New York plans London-like street cameras surveillance system
London has its Ring of Steel, and New York City is planning to roll out its Lower Manhattan Security Initiative
New York City is planning to install more than 100 cameras to monitor cars moving through Lower Manhattan. This is the first phase of what officials describe as a London-style surveillance system which would be the first in the United States.
The Lower Manhattan Security Initiative is fashioned after London’s Ring of Steel, an extensive web of cameras and roadblocks designed to detect, track, and deter terrorists. The New York Times’s Cara Buckley writes that if the program is fully financed, it will include not only license plate readers but also 3,000 public and private security cameras below Canal Street, as well as a command center staffed by the police and private security officers, and movable roadblocks.
Last year the program appeared to be on the verge of being shelved after DHS had cut the city’s urban security grant money by nearly 40 percent. The NYPD, though, managed to obtain $25 million toward the estimated $90 million cost of the plan, with fifteen million dollars coming from DHS grants and another $10 million from the city. This money will be sufficient for installing 116 license plate readers in fixed and mobile locations, including cars and helicopters. The readers have already been ordered.
Note that the license plate readers may be used not only to detect suspicious cars: The city is seeking state approval to charge drivers a fee to enter Manhattan below 86th Street. If the plan is approved, the police would use the license plate readers for that purpose as well.
There are already some 250 cameras the NYPD placed in high-crime areas. These cameras capture moving images that have to be downloaded. The new security initiative will use cameras that transmit live information instantly. The Police Department is considering whether to use face-recognition technology in the cameras, and whether to place biohazard detectors on the cameras as part of the network. The network is expected to be in place and running by 2010.
According to a report issued last year by a civil liberties group, there are already nearly 4,200 public and private surveillance cameras below 14th Street, a fivefold increase since 1998. There is no law regulating what becomes of the recordings.
