everyone else will all be doing some innocent something that somebody somewhere now thinks indicates a potential crime. That will "justify" them investigating us in our homes, clubs, businesses and other places, where there IS a routine expectation of privacy.
        If Law Enforcement is corrupt they will abuse the additional power. If Law Enforcement is honest, it will take them 30 years or so to learn enough about spurious correlations from data mining to stop unwittingly committing the same abuses.

Re:safety first

[dkleinsc]

The reason cops do that is because they don't know if the occupants of the car are going to start shooting. Every cop knows that their life could be on the line during a "routine traffic stop". This seems only prudent, and isn't at all comparable to this sort of surveillance (which I definitely disapprove of).

Re:safety first

[moeinvt]

"The problem is that everything you do that you don't want at least one person to know about is a potential way to blackmail you."

That's great. I think I've been trying to formulate a sentence like that for about 6 years now. A concise and non-anecdotal way of suggesting to the "If you're not guilty . . ." nitwits that there are things people do which are not illegal, but which they have the desire and the RIGHT to keep private from the government.

Cross NYC off my list of travel destinations as soon as this goes into effect.

Checks and balances

[daveschroeder]

Technology will always make abuse easier, just as it makes so many other aspects of life easier.

Technology will always make jobs of law enforcement easier, just as it makes our lives easier.

Technology will always act as a force multiplier for government, just as it magnifies the capabilities of the individual user.

Just to take one example: if a system of license plate readers can detect a plate that has been flagged by some agency and prevents one, e.g., car bombing, why is that not a valid mechanism to use?

Just because it can be abused?

Or because it could be abused "more easily" than individual humans reading license plates in public?

Or because someday, someone could "come to power" who would use it against [insert ostensibly oppressed population here]?

All technology - computers, databases, telephones, cameras, the internet, vehicles, helicopters, robots, radios, video cameras, heat sensors, weapons, tear gas, rubber bullets, office buildings, body armor, remote controlled aircraft, tape recorders, wireless transmitters, you name it - can and will be able to be, and in fact will be, "abused".

But it's not the technology that's being abused; it's power.

So instead of being luddites-by-proxy, why not recognize the issue for what it is, instead of pretending that government should not be able to leverage technology to solve problems?

There is no reason surveillance cameras in public places or license plate readers in stationary locations or on aircraft should be vilified any more than any other piece of technology. Whether the cost/benefit ratio is reasonable is another argument entirely.

But I cannot and will not fault the government or law enforcement for using technology such as this, whose costs it can ultimately justify to the public's satisfaction, in public places to attempt to fulfill their charge to society.

Whether or not such systems actually do deter crime or terrorist activity, or whether they are worth the money, is really what is at issue. Not kneejerk reactions about 1984 likely to dominate some (most?) debates on this issue.

This isn't some plot to turn America into a police state. It's an effort being undertaken by local, state, and federal law enforcement and security professionals to attempt to protect the public. That is the first and primary goal. There are no ulterior motives that rise to any meaningful level. Let's keep things in some sort of perspective.

If it was your job to protect the people and property of New York City, what kinds of initiatives would you be undertaking? Hint: if your answer is along the lines that it's much better to stomach the errant terrorist attack every now and then rather than take proactive action to attempt to prevent them using whatever means you have at your disposal, you probably won't be in that job for long.

So think about this, and try to put yourself in the place of an urban security expert or a law enforcement official or a city mayor. There are valid points to be made on both sides of that debate, about costs, effectiveness, balances with privacy, and so on.

But none of them involve rants about police states or governments secretly wanting to monitor and control innocent citizens. Technology is technology. Implying that government and law enforcement shouldn't be able to use technology to the extent that it is legally allowable and its costs are justifiable is absurd.

One other point is that while things like cameras and checking ID may not always deter or prevent a crime or an attack, it often greatly assists in the investigation after the fact. We need only look as far as the London car bomb plot to know that cameras in public spaces (among a great many other tools) can be an aid. Cameras have been a valuable aid in such instances as long as they have been used. The real issue is cost effectiveness.

Could the $90M be spent a different or more effective way in a city like New York? Befo

Re:Checks and balances

[wizardforce]

Just to take one example: if a system of license plate readers can detect a plate that has been flagged by some agency and prevents one, e.g., car bombing, why is that not a valid mechanism to use? Just because it can be abused?

sometime, some day people are going to realize that trading freedom for security gets neither. it is no longer the case where there is a potential for abuse, it IS being abused. your house can be searched without warrent, your calls logged and now an overabundance of security cameras. all of this because some batshit terrorists decided the WTC had to go and now we all pay for it with our freedoms. I am sorry but to me it is plain stupid to sacrifice what made america great just to feel safe against something that has a lower probability of killing people than chocking on food.

Re:Checks and balances

[mcelrath]

All technology will be used, and all technology will be abused. The government has far more power to do harm with technology than individuals do. Therefore its use of any technology must be very, very carefully weighted in a cost/benefit analysis. When in doubt, do not give more power to governments. They will use it against you, eventually.

Furthermore this issue is fundamentally different than just technology. A watched society is not a free society. It does not matter who the watchers are, or whether they do good or ill with what the see. People behave differently when they know they're being watched.

People do not exercise their freedom of expression as often. They do not take unpopular views, or will not discuss them in public. They conform. They are not free. People need to escape from watchful eyes, for their own health and sanity. This starts in teenagers, when fundamental biological urges drive young people to get away from the tribe with their honey, for reproductive purposes. But it is a fundamental part of the human psyche.

We would be naive to believe that we could live a watched life, and still be the same person we are today.

Re:Checks and balances

[kebes]

As a tangent to your thoughts on the subject... I think one of the things that I (and others) worry about when it comes to "the law" (police, etc.) using technology to make their jobs more efficient is that there is never a "restoring force" that modifies the laws along with.

Allow me to explain. The current laws, like it or not, are not entirely idealistic. They were written within a certain social and technological environment. Using technology to more perfectly enforce a law can turn a reasonable law into an unreasonable one.

A stereotypical example is speeding. Most reasonable people agree that there should be speed limits. The current speed limits, however, were in some sense set with the knowledge that people would "cheat a little bit," so the posted limit turns out to be below the limit most safe drivers actually drive at. This works out okay in the end. The cops stop the people who are speeding alot but tend not to bother with people that speed by 10% or whatever. However if you use technology to enforce this law perfectly, it becomes unfair in a hurry. Or, if you use technology to perfectly enforce a law like "stopping at a stop-sign" then the law becomes unfair (remember that your bumper is supposed to be behind some arbitrarily line and you must be stopped for X seconds, etc.). Even the safest of drivers will not follow these rules to the letter; nor should they: the laws are written with very little leniency in their wording because they are meant to be used to stop people from egregious abuses of the law. They were never meant to punish everyone for doing normal daily things.

Another example would be copyright. I don't want to get into this debate too deeply, since it is a "hot topic" on Slashdot. Suffice it to say that many aspects of copyright seem reasonable enough, but when copyright is enforced perfectly, or worse when technology makes compliance mandatory (e.g. DRM) then a reasonable law gets transformed into an unreasonable law in a hurry. Many of the "well obviously *this* should be allowed" things that were not formally written into the law disappear.

