Data-Fed Monitoring System Will Put New Yorkers Under Police Surveillance

Nerval's Lobster writes that New York City isn't just gathering data on citizens with cameras and other data sources for sifting through later to seek evidence in the event of violent acts; it's using some of that data in real-time in an attempt to reveal potential criminal activity. They've even picked a name for their system that echoes DARPA's Total Information Awareness, which I guess is more diplomatic than just calling it Precrime: "The Domain Awareness System will draw data from 911 calls, previous crime reports, license-plate readers, law-enforcement databases, environmental sensors, and roughly 3,000 closed-circuit cameras. It will rely on the New York City Wireless Network (NYCWiN), a high-speed wireless broadband infrastructure that allows city agencies to rapidly transmit data, and used for everything from emergency response to reading meters. Mayor Bloomberg argued that the system isn't an example of Big Brother overstepping the line. 'What you're seeing is what the private sector has used for a long time,' he told Gothamist. 'If you walk around with a cell phone, the cell phone company knows where you are. We're not your mom and pop's police department anymore.'"

Comments

The problem

[Anonymous Coward]

"We're not your mom and pop's police department anymore." That's the problem Mr. Bloomberg.

Do it to the police too.

[gurps_npc]

Every single room in a police station (aside from the bathrooms) and every single police car should be under constant surveillance, going directly to the Internal Affairs office, and is also recorded and retained for a minimum of 10 years.

If the video is not shown, then by law, the cops should not be allowed to testify about what they saw, heard, said, or did. I.e. it should be assumed that the cops destroyed the evidence to allow them to lie.