[Infowarrior] - NYC Surveillance Will Expand To Midtown, Mayor Says

[Richard Forno]

Surveillance Will Expand To Midtown, Mayor Says
By KAREEM FAHIM
Published: October 4, 2009
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/10/05/nyregion/05security.html?_r=1

A network of private and public surveillance cameras, license plate  
readers and weapons sensors already established in Lower Manhattan as  
an electronic bulwark against terrorist attacks will soon expand to a  
large patch of Midtown Manhattan, Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg and  
Police Commissioner Raymond W. Kelly said Sunday as they announced the  
allocation of $24 million in Homeland Security grants toward the effort.

Mr. Bloomberg said the expanded monitoring network would cover the  
areas between 30th and 60th Streets, from the Hudson to the East River.

“We cannot afford to be complacent,” he said, noting that Midtown  
includes landmarks like Grand Central Terminal, the Empire State  
Building and the United Nations.

Like the system downtown, the expanded surveillance network would feed  
streams of data for analysis to a coordination center at 55 Broadway.  
Mr. Bloomberg, who made the announcement at the center with Mr. Kelly,  
said work on the Midtown system would begin next year and be completed  
in 2011.

Behind the mayor, a 40-foot video wall displayed maps, incoming data  
from a police precinct and more than a dozen video streams, many of  
them showing tourists taking photographs on a sunny day.

The plan devised to protect downtown Manhattan, known as the Lower  
Manhattan Security Initiative, was introduced by Mr. Kelly in 2005.  
That raised concern among civil liberties groups, which have called  
for more public discussion as the police peer, with greater intensity,  
at more corners of the city.

Asked Sunday about criticism of the increased surveillance, Mr.  
Bloomberg said: “We live in a world where we have to have a balance.  
We can’t just say everybody can go everyplace and do anything they  
want.”

He added, “Do you really want to work in a building that doesn’t have  
security?”