Big Brother coming to Midtown Manhattan

by smkovalinsky | October 6, 2009 at 07:33 am

278 views | 53 Recommendations | 19 comments

On the one hand, Manhattan must be protected and vigilant against terrorist attacks. On the other, spending 24 million to bring this type of surveillance to Midtown Manhattan seems troubling.

From the New York Daily News, this story raises questions about the collection of data on millions of New Yorkers who are not terrorists. Finding the balance is the proper role of a democracy which cares about its civil liberties. If I am caught on camera with certain people who are not terrorists but whom I may not want co-workers to know of, where does this fall?

The "Ring of Steel" security plan is coming to midtown.
The Empire State Building, Grand Central Terminal and theUnited Nations will be surrounded with cameras, license-plate readers and chemical-weapons detectors under the new plan to go in effect by 2011.

The eye-in-the-sky security gadgets that police now use to scan lower Manhattan will also be used in midtown, thanks to $24 million in federal Homeland Security funds.

"We will spend as much as necessary in either federal or city funds to complete this project and protect New York," Mayor Bloomberg said as he announced the program yesterday. "This is our No. 1 priority, and it comes before all fiscal concerns."

The city launched its lower Manhattan program, modeled onLondon's "Ring of Steel," in 2006. It set up a command center in the Financial District last year, where police and other security officials review a constant flow of images and information from the streets.

The command center will also review the data supplied by the new midtown system, which will blanket the area from 30th to 60th Sts., from river to river.

"We started in lower Manhattan for obvious reasons," Police Commissioner Raymond Kelly said. "We're concerned as well about [midtown] ... where there are major infrastructure and, of course, large crowds of people."

He noted that there have been two foiled terrorist plots targeting midtown, at the Herald Square subway station and the Citigroup Center.

Privacy advocates question the value of cameras that mostly capture mundane street life and don't necessarily prevent crime.

"There's no information with regard to who has access to the information, exactly what's being collected, how long it's being kept and whether it's been digitized into a massive database on the innocent and lawful comings and goings of millions of New Yorkers and visitors," said New York Civil Liberties Union Director Donna Lieberman.

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Barry Artiste

at 07:43 on October 6th, 2009

Gotta take the good with the bad, cameras are an evil necessitiy

a211423

at 07:45 on October 6th, 2009

where police and other security officials review a constant flow of images and information from the streets.

If these devices deter crime in the streets, then its worth it. They installed these in London after the terrorists attacks in 2006, so it would be interesting to know what kind of results they got in terms of surveillence and have they seen a reduction in street crimes.

Blue Crush

at 08:26 on October 6th, 2009

I think it's a good thing. It will help deter crime, and be a useful tool in many respects.

Toronto businesses were practically begging for them here, before they were installed back in 2007.

Roy C

at 10:25 on October 6th, 2009

Why does the picture of "Big Brother" look like Adolf Hitler, Susan, instead of Josef Stalin, the real model of "Big Brother? (Looks like Hitler disguised with Stalin's mustache to me.)

I will tell you why.

Because you on the left have been in denial about your shadow for generations, that is, why. Stalin, aka "Big Brother", is the embodiment of the shadow of the authoritarian element of the left.

Over the decades, I have heard countless rationalizations for this, especially when I lived in Berkeley.

"Trostsky should have succeeded Lenin", as if that would have discontinued the Leninist police state and red fascism that Lenin invented.

And, on and on.

Togliatti, the leader of the Italian communist party in post-war Italy, used to shudder when he left Stalin's Russia, but he never renounced Russia.

Alger Hiss told Whittaker Chambers that "Stalin plays for keeps". Ha!

So, how about an image of Big Brother that fits his left-wing nature?

nanute

at 13:17 on October 6th, 2009

Hitler was an authoritarian/nationalist of the right, and an appropriate model for a big brother analogy. Your question seems to imply that Hitler shouldn't be used as a model of authoritarianism and the big brother image.

Not everyone on the left ascribes to the Stalinist, or more accurately, Marxist/Leninist philosophy. Conversely, not everyone on the right follows the fascist/nationalist ideology of Hitler and Nazism.

