D.C. Police Set to Monitor 5,000 Cameras
Police in Washington, D.C. will soon have access to one of the largest surveillance networks in the country as officials give them access to more than 5,000 closed-circuit TV cameras across the city.

In an article in the Washington Times, Gary Emerling says the city’s Homeland Security and Emergency Management Agency announced the initiative last week along with D.C. Mayor Adrian M. Fenty.

“The primary benefit of what we're doing is for public health and safety,” said Darrell Darnell, director of the Homeland Security and Emergency Management Agency, to Emerling.

But the move is concerning some civil liberties advocates, worried the use of the cameras will infringe on privacy rights. “We’ve been sort of sounding the alarm on this stuff for a long time, saying these little pieces — they grow,” Art Spitzer, legal director for the American Civil Liberties Union of the National Capital Area, told Emerling. “You put a camera here, it’s not so bad, you put a camera there, it’s not so bad. But then it turns out all the sudden, we find out there are 5,200 cameras. That's a big number.”

The Video Interoperability for Public Safety (VIPS) program will consolidate the more than 5,200 cameras operated by D.C. agencies into one network managed by the city’s Homeland Security and Emergency Management Agency, Emerling says. The program will allow agencies to share camera video feeds and provide the city with a network that is actively monitored.

To read the full article, click here: http://washingtontimes.com/article/20080409/METRO/769331158/1001