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The use of red light and speed cameras is getting out of hand. Where I live they are everywhere so I picked up a GPS red light camera detector for $99 on Amazon.

My call was taken on air, but ironically, the call dropped as I approached the Brooklyn Bridge and passed under the "NYPD - AREA UNDER VIDEO SURVEILLANCE" signs, which Brian uncannily picked up on when I was cut off! As for my comment, here is the full version:

1) As noted above,red light cameras have been in use in Brooklyn and I believe in Manhattan for some time (that's what got me; sorry, nothing more exciting). A number of subway stations, even the elevateds, have security cameras as well. Not sure what the monitoring regime is with regard to sharing w/the NYPD

2) I had a thought on automation: As the pranksters in MD proved, even the basic function of plate reading can be tricked. Constant monitoring is loathsome; however a system that could either automatically activate in the event of a crime, or be quickly deployed by a victim would be interesting. The challenges to the automatic system are very significant, given the difficulties of getting computers to dynamically interpret complex situations ewith lots of autonomous embodied agents. It's either far beyond current capabilities or, according to some, completely intractable . So then perhaps a citizenry-controlled system with some low level of automation, e.g., turning on in response to signals such as a gunshot or person falling, or being activated by a signalling device, such a system would invert the panopticon dilemma - rather than the fear of surveillance without the necessity of presence, surveillance would only emerge in response to some definite set of actions, in the same manner as someone calling the police. But as I'm sure we'll see this is all probably a hydra type problem...I wish us luck!

Re: Comment #33

Phil, I agree with you only to the extent that I find it amazing that liberal cities still tend to support repressive police tactics. I would throw in what happened in St. Paul during the Republican Convention protests another example of a liberal city that apparently tolerates police rounding up anyone who just looks bad or wants to hold up a sign, so that approx. 3/4 of those who got arrested last September ending up not being charged are acquitted(!!!) by juries (the test will be if the St. Paul actually gets booted out of office this fall).

But I also agree with comment #38 that the Republicans are not the party of liberty--far from it. The issue w/the wiretapping, e.g., concerned calls that were in or went through the U.S. In any event, the Republicans could do themselves a world of good--and might get me to think about voting for them--if they get away from tax whining and move toward the real liberatarian worry about the power of the state to throw you in jail.

The results of this study signify continuation of racism. IT is terribly covert and harmful. I think that if the practices of these restaurants affected white people as it did people of color, white people would be outraged. While, many are way to complicit and passive. This hurts all of us in the long run.

Phil from Queens(33),

Relax, the majority of people posting and listening to this radio station are liberal. Yet I’m seeing little or no support for cameras in the public anywhere. As for the government turning fascist, take a good hard look at the Republicans that created and forced through the patriot act by using fear. How about the republican pointed FCC that has gone into a censor frenzy for the last 8 years? As an independent, it seems to me that the Republicans of today want to barge into to my life and take away more of my freedoms then any other political group in the history of the United Sates.

You're all missing the point. The real question we need to ask is:

DO THESE CAMERAS MAKE US LOOK FAT?!

Thanks for the heads-up on PANOPTICON. I looked it up learned that the idea was originally proposed by Jeremy Bentham in 1785. He actually invested most of his own money and years in lobbying the British govt to allow him to build a working model. Although it never got off the ground, the idea stuck. Foucalt transformed it into a metaphor for modern surveilled society, but more recently prison designs have come to adopt a podular architecture that traces back to Bentham's original idea.

Oh yeah, I like this plan.

The Panopticon is a circular building on the periphery (divided into cells that could each hold a "madman, a patient, a condemned man, a worker or a schoolboy" and a windowed tower in the center, so it can see everything at all times. Interestingly, this is the opposite of a dungeon. The power of the Panopticon is this: visability is a trap!
Now think, Manhattan's "Ring" of Steel. A circular structure (at least, figuratively) that is always on, always watching, enforcing the same self-discipline that is created in the people celled in the Panopticon.
However, if the people think that there is no one watching, then the anxious self-discipline would disappear.

