Manhattan Becoming a Fortress

Anyone situated between 30th and 60th Streets in Manhattan could soon be under the surveillance of cameras, license plate readers and weapons sensors. The city continues its mission to ward off terrorist attacks by expanding its surveillance network already established in Lower Manhattan, to Midtown.

In an article on The New York Times website, Kareem Fahim says $24 million in grants from the Department of Homeland Security will help fund a surveillance network similar to the one downtown. Fahim writes that civil liberties groups have expressed concern over the increasing ability of police to scrutinize many corners of the city. But Manhattan Mayor Michael Bloomberg responded, “We can’t just say everybody can go everyplace and do anything they want.”

Midtown Manhattan is home to the Grand Central Terminal, the empire State Building and the United Nations. The new system would feed data to a coordination center for analysis. It is scheduled for completion in 2011.

To read the article, please click here:
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/10/05/nyregion/05security.html?_r=1&pagewanted=print