[Clips] Brinworld: 'Ring of Steel' for New York?

[Tyler Durden]

"The New York police have 3,100 closed-circuit cameras in 12 housing
projects and additional cameras in select parts of the city, including
  lower Manhattan. New York Police Commissioner Ray Kelly has said that the
  city should install additional cameras. Police say the cameras have 
slashed
  crime rates by double digits in the housing projects. Mr. Kelly declined 
to
  comment for this article."

Ah. The system has already been proven out in NYC housing projects I see. 
I'm feeling warm and fuzzy already...

-TD



>From: "R. A. Hettinga" <rah at shipwright.com>
>To: cypherpunks at jfet.org
>Subject: [Clips] Brinworld: 'Ring of Steel' for New York?
>Date: Wed, 25 Jan 2006 18:54:24 -0500
>
>--- begin forwarded text
>
>
>   Delivered-To: clips at philodox.com
>   Date: Wed, 25 Jan 2006 18:51:07 -0500
>   To: Philodox Clips List <clips at philodox.com>
>   From: "R. A. Hettinga" <rah at shipwright.com>
>   Subject: [Clips] Brinworld: 'Ring of Steel' for New York?
>   Reply-To: rah at philodox.com
>   Sender: clips-bounces at philodox.com
>
>   <http://online.wsj.com/article_print/SB113815677585855548.html>
>
>   The Wall Street Journal
>
>   January 25, 2006
>
>
>   'Ring of Steel' for New York?
>   To Protect Lower Manhattan,
>   Police Study London's Effort:
>   Cameras, Controlling Access
>
>   By CARRICK MOLLENKAMP and CHRISTINE HAUGHNEY
>
>   Staff Reporters of THE WALL STREET JOURNAL
>
>   January 25, 2006; Page B1
>
>   As New York law enforcement agencies and businesses consider how to 
>improve
>   security as part of the plan to rebuild lower Manhattan, they are 
>looking
>   to London for ideas on guarding against potential terrorist attacks and
>   fighting crime.
>
>   The hallmark of London's strategy is what officials call "the ring of
>   steel." The phrase refers to closed-circuit cameras and narrow roads 
>that
>   encircle the City of London, the neighborhood that houses London's
>   financial district as well as such historic sights as St. Paul's 
>Cathedral.
>   The narrow roads create just a few entry points to the area that police 
>can
>   block off, if necessary, while cameras photograph anyone entering or
>   exiting the area. The neighborhood also has its own police force.
>
>
>   The New York City Police Department is considering erecting a similar 
>"ring
>   of steel" around lower Manhattan. Paul Browne, NYPD's deputy 
>commissioner
>   of public information says that while it's "still too early in the 
>process"
>   to comment on specifics, police officials are most interested in the
>   elements of the "ring of steel" model that involve using more
>   closed-circuit TVs and introducing controlled entrances and exits into 
>the
>   area.
>
>   "In creating the plan for the World Trade Center site, we are looking at
>   best practices around the globe as we seek to create a new 
>state-of-the-art
>   security model," James Kallstrom, counterterrorism adviser to New York 
>Gov.
>   George Pataki and designer of the new World Trade Center site's security
>   plans, said in a statement last week. Mr. Kallstrom declined to comment
>   beyond the statement.
>
>   The NYPD declined to say which lower Manhattan streets, if any, may be
>   narrowed. It's unlikely New York City officials will allow a separate
>   police force to cover lower Manhattan -- defined as south of Chambers
>   Street and West Street to the East River by the Downtown Alliance, a
>   nonprofit group comprised of companies and business owners. While recent
>   discussions have focused on lower Manhattan, a law enforcement official
>   close to the situation said the NYPD's plans may extend to midtown
>   Manhattan as well.
>
>   New York officials have been looking at London systems since last 
>summer,
>   after suicide bombers attacked London's subway system and a bus on July 
>7.
>   Cameras captured time-stamped photos of the bombers as they entered the
>   subway, and others who attempted a similar crime a few weeks later, and
>   helped identify the suspects. A team of New York police officers visited
>   London for five days in September and were given access to the City of
>   London's security and investigative procedures and talked to officers,
>   according to James Hart, the City of London's police commissioner.
>
>   Similarities between lower Manhattan and the City of London are likely 
>to
>   help authorities with their planning. Both neighborhoods are about a 
>square
>   mile in area. Some 300,000 commuters travel through each area daily. 
>Both
>   are global financial hubs, with banks and stock exchanges that remain
>   targets for terror attacks.
>
>
>   In both cities, the subways are major funnels bringing people into the
>   neighborhoods and vulnerability points. Closed-circuit cameras monitor 
>the
>   London Tube, as the subway is called. In New York, the subway system 
>went
>   further than the rest of the country -- though still not as far as 
>London's
>   -- when it unveiled a $212 million project with Lockheed Martin Corp. in
>   October of 2004 to install 1,000 closed-circuit cameras with 3,000 
>sensors.
>   The project, which isn't expected to be completed until 2008, includes a
>   command center that will monitor the cameras in real time.
>
>   The New York police have 3,100 closed-circuit cameras in 12 housing