You liberal Dems in NY, ought to start fighting for your fights or you’ll wake up one day without any like all those dead folks in Europe in the 1930s and 40s. “Trust us we’re from the government.” I don’t think so.

It is amazing that the most liberal city in the world has one of the most repressive police commissioners and an oligarch mayor who favors big business, banks and landlords.

It is amazing that a city that was so anti-Bush and aghast at the government merely trying to identify and listen to terrorists in overseas calls would allow itself to be monitored 24/7 like convicted prisoners in protective detention.

Even the suggestion of such it is part of the liberal Democrat neo-Statist move toward fascism ala Benito Mussolini’s rise to power in the 1920s. Read your history folks.

We have a Bill of Rights, the English don’t. We should stop following their repressive schemes on speech, freedom of movement and association and stand up for traditional American liberty and our freedoms. This means throwing all the current rascals out in the coming 2009 and 2010 elections.

The whole congestion pricing scheme was originally a plan to fund the “ring of steel.” They didn’t care about the environment. They originally said they wanted to monitor vehicles entering the city from 96th Street onward to pay the proposed illegal street tolls, but it was a subterfuge for setting up and paying for surveillance. Little money was to go to the subways. The fare should be $3.00 anyway and it’s cheap at that.

This is a vile intrusion against privacy. Businesses and residential building camera owners should just say “no!” Again, you liberal Dem voters need to wake up to reality before the police commissioner and mayor makes you put a camera in your own home for him to watch.

No one is going to care until they knock on your door to install the chip!

We are slowly losing our human"ness", too much automation!

The effectiveness of the high tech cameras within "the ring of steel" is going to be limited by their limited ability to view license plates.

(1) It is difficult to determine what states cars are from because of the frames that many drivers install on their license plates.

(2) Some car owners have plastic sheets and coatings on their license plates to prevent cameras at intersections from photographing them when they run red lights.

(3 Finally, cars from states such as Pennsylvania and Florida don't have plates in the front which can make it harder to identify cars.

I have gottenl fines in the mail along with pictures of my car going through a red light and another of my license plate.

They have been doing it for several years in Brooklyn.The one difference between the camera fine and a regular ticket is that there is no points for the moving violation

you mentioned 1000 internal affairs officers for 30000ish cops. is that necessary? i assume it is. is that reflective of a 'not so straight and narrow' police force.

@Sally from Ridgewood
You can wear a hat, or an umbrella, or walk around the camera.
20 million dollars for the police to spy on us ... which can easily be avoided if you aren't a sheep...oh wait, good morning sheep!

Should/can anyone expect any privacy when they are out in public?
It's when they put cameras in our homes we should worry. I don't expect any privacy when I am outside since anyone can witness your actions.

A problem I see with ubiquitous surveillance cameras is that it allows the government to enforce every trivial violation of the law, which effectively could allow the government to fine you repeatedly and search you. This is a particular problem with the traffic code, which is a law so complicated that no one can ever follow it, giving the government carte blanche to write endless tickets to everyone.

Sometimes the law is only meant to go after egregious violations, not every one.

**
And comment number 13 makes a VERY good point! Let those who think they have nothing to hide let the Orwellian cameras into their houses 24/7!

it's equally alarming for TV Network execeutives to put spycams in offices of viewers and fire the host of the tv show to cover their rear-ends.
Hi Susan Krakower of CNBC

Louisa,

As I recall the studies from the London situation, the ability to catch the perps was pretty low, i.e., only a marginal increase vs. situations where there aren't cameras. Do you know for sure?

What will happen when the financial situation turns back around when we have 40,000 plus officers back on the force, will this Orwellien monster of surveilence be de commisioned?

Frankly I think not, it's just an excuse to infringe futher on our civil rights.

Will our conversations be monitored in the near future as the technolgy progresses?

