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Dan Rockwell
Joined: 10 Dec 2001
Posts: 1988
Location: Stamford, CT, USA |
 Thu Aug 01, 2002 8:43 pm
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Cameras to help keep south Los Angeles alleys clean
Published 7:10 a.m. PDT Thursday, August 1, 2002
LOS ANGELES (AP) - Police fed up with trash-filled alleys have unveiled the first of 11 special motion-sensor cameras they hope will deter illegal dumping and graffiti in southern Los Angeles.
A power-pole mounted camera in Watts is designed to snap a picture of - and audibly warn - anyone spotted loitering in a junk-filled alley, police said Wednesday.
The steel-encased camera, designed to withstand a bullet, plays a recorded warning that police hope will act as a deterrent: "Stop! This is the LAPD," the recording says. "We have just taken your photograph. We will use this photograph to prosecute you. Leave now."
Similar cameras are planned for other South Los Angeles locations, some mounted near abandoned buildings to discourage squatters.
Legal experts say the pictures taken would be admissible in court. Those caught 'tagging' or illegally dumping could be jailed for six months and fined $1,000 per crime.
Motion-sensor cameras were previously installed in several other Los Angeles neighborhoods.
http://www.sacbee.com/state_wire/story/3804673p-4830091c.html
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Dan Rockwell
Joined: 10 Dec 2001
Posts: 1988
Location: Stamford, CT, USA |
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Sat Aug 03, 2002 7:17 am
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Tiny flying robots: Future masters of espionage
July 27, 2002 Posted: 5:49 PM EDT (2149 GMT)
BERKELEY, California (AP) -- Understanding the aerodynamics that allow insects and hummingbirds to fly is the key to an invention that researchers hope will create a little buzz and a lot of flap.
Biologists and technologists at the University of California, Berkeley have spent the past four years developing a tiny robot, called the Micromechanical Flying Insect, that they say will one day fly like a fly.
The Berkeley project is among a handful aiming to engineer devices that can soar, dart and hover on gossamer wings that flap with a rhythm and precision otherwise found only in nature.
The projects are taking different paths, but the goal is the same: churn out tiny, nimble devices that can surreptitiously spy on enemy troops, explore the surface of Mars or safely monitor dangerous chemical spills.
The Pentagon's Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency is funding much of the work because of its potential application in both reconnaissance and surveillance.
In recent years, scientists at Berkeley and elsewhere have made huge strides in understanding insect and bird flight. Their challenge is now to apply that knowledge to the design of devices that, at least at Berkeley, mimic the size, weight, power and -- above all -- aerodynamic elegance of a fly.
"What we're targeting is the blowfly, how it specs out," said Tim Sands, a professor of materials science and engineering.
Lest anyone scoff, Sands and his colleagues point out that a fly can lift its own weight, turn more quickly than any fighter jet, zip about even on torn wings -- and cap it all off by landing on the ceiling.
"Insects," said Berkeley's Ron Fearing, "have tremendous maneuverability."
In a cluttered campus lab, the professor of electrical engineering and computer sciences uses tweezers to pick up a prototype of the mechanical insect. The robot is a flyweight contender for the title of most ambitious of all the flapping robots, generically called ornithopters, entomopters or micro air vehicles.
It has yet to fly.
The Berkeley device is being developed under a five-year, roughly $2.5 million contract. That's pricey for something best described in pocket-change terms.
It takes about a dime's worth of raw materials, including stainless steel that must be folded under a microscope, to build one of the robots. A single penny weighs more than two dozen of the devices. And each boasts a wingspan that matches the diameter of a quarter.
Officials envision soldiers deploying the robotic insects in battle, using them to snoop as only a fly on the wall can.
"It takes an individual and extends their sensory capabilities _ like a periscope -- but it flies independently," said Roy Kornbluh, an engineer at SRI International in Menlo Park. Along with DARPA, the firm has funded development at the University of Toronto of another flapper, a four-winged robot called "Mentor."
