Cameras and License Plate Readers in New York

NY1 News - Police Move Forward With License Plate Readers, Cameras

New York City police are moving forward on a multimillion-dollar counter-terrorism initiative, installing more than a hundred license plate readers and eventually thousands of cameras in Lower Manhattan. NY1 Criminal Justice Reporter Solana Pyne takes a look at the program in the following report.

As Police officer Michael Gerbasi drives, a camera on the roof of his patrol car photographs license plates. A computer then checks a database to see, for example, if the car is stolen.

"It will notify us with an alert sound on the computer, and then actually there is a voice that speaks out and says, ‘stolen vehicle’ and it will give you a picture of the plate and a description of the vehicle,” says Gerbasi.

More than a hundred of the readers – some on cars, others in fixed places – are about to be deployed en-masse in Lower Manhattan as part of a massive $106 million counter-terrorism initiative years in the planning.

“Starting in January, we'll be putting in our license plate readers. That will be, kind of, phase one of this program,” says Police Commissioner Ray Kelly.

The license plate readers are just the tip of the iceberg in what's billed as the Lower Manhattan Security Initiative.

“We're looking to put in, ultimately, a thousand cameras in public spaces, link it to 2,000 private sector cameras,” says Kelly.

All the cameras would be monitored by police at one location. Virtually anyone who walks or drives south of Canal Street could be under surveillance.

The plan also includes mobile barriers on streets the department says are key choke points into the area. They could be automatically moved into place, effectively sealing off Lower Manhattan.

“That will enable us to wall off that area in extreme situations,” says Kelly.

It's all modeled on the so-called ring of steel in London, where cameras have helped authorities find terrorism suspects. It’s a first for the US.

"This is the first time that the government and the police in particular will have the ability to track everyone moving around in a public area,” says Chris Dunn of the NYCLU.

Concerned it's an invasion of privacy, the NYCLU has issued freedom of information law requests to get more information about exactly how the program works.

“The police department should not be spending a hundred million dollars of public money to put up thousands of cameras to track New Yorkers without there being some public debate and some public oversight,” says Dunn.

Police say the only information kept long-term will be about suspected law breakers. And that the City Council already approved part of the $40 million dollars the department is using to get the program started.

A previous post: More Cameras in New York

Call for Surveillance Cameras in Terror Suspect’s Home

AP - Canadian officials call for surveillance cameras to be placed in terror suspect's home

Canadian officials took the unprecedented step of asking a judge to install closed-circuit video cameras inside a terrorism suspect's home.

Government lawyer Donald MacIntosh said Monday that he hopes the Federal Court will approve the heightened surveillance for Mahmoud Jaballah, an Egyptian asylum-seeker who Canadian officials have accused of being a "communications link" in al-Qaeda's 1998 African embassy bombings.

MacIntosh said he knows of no jurisdiction that has tried installing closed-circuit cameras in a suspect's home, but he intends to submit a formal argument before a hearing next month.

Jaballah, who already lives under extremely strict house arrest, has never been charged with a criminal offense but spent nearly all of 1997 to 2007 in a Canadian jail. Attempts to deport him to Egypt, a country known to torture fundamentalists, failed on humanitarian grounds.

He is being held under Canada's controversial "security certificate" system, which allows the government to detain and deport foreign-born terrorist suspects without charging them or providing them with evidence of their allegations. Aspects of the certificate system were ruled unconstitutional by Canada's Supreme Court in February.

Jaballah recently agreed to live under extraordinary surveillance, in return for being let out of jail in April.

Past measures have included having suspects submit to being followed by federal agents during their few weekly excursions, having their calls monitored, staying away from computers and having video cameras installed outside the home. Never before has any Canadian prisoner on bail been known to have had to countenance cameras inside their house.

Prosecutors in the Jaballah case argued last week in court that surveillance in his home is critical for reasons of national security.

Lawyers acting for Jaballah are resisting added surveillance and fighting for increased liberties.

The Federal Court is currently weighing a motion for Jaballah, a former principal at a Toronto Islamic school, to be let out of his Toronto home to teach school lessons to Muslim children. He currently lives at home with his wife and five children.

It’s insane how a person in this country can be detained for such a ridiculous amount of time and have basic freedoms taken away without ever being convicted and in this case, without even being charged.

More Cameras in New York

The New York Times - New York Plans Surveillance Veil for Downtown

By the end of this year, police officials say, more than 100 cameras will have begun monitoring cars moving through Lower Manhattan, the beginning phase of a London-style surveillance system that would be the first in the United States.

The Lower Manhattan Security Initiative, as the plan is called, will resemble London’s so-called Ring of Steel, an extensive web of cameras and roadblocks designed to detect, track and deter terrorists. British officials said images captured by the cameras helped track suspects after the London subway bombings in 2005 and the car bomb plots last month.

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 center staffed by the police and private security officers, and movable roadblocks.

Here is my previous post about cameras. The post contains links to posts about cameras from my old blog. One of those is about cameras in New York.

Talking Cameras

BBC - 'Talking' CCTV cameras for city

CCTV cameras that tell people off for committing anti-social behaviour have gone live in Greater Manchester.

The "talking" cameras in Salford come complete with speakers to bark orders at litter louts or vandals.

The speakers have been rigged to 11 CCTV cameras along Liverpool Road, and officers in the control room can flick a switch and speak to offenders.

My previous post on talking cameras can be seen here: Camera Capabilities

My other posts on cameras can be seen here:

NY Security Cameras

Cameras In Toronto

X-ray Cameras

Cameras Going Up In Toronto