Laws that make the everyday, normal activities of socially-responsible people illegal are not good laws. So the problem is that if law enforcement uses new technologies to allow them to do their jobs "more efficiently" but there is no corresponding rewriting of laws (to make them *more lax* or even repeal them), then our society will tend towards being less free.

That is one of the worries. So the solution is either to limit the implementation of technologies by law enforcement in some cases, or to have the laws modified. (Or a combination.)

Re:Checks and balances

[Wordsmith]

But in the example you quote, what liberty is being removed? Anonymity? You don't have that when driving a car on a public road - you've already got a license plate that the boys in blue can check on at any point. The technology would just automate the process. It's not more invasive - just more effective.

The same could be said of security cameras in public places. There's nothing wrong with a cop patrolling the streets looking for trouble - so what's wrong with a camera keeping tabs on a greater number of places. So long as there's no intrusion into a place where there's a reasonable expectation of privacy, like private property, I don't see the problem.

I'm a libertarian with an awfully limited view of what the government's entitled to do. But I don't see this tech giving the government new powers - just making it more effective at using the powers it already has.

Re:Checks and balances

[H3lldr0p]

How is it not an essential liberty to be anonymous and not identify myself outright?

How is it not an essential liberty to be unworried that my government is constantly watching me without reason?

It makes no difference if I am in public or private. The point is that unless I have done something contravening of the law there should be no suspecting of me of any crime. Constant surveillance with cameras in public chooses to flip that. It assumes that people will break the law without the evidence that they have done so.

That is the crux of the argument for such cameras. That people are evil. That they will do wrong. And the only way to stop them is to record every action they take just in case they are breaking the law.

Re:Checks and balances

[Twanfox]

So how do you figure into that the notion of speed limits? Speed limits have been studied in various contexts and found to be, on occasion, set lower than is reasonably safe for that environment. In fact, the speed limit as set actually increases accidents, though speed limits are intended to enforce vehicular safety. To note, the speed limits are set like this because the state actually depends on this income for state programs and NOT for deterrents for would-be offenders. This would be a classic example of the law being abused for an unstated purpose.

Another example is this. Chicago is looking to ban a device that would improve safety by alerting people they are coming up to a camera-enforced stop light. This device would improve the safety of those intersections by warning people, but the Alderman (or a few) have out right stated that it is about the fine money, roughly $2 million or so, that is collected and earmarked for various city projects. Safety is not a primary concern at times for local, city, state, or federal government. The collection of money for their projects is.

Besides, how can you say the law is absolute when the very nebulous entity of intent must be applied to the transgression? I cannot go and shoot someone that I dislike, but I can shoot someone that is threatening my life. I cannot speed, but if I am legitimately rushing someone to the hospital and had a lapse of judgment (ie: waiting for an ambulance to get there) or could not wait for one, the normal fine for the infraction might be commuted based on circumstance. Technology is not suited to address the issue of intent, nor should it. The law can only properly be interpreted by people in the context that it happens.

Ha!

[morgan_greywolf]

The terrorists will NEVER figure out a way around THIS!!! After all, they'd have to STEAL someone else's plate and put it on their vehicle! Or make up their own plate. Why, either way, it's next to impossible!

Boy, we're SOOO much smarter than the terrorists!

Re:Ha!

[Cheesey]

Yeah, good going. Stolen plate reported, different make/model - instant red flag. Perhaps the terrorists in your world play make-believe like you do!

No, this is crap. Over here in England, there have been cases where people have copied licence plates, often in order to dodge the Congestion Charge: the special city road tax that is implemented using automatic number plate recognition (ANPR). They look out for a car of the same make and model as they drive around, note down the number, and then get a copy of the licence plate made.

In order to stop this, the Government added new laws to make it more difficult to get licence plates made. If you want to get a new licence plate from a reputable dealership or mechanic, you have to prove you own the car by producing all the documentation for it. And two forms of ID. Unfortunately this didn't help at all, because licence plates can be bought on the black market.

So the new solution is to RFID chip every car. Luckily, there could never be any way of cloning an RFID chip... The new solution does have the added benefit of making the sensor equipment very cheap - no image recognition required - so it can be more widely deployed. Just one more step towards a log of every action you ever take... only then will we be safe from the terrorists, right?

If regular criminals can clone cars, resourceful terrorists won't have much difficulty. Or they won't use cars at all. It's security theatre again, an excuse for a new tax. It's bullshit, and there's evidence from the UK that shows it's good for nothing but milking more money out of you.

Re:Ha!

[westlake]

After all, they'd have to STEAL someone else's plate and put it on their vehicle! Or make up their own plate. Why, either way, it's next to impossible!

Because your hand-stamped shop work plate will never attract the wrong sort of attention?

The Geek invents foolishly complex and dangerous scenarios that a real spy, criminal, or terrorist would dismiss out of hand.

Nothing is safer than carrying real - legit - ID. Keep it simple, stupid.

I have to ask...

[LiquidCoooled]

Since most people are talking about terrorism,
the greater majority of terrorist attacks have involved some form of public transport between planes, trains and automobiles aren't cars the least of the trouble?

This sounds more like an additional taxation on driving (exactly what they are proposing for Manchester England, and what is already in use in London.

Re:I have to ask...

[Paulrothrock]

The "tax" is a congestion charge. It will be used to get people out of cars and into public transportation to ease congestion downtown and reduce energy use. I don't see how this is a bad thing. They're turning the externality of everyone driving individual cars and turning it into an internalized cost, just like Adam Smith recommends.

Broad taxes based on objective things like income are suspect, but specific taxes that deal with economic externalities, like congestion charges and superfund taxes, are fine by me.

Where does it stop?

[Steeltalon]

I mean, really, at what point do we say "you can't put cameras there" and have no one say "well, if you're not committing a crime then it shouldn't bother you?"

they dont have the cash to do it... yet

[wizardforce]

But Kelly said last week that the department had since obtained $25 million toward the estimated $90 million cost of the plan. While $15 million came from Homeland Security grants, he said, another $10 million came from the city, more than enough to install 116 license plate readers in fixed and mobile locations, including cars and helicopters, in the coming months. The readers have been ordered, and Kelly said he hoped the rest of the money would come from additional federal grants. The license plate readers would check the plates' numbers and send out alerts if suspect vehicles were detected. The city is already seeking state approval to charge drivers a fee to enter Manhattan below 86th Street, which would require the use of license plate readers. If the plan is approved, the police will most likely collect information from those readers too, Kelly said.

they don't have the money to build it so they plan to make us charge for our own surveillance using the very technology it is paying for in the first place. this is getting carried away, people need to start waking up and start voting these people out of here.

...safety? think "tax money"

[Penguinisto]

The CCTV's could be construed as such (and man that's an ugly thought...)

BUT - from the looks of things, the license plate readers are there as a check to see if the drivers had paid their little extra tax for the privilege of putting along on the streets of Manhattan.

I almost expected to see it hit this side of the Atlantic sometime, but I'm still kind of surprised; figured that the CCTV's were another 10 years off.

Only time will tell if it actually does anything to increase general safety or not (does anyone have any crime stats showing the diff before/after CCTV in London, BTW?)

/P

Re:...safety? think "tax money"

[Short Circuit]

Crime migrated to camera-free zones. Great! So we just have to get rid of all the camera-free zones.

Wait...

Re:...safety? think "tax money"

[janrinok]

I don't have figures of the crime stats themselves but there is much (empirical) evidence to suggest that the police are having significant success in bring serious criminals to court. In fact, 4 of the 6 terrorists charged with the failed 21/7 bomb attempt in London have been found guilty (the jury is still out on the remaining 2). The evidence not only included considerable CCTV footage of the failed attempts but the police have been able to show how they identified and tracked the suspects in the 2 weeks following the bombing attempt until the terrorists were arrested. It included one making his escape dressed as a female wearing a burka. The CCTV footage must be subjected to many thousands of man hours of analysis but it can be, and is being, done. London is far from having serious crime detected and prevented in real-time although petty crime is reputedly reduced in CCTV covered areas. As another comment has suggested, only half-jokingly, the crime has moved to areas not covered by CCTV!

I'm a Brit but I no longer live in the UK, having retired to more pleasant climes about 6 months ago. But while there, I never felt that the cameras were intrusive and I did not feel that I was being watched, even if electronically I was. I understand how people might feel that their civil liberties and privacy are both being reduced but I did not feel that in the slightest. Today's news does, in my book, more than justify the use of CCTV. YMMV

Re:...safety? think "tax money"

[cayenne8]

"I don't have figures of the crime stats themselves but there is much (empirical) evidence to suggest that the police are having significant success in bring serious criminals to court."

The trouble is...these things are being sold over here as a preventative measure against terrorists. This just isn't the case. If the 'bad' guys come over here and cannot be prevented from detonating a 'nuke' of some kind....well, those cameras and footage will be pretty useless as that they will be vaporised too.

If the tool can't help prevent crime...then what use are they? I agree with the other poster....will aid in tax collections for cars...

Re:...safety? think "tax money"

[janrinok]

They were successful if preventing the 4 of the 6 in a London court today from committing another attack. They might be successful in stopping the other 2, but the jury has not yet reached a verdict. From the evidence collected in this particular case, much of which but certainly not all was from CCTV, the security forces are better equipped to prevent subsequent crimes. And, despite what is being stated elsewhere on this thread, the police were able to track retrospectively a vehicle being used when one of the terrorists left London and travelled to the North of England. It wouldn't have made any difference whether the car had false plates, had been repainted or whatever. They tracked it for over 250 miles (using a very circuitous route) using CCTV imagery and the end result was the an individual was arrested, is now in court, and if found guilt it will prevent him from carry out another attack for a few years.

Re:...safety? think "tax money"

[networkBoy]

Honestly not to be an ass, but:

They only were found guilty because they were incompetent and had no idea how to construct a bomb, coupled with their lack of devotion to suicide bomb. If you have someone willing to end their own life to take yours there is very little preemptive work you can do to stop them. If I build a bomb, line the outside with ball bearings, nails, sharks with lasers (tiny sharks, I admit), all within my house in a room without windows, then strap it to myself and put an overcoat appropriate to the season on (loose fitting linen for the summer perhaps?), and drive my car to a crowded place (mall?) how do you stop that?
How do the cameras really help after the fact? Point is that the cameras are fine for domestic crime tracking, but for genuine Islamic extremist terrorism they are rather useless.
-nB

Re:...safety? think "tax money"

[DavidShor]

Police officers and intelligence agencies have been able to catch terrorists for decades; this problem did not appear overnight. As time goes on, terrorists and criminals will simply adapt their methods to avoid surveillance (off the top of my head, I can imagine window tinting and carpooling through private parking garages, they will most likely be more original).

After this, terrorists are not impeded in the slightest bit, the public is several billion dollars poorer, and politicians now have a stunningly effective tool to control their populace (Wait until pictures of an Opposition MP in drag picking up a hooker are "leaked").

Re:...safety? think "tax money"

[dotbenjamin]

What happened to innocent until proven guilty? How can you say that anything helped to stop them carry out another attack when they haven't (all) been found guilty of carrying out the first one? Habeus Corpus, my friend. Don't forget it.

Re:...safety? think "tax money"

[Aceticon]

I live in the UK.

Just the other day there was a documentary on BBC about the way many of the laws and acts passed in the last couple of years by the British parliement are used to curtail free speech.

For example, an old guy (we're talking 70 years old) was arrested under the powers given to the police by the Anti-Terrorism Act because he half-shouted "nonsense" during a speach by some government minister at a Labour Party conference.

Going back to the issue of cameras all over the place here in the UK, it all boils down to this:
- Do you trust that all, or even most, of those that have access to that information are fair and honest?

The same guys which used the Anti-Terrorism Act to arrested a 70 year old man for saying "nonsense" at a government minister's speech, even though those same people, while clamoring for those extended powers to "fight terrorism", promised never to used it except against potential terrorists!!???

Having been born in a country which in the past was under the rule of a fascist dictatorship, i recognize in some of what i hear about the way things are here in the UK, many of the elements of the stories i heard about the way the secret police worked in fascist times and many elements from History books about the rise of dictatorships (the "internal enemy", the "arbitrary arrest powers with no oversight", the "enhanced surveilance powers", the stoking and use of widespread "irrational fear" to get those arrest and surveilance powers, the constant "state of alert") ...

If we get a "deep economical crash" or an "extraordinarily bloody act of terrorism", all conditions are set for the rise of a "saviour" ...

Re:...safety? think "tax money"

[cbiltcliffe]

It might not help with the 'loan nut' problem, but how many of those are there?

I don't know...it seems to me that most banks have at least one....

Re:...safety? think "tax money"

[Zaiff Urgulbunger]

If they had succeeded in their mission, then we might at least have some more information about events with CCTV than without; with no CCTV you only have whatever you can pick out of the smoldering remains. With CCTV you have a better chance of ID'ing the people involved, and then working backwards through their movements. They are unlikely to be isolated; there will have been people aiding their plans and these people may well be aiding others, so being able to gather any evidence after the event is still of *huge* benefit to the security agencies and is useful in prevention for future events.

Plus, we are talking about information that is in effect, in the public domain. Anything you do in public, is like that!

I do have concerns about state surveillance, but really CCTV isn't really something I'm worried about. It makes sense given the relatively low cost of CCTV these days, to use is as *part of* a layered security model.

Re:...safety? think "tax money"

[ChrisMaple]

There are 4 ways to get the necessary chemicals for a bomb.

• Make them yourself from innocuous chemicals. Difficult, risky, somewhat expensive.
• Buy explosives. Subject to discovery through legally mandated record keeping.
• Smuggling. Cameras might be helpful in some cases.
• Theft. Cameras are likely to be helpful here; trace the thief from breakin to bomb factory.

Cameras are one tool among many to find the bad guys.

Opaque Society

[Anonymous Coward]

But try photograph and/or videotape a police officer, and see what happens.