During a February flight, the device became the first ornithopter to successfully hover, doing so with the agility of a hummingbird. Mentor is about one foot across and weighs one pound; researchers hope eventually to shrink it down to hummingbird size and weight.
As difficult as flapping flight is to ace, researchers remain enchanted by it because it makes for miniature flying machines that don't gobble large amounts of power.
"Flapping is much more aerodynamically efficient at small sizes, rather than conventional aerodynamics," said Michael Dickinson, a professor of integrative biology at Berkeley and a pioneer in understanding insect flight.
Building wings that flap is one thing, but endowing a robot with enough smarts to control that flapping enough to sustain flight remains difficult, if not impossible.
"The good news is we know what the wings need to do. The bad news is we don't know how to do it," Fearing said.
Consider the fruit fly, Dickinson says. It beats its wings 200 times a second, flapping and rotating them on each stroke in a complicated orchestration that relies on three distinct mechanisms to provide it lift.
In just eight strokes and 40 milliseconds, a fruit fly can make a midair U-turn. Fearing estimates that to copy that level of control, the Berkeley bug would have about a three-stroke margin of error. Mistime the fourth, and the fly goes into a death spiral, he said.
Robert Michelson, principal research engineer at the Georgia Institute of Technology Research Institute, said it's too difficult to build a robot that relies solely on modulating its flapping wings for stability and control.
Even the Mentor uses four tail-like fins to direct the downwash of its flapping wings to remain aloft.
Michelson said he is developing a flapping robot, called the entomopter, that will use bursts of gas, a byproduct of the device's chemical propulsion system, to adjust the amount of lift provided by each of the robot's twin sets of wings.
"Until we can do things as well as you find them in Creation, you have to go to alternate techniques," Michelson said of his device, which NASA is eyeing for use on Mars.
Size is also a problem: members of the team behind the Mentor said they opted to get their robot flying before shrinking it. The Berkeley team has taken the opposite approach -- one that others said may prove overly ambitious.
Michael Goldfarb, an associate professor of mechanical engineering at Vanderbilt University, said limitations in battery and artificial muscle technology will keep the tiniest ornithopters grounded.
Goldfarb's own efforts to build a flapping robot with a six-inch wingspan were unsuccessful.
"Our conclusion to that study was it's not doable with state-of-the-art technology," Goldfarb said.
As it works to get its fly to take wing, the Berkeley team acknowledges it has set its sights high.
"It's a little bit of a moonshot," Dickinson said.
http://www.cnn.com/2002/TECH/science/07/27/flyingmicrobots.ap/index.html |
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Dan Rockwell
Joined: 10 Dec 2001
Posts: 1988
Location: Stamford, CT, USA |
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Tue Aug 20, 2002 6:27 am
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Today: August 19, 2002 at 21:25:13 PDT
Ill. Uses Rest Stop Security Cameras
ASSOCIATED PRESS
SPRINGFIELD, Ill.- The state is spending nearly $4 million to equip highway rest stops with security cameras and emergency call boxes, officials said Monday.
The system, expected to be in place by mid-October, will let people contact state police if they feel threatened at any of the state's 53 rest stops and will give police a record of crimes committed there.
People needing help simply push a button on the emergency box. That automatically alerts authorities and sends them pictures from that camera so they can see what is happening. "It adds to our homeland security," said Mike Monseur, a spokesman for the Illinois Department of Transportation.
http://www.lasvegassun.com/sunbin/stories/nat-gen/2002/aug/19/081909553.html
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Lulu
Joined: 22 Dec 2000
Posts: 2501
Location: right here |
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Sat Aug 24, 2002 10:24 pm
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August 23, 2002
Bush Security Plan Would Target E-Mail
By Roy Mark
According to an unreleased draft plan prepared by the Bush administration, the president favors creating a centralized source for collecting and reviewing e-mail and data relating to cyber security. The new organization would collect threat data from the FBI's National Infrastructure Protection Center, the Critical Infrastructure Assurance Office, the Department of Energy and commercial networks, in addition to seeking private sector security data.
According to the draft strategy, the initiative would involve the major ISPs, hardware and software vendors, IT security companies, law enforcement agencies and computer emergency response teams.
The proposed plan, obtained by eWeek, is included in a draft of The National Strategy to Secure Cyberspace, which was developed by the president's Critical Infrastructure Protection Board. The plan is expected to be publicly released on Sept. 18.
According to eWeek, the plan calls for the private sector to increase its collection of threat data and share it with the government. The plan would have the FBI, Secret Service and Federal Trade Commission create a single system for corporations to report Internet fraud and extortion, illegal hacking, and unauthorized network intrusions. The administration wants the federal government to collect information from the private sector on cybercrime victims and network intrusions.
To alleviate fears of privacy litigation, the administration is proposing to create exemptions from Freedom of Information Act requirements and exemptions from anti-trust laws to reduce liabilities that might arise from private companies revealing information to federal, state and local law enforcement agencies.
The draft also recommends restricting the use of wireless technologies by federal agencies and requires private companies to disclose their IT security practices. The data would be used to build a "test bed" for security patches.
The Bush administration would also seek to mandate certification programs for government IT workers.
http://dc.internet.com/news/article.php/1451481
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LWR
Joined: 25 Apr 2001
Posts: 224
Location: Menlo Park, Ca, USA |
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Sun Aug 25, 2002 3:58 pm
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AUG 25, 2002
Speed cameras on British roads drive motorists to vandalism
Thousands of the devices have been damaged by drivers upset over the growing number of cameras on the roads
By Alfred Lee
STRAITS TIMES EUROPE BUREAU
LONDON - Vigilante motorists, angry because so many speed cameras are being put up on roads all over Britain, are destroying hundreds of the devices each week.
The drivers, operating surreptitiously at night, are spraying black paint over the lens or putting the cameras out of commission with blow lamps or setting them on fire after dousing them with petrol.
Over the past week alone, 30 cameras - each costing £7,000 (S$19,000) to buy and install - have been damaged beyond use on the busy North Circular Road around London.
Police are taking advantage of a new government scheme which allows them to keep part of the fines obtained from motorists caught going over the speed limit by cameras.
The money has to be spent on buying more cameras - and the result is an ever increasing number of flashing, electronic speed traps.
Fines average £80 and drivers are given a number of demerit points, depending on the speed they were travelling at.
If too many points are accumulated, the driver is banned from driving for three months or more.
Motorists' organisations have pinpointed several stretches of straight and level roads where up to five speed cameras have been installed over a distance of 10 km.
There are 325 cameras in central London and hundreds more on suburban roads.
This week, anonymous letters were sent to national newspapers by an organisation calling itself Motorists Against Detection (Mad), claiming responsibility for the acts of vandalism against the cameras.
The growing number of attacks on cameras in recent weeks signalled the start of a British-wide assault on the devices, Mad warned.
Although thousands of cameras have been damaged, police have not received a single message from any passing driver reporting a vandalism. As a result, no one so far has been caught damaging a camera.
But a Department of Transport spokesman said: 'Research has shown that the number of people killed or seriously injured on some dangerous stretches of road has fallen by 47 per cent after the installation of speed cameras.
'There has been an alarming increase in the number of cameras being vandalised and this could lead to deaths on the road, through speeding.'
Copyright @ 2002 Singapore Press Holdings. All rights reserved.
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Dan Rockwell
Joined: 10 Dec 2001
Posts: 1988
Location: Stamford, CT, USA |
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Mon Aug 26, 2002 5:33 am
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Dan Rockwell
Joined: 10 Dec 2001
Posts: 1988
Location: Stamford, CT, USA |
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Mon Aug 26, 2002 5:36 am
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Delaware compiles future suspects list
The Associated Press
WILMINGTON, Del. (August 25, 2002 9:52 p.m. EDT) - Police in Delaware are trying to get a head-start on cracking crimes before they happen by setting up a database that contains a list of people who officers believe are likely to break the law.
Defense attorneys and the American Civil Liberties Union oppose the database, which lists names, addresses and photographs of the potential suspects - many of whom have clean slates.
The precise grounds for putting a person on the list aren't clear. But since the system was introduced in Wilmington in June, most of the 200 people included in the file have been minorities from poor, high-crime neighborhoods.
State and federal prosecutors say the tactic is legal, but defense lawyers object to the practice.
"We should enforce the existing laws, but not violate them, to catch the bad guys," said Theo Gregory, City Councilman and public defender. "We've become the bad guys, and that's not right."
Mayor James Baker called the criticism "asinine and intellectually bankrupt."
"I don't care what anyone but a court of law thinks," he said. "Until a court says otherwise, if I say it's constitutional, it's constitutional."
The pictures are being taken by two Wilmington police squads created in June to arrest drug dealers. The units are known in some neighborhoods as "jump-out squads" because they jump out of cars and make quick arrests.
Many of the people whose photos have been taken for the file were stopped briefly for loitering and let go.
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Dan Rockwell
Joined: 10 Dec 2001
Posts: 1988
Location: Stamford, CT, USA |
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Sat Sep 14, 2002 2:42 am
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Mugging for the cops
By William Glanz
THE WASHINGTON TIMES
In Virginia Beach, Va., police started a digital manhunt for criminals this week by pairing surveillance cameras with new identification technology.
It is the second U.S. city to hunt for fugitives by scanning public streets while software compares images of pedestrians captured on camera to digital versions of police photos.
Surveillance cameras have long been used on private property, from banks to airports, and their use in public spaces such as the National Mall is becoming more common.
Police in Virginia Beach and Tampa, Fla., the other city where this technology is used, see the cameras as a strong deterrent to criminals. But privacy advocates say combining surveillance devices with software to hunt for people walking in public places marks the erosion of freedom because it puts scores of innocent people in a digital lineup.
Public officials in Virginia Beach decided to use biometrics — technology to identify people by using algorithms that measure faces, fingerprints and irises — to help them locate criminals wanted there on outstanding felony warrants. That can improve safety in a city that attracts 3 million tourists a year, Virginia Beach Police Chief A.M. "Jake" Jacocks Jr. said.
The technology has not led to the arrest of any suspect in the United States. But advocates also see the cameras as a powerful deterrent.
"We may not even make an arrest as a result of using this technology," Chief Jacocks said. But "if it keeps criminals out of the resort area and keeps the resort area safe, then that's a success."
Police won't say where the cameras are, but the innocuous-looking globes hover above three busy intersections along Atlantic Avenue, the bustling center of the oceanfront community's tourist area. The cameras scan a face in less than a second and up to six images at once, Deputy Police Chief Gregory G. Mullen said.
Face-scanning software relies on biometrics to measure 80 facial features, from the distance between a person's eyes to the length of a person's face.
Police monitor images from the cameras at the police department's 2nd Precinct headquarters. An alarm sounds if a camera determines that at least 14 measurements match a digital photo. That signals that a potential suspect is on Atlantic Avenue. Officers will determine whether the match is valid by looking at surveillance video themselves. If they confirm the person matches the photo, an officer will be sent to question the person.
Police in Virginia Beach, a city of 425,000 people, have digital photos of 650 criminals in their database. But the hardware can store 30,000 digital photos. The department expects to work with other law-enforcement agencies, including the FBI, to search for fugitives and missing persons believed to be in Virginia Beach.
Kathleen Stant stood along Atlantic Avenue on Monday in view of one of the city's new high-tech cameras. While she took a picture of her husband, Vernon, Mrs. Stant didn't know police were able to take her picture and instantly compare it to the database of fugitives.
No one came for Mrs. Stant, but the technology still made her feel uneasy.
"It's kind of 1984-ish," said Mrs. Stant, referring to the novel of that name written by George Orwell about a futuristic society in which the government wields oppressive power over the people.
"I understand why people feel the need for it. But the concern is whether police abuse it," said Mrs. Stant, a 50-year-old Richmond resident who traveled to Virginia Beach for the day.
Police have tried to ease concerns.
Cameras scan scores of innocent people each minute, but police have said they won't store images in their database of people who don't match police photos. In addition, the computer system will only be accessible from the 2nd Precinct headquarters and isn't connected to the Internet, so it can't be hacked. A Citizen's Advisory Committee was appointed to audit the department's use of the technology.
Despite those measures, face-scanning software is new and inaccurate and could lead to false positives, when police stop innocent people mistakenly identified as suspects, said Kent Willis, head of the Virginia chapter of the American Civil Liberties Union.
"We will be very concerned if false positives happen and people get arrested who shouldn't be," he said.
The software also is easily fooled, said Michael Thieme, director of special projects at private consulting firm International Biometric Group in New York.
"Changes in hairstyle and adding or taking off glasses can really change the accuracy. It shouldn't, but it does," Mr. Thieme said.
During a test of Virginia Beach's software, it accurately identified people 87 percent of the time during the day and at dusk, according to data released by the police department. At night it was accurate 75 percent of the time.
The Tampa Police Department has used the same biometric software since 2001 that Virginia Beach police are using.
Tampa created a stir during the 2001 Super Bowl — dubbed the Snooper Bowl by privacy advocates — when it secretly used the software to scan crowds for suspected criminals.
There is concern that police are overreacting because of the September 11 terrorist attacks.
"Have we become a crime center all of the sudden? This is very scary technology, and I am concerned about an abusive, intrusive government," said Robert K. Dean, spokesman for the Virginia Beach Libertarian Party and the Virginia Beach Taxpayers Alliance.
But the debate in Virginia Beach over face-scanning technology did change after the attacks. Federal law-enforcement officials notified Virginia Beach police that two hijackers — Mohamed Atta and Marwan Al-Shehhi — were in the city in February 2001 and April 2001.
http://www.washtimes.com/business/20020913-96526518.htm
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emfx13
Joined: 25 May 2002
Posts: 959
Location: Hayward Ca.U.S.A. |
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Sat Sep 14, 2002 3:05 am
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Thanx Dan,that answered some question's that i had. |
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Dan Rockwell
Joined: 10 Dec 2001
Posts: 1988
Location: Stamford, CT, USA |
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Sat Sep 21, 2002 4:44 am
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New cameras to catch trash scofflaws in act
By MATTHEW ROY, The Virginian-Pilot
© September 19, 2002
NORFOLK -- Smile when you dump that old refrigerator in some out-of-the-way city lot. You just might be on camera.
The city has purchased two all-weather surveillance cameras and will install them within weeks at spots popular with illegal dumpers. City staffers have seen just about everything abandoned in lots: a sailboat with no mast, washing machines, construction debris, plain old garbage. But the dumpers, who seem to favor dawn and dusk for quickly unloading truckloads of trash, are seldom caught in the act, said Scott Whitehurst.
He's an environmental specialist with Norfolk's Department of Public Works Division of Environmental Storm Water Management, which cleaned up roughly 300 dump sites last year at a cost of more than $100,000. The new equipment will capture images of furtive dumpers, providing a means to prosecute them.
Dumping trash can cause problems with odors, rodents and disease, said Sharon C. Harris, a public information specialist with the department. One camera records in color and one in black and white -- more ideal for low-light conditions, Whitehurst said. They are sturdy and likely will be mounted on poles.
The system cost nearly $10,000, he said.
Whitehurst declined to identify where the city will target dumpers. Still, he said, signs might be posted noting areas are under surveillance. Those who dump face up to a year in jail and a $2,500 fine.
Norfolk isn't the first to try the approach. In Kentucky, the state Natural Resources and Environmental Protection Cabinet has found the devices to be a deterrent, spokesman Mark York said.
``We've had excellent success,'' he said, adding that it's hard for those caught with their license plate and face on camera to dispute the offense.
Cameras in Kentucky also reportedly have captured parked lovebirds. York dismissed that as ``more of a humorous item.''
Asked about privacy concerns, Harris said cameras are intended to capture dumping.
``My thinking is, it'll be focused on the site itself -- whoever's on that vacant lot,'' she said. She also said, ``Those people coming to areas and dumping are there to commit a crime.''
Mihir Kshirsagar, a policy analyst with the Washington-based Electronic Privacy Information Center, an organization devoted to civil liberties issues and protecting privacy, said it seemed ``crazy'' to resort to watching people with cameras to prevent dumping.
He said the public should debate how the recordings would be treated and protected.
http://www.pilotonline.com/news/nw0919dum.html
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KrissaTMC2
Joined: 05 Feb 2002
Posts: 472
Location: Greenwich, CT, USA |
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Mon Sep 23, 2002 9:37 pm
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EDITORIAL • September 22, 2002
Whoa, Big Brother
The speed camera "experiment" begun a few months ago could be about to expand into a city-wide grid of cameras — and a flurry of tickets for D.C. motorists. The Washington Times has learned that the city has the option of modifying the contract it originally signed with Lockheed Martin IMS, the supplier of the photo-radar units, to erect a much more comprehensive "Automated Traffic Enforcement Program" that would make it possible to ticket literally millions of motorists every year, at almost any time and place in the city.
Under the terms of the contract tendered by Lockheed Martin IMS to William M. Cartis of the Metropolitan Police Department, "speed on green" photo-radar units that track the rate of travel of automobiles as they pass through intersections could be set up all over downtown. According to the language of the contract, "photo radar and speed on green units will target all vehicles traveling above the posted speed limit."
This represents an order of magnitude increase beyond the initial, small-scale use of photo radar that involved one "fixed" unit, and five mobile units installed in city police vehicles that could be set up at various points around town.
How much is all this worth to the city?
According to estimates provided by Lockheed Martin IMS, the District could mulct motorists to the tune of $10,988,588 annually — after it pays off the private contractor, who gets a big chunk of each $29 ticket issued by the photo-radar and speed-on-green units.
Lockheed Martin IMS stated in the original contract with the city that it "anticipated over 80,000 payments per month."
Never before has the use of speed traps to generate revenue for municipal government been so flagrant. And the unabashed cashing-in by the private contractor helpfully setting all this up is something to behold.
The old nag trotted out by photo radar advocates that "speed kills" is a non-sequitor that intelligent people ought to dismiss out-of-hand.
The proper questions ought to be: What speeds are reasonable and how should they be enforced? Dangerous speeding is one thing. Mercilessly prosecuting motorists for driving faster than an arbitrary and often under-posted limit (the maximum lawful limit within the District is just 25 mph on almost all streets) is nothing more than a tax by another name. Using cameras to maximize the revenue stream in this manner — and for the partial benefit, don't forget, of a private contractor — establishes a new level of effrontery that will be hard to top.
http://www.washtimes.com/op-ed/20020922-507153.htm
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Mech
Joined: 06 Jun 2001
Posts: 8237
Location: THE 4th REICH USA |
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Tue Sep 24, 2002 1:57 am
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It all sounds like the damned Spanish inquisition to me!!!
Goodbye freedom...hello POLICE STATE.
This is not "black helicopters" this is REAL and this is WORSE!
Crypto Fascism exposed!
Mech
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KrissaTMC2
Joined: 05 Feb 2002
Posts: 472
Location: Greenwich, CT, USA |
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Tue Sep 24, 2002 10:54 pm
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Here's a little puff piece to go with this collection. Something's starting to look just a little bit suspicious here.
Posted on Tue, Sep. 24, 2002
Mall surveillance under spotlight
Taped beating shows parking lot cameras see more than shoplifting
By CHARLES LUNAN and LEIGH DYER
Charlotte Observer
When a young mother struck her 4-year-old daughter in a car parked outside a Kohl's department store in Indiana 10 days ago, she couldn't have picked a worse place.
Few areas are watched as closely these days as shopping centers and their parking lots, including in Charlotte and the Carolinas.
Mall managers and retailers have made surveillance a key tool in their fight against shoplifting, auto theft and protection from frivolous lawsuits. And in the wake of the terrorist attacks, surveillance will only increase, experts said.
"Security is our No. 1 line item on our budget," said Ray Soporowski, general manager for Concord Mills and four other Southeast malls for Mills Corp. of Arlington, Va.
The mall opened in 1999 with a $500,000 video surveillance system, recently expanded to monitor its roof and underground supply tunnels in response to terrorist alerts.
Although cameras have been catching shoplifters and auto thieves in parking lots for years, privacy experts question whether most Americans understand they are being watched even after they leave a store.
"Maybe it's just going to be a wake-up call," said Kate Rears, editorial director of the Electronic Privacy Information Center in Washington, D.C., a civil liberties advocacy group. "OK, when I'm in my car, maybe I don't have as much privacy as I thought I did."
On Monday in an Indiana court, Madelyne Gorman Toogood, 25, was arraigned on a felony charge of battery to a child, and a magistrate entered an innocent plea on her behalf.
The Sept. 13 video was recorded by a camera in a parking lot outside a Kohl's store in Mishawaka and shown repeatedly on national TV.
Her attorney said there was no point in trying to challenge the videotape.
"It is what it is," said Steven Rosen. "We will probably enter a guilty plea and throw ourselves on the mercy of the court."
Toogood's daughter, Martha, remains in foster care while child-protection officials review custody. A doctor examined the girl and found no medical problems and no long-term signs of abuse, authorities said.
"People might think I'm a monster, but I've been a mother for six years, and no harm has come to my children before this, never," Toogood, who faces up to three years in prison, told CNN earlier Monday. "I'm sorry. That's all I can say."
Local law enforcement could not recall any instances where retailers provided videotape showing domestic violence or child abuse. But officials said it's common for retailers and shopping centers to share tapes as police investigate crimes.
"It's not really common where they just catch something on tape like this," said Keith Bridges, community education director for the Charlotte-Mecklenburg Police Department. "It just goes to show you the value of security cameras."
Last August, police arrested men at Eastland Mall on trespassing charges and found burglary tools inside their car after an employee spotted suspects cruising the parking lot at midnight. After calling Charlotte-Mecklenburg police, the employee followed the suspects with some of the 48 cameras installed in 1999 to monitor security, said General Manager Kevin McCluskey.
In the year after new cameras were installed in 1999, Eastland's parking-lot incidents dropped 33 percent, McCluskey said. An incident is defined as anything an officer has to fill out a report for, from shoplifting to lost children. In 2001, incidents dropped another 2 percent, and statistics are on track to show another 12 percent drop in 2002, he said.
Although the American Civil Liberties Union has no objection to cameras at potential terrorist targets, such as the U.S. Capitol, it is urging America to resist the impulse to install them in more public spaces. The ACLU warns that despite several examples of abuse of the monitoring, there is still no consensus in America as to how video surveillance should be restricted. It also points to studies indicating that cameras have had uneven success in deterring crime.
That worries people like John Piana, a Charlotte accountant.
"It's Big Brother coming," he said. "Because it's happening in little baby steps, everyone is really desensitized. Each and every day, a new camera is added somewhere."
At the Columbia Place mall in Columbia, General Manager Charles Gwinn is overseeing the installation of a 42-camera system as part of a multi-million dollar renovation.
Besides detecting crime, the system will allow mall security to spot medical emergencies, stranded motorists, lost children and even hazardous spills on the floor, said Gwinn.
"We are interested primarily in public safety," said Gwinn.
At Concord Mills, general manager Soporowski also sees it as a public safety tool. From a dimly lit room in the back of the mall, employees work round the clock monitoring feeds from 76 cameras, including several in the parking lot.
Cameras can be directed to follow a shoplifting suspect from a store, through the food court, out an exit, across the parking lot, into a car and even onto the entrance ramp for I-85.
"Is it foolproof?" asked Soporowski. "No. But having 76 more sets of eyes helps."
http://www.miami.com/mld/miami/news/nation/4140996.htm
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