Posted on 04/27/2013 11:02:34 PM PDT by Red Steel
New York City police officials intend to expand the already extensive use of surveillance cameras throughout town. The plan, unveiled Thursday, comes as part of a drive for increased security around the US following the Boston Marathon attack.
New York City Police Department Commissioner Ray Kelly announced the plan during a press conference with Mayor Michael Bloomberg, in which the two announced that the suspected Boston Marathon bombers were planning to attack New York next. The pair said they hope to discourage criminals by using so-called “smart cameras” that will aggregate data from 911 alerts, arrest records, mapped crime patterns, surveillance cameras and radiation detectors, among other tools, according to The Verge.
“You’re never going to know where all of our cameras are,” Bloomberg told reporters gathered outside City Hall. “And that’s one of the ways you deter people; they just don’t know whether the person sitting next to you is somebody sitting there or a detective watching.”
Kelly said the Domain Awareness System, nicknamed “the dashboard,” would centralize already existing data captured on the between 3,500 and 6,000 cameras already placed throughout the city with new technology developed in conjunction with Microsoft. The project is expected to take three years to complete and cost between $40 and $50 million.
The commissioner previously said that at least 16 terror plots had been thwarted in New York City since the attack on September 11, 2001, asserting that such law enforcement success show that the surveillance tools put in place since then have been effective. His boast came in the face of the New York Civil Liberties Union and similar privacy advocates who have asked for more transparency on the issue of police monitoring.
“The privacy issue has really been taken off the table,” Kelly said Thursday. “I don’t think people are concerned about it. I think people accept it in a post-9/11 world.”
Mayor Bloomberg agreed, using the press conference to slam the “special interests” who have objected to his policies. The American Civil Liberties Union, for one, has criticized Bloomberg’s administration for installing thousands of cameras in Lower Manhattan in a surveillance initiative that has since expanded north through Midtown.
“The role of surveillance cameras played in identifying the suspects was absolutely essential to saving lives, both in Boston, and now we know here in New York City,” the mayor said Thursday. “We’ve made major investments in camera technology – notwithstanding the objections of some special interests."
“People are all worried about privacy,” he continued. “Yes, it is a concern, but given the balance you have between keeping people safe and total privacy, the direction the whole world is going is more cameras and better-quality cameras.”
Bloomberg and Kelley are creeps.
More like outright Nazi or Stazi.
Yeah, like having a big slurp in a hot cement city or not walking across the street where they say you should and those hundreds of laws that are on the books you may not be aware of.
Until they decide to trump something up against you.
Not that that's ever happened before. noooooo.< /s > /s
Nothing is as much a deterrent as not knowing who would be armed.
"An armed society is a polite society."
Dwarf Nazi wannabe! This guy is diabolical!
I can guess where the cameras WON’T be. In Goldman Sachs boardrooms, in the UN building, in places where Bloomberg likes to go, in mosques, etc...
They are only for the little people.
Between the drones overhead and the cameras, EVERYONE should just walk around and stick their middle finger up at the sky every few minutes because you know SOMEONE is watching.
LOVE THAT MOVIE!!!
Bloomie just came up with a statement supporting Conceal Carry and he doesn’t even realize it.
THEY LIVE, and we’re the only ones wearing the Sunglasses.
From my extensive Tagline collection, not available in Stores.
“Mayor Bloomberg agreed, using the press conference to slam the “special interests” who have objected to his policies.”
To learn who rules over you, simply find out who you are not allowed to criticize.
Voltaire
Fahrenheit 451
Sounds like New Yorkers are the enemy.
Of course I’m the enemy, because I can still go to 7-11 and buy a Double Gulp of Sprite/7up/Sierra Mist.
Bloomberg’s one of those people you spend most of a conversation with, suppressing the urge to punch.
There’s already a TV show about this. It’s called PERSON OF INTEREST. And there are millions of cameras everywhere you go. They’re called cell phones. From the TV show “You’re being watched.”
When NYC and DC finally get a well deserved nuking I hope the cameras get lots of great footage.
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