(They can have my camera when they pry it from my cold, dead hands)

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,284075,00.html

Straight Talk: Videotaping Police

Tuesday , June 19, 2007
By Radley Balko

Last month, Brian Kelly of Carlisle, Pa., was riding with a friend when the car he was in was pulled over by a local police officer. Kelly, an amateur videographer, had his video camera with him and decided to record the traffic stop.

The officer who pulled over the vehicle saw the camera and demanded Kelly hand it over. Kelly obliged. Soon after, six more police officers pulled up. They arrested Kelly on charges of violating an outdated Pennsylvania wiretapping law that forbids audio recordings of any second party without their permission. In this case, that party was the police officer.

Kelly was charged with a felony, spent 26 hours in jail, and faces up to 10 years in prison. All for merely recording a police officer, a public servant, while he was on the job.

There's been a rash of arrests of late for videotaping police, and it's a disturbing development. Last year, Massachusetts Attorney General Tom Reilly threatened Internet activist Mary T. Jean with arrest and felony prosecution for posting a video to her website of state police swarming a home and arresting a man without a warrant.

Michael Gannon of New Hampshire was also arrested on felony wiretapping charges last year after recording a police officer who was being verbally abusive on his doorstep. Photojournalist Carlos Miller was arrested in February of this year after taking pictures of on-duty police officers in Miami.

And Philadelphia student Neftaly Cruz was arrested last year after he took pictures of a drug bust with his cell phone.

As noted, police are public servants, paid with taxpayer dollars. Not only that, but they're given extraordinary power and authority we don't give to other public servants: They're armed; they can make arrests; they're allowed to break the very laws they're paid to enforce; they can use lethal force for reasons other than self-defense; and, of course, the police are permitted to videotape us without our consent.

It's critical that we retain the right to record, videotape or photograph the police while they're on duty. Not only for symbolic reasons (when agents of the state can confiscate evidence of their own wrongdoing, you're treading on seriously perilous ground), but as an important check on police excesses. In the age of YouTube, video of police misconduct captured by private citizens can have an enormous impact.

Consider Eugene Siler. In 2005, the Campbell County, Tenn., man was confronted by five sheriff's deputies who (they say) suspected him of drug activity. Siler's wife surreptitiously switched on a tape recorder when the police officers came inside. Over the next hour, Siler was mercilessly beaten and tortured by the officers, who were demanding he confess to drug activity. Siler was poor, illiterate and had a nonviolent criminal record. Without that recording, it's unlikely anyone would have believed his account of the torture over the word of five sheriff's deputies.

Earlier this year, Iraq war veteran Elio Carrion was shot three times at near-point-blank range by San Bernardino, Calif., deputy Ivory Webb. Carrion was lying on the ground and was unarmed. Video of the arrest and shooting, however, was captured by bystander Jose Louis Valdez. Webb since has been fired from the police department and is on trial on charges of attempted voluntary manslaughter and assault with a firearm. The video is the key piece of evidence in his trial.

While it's possible that police and prosecutors would have believed Carrion's version of events over Webb's even without the video, it seems unlikely. Webb is the first officer to be indicted in the history of the San Bernardin

We are spoiled

[Harmonious Botch]

Privacy though anonominity in public is a relatively recent phenomenon, and we seem to take it for granted. But most of the world's population for most of its history - including the folks who wrote the US constitution - have not lived that way. Most people spent the majority of thier lives in a radius of a few miles, and were recognized on a daily or even hourly basis by someone who knew them.

We are used to having privacy in public even though we have neither earned it nor voted for it. It is a totally unrealistic expectation that we should be able to maintain it. It is just a freak of timing that we have it at all - the technology that made big cieies possible happened before the technology that made cheap cameras possible.

As long as they stay out of my property, it's ok with me.

Re:We are spoiled

[Waffle Iron]

Most people spent the majority of thier lives in a radius of a few miles, and were recognized on a daily or even hourly basis by someone who knew them.

They may have been recognized by different individuals at different places, but each person usually knew only about single encounters in isolation. Reconstructing somebody's movements over a whole day would have required a town meeting to get testimony from all of the observers. Moreover, peoples' movements were not meticulously logged for posterity, much less entered into a searchable database for easy access by government bureaucrats.

Sure, you could always have been stalked or followed, but that has always required a large investment of time and effort by the follower(s). This has naturally limited stalking activities to a very limited number of situations. In contrast, in the future every citizen could end up being stalked by the government all the time, everywhere they go. And thanks to people who make arguments like yours, there will be few if any constitutional checks on the new powers given to the stalkers.

Re:Call it what you will

[an.echte.trilingue]

But if it captures muslim terrorists, then I'm all for it.

And when it captures white political dissidents?

Money

[ktappe]

If they want me to spend my money there, they will not do this. I have already curtailed a previously-planned trip to London because I do not want to partake of their police state where anybody can be detained by police without reason. Now NYC wants to duplicate their Orwellian setup? Then I won't go to NYC. And I'm just the type of affluent daytripper (I live near Philly) that NYC is constantly trying to get to come spend money in Manhattan. Sorry guys, you can either get my money or put a camera on me, not both.

Life in NYC just got harder..

[cculianu]

You know, life in NYC is so difficult. Here let me run through the million and 1 annoying things about living here:

- You want to live somewhere? Cool. So does everyone else. Rents are ridiculously high -- Manhattan rents START at $5 per square foot per month in rent -- and that's for a REALLY crappy tenement built in the 1920s with ROACHES and it may or may not have an elevator. "Luxury" apartments (what in other places you would consider just barely acceptable normal places to live) start at $10/sq foot per month.

- You want to go to the movies? Awesome! Plan on either buying your tickets 5 hours in advance online or not going at all or going at midnight on a Wednesday the second week the movie is out. Almost all the good shows are sold out. Oh also movie tickets start at $10 for your basic crappy theater.

- You want to have a car in Manhattan? Sorry it's impossible because there is NO PARKING. However, you can perhaps keep a car in one of the other boroughs like Brooklyn or Queens -- but don't forget to move your car twice a week because of "alternate side parking rules". It sounds simple enough but the average car owner in Queens spends about $250 per year on parking tickets because this alternate side system inevitably leads to your forgetting to move your car and getting a ticket. I personally spent about $400 in parking tickets last year. That's the cost of insurance in most states.

- You want to go to the beach on the weekend? Well you probably don't have a car (see previous point) so you either have to rent one (plan on spending at least $100/day for a crappy economy car) *or* you can take the Long Island Railroad with all the other schmucks. There's nothing like schlepping a cooler up and down stairs to catch a train that makes you just feel like a winner. Oh and if you do rent that car plan on spending 2 hours each way in bumper-to-bumper weekend traffic on the notoriously overburdened LIE.

- They say the subway is great. They are people that haven't really lived in NY for longer than 1 year. The first year is fun -- the subway feels new and exciting and it's very NEW YORK so newbies get into it. However, after taking it for 20+ years to school, work, etc I can say it is a horribly dehumanizing experience. I have gotten yelled at, pushed, mugged, lost, been stuck in trains for hours, and been subjected to all sorts of gruesome sounds and sights and smells. Also, at rush hour it's really a very unhappy experience since it's so crowded you literally have to push and fight people for a spot to stand. It's really quite uncivilized.

