Scientific Dictatorship

External security cameras coming to 'real time crime center'

Standard-Examiner

OGDEN -- Attempting a police omniscience seen in only about 20 U.S. cities, the Ogden Police Department is gearing up for a "real time crime center" to be operational soon after its Crime Blimp launches.

The center hopes to eventually be linked with the thousands of private and government security cameras around town, including the city's own inventory of some 200 cameras.

Utah Department of Transportation and Utah Transit Authority are already on board to share their cameras with Ogden police in the video center planned for soon-to-be-remodeled offices in the department headquarters.

Officials are shooting for an April launch date for the blimp, under construction by Weber State University's Utah Center for Aeronautical Innovation and Design, which will feed video to a fledgling version of the RTCC. They hope the center is fully operational by July...[Full Article]

Labels: blimp, security cameras, Utah

Security cameras approved for voting location

The Summit County Board of Elections will install video-surveillance equipment at an early-voting location to address security concerns Republican board members have raised.

The board voted Tuesday to pay Video Systems & Security Inc. of Akron $3,700 to install five cameras at the Job Center on East Tallmadge Avenue in Akron, where early voting will be offered this fall. The company also will give the board the ability to view live feeds of the Job Center via the Internet from the board's main office on Grant Street in Akron...

[Full Article]

Labels: Akron, election, Ohio, security cameras, video surveillance

Dubai To Have Security Cameras 'Everywhere'

DUBAI (AFP) – Dubai, where a top Hamas commander was killed in January in an assassination blamed on Israel's Mossad spy agency, is to have security cameras "everywhere," the police chief was quoted as saying on Sunday.

The bustling Gulf city currently has 25,000 security cameras, but "surveillance needs to be ramped up to meet the growing requirements of an expanding city," Lieutenant General Dahi Khalfan told The National newspaper.

"We need to work according to a well-studied strategic plan and not only react to events as they come along... We will have cameras everywhere," said Khalfan of the 136-million-dollar (110-million-euro) project.

Hamas commander Mahmud al-Mabhuh was killed at a luxury hotel in the emirate, and Khalfan said police were able to track down the suspected killers with the help of security cameras.

"With the al-Mabhuh murder we were able to play back time through the footage captured by cameras," said Khalfan, adding they analysed 1,700 hours of images and "were able to pull the strings together and identify the suspects."

Labels: Dubai, security cameras, surveillance

NYC's Terror Spotting Spycams Stuck In Traffic



The New York Police Department thinks it may have caught the wannabe Times Square car bomber on tape — and is hoping to use a $24 million phalanx of surveillance cameras to stop future attacks in midtown Manhattan. It’s a goal that’s unlikely to be reached anytime soon. New York’s original spycam array is running behind schedule. And the track record of large, metropolitan surveillance networks pre-empting terrorists is weak, at best.

“NYC is a high risk area,” New York officials note in a homeland security grant request, obtained by City Limits magazine. “One threat in particular involves a vehicle-borne improvised explosive” — a car bomb.

In 2006, the New York Police Department announced a three-year, $106 million plan that promised to prevent attacks on New York’s financial district with a web of license-plate readers, chemical sniffers, radiation detectors and 3,000 publicly and corporately owned cameras. All the information would then be channeled into a single coordination center. Specialized video intelligence algorithms would be used to spot would-be attackers as they case their targets. “This is about identifying and eliminating a threat, rather than dealing with the consequences,” NYPD assistant chief John Colgan told me as planning for this Lower Manhattan Security Initiative got underway. “I’m not in the consequence-management business.”...

Labels: New York City, security cameras, surveillance

NY Bomb Attempt Reignites Security Camera Debate

(Reuters) - The thwarted Times Square car bombing has fueled the debate over security cameras and expensive surveillance for major cities, possibly providing a business opportunity to the security industry.

U.S.

The bomb scare and quick capture of the suspect prompted U.S. Senator Charles Schumer of New York and others to ask for at least $30 million more in federal aid for video and security measures for New York City.

That would be in addition to the $20 million in federal funding that has already been appropriated for 2010...

Labels: New York City, security cameras, surveillance