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TechnoratiCivil Liberties: Outrage at New York Police Plan to Track Vehicles
NEW YORK - The Big Apple is turning into Big Brother, civil liberties groups have warned in response to a new plan from New York city's police chiefs to photograph every vehicle entering Manhattan and hold the details on a massive database.
New York's police commissioner, Raymond Kelly, has proposed a major extension of security measures around the city designed to prevent a third attack on the World Trade Centre as the rebuilding of Ground Zero gathers pace.
As well as placing cameras at all tunnels and bridges into Manhattan, the 36-page plan, called Operation Sentinel, calls for a security ring to be erected at Ground Zero and for a 50-mile buffer zone around the city within which mobile units would search for nuclear or "dirty" bombs.
The proposals are partly based on the so-called ring of steel erected around the City of London in the wake of IRA bombings in the 1990s. Though the 3,000 cameras that could be mounted as a result of the plans of the New York police pale in comparison with the multitude of cameras in operation on the UK's roads and in public places, the proposals have provoked outrage in the United States, where the concept of video surveillance is relatively unfamiliar .
Donna Lieberman, director of the New York Civil Liberties Union, said the idea of tracking the movements of millions of people was "an assault on the country's historical respect for the right to privacy and the freedom to be left alone". The NYCLU is pressing the New York police to release further details of its intentions under freedom of information laws.
The toughest element of the scheme relates to preparations to secure Ground Zero once the six-hectare site is rebuilt and open to the public again. The mammoth construction project has been beset with delays that have pushed back completion beyond 2011, but the New York police want to get security measures operating well in advance.
Those measures include moveable roadblocks, security cameras across lower Manhattan and an underground bomb-screening centre through which all delivery vehicles would have to pass. In the wider 50-mile zone spanning New Jersey, Connecticut, Pennsylvania and Long Island, officers would be equipped with mobile detectors to intercept possible radioactive devices.
The plan to video the number plates of every vehicle would be applied to all points of entry into Manhattan, including the main Brooklyn-Battery, Holland, Lincoln and Midtown tunnels and Brooklyn, Manhattan and other bridges. Details would be kept on computer for a month.
© 2008 The Guardian
13 Comments so far
Show AllBy the way - what about Brooklyn, Queens, Connecticut, Iowa, California? YES! a national database of where people have driven. Put a GPS tracking device in every vehicle. That's what we need.
First let me say that in terms of causing damage and suffering, the main terrorists are sitting in the White House. Now go after them (with law).
Aside from being a massive violation of our wish to go about our business without Big Brother watching, the plan is insane on the face of it. It assumes that perpetrators of some terrorist act will be driving in from Jersey. How will collecting millions of pictures of license plates on a Tuesday morning prevent a crime at Tuesday lunch. Who would be reviewing the massive collection of photos? Any terrorist worth his or her salt could easily find ways around this, such as use a car that is already in the area.
A real plan to identify terrorists would be based on careful intelligence (both meanings). A real plan to protect people would feature simple things that have been unattended for decades, like enforcing fire and building regulations, like having understandable communications on subways and adequate trained personnel at stations to assist with evacuations, etc.
The plan has the following characteristics:
Expensive
Invasive
Ineffectual
Massive
Unworkable
Mindless
Unreasonable Search
Subsidizing Private Property
Requiring sheeplike assent
Deceptive as to its goals
Confusing data with information
Unlikely to prevent anything
Targeted toward masses of ordinary people
LIKELY TO FEATURE A LUCRATIVE PRIVATE CONTRACT TO INSTALL AND MAINTAIN THE SYSTEM AND MONITOR THE RECORDS COLLECTED
Therefore it fits in with everything done so far in the name of security, such as invasions and airport security.
Saddest of all is that on a recent news report several people were asked about this plan, and the reply was that they endorse anything that will keep us safe.
"The plan to video the number plates of every vehicle would be applied to all points of entry into Manhattan"
This already happens all over England, and at speed camera point all over Australia.
"Details would be kept on computer for a month."
Put up your hand if believe that, i.e. if you think that certain government
agencies wont keep a copy of that data forever.
Thoughts Into Action - The planes were just window dressing. The real action was the pre-placed demolition charges that brought down WTC 1, 2 and 7.
None of this would prevent the original method of attack - by airplane.
What is really needed are security cameras in the White House, Dept of Homeland Security, the Justice Deartment, CIA, FBI, and in the halls of all those congress critters that sold this nation down the fear factor and aired 24 hours a day on national TV. Leaving this country is looking better every day.
Galen said it. Let's just tear down the cameras as they put them up. Once you get a whole surveillance network set up, we're all screwed.
This has nothing to do with 'preventing terrorism'. It has EVERYTHING to do with controlling and intimidating your own population.
It is selective policing at it's worst.
Just watch. As the system is put in place, hundreds, if not thousands of otherwise innocent people will be harassed, intimidated and arrested for their political and religious beliefs, and minor drug possession.
George Orwell warned us. Aldous Huxley warned us. William Gibson warned us. Margaret Atwood warned us. P.D. James warned us.
All were ignored.
Since the WTC was hit by airliners, photographing vehicles is sure a waste of time.
Since the entire operation was organized, financed, and executed by the bush adminstration, it won't do any good to photograph vehicles will it?
This is a rediculous attempt to try to cure cancer when someone is dying of pneumonia.
And why is the city doing anything? After all, this is a private business enterprise. If they're worried about attacks they ought to provide their own security. If it's too expensive, then they can make the decision to not rebuild. More socialism for the rich.
this is so ridiculous.........it's like closing the stable door after the horse has bolted.
Placing cameras at all tunnels and bridges into Manhattan would certainly have 'saved' the World Trade Center - wouldn't it? Or saved the entire world from the terrorist attacks of the Subprime Loans.
If New York is that worried I'll avoid the place entirely and use USPS or a plain brown UPS van. Heckovajob, idiots!
P.S. ever wonder what a disgruntled Saudi might put in a Macy's balloon?
Welcome to the new McCarthyism. Only instead of Communists, we'll all be named terrorists. The police-state is forming right before our eyes.