- The nightlife is cool, but people are jaded and cold and it's a bit of a superficial existence.

- And NOW Bloomberg wants to charge us money to drive down below 86th St. He is creating a straw man problem -- there is NO PROBLEM with traffic in Manhattan! Most people don't have cars anyway, and the pollution argument is just stupid (it really is -- I agree people shouldn't be driving -- but charging them money to drive in Manhattan is idiotic and doesn't help with pollution at all -- or if it does it's a drop in the bucket). Bloomberg just wants to create new and exciting ways to charge people money and to rip off the common taxpayer. He already doubled most city fines (everything from sanitation to parking to health and safety fines, etc). Now he wants to invent new fines. It's madness!

- The police here really don't care. Unless it's a major felony -- you can call them and you will be treated as if you are insane for having called them.

- Spying on the citizenry is just going to make it even more fun. Since the police hardly give a shit -- now they can have all this high tech gear with which to harass us.

Re:Life in NYC just got harder..

[Mattintosh]

Nah, St. Louis has none of that. Nor does its surrounding metro area. It has less social annoyance, but much greater for police abuse.

- You can buy for less than $.50/sq.ft/mo. BYORoaches if you're that into them, but the neighbors might complain.

- Wehrenberg charges $7.50 for a ticket at their prime theaters, and there are always seats for even the big shows. The only planning-ahead needed is if you want to see a major release on opening weekend on an Imax or other gigantic screen.

- You pay a bit extra up front for a car (unless it's a Dodge truck or minivan) due to shipping costs. Other than that, it's all sales tax, property tax, and insurance and maintenance. Gas is cheaper here than most places because there are refineries nearby.

- Ok, so you're screwed on this one. There isn't a decent beach within 1500 miles. But there are lots of swimming pools, several water parks, and many, many lakes (with rocky shores). They're good boating lakes, too.

- No subway. Minimal light-rail service (stadium, airport, a couple of college campuses, and not much else). Metro-wide bus service, but poor coverage and crap routes and timing. Lots of interstates clogged with traffic, though.

- There are some good "nightlife" spots, but not many. Don't come here looking for it.

- There would be hell to pay if some jackass dared to try to put up toll booths here. It's political suicide in this area, and no one does it (duh).

- The police here are bored. This is not a good thing.

- They're warming up their spy gear here, too. But the police are bored and will have plenty of time to nitpick. Again, this is not a good thing.

Re:Life in NYC just got harder..

[warren_spencer_1977]

I like all your points, because I lived and worked there for the last seven years. I moved back home to Canada some months ago and wouldn't go back for darn near anything. Yeah it's exciting and interesting, but the concrete, steel, and crowds wear you done after a few years.

One point you missed though - when disaster strikes (9/11, 2003 power outage...) - there's no worse place to be than a commuter in Manhattan. They bottle up that island (yes, Manhattan is an island) reeeeeeeeal good, leaving you to enjoy a ten mile walk home fueled by street food and fire-hydrant water. Enjoy!!

I realize that you're making a joke, but...

[ivan256]

...it seems to be lost on many people that the surveillance network in London isn't what stopped the recent terrorist plot, it's merely what helped them track down the people responsible. If some random jerk hadn't gotten into a knife fight near the car-bomb, the plot might have succeeded even with the cameras.

These things don't add any safety. They just make vengeance through the criminal justice system easier.

Re:I realize that you're making a joke, but...

[Gr8Apes]

2 things to add:

a) cameras don't stop terrorists.
b) cameras won't even help after the fact, if they're a cell of suicide bombers. There's no one to track down.

Look at 9-11. They tracked down all 19 terrorists relatively quickly without invading other's privacy. In no way would 9-11 have been stopped with the surveillance system in place.

Camera footage does make for great fodder for the news though: "LOOK! Here they are, about to commit egregious violence on innocents" and then blast it 24/7 across the airwaves.

Such a system is a great way of spending great amounts of money and time and accomplishing little to nothing except terrorize your own populace and maybe throw a few innocents in jail to boot based on bad "evidence".

Re:I realize that you're making a joke, but...

[ivan256]

Well, I suppose that depends on the goals of the person you're asking.

However it is always a bad thing to confuse the two. If what you want is vengeance, you shouldn't lie to yourself and pretend what you're after is safety; and you shouldn't fool yourself into thinking you're safer because you've punished those who have already done bad things.

Re:I realize that you're making a joke, but...

[Twanfox]

So how do you think this would deter someone who expects to be dead committing the act of violence? Do you think the 19 terrorists for the 9-11 attack were actually expecting to walk away from their crash landings?

Re:I realize that you're making a joke, but...

[plague3106]

Just think about fingerprinting, it hasn't once stopped people from committing a crime, but it sure does make it easier to catch the bad guy.

No, it hasn't. It doesn't help at all if the person commiting the crime never had a record. Nor does it help lead to suspects.

Also these will help prevent innocent people from being wrongfully arrested.

Really? Finerprints have prevented innocent people have been sitting on death row for years, only recently being released? And they've stopped the execution of innocent people? These things have and continue to happen, finger prints or not. I suspect cameras will have the same effect.

Re:I realize that you're making a joke, but...

[janrinok]

Not all suicide bombers are successful - today 4 of 6 would-be terrorists (London 21/7) have been found guilty because of the evidence which included considerable CCTV footage. They were identified and tracked using CCTV in the 2 weeks following their attempt. Not all members of the team were suicide bombers. The 2 accused for which the jury has not yet reached a verdict were also identified by CCTV although they did not take part in the bombing itself. Even successful bombers can be identified and the security services can learn much to help prevent subsequent attacks. So while I accept the thrust of your statement, you are being much too simplistic in your analysis of the value of anything that assists in the detection and prevention of terrorism. The police and security services might not be successful every time but as long as they prevent the bomb that would otherwise blow you up, don't you think that would be a direct benefit to you?

Re:I realize that you're making a joke, but...

[Maxo-Texas]

As much as I hate the idea of surveillance (mostly because of the point above that the reason laws work now is that they are not all enforced all the time) I think it would allow you to much more easily locate supporters who enabled the terrorists.

With complete surveillance, most crimes that require support of the populace become impossible.
I mean- all we need is a camera in every church, mosque, temple and we could head off the radical preachers and imams as they get started. And every library. And every hallway, elevator, street. Inside every car, cubicle, and monitors on every computer for all of your activities.

In fact, you could argue that everyone should have a camera on them 24/7 or else they can be arrested for not allowing themselves to be observed since only people people who commit crimes would resist this.

I know some foo foos would argue against observing during sex and bathrooms but if we allow those exceptions then terrorists and criminals would flock to bathrooms and sex as cover for their illicit activities.

In fact- if any hole is left open in the security web, then the criminals and terrorist will gravitate to it naturally so none could be allowed.

On the good side, once you have complete surveillance perhaps a lot of stupid laws would be overturned because (for example) you wouldn't have a preacher and major supporter of the conservative movement preaching against drug use and homosexual practices for years while he was secretly engaging in just such actions on the side.