Why would Commissioner Kelly promote professionalizing private security guards when the NYPD already trains upstanding, heroic volunteers in their AUXILLARY POLICE corps?
Amazingly the NYPD requires these people to go through all sorts of training, to purchase uniforms, etc. but lately they have been sidelining/downsizing the program.
Wouldn't it make more sense to ramp up the AUXILIARY program?!

Also is there a way that this stuff CANT be recorded?

The Panopticon was NOT Foucault's "idea". It was a real prison design that Foucault critiqued.

Once the cameras are up, the NYPD can crowdsource the massive job of viewing of all these live cameras.

I would volunteer on a monthly basis if given access to a satellite-based laser button to quell evil doers.

If the power went out for a few hours, think of all the work that would be generated for years afterward for the out of work Hollywood Blockbuster script writers.

I'm not sure how I feel about this. I feel it's all about numbers and money. I love having cops on the street in my neighborhood. They CLEANED IT UP.

I'm not sure how I feel about "privacy" Marshall McCluhan deemed it basically irrelevant.

'Scuse me Anthony, but Foucault got the idea for the Panopticon from Jeremy Bentham. Give credit where credit is due;).

no one will care until we wake up one day with all our rights gone.

Ok, first, all these machines watching us wont help. they are putting a system up that can't be watched 24/7 by humans ... i say, do not do it, or make the signal completely public, so everyone can watch everyone else and level the playing field.

Los Angeles has 9,900 officers, covering an area of 473 square miles (1,230 km2) with a population of more than 3.8 million people. So why does NYC need nearly 40,000 officers... what a waste!! put the cameras in..

but there is a genuine NEED for more Humane Law Enforcement officers..

I don't buy the "if you have nothing to hide it shouldn't bother you" argument. If that's the case, people with nothing to hide should let the police move in with them. Also, a person may be able to prevent a crime, a camera can only report on it after the fact.

They have stop light cameras in effect on the westside highway. I know. I've been ticketed. It's odd to get a ticket like that, but better than a face-to-face.

Very Orwellian indeed, still its likely futile to resist the wheels of progress. That said, I have always maintained their should be a MANDATE that images streaming from PUBLIC cameras be streamed to the web for PUBLIC oversight. If, as the NYPD claims, these are images of public spaces, then there should be no basis for claims of confidentiality of the images. Same for traffic cameras, post EVERY image aquired, not those 'filtered' or 'discarded', only then will the public have faith in the prudent use of such a system.

Red light cameras have proven to be easily fooled, as indicated in spectacular fashion in the following story:

http://technologyexpert.blogspot.com/2008/12/teenagers-spoof-speed-cams-prank.html

I lived in London during the 90s when they implemented their ring of steel. The upshot was the cameras did not stop crime, but sometimes made it easier to find the criminals after the bombs went off. Very nice for justice, but not for stopping crime. In some instances (including attempted attacks last year) the cameras did not even see the bombs but as usual passersby's saw the smoking car and called the police.

For this we allow strangers to watch us all the time?

What are they watching for? What are they going to do if they "see" something? I just don't understand how this is going to stop a crime from occurring. You can watch it on tv, and apprehend later, but the person still gets raped, mugged, jumped, whichever.

As I live in midtown, I find this development incredibly alarming.

BUT, has anyone proved that there is any benefit from all this govt spying? Or do we take that on faith, since that's what our betters want?

I trust these cameras more than I do many of those cops--like the one who shoved the guy off the bike.

Ray Kelly also opposes relaxing (much less repealing) the Rockefeller drug laws. So that gives us some idea of his notions on policing (as if we didn't already know).

This is unacceptable...people it is NOT a good thing to be under constant surveillance...this is a blatant civil rights violation....

I don't trust anything Kelly has done, does or wants to do.

[[BL Show Writes: Well, Marcia, you're correct. Is should be "fewer" cops. Luckily, we've got PLENTY of grammar police!
We've changed it.
-BL Show-]]

shouldn't it be FEWER cops?