>   projects and additional cameras in select parts of the city, including
>   lower Manhattan. New York Police Commissioner Ray Kelly has said that 
>the
>   city should install additional cameras. Police say the cameras have 
>slashed
>   crime rates by double digits in the housing projects. Mr. Kelly declined 
>to
>   comment for this article.
>
>   London implemented the ring of steel in 1993, after Irish Republican 
>Army
>   bombings struck the city and other areas in the early 1990s. Many of the
>   measures in London largely go unnoticed. The City has 16 entry and 12 
>exit
>   points where the roads were narrowed and marked with iron posts painted 
>a
>   decorative red, white and black. The posts also deter truck bombs. 
>Recent
>   upgrades include extending the security zone to the north and west, and
>   adding cameras, Mr. Hart says.
>
>   At each entry point, a camera screens license plates and feeds the data 
>to
>   a computerized system that can flag stolen or wanted vehicles. If a 
>wanted
>   car is spotted, a control room at police headquarters can be alerted 
>within
>   four seconds. Last year, the system read 37 million plates and 
>identified
>   91,000 positive matches for wanted vehicles. Nearly 550 arrests were 
>made
>   as a result. In London, "you're always on CCTV somewhere," says City of
>   London police constable Phil Rudrum.
>
>   A network of closed-circuit cameras are mounted on the sides of building 
>or
>   on poles. The images are streamed live to police headquarters in the 
>City
>   and are monitored around the clock.
>
>   Civil liberty concerns have been raised but following IRA bombings in 
>the
>   1990s, many Brits haven't raised civil-liberties objections to the 
>cameras.
>
>   "The trade-off is that the prevention and disruption of terrorist 
>activity
>   is certainly worth the risk," says Mr. Hart, adding that the force has
>   pledged that the monitoring system will not be used to prosecute minor
>   crimes such as littering.
>
>   Such measures, though, will face privacy concerns in New York. To 
>bolster
>   its objection to the potential for the government to use photos 
>invasively,
>   the New York Civil Liberties Union last summer sent 10 college students 
>to
>   count surveillance cameras in the city.
>
>
>   The City of London, a neighborhood that comprises London's financial
>   district, uses steel posts in the streets to control traffic flow.
>
>
>   They found the number of cameras in lower Manhattan had increased to 
>1,300
>   from 446 in 1998. The group says it plans to recommend to the New York 
>City
>   Council and state legislature limits to how the city uses CCTV photos.
>
>   "The NYPD has to develop policies that protect individual privacy and 
>that
>   do not turn us into a surveillance society where people have to worry 
>that
>   every move is being captured on camera," says Donna Lieberman, executive
>   director of the liberties group.
>
>   The NYPD's Mr. Browne disputes the notion that surveillance data would 
>be
>   misused. "Our interest in cameras is for crime suppression," he says.
>
>   The City of London's police force is separate from the rest of London,
>   which is serviced by the Metropolitan Police Service, also known as
>   Scotland Yard. The U.K. government is weighing whether to merge the two, 
>a
>   move the City of London and businesses oppose.
>
>   Many investment banks in the City of London appreciate the presence of a
>   special police force. One cold gray afternoon this week, for example, 
>Mr.
>   Rudrum, the constable, walked his beat, checking in with security 
>officers
>   at each building where he stops. His stroll takes him past a pub and 
>then
>   Merrill Lynch & Co., where he also visits with security.
>
>   Security experts from Goldman Sachs Group Inc. have also been involved 
>in
>   the discussions.
>
>   Just weeks after the London bombings, Mr. Hart met in Manhattan with
>   security experts from the investment firm, which is building a 2.1 
>million
>   square-foot headquarters near the site of the World Trade Center.
>
>   "We regularly report possible terrorist and criminal activity to the 
>police
>   and receive a first-class response," Goldman Sachs managing director 
>Paul
>   Deighton wrote in a letter of support for the City of London force.
>   "Normally a police officer will be at our offices within two minutes of 
>our
>   making a telephone call."
>
>
>   --
>   -----------------
>   R. A. Hettinga <mailto: rah at ibuc.com>
>   The Internet Bearer Underwriting Corporation <http://www.ibuc.com/>
>   44 Farquhar Street, Boston, MA 02131 USA
>   "... however it may deserve respect for its usefulness and antiquity,
>   [predicting the end of the world] has not been found agreeable to
>   experience." -- Edward Gibbon, 'Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire'
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>
>--
>-----------------
>R. A. Hettinga <mailto: rah at ibuc.com>
>The Internet Bearer Underwriting Corporation <http://www.ibuc.com/>
>44 Farquhar Street, Boston, MA 02131 USA
>"... however it may deserve respect for its usefulness and antiquity,
>[predicting the end of the world] has not been found agreeable to
>experience." -- Edward Gibbon, 'Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire'