famous last words
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.”
Michael Bloomberg has gone from the mildly amusing nanny-statist with a slight authoritarian streak and an uncertain political provenance that New Yorkers seem to love, to an alarmingly full-blown fascist and a very arrogant example of one at that.
Shut him down, now. Do whatever you can to undermine his viability for national office. No presidential run, if he gets the mantle of being the bestower of free stuff, the fools will elect him.
Or I am going to start wearing one to keep my privacy!
OMG! I hate this oppression!
Half this stuff we would not need if the progressive, liberals in government would just do their jobs AND immigration would enforce the existing laws!
Stuff like this is not even closing the barn door! Cameras will stop terrorsts? No they won’t...they didn’t stop the Boston bombers and they were photographed numerous times! Terrorists don’t care if they are on camera! In fact, they actually want you to see who they are!
famous last words
Why does anyone still live in NYC? I’d have fled for the nearest exit after Bloomberg showed his totalitarian spots.
"There's no way to rule innocent men. The only power any government has is the power to crack down on criminals. Well, when there aren't enough criminals, one makes them. One declares so many things to be a crime that it becomes impossible for men to live without breaking laws. Who wants a nation of law-abiding citizens? What's there in that for anyone? But just pass the kind of laws that can neither be observed nor enforced nor objectively interpreted - and you create a nation of law-breakers - and then you cash in on guilt. Now, that's the system, Mr. Rearden, that's the game, and once you understand it, you'll be much easier to deal with." Beginning on page 411 of the 35th Anniversary Edition of Atlas Shrugged
Bloomberg: New Yorkers will ‘never know where our cameras are’
I already understood that Bloomberg was an idiot. Now I know he is stupid also. People hack into the Department of Defense and this asswad thinks he can hide cameras in New York City?
“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.”
Okay. So if news reporters/camera folks start following you around 24 hours a day recording everyone you meet and everywhere you go, you have no problem with that Mr Kelly?
How will anyone know if they are placed in reasonable places, if the only people who know where they are, are the thugs in govt?
If they abuse the Fourth Amendment - then your fall back is the Second Amendment!
Capish?
I just had an interesting thought. The most obvious “unintended consequence” to a surveillance state is the advent of the Head to toe cloak aka burqa and a mask. ALL IDENTICAL,then what will they do with their cameras if everyone on the street looks the same, same color, same style, same mask?
And I won’t consider it surrender to Islam, I’ll consider it a Passive-Aggressive battle against overweening authority.
If New York City has indeed decided that it no longer wants to exist as an American city governed by constitutional laws and principles it is the duty of every free American to defend the Nation against the spread of such corruption.
I can’t even explain why this is a stupid statement.
I feel safer knowing that New Yorkers are being watched by cameras.
SIEG HEIL!!!!!!
Der BloombergerFuhrer hat gespeaken!!!!!!!
"The Citizen Tracking application has unexpectedly quit. Searching for solution..."
Think so.
When I lived in Corpus Christi, TX. some genius came up with the idea of prosecuting innocent people for what they called the “popular crimes”.
Popular crimes were crimes being pushed by some advocacy group in the news like MADD.
They believed it was a crime fighting technique because innocent people talk about it amongst their friends more than guilty people do so their friends were less likely to commit the crime.
Sooner or later they have to justify everything they are doing, which means they have to find people to prosecute.
People can and do make false claims of feeling threatened by what someone has said or done.
If you think you are immune to having someone make a false claim against you, you are wrong.
I’d really like to visit N.Y., but not gonna happen. I wouldn’t spend one plug nickel in that state.
Bloomie’s a freakin commie b@st@rd.
Last summer I took a trip to NYC for business. Believe me, you want a NYC to exist because the alternative is to let these idiots roam free across the nation. The locals are what happens if you grow up in some sort of twisted psychological experiment involving a city sized isolation chamber. They seemed to have no understanding of what actually happens elsewhere in the world on a real level. If I never go back, it will be way too soon.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.