Fergie's Tech Blog

Surveillance Nation: NYPD Deploys First of 500 Security Cameras

An AP newswire article by Tom Hays, via Yahoo! News, reports that:

Along a gritty stretch of street in Brooklyn, police this month quietly launched an ambitious plan to combat street crime and terrorism. But instead of cops on the beat, wireless video cameras peer down from lamp posts about 30 feet above the sidewalk.

They were the first installment of a program to place 500 cameras throughout the city at a cost of $9 million. Hundreds of additional cameras could follow if the city receives $81.5 million in federal grants it has requested to safeguard Lower Manhattan and parts of midtown with a surveillance "ring of steel" modeled after security measures in London's financial district.

Officials of the New York Police Department — which considers itself at the forefront of counterterrorism since the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks — claim the money would be well-spent, especially since the revelations that al-Qaida members once cased the New York Stock Exchange and other financial institutions.

posted by Fergie @ 4/17/2006 08:21:00 AM