Chicago's Big Brother Gets Bigger

Chicago is nearly the most watched city on the planet when it comes to surveillance cameras. Between the Police Department’s 1,200 cameras and other public and private cameras, the ACLU estimates there are more than 10,000 throughout the city.

The Sun-Times reports the Public Building Commission wants to connect more buildings in the financial district to the network. In addition, the Commission disclosed that it has already installed more than 3,000 cameras at government buildings and “potential terrorist targets.” New additions will be paid for with a $650,000 Homeland Security grant.

Mayor Emanuel called the additions to the network an important part of the city’s security, saying “Work’s been done. We should complete it because it’s identified as important in the Homeland Security reports.”

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By aaroncynic in News on June 16, 2011 1:00 PM

Comments [rss]

Sean T Evans

The most common place to see graphitti in my neighborhood is either directly below or across the street from the blue light camera. As Second City Cop points out, they're useless if no one is watching, and even if someone is, they can't do anything about a crime in progress.

Navin_Johnson

I for one am excited about the great job all these surveillance cameras are going to do teaching our children and reforming our economy.

Seth Cirker

They should check out a new surveillance technology that’s being deployed around the country which also protects privacy. It’s the best of both worlds – safety and privacy. This technology places “eyelids” over the cameras, so that they are only opened during high risk periods (like at night) and emergencies. An interesting article about how this technology was effectively put to use in Brookline, Mass can be found here: http://ow.ly/3ZcwT

Jeff

Yeah, more cameras isn't automatically evil. They're recording public spaces, in which there is no expectation of privacy anyway. How "evil" their deployment is strongly depends on how the data is used and/or abused. If they are just recording video to an archive somewhere that nobody can access without a court order for a specific date/time, then that's fine and even good.

That said, it's very sad that "terrorism" is what it takes to get real initiatives done these days. The Wire is shown to be more true every day.