If you had to choose between legalizing pot or literally incarcerating 25% of everyone over 40 years old, perhaps the laws would be changed. Right now, they arrest a couple a year but most continue free.

My advice is this:
Buy paintball guns.
Walk (Do Not Drive) and disable the cameras every chance you get. Make them so impractical and expensive that they do not get a foothold here like they did in London. You might consider a mild etching solution- or vasoline filling- you can't see it from a distance.

These cameras are all fine and dandy until the next time the government turns evil (and all kidding about neo-fascist cheney and bush- they are really scions of democracy compared to what we could have) which is why our founding fathers encouraged us to carry guns in the first place (to stop the government when it turns evil- because they always do eventually).

Understand disabling these cameras will eventually result in the deaths of a few thousand people. The number of deaths and the agony from an evil government typically reaches in the millions. We must suffer a few thousand deaths now and then to remain free.

Re:I realize that you're making a joke, but...

[Anonymous Coward]

We already have cameras at airports. I don't think the terrorists were marked with big yellow dots, though.

Why?

[Penguinisto]

Cripes, man... what's with all the Mission:Impossible scenarios? It was easier for Nichols and McVeigh to just rent a truck.

/P

Re:Blowback from everyone's favorite initiatives

[Mathonwy]

So... just out of curiosity, in your personal worldview, what's the motivation for environmentalists to take away your freedoms? Is it still because "they hate freedom", or do you have a more creative justification for why people concerned about the environment would want to destroy your civil liberties?

Re:Question:

[Notquitecajun]

London should be used as a comparison, but as the Brits and Americans are SO different when it comes to security (note the issue of gun crime comparisons...ALL of them), I'm not so certain that what happens in one city WOULDN'T have a near-opposite effect in the other.

Re:Sounds Good

[Anonymous Coward]

Well said. I want to expand on it though.

Most people will argue 'Well, no, camera's didn't stop those subway attacks, but having those cameras in place, if it is well known, will detour criminals from committing crimes there. So sure, we lose some of our privacy, but we gain security.'

But alas, cameras do not even prevent criminals from walking into a store, shooting a clerk in the face, and taking all the loot out of the register (and really, it's common knowledge that all of those stores have cameras).

What really draws my pity out for some people, though, is that they are utterly convinced that the government is looking out for their best interests.
These people will boldly defend their trust of the government by saying, "If you don't have anything to hide, what are you worried about?".
You can, sometimes, see the gears slowly starting to turn in their heads when you reply, "Ok, I'm off to your house to search through your kids rooms. Followed by a thorough inspection of all of your wifes belongings. If you don't have anything to hide, what are you worried about?"

Privacy is privacy. Having your privacy invaded is a terribly abrasive and intrusive event. But, if they can start off small "it's just a camera on a street corner, whats the big deal?" they can will erode their way into total control. We humor ourselves by saying "Yeah, right, I know when to draw the line when it comes to this invasion of privacy. It has to happen, so we can catch those pesky terrorists, but, I'm going to keep a close eye on it to make sure it doesn't get out of hand.".. but this is bigger than us. What about the next upcoming generations? They will be so used to the cameras on every street corner, it will be second nature to them. The profound idea of what we considered privacy will be almost completely abolished, with a new definition, a new standard, to take its place. Who knows what the new stances will be? "It's just a camera in every one of the rooms in your house, and look, they arent even forcing us to install one in the bathroom. If you aren't doing anything wrong, you shouldn't have anything to hide."

This is a good thing

[geekoid]

Becasue, after all, it's stop all terrorist activities in London...

Watching the Police

[Doc Ruby]

This system would make a lot more sense if the public could tune into the complete records of the webcams. These cameras are looking at public places, and are being operated by public safety, claimed to be in the public interest. The public should be able to hit these webcams if not in realtime, to give police a jump on criminals, then at latest the following day. Which would give police time to convince a judge on the record that the occasional segment from a camera needs to be censored. Perhaps even ongoing random deletions to hide patterns of "cameras of interest" which could clue criminals which cameras caught something being used against them.

But of course we should start from the premise that these cameras belong to the public, that their data belongs to the public. Then reasonable demands of justice and legitimate police process can be met within our existing system of warrants.

In fact, we should go further. All the police, their vehicles, and buildings should have webcams monitoring all their activity all the time. It should be available for anyone in the public to go through. That will not only keep police more honest, but also harness the millions of voyeurs to look for public evidence of crimes, and notify police when they see something in public. And of course there's huge potential for people to make our own "reality show" material, with the world's most exciting background sets and extras.

Yes

[H3lldr0p]

Just because it can be abused? Yes, because all possible abuses of technology must be fought.

The questions we face with the emergence of this surveillance society are not nearly as simple as you have attempted to frame them here. It is not enough to simply fight when the abuse happens, but we must also fight the possible abuse that can occur. It must be fought against, if for no other reason, then to make other people aware of what could happen should these sorts of plans go through. This is not to create a sort of "I told you so" syndrome, but to raise awareness.

I can, in some ways, sympathize with those who want to expand the abilities of law enforcement by using this technology but they are, as we ourselves do, using this technology as a shortcut to do the work that is needed. But the simple truth of the matter is that the policing of the laws has never once benefited a society by going through shortcuts. The only conclusive method of stopping crime is a hard one to accept because of the human cost of it. It involves putting people at risk. It involves getting them to go into these places that we do not want to go ourselves. It does not and cannot involve people looking at the world through remote eyes.

We may want to believe that we can create safety through constant, unrelenting surveillance. But all this does is to create a situation much like censorship laws do: It only drives those who we want to keep close to the surface underground and makes them that much harder to find when something bad does happen.

Re:Blowback from everyone's favorite initiatives

[PhysicsPhil]

Let my lay this out for you: When George Bush takes away your freedoms to protect you from terrorists that is bad, and George Bush is evil and wants power. Environmentalists want to take away your freedoms to 'save the earth' and that is good because they have no motives whatsoever to get power. George Bush is stripping the freedom from unreasonable search and seizure and the right to habeus corpus, amongst others. The right to drive an SUV is not in the Constitution. Don't ever think the two are equivalent.

Balance of enforcement

[Short Circuit]

What risks? How is your freedom impaired? There's no freedom from being identified in public. There's a certain balance between having a number of laws, and having those laws enforced. Do you know one person who hasn't broken any laws? Probably not; People regularly break the law without being aware of it. And ignorance isn't accepted as an excuse.

The problem with surveillance societies is that all of those laws become enforced, when before only sufficiently important ones were. Sure, selective enforcement of different laws bites, but being hit with full enforcement of an encyclopedia of law will bite harder.

Re:Balance of enforcement

[moeinvt]

" . . .problem with surveillance societies is that all of those laws become enforced"

I don't follow that line of reasoning. I think it would just open up the door to further abuse. One of the MANY problems with universal spying and surveillance is that it makes selective enforcement of laws that much EASIER.

As you said, everyone is guilty of violating some stupid law, and if everything is being recorded, the government can just decide to throw people in jail arbitrarily.

