RFID, GPS Technology and Electronic Surveillance

New York Expands Surveillance Grid in Response to Fizzle Bomb

May 5, 2010

Agence France-Presse - Authorities want to expand controversial security blanket of cameras, sensors and analytical software.

New York officials say they could stop attacks like the attempted Times Square car bomb by expanding a controversial surveillance system so sensitive that it will pick up even suspicious behavior.

New York is already a heavily policed city, with 35,000 officers and a counterterrorism bureau — the first of its kind in the country — partnering the FBI.

But Saturday’s failed terrorist bomb in the Times Square tourist hot spot has provided the authorities with a new argument for expanding a sometimes controversial security blanket of cameras, sensors and analytical software.

The system “will greatly enhance our ability and the ability of the police to detect suspicious activity in real time, and disrupt possible attacks,” Mayor Michael Bloomberg said Monday.

The high-tech system, modeled on the “ring of steel” in London’s financial district, is already in service in lower Manhattan, where Wall Street and the World Trade Center reconstruction site are located.

Headquartered at 55 Broadway, the Lower Manhattan Security Initiative goes far beyond the traditional hodgepodge of police cameras, such as the 82 devices installed around Times Square.

Instead, an integrated system maintains an unblinking eye, not just watching, but constantly collecting license plate numbers and video of pedestrians and drivers, as well as detecting explosives and other weapons.

An important component of the program is coordination between the police network and private businesses' cameras, something that has not been established in Times Square, causing detectives significant extra work.

Also, a separate, but similar program called Operation Sentinel plans to log every vehicle entering Manhattan island by scanning their license plates and checking for radiation.

Last October, Bloomberg announced plans to expand the lower Manhattan system into Midtown, including the Times Square area.

On Sunday, New York police chief Raymond Kelly reiterated the plan and used the occasion to press for more federal funding from Washington.

Kelly also gave details about the system, explaining how the aim is for "analytic software" allowing experts to make sense of raw information in real time.

For example, alarms would trigger when cameras noticed an unattended bag or a car circling a block too many times to be considered normal, Kelly said.

"This is a whole new area for us," he told Fox News. "We're very enthusiastic about it."

Bloomberg said the city has budgeted "more than 110 million dollars to expanding the Lower Manhattan Security Initiative and incorporating it with the Midtown Manhattan Security Initiative" ...

Times Square Bomber Linked With CIA-Controlled Terror Group