Five months ago, a mentally disturbed man entered Laguardia Airport with a fake bomb attached to his body. The security officers tackled and subdued the wanne-be terrorist and then looked for the footage from the surveillance camera.  It turns out the groggy cameras were broken, pointing the wrong direction, or had very grainy footage.  Oy! Well, at least we all learned from this situation, right Newark Airport?

From the NY Times:

NEWARK, N.J. (AP) — New Jersey's U.S. senators slammed federal authorities Wednesday over a security breach at Newark Liberty International Airport over the weekend and called for upgrades to surveillance camera systems and better training and accountability for security officers.

At a news conference in a terminal adjacent to the one that was shut down for six hours Sunday night, Sens. Robert Menendez and Frank Lautenberg and Rep. Donald Payne used terms like "major negligence" and "management failure" to describe the incident, in which an unidentified man entered Terminal C through an exit door and was not seen by the Transportation Security Administration officer assigned to the area.

The breach exposed flaws at three levels: at the exit, where the security officer failed to see the man entering a secure area; the subsequent discovery that security cameras weren't working properly and hadn't been storing images, and a resulting delay of about an hour before law enforcement authorities were notified, after TSA officials viewed images recorded on cameras owned by Continental Airlines.

Menendez called it "unfathomable" that the recording system wasn't already being checked routinely and suggested a system that would provide a warning when it stopped recording.

"There clearly are innovations that exist that will set off an alarm if your system shuts off," he said. "You shouldn't depend on whether or not there's a security guard checking every hour on the hour — what if in the interim there was a failure of the system?"

In a statement, the TSA said it was working with the Port Authority "to ensure consistent performance and confirm operational readiness" of the camera system.

Senators, I have the solution and it's rather easy: regulate all surveillance technology.

By regulating surveillance technologies, standards could be set regarding minimal technology effectiveness standards.  These standards would include: resolution rates, storage retention thresholds, the use of video analytics in specific camera contexts like airport terminals.  If government doesn't  begin to regulate these devices, we'll end up like the U.K. – millions of useless cameras where it takes an average of 1,000 cameras to solve one crime.

According to CNN, 113 surveillance cameras covering 5% of Baghdad were installed to assist in "predicting terrorism". The above video shows the surveillance camera operators watching traffic and failing to identify the motives of the terrorists.  When the operators fail to predict the future, they "cringe with guilt".

The center was set up a year and a half ago, with employees on the lookout for trouble, as police officers in a back room listen to the traffic on their radios. But there are not enough cameras to cover all of Baghdad — only 5 percent of the city is surveilled under the current system.

The cameras picked up suspicious activity last Wednesday, but within 20 seconds — before any action could be taken — a truck blew up in front of the Foreign Ministry building. By day's end, bombings had killed nearly 100 people in the city.

The fledgling security surveillance operation has a long way to go, its director acknowledges. The center is understaffed and not yet open around the clock.

Though overall attacks have decreased in Iraq, the images on screen serve as undeniable evidence of the ongoing violence the Iraqi government is struggling to prevent.

That effort includes 113 security cameras placed mainly around government buildings throughout the city, though not all are functioning at any given time. Each work station at the surveillance center monitors the feeds from 10 cameras.

After last week's bombings — which made Wednesday the bloodiest day in Iraq since U.S. combat troops withdrew from Iraqi cities at the end of June — the center's managers met with Iraqi security forces in an effort to increase the number of cameras.

"We should all admit responsibility for this major breach of security," the director said. "And we have to fix the system."

For now, as the carnage fills the screen like a violent movie, employees cringe with guilt. They know that every time there is a blast on screen, it's because they were not able to prevent it.

Installing surveillance cameras and a command center in Baghdad is a logical thing to do, there is no refuting that.  However, the Baghdad security director should not be making statements correlating the ability to find terrorists on the streets and the need for more cameras.

It is illogical to assume that by installing more surveillance cameras the operators will be in a better position to identify and intervene a potential terrorist act.  It is a proven fact surveillance cameras do not deter violent crime, and conversely, public cameras are extremely poor at convicting criminals.  In this situation, the Baghdad cameras should only be used to determine if any incidents have happened, identify the magnitude of the problem, and dispatch appropriate resources.  The end result can ultimately be efficient dispatching of ambulances, and lives saved.

Detective Mick Neville from the Metropolitan Police is quickly becoming the face of change for public surveillance cameras.  After a report stating CCTV cameras were only effective in parking lots, Mick Neville came out and stated that the UK police are not using the technology properly. Now Mick is saying it takes 1,000 public cameras to solve just one crime.

Fewer than one crime is solved by every 1,000 closed circuit television cameras, the Metropolitan Police, Britain's biggest police force, has admitted.

Critics of Britain’s so-called 'surveillance society' said it raised serious concerns over how police forces used CCTV cameras to fight crime.

Britain is one of the most monitored countries in the world, with an estimated four million cameras nationwide.

It said: “For every 1,000 cameras in London, less than one crime is solved per year.”

The report, written by Detective Chief Inspector Mick Neville, who runs the Metropolitan Police’s Visual Images Identifications and Detections Office, found that the public “have a high expectation of CCTV and are frequently told they are captured on camera 300 times per day”.

Public confidence was dented when the police often stