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Cameras dc { February 13 2002 }

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   http://www.reuters.com/news_article.jhtml?type=topnews&StoryID=593227

http://www.reuters.com/news_article.jhtml?type=topnews&StoryID=593227

Washington Plans Unprecedented Camera Network
Last Updated: February 13, 2002 08:10 AM ET
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NEW YORK (Reuters) - Washington police are building what will be the nation's
biggest network of surveillance cameras to monitor shopping areas, streets,
monuments and other public places in the U.S. capital, a move that worries civil
liberties groups, The Wall Street Journal said on Wednesday.

The system would eventually include hundreds of cameras, linking existing devices in
Metro mass transit stations, public schools and traffic intersections to new digital
cameras mounted to watch over neighborhoods and shopping districts, the Journal
said.

"In the context of Sept. 11, we have no choice but to accept greater use of this
technology," Stephen Gaffigan, the head of the police department project, told the
Journal.

He said city officials had studied the British surveillance system, which has more than
2 million cameras throughout the country, and were "intrigued by that model."

One of the first uses of police surveillance cameras in Washington was April 2000,
when authorities set up a network to monitor protests during a meeting of the
International Monetary Fund and World Bank, the newspaper said.

On Tuesday morning, in response to the latest terror alert issued by the Justice
Department, police activated a $7 million command center that was first used on
Sept. 11. The command center, which has dozens of video stations for monitoring
cameras, will remain in use until federal officials end the alert, the Journal reported.

Cameras installed by the police have been programmed to scan public areas
automatically, and officers can take over manual control if they want to examine
something more closely.

The system currently does not permit an automated match between a face in the
crowd and a computerized photo of a suspect, the Journal said. Gaffigan said
officials were looking at the technology but had not decided whether to use it.

Eventually, images will be viewable on computers already installed in most of the
city's 1,000 squad cars, the Journal said.

The Journal said the plans for Washington went far beyond what was in use in other
U.S. cities, a development that worries civil liberties advocates.

Barry Steinhardt, associate director of the American Civil Liberties Union in New
York, noted there were few legal restrictions of video surveillance of public streets.
But he said that by setting up a "central point of surveillance," it becomes likely that
"the cameras will be more frequently used and more frequently abused."

"You are building in a surveillance infrastructure, and how it's used now is not likely
how it's going to be used two years from now or five years from now," he told the
Journal.


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