I'll always oppose this Big Brother stuff, but if it actually meant that every single law would be enforced universally (i.e. cops, politicians and the ultra wealthy would be subjected to the same laws as the rest of us), it would have some benefits.

Re:Balance of enforcement

[DavidShor]

There are a lot of laws we have on the books that SHOULDNT be enforced. The only reason they are there is because attempts to repeal them piss off a vocal minority, and vocal minorities can cause significant damage. It is usually easier to avoid enforcement of the law, instead of attempting to repeal it.

Case and point, Homosexuality in the military. The majority of the population supported allowing openly gay individuals in the military in 1992, but when Clinton attempted to allow gay people to openly serve, conservative groups flooded White House and Congressional Phone lines, shutting down government business in what might have been one of the first DDOS attacks in history. Faced with this challenge, the government decided to implement don't ask don't tell policy, essentially avoiding enforcement of the law.

Homosexuality was illegal in many states until 2003, consensual sex between 15 year olds is illegal everywhere in America, sex toys and fellatio is illegal in a couple of states. These are not mere factoids; there have been serious and concerted efforts to repeal these laws, only to be thwarted by passionate minorities.

We as a society could confront these minorities, but doing so incurs serious causes of social strife, with little or no benefit. A far superior method is to simply fail to enforce the laws, and rely on the power of jury nullification (That a jury has the legal right to acquit a defendant if they disagree with a law) incase a couple of overzealous officials attempt to enforce it.

Re:Balance of enforcement

[HomelessInLaJolla]

rely on the power of jury nullification (That a jury has the legal right to acquit a defendant if they disagree with a law) incase a couple of overzealous officials attempt to enforce it. Problem with that is most judges will strongly urge juries, off the record, to forget that they have such a power. There are cases where judges have replaced juries who have tried. In more recent decades attorneys will exclude potential jurors who indicate that they know what jury nullification is.

Sad but true. Most people think that, if you don't like the laws, you're supposed to try and build enough financial and political support to lobby the politicians to change them or elect different politicians. The one true power which the public had to police the laws created by politicians was jury nullification and most attorneys and judges are staunchly against allowing anyone to use it.

Re:Call it what you will

[ktappe]

And when it captures white political dissidents?

Why on earth was this modded flamebait? Do not think for one second that a blanket camera system that tracks faces, license plates, and any other identifying characteristics, will not eventually be used to track people that the current government dislikes. It is very well documented that the FBI has kept (and still keeps) files on political protesters, for example. Whoever "flamebaited" the parent needs to either wake up or at the very least lose the white bias.

Freedom is Security.

[khasim]

Does anyone believe that the average citizen in Soviet Russia had any more security than the average US citizen?

Despite the near total and constant surveillance?

The Government watching you does not make you any more secure.

Freedom is Security.

Re:Call it what you will

[ak3ldama]

But if it captures muslim terrorists, then I'm all for it. And when it captures white political dissidents? Why was the parent moderated Flamebait? I was going to moderate several posts up on this article, but I must call this to attention instead! This is a very relevant question, not only this but others questions must be asked.

Will this be used to maintain picket zones? What kind of data aggregation will take place? How many databases will this tie in with? Which organizations will have access to this data? What systems will be used to cull license plate numbers/face recognition/and other such patterns? How many people will be employed to watch these cameras? What are the metrics for results that they see as being acceptable results? The UK/London results were quite bad but the government groups that they were responsible thought the numbers were acceptable enough for a larger rollout. There are all kinds of questions that should be asked - besides the initial WTF?! that goes along with such intrusive surveillance system.

Why not an "anti abuse plan" ?

[cyberianpan]

I broadly agree with comment, yes of course this new data collection will enable abuse (e.g. a small few policemen are likely stalkers etc) so along with this shiny new plan why not an "anti abuse plan" ? One that describes in detail access logging & auditing - i.e. every query run on this ought be visible to every user - thus it can be determined if they use it inappropriately - etc.
Same way we expect our online bank to offer us good security - as well as their service we ought expect our law enforcement authorities to offer us the service along with protection for ourselves. Anti abuse features ought be architected in upfront and be part of the proposal !

Are you that scared???

[cayenne8]

And so the rise of Big Brother in the US accelerates....

You know...frankly, I'm just not THAT scared of the terrorists. Is everyone else so frightened of them that this kind of sh*t sounds like a good idea???

Re:Are you that scared???

[Anonymous Coward]

I totally agree with the general consensus that mass surveillance in the name of fighting terrorism (or the other enemy du jour) is generally a Bad Idea.

However, I live & work & party in London and get up to all sorts of activities that, were I the paranoid sort, I might imagine would interest The Authorities in me greatly. I take drugs, for instance, and have a slightly unusual sex life - nothing too weird, you understand, but I wouldn't try to get security cleared as it might be the sort of thing someone would try to blackmail me over.) I'm also somewhat active in various pressure groups, ranging from civil liberties issues, via "YourRightsOnline" type stuff, and various other causes dear to the average slashdotter's heart. (I've also donated to a muslim charity, amongst others - that's made me wonder a little bit, which in turn just makes me wish I'd given them a bit more.) Apart from being annoyed at getting fined for driving into the congestion charge zone, so far I haven't seen or heard even any rumours about the associated ANPR systems being misused for sinister purposes. I don't *think* it's a threat to life and liberty, and I appreciate the discernable improvement it has brought to London streets - there are less cars! It's quieter, it's cleaner, it's safer, and there's a subtle yet definite change in the atmosphere - for the better.

Of course we could all be frogs in a warm but not uncomfortable bath, but I really don't think so. Face facts, if a genuinely evil police state took over the UK, they'd be able to build all this stuff anyway if it didn't exist already.

Need a new name...

[russotto]

Since London calls its system the "Ring of Steel", New York should come up with a better name -- one which evokes its similarities with the London system, but is sufficiently different to avoid confusion. I suggest "The Iron Curtain".

Re:Blowback from everyone's favorite initiatives

[BlueParrot]

When you consider the fact that all American vehicles put together (not just SUV's but every vehicle) only account for about 6% of Co2 emissions

WOHAAA! Hang on there a second. You're telling me that despite of fossil fuel power plants, intercontinental airlines, deforestation, chemical industry and whatnot, American Vehicles alone still contributes 6% of CO2 emissions and that is in your opinion a small amount? Not saying I am in favour of this scheme ( it is actually a fairly retarded way to reduce emissions ) but to talk about that as if it was negligible is really rather ignorant. Hey, I know. Since a small percentage makes no difference I assume you don't mind if we increase taxes on fossil fuels by a small amount ? Six percentage points on all gasoline and petroleum products sounds like a nice appropriate number ...

Re:Keep believing that.

[jedidiah]

They did have more security but for a different reasons.

a) Kids didn't have any means to distract themselves indoors so all kids were outside.
b) Old geezers lived in the same neighborhoods as everyone else (no escaping to Florida)
c) Old geezers didn't have any means to distract themselves indoors.

All of this lead to everyone lurking about outside in such a way that it was very hard for anyone to be up to no good without a whole cabal of witnesses there to see you.

People watching can be quite the hobby even in big American cities even now.

The ring of steel was useless

[cliffski]

I used to drive vans full of computer equipment through central London when they first introduced all the checkpoints. The cops would occasionally stop the van, with its blacked out windows, and demand to look in the back. Faced with tons of unusual looking metal boxes with cables, sockets and switches they would end up asking us what it was, "satellite decoding equipment" was often the answer, but we could have said "dilithium crystals" for all it mattered. unless every policemen is an expert in electronics, chemical analysis and explosives, they don't stand a chance of catching a well organized, confident and trained group of terrorists. If you pack a transit van with gas cylinders, nails and fertilizer, and write 'death to america' on the side of the van, you might be in trouble, otherwise, your chances of getting rumbled are close to zero. So the aim of this is to 'reassure the public', it won't do anything to actually make people safe.

Re:Opaque Society umm, breaking news...

[Anonymous Coward]

As of 29 July 2007, the sheriff was acquitted...

http://www.news.com.au/heraldsun/story/0,21985,219 88541-5005961,00.html

"A CALIFORNIA police officer who was filmed shooting an unarmed US serviceman after a high-speed chase has been acquitted of criminal charges.

A jury at San Bernardino Superior Court cleared former sheriff's deputy Ivory Webb of attempted voluntary manslaughter and assault with a firearm in January last year."

Re:Because you refuse to see ...

[spun]

Good lord. You simply can not articulate a coherent argument. Please try to build support for your statements instead of simply making unfounded assertions. I have made my point and supported it. You have not. Explain how and why freedom is security.

If I am in solitary confinement I have lots of security and little freedom. If I am kayaking class 5 rapids, I have a lot of freedom, but little security. I can not understand how anyone can confuse these two very different and unrelated concepts. If you can't explain yourself better without resorting to ad hominems, I give up.

St. Louis

[sconeu]

Nah, St. Louis has none of that. Nor does its surrounding metro area. It has less social annoyance, but much greater for police abuse.

However, aside from periodic flooding, St. Louis is also sitting on top of a 8+ point fault (New Madrid), with a 90% probability of a 6+ quake in the next 20 years. And it's not built for it (yeah, LA sits on the San Andreas, but we know the big one's coming, and have tried to build to deal with it).

Re:St. Louis

[Mattintosh]

Periodic flooding? That hasn't happened anywhere heavily populated in almost 15 years (and 15 years ago, the area that flooded wasn't heavily populated). They built big-ass levees to keep that from happening anywhere that it matters. Nobody gives a damn if it floods the bean fields.

The earthquake thing is huge though. Nothing here is built for it. Northern St. Louis County will become the lake at the meeting of two rivers. Mid-county will be a war zone. South county might survive largely intact, since it's on more solid rock (the last of the Ozark foothills). Unfortunately, south county is fricking expensive compared to the soon-to-be-awash-in-the-nearest-river areas like north and west county.

Note that I don't mention downtown. St. Louis city represents a small fraction of the population, and is mostly ghetto. The sooner it collapses (by earthquake or whatever), the sooner we can reclaim it and build something decent. There are small, decent neighborhoods surrounded by urban wasteland. Parts of north city can be described as "Beiruit-like", but I fear I may be insulting the city of Beiruit.

Nobody here worries about earthquakes, though. We're far more likely to die on the front bumper of some idiot's SUV than in an earthquake. Besides, some whackjob "scientist" predicted an earthquake of 6.x magnitude to happen on December 3, 1990. Here's a rather humorous write-up about it. Not to say it can't happen, just that it's not anything to get worked up about.

Meanwhile, back in London ...

[PPH]

... a shopkeeper was recently robbed. His shop, being conveniently located just across the street from a CCTV camera, he asked if they had caught the suspects on camera. The police dept.s reply, "Sorry. We don't have the manpower to review the tapes". It was on the BBC news a few weeks ago while I was there.

Its turning out (and the bad guys will figure out) that there's nobody watching the monitors. Scotland Yard is replacing a few thousand patrol officers with tens of thousands of cameras, probably manned by a few dozen people. And not highly paid(?) and trained officers. Just some goofball willing to sit and stare at a screen for hours (think about law enforcement by Slashdotters for a frightening example).

The recent bombing attempts by the clown squad seem to demonstrate that the bad guys have figured out that there is nothing to fear. It was just good luck that these people who could't even figure out how to light gasoline on fire (two out of three times). Sure, they caught the subway bombers on CCTV. Days after the incident. Whoops. Too late.

If the bomb in the London night club district hadn't been a dud, a constable on patrol could have cleared the streets in the few seconds between the car being abandoned and detonation. CCTVs? Sorry, we're busy rewinding tapes for some shopkeeper who got robbed. All you've got is some moron parked on the sidewalk. Petrol? No, I can't smell petrol through a camera.

Re:Are you that scared of big brother???

[ModDoc]

I see no way for the orwellian "big brother" scenario to materialize in the United States,

Really? Don't you? Lots of things (national ID cards, police surveillance cameras, license plate readers, etc.) can be used to protect us. They can also be used for ill. And once they are in place, we have basically no way of knowing how they're used. The truth is: power corrupts.

yet terrorists are beating down our door.

Are they? Where? Support your statement.

If this system gets abused it will have the lid shut on it faster than you can say hot potato.

Would that this were true! Unfortunately I fear abuse of power goes unnoticed more often than not. How many times don't we find out about these things until the damage is already done? It makes me more than a little uncomfortable to think about how things like the Patriot Act are getting abused on a daily basis.

Re:Are you that scared of big brother???

[node 3]

The patriot act hasn't been abused. The very *existence* of the PATRIOT Act is abuse. Any argument based on the inverse has no business being made in the land of Jefferson, and that it's not universally laughed out of hand is a disgrace.

Re:Are you that scared of big brother???

[ryanov]

Yeah, exactly. What abuses of the PATRIOT Act? Nothing to see here.

Re:Why not in the Bronx?

[Azuma Hazuki]

I'll tell you why not in the Bronx: because Robert Moses' dream lives on, and he's the kind of person who pronounces the word "African-American" with a double G. The Bronx was an inconvenient residential area that was getting in the way of that neat expressway he wanted to build, you see...

This surveillance crap is there to reassure wealthy tourists and spending types, like the rich guy from Philly who posted earlier. This system does nothing for the average person because the average person doesn't live in Manhattan: it's too fucking expensive. The average person, however, is more likely to *drive to work* (or use mass transit) to get to a job in Manhattan. So people who don't live there and won't benefit from the increased surveillance (and who certainly aren't the target audience even if they're the targets) are paying for this.

Lets face it, the terrorists have won

[gone.fishing]

We are spending billions on "Homeland Security" and we are making our society and our people less free. Ninety year old women have to remove their shoes (just like everyone else) just to get on an airplane. We are doing all of this, including putting cameras on our streets in an effort to counter terrorisim!

I think, no I know, that the real terrorists we have to worry about are the pols who have done this to us. We are less free today than we were before 9-11-2001. The guys in the airplanes did not do that to us, GWB and his cronies at every level of government did it.