Roy C

at 13:32 on October 6th, 2009

"Big Brother is watching you" is from 1984, a book by ex-socialist George Orwell, over his disgust at what socialism and the left had produced instead of the utopian workers' paradise that Marx and others had envisioned.

Orwell got it all right, from Stalin as "Big Brother" to Trotsky as "Goldstein", the show trials, the five-minutes of hate and all the rest. He repeated it all in Animal Farm.

Using a right-wing hatemonger instead of Stalin, the original model of "Big Brother", is a real flight from historical truth.

I do get it that the Nazis were just as objectionable, but we all seem to get that. Communism has been given a pass by the left way too often.

nanute

at 14:36 on October 6th, 2009

I've read the book and am familiar with the reference. I'm not defending the ideology of the"left"by any means.Equating leftism with liberalism is no better than equating conservatism with fascism (Or vice versa in .Johan Goldberg' world.) Marx had envisioned a truly "stateless" society. Stalin and the "communists:" stood Marx's ideas on its head once the intoxication of power took hold.

How ironic that in the current state of affairs, here in the good old USofA, all of the policies associated with big brother, from the Patriot Act to all other means of surveillance on citizens behavior have been put forward by the Republican Party. With the exception of a few democrats with balls, the opposition has been compliant in this endeavor. The Republican Party is becoming the "new left."

Rory Cripps

at 15:31 on October 6th, 2009

nanute: JEEZ! FISA was in place long before W. Bush came along! In fact it occurred under Jimmy Carter's (a Democrat's) administration . . . .

The Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act of 1978 ("FISA" Pub.L. 95-511, 92 Stat. 1783, enacted October 25, 1978, 50 U.S.C. ch.36, S. 1566) is an Act of Congress which prescribes procedures for the physical and electronic surveillance and collection of "foreign intelligence information" between "foreign powers" and "agents of foreign powers" (which may include American citizens and permanent residents suspected of being engaged in espionage and violating U.S. law on territory under United States control).[1]

The Act was amended in 2001 by the USA PATRIOT Act, primarily to include terrorism on behalf of groups that are not specifically backed by a foreign government.

An overhaul of the bill, the Protect America Act of 2007 was signed into law on August 5, 2007[2]. It expired on February 17, 2008.

The FISA Amendments Act of 2008 passed by the United States Congress on July 9, 2008.[3]

The Republicans are bad and the Democrats are good? I doubt that under the present Democratic party's leadership, happy days will soon be here again! But then again, I'm a pessimist at heart. Happy days didn't occur under FDR and he was elected to four consecutive terms no less! So why would anyone believe that it will occur under Obama? People can continue to blame Republicans for all the ills of the country. Indeed they're still blaming Reagan! There's much blame to go around and it's not confined to any one political party but the "blame game" is used in the political process to confuse and therefore divide the electorate. It works all the time unfortunately.

The Democratic party has been handed the oval office and majorities in both the Senate and the House. What more can a political party ask for? If the Democratic party fails, are we still going to blame Republicans? The facts are that President Obama has kept virtually all of George W. Bush's policies in place in spite of pandering to his political base. What has, in fact, changed under the Obama administration in spite of all the promises? The only significant changes that have occurred is that the country is more divided now that it's been in recent history and there's more anger out there and more to come.

nanute

at 01:50 on October 7th, 2009

I stand corrected on the FISA Act being signed into law by a Democrat. Do you have any idea of the history behind the FISA Act? For a brief primer see this take: http://civilliberty.about.com/od/waronterror/tp/History-of-FISA.htm. Basically in 1970,(guess who was president), a young man named Christopher Pyle uncovered the fact that 1500 officers of the US Army Intelligence Command were commissioned to spy on any known protests or demonstrations by 20 or more participants. Read the whole thing, it's enlightening

The fact is that the original intent of FISA was to protect citizens civil liberties against the illegal activities by the government. It pretty much worked that way until the Aldrich Ames case, which was under another Democratic administration; Clinton's. Clinton basically order Janet Reno to search the home of Ames without going to the Court for a warrant.In 2005 it was discovered that the Bush administration was conducting searches and surveillance, without first obtaining warrants from the Court. As I said earlier, the passage of the "Patriot Act", with the help of a significant number of democrats with no balls, (excluding the women), expanded the authority of the executive branch's ability to conduct spying and surveillance.
All in the name of the "War on Terror." It may be in fact being put to good use right now, but mark my words, there will come a day when we will regret this significant erosion of civil liberties.

Your comment regarding happy days, democrats good, republicans bad is sophomoric I never said any such thing. In fact, I've been critical of the Obama administration of a number of issues. And despite the attempts of revisionist historians (Amity Shlaes comes to mind), the country did in fact come out of the Great Depression as a result of policies implemented during FDR's tenure. Was he perfect? No, no one is. Did he help the country back from the brink of catastrophe, I'd say overall he did quite well.

Roy C

at 15:37 on October 6th, 2009

Thanks, Rory. Lays that one to rest.

Well, yes, the right and the left have an authoritarian streak in them, as I have said here many times before.

But, some of our problems are real dilemmas.

You have noticed that Obama has not closed GITMO, will not close GITMO and will not release the terrorists.

So, Obama is the bigger hypocrite.

nanute

at 01:56 on October 7th, 2009

See my post above Roy. On your contention that Obama is a hypocrite: Please do tell us why GITMO can't be closed. I'll give you a hint: It is because a large number of politicians are scared shitless of having the detainees imprisoned in the USA. Guess who's leading the charge? That's right, the Republican Party. Not to worry though, the spineless faction of the Democratic Party will give them cover. In fact, I think that as part of the funding for the war in Afghanistan, the house included a provision that precludes the detainees from being transferred stateside.

If the president can't keep em' locked up, what would you suggest? Close it down and let em' all go home?

Rory Cripps

at 14:08 on October 6th, 2009

nanute: I'm sure glad I got the hell out of the Big Apple when I did! JEEZ! After the first WTC bombing, it used to take me three hours to get to a job site in the Stock Exchange. It takes me less than an hour to get into CENTCOM down here in Tampa. What has NYC turned into when you can't even mug anyone without being caught on camera? LOL!

BTW: What was "right" about Hitler? I heard that he was a vegetarian . . .he had to be a social progressive! lol! What is your definition of the "right" and the "left" anyway?

nanute

at 15:17 on October 6th, 2009

rory: I'm glad you got out of Dodge when you did as well. With all those weapons you own, it was only a matter of time before you went "postal." LOL!

Nothing was "right" about Hitler, except the fact that his strict Catholic upbringing left him with a sense of guilt and authoritarian tendencies. (It has been rumored that he was a latent homosexual. I don't know if he was an altar boy though. )His taste in food was enough to clear the room when the flatulence took over.

Left and right definition ally: I'm left handed; my big brother(the big NOOF), is right handed, and our politics lean that way. LOL..

AGK

at 10:45 on October 6th, 2009

Roy, check back in 5 minutes for the appropriate BB pic, and check your Yahoo chat box----i yelled at you smkovalinsky

Roy C

at 11:59 on October 6th, 2009

Well, you have a great sense of humor!

Thanks. That is great.

The_Cynic

at 12:14 on October 6th, 2009

Go to the UK and see how many CCTV you can fit on one street - btw, they don't stop crime, and they really don't deter criminals either. They help if they are in the right place as a tool to apprehend someone - but mostly they are used, or the film is, on cheap entertainment shows.

a211423

at 14:05 on October 6th, 2009

but mostly they are used, or the film is, on cheap entertainment shows.

Cynic

Do you mean the government is selling the film to entertainment enterprises? Isn't that what the DMV used to do? Sell our information to advertising concerns?

I first thought about this when I saw some video of police apprhensions that were taken by the camera on a police car. I was trying to figure out how this film got into the hands of the public film makers, but now that you mention this, I can see how. I am not in favor of selling anything that the public has paid for. Our tax money should not be used this way.

The_Cynic

at 18:01 on October 6th, 2009

It's amazing what will fall into the hands of film makers (read cheap show shi&te) if someone is getting a reasonable fee, I mean a cost cutting payment for the upkeep of said focal observation devices.

politisite

at 13:45 on October 6th, 2009

I have mixed feelings about this. I see cameras gathering info on criminal activities.. at the same time the Govt wants to prosecute those who videotaped ACORN... I am worried about privacy issues that the constitution provides me. I don't care about any other counties use of CCTVs as they are not constitutional republics