Manhattan Takes Cue from London’s ‘Ring of Steel’
July 11th, 2007Via: International Herald Tribune:
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 following the London subway bombings in 2005 and after the car bomb plots last month.
If New York City succeeds in getting the estimated $90 million to build the full network, it will include not only license plate readers but 3,000 public and private security cameras, a coordination center staffed by the police and private security officers, and movable roadblocks.
“This area is very critical to the economic lifeblood of this nation,” New York’s police commissioner, Raymond Kelly, said in an interview last week. “We want to make it less vulnerable.”
…
The license plate readers would check the plates’ numbers and send out alerts if suspect vehicles were detected. The city is already seeking state approval to charge drivers a fee to enter Manhattan below 86th Street, which would require the use of license plate readers. If the plan goes through, the police most likely would collect information from those readers too, Kelly said.
But the city’s security plan is much broader than keeping track of license plates. Three thousand additional surveillance cameras would be installed below Canal Street by the end of next year. Pivoting gates would be installed at critical intersections; they would swing out to block traffic or a suspect car at the push of a button.
Research Credit: EP
Paging Snake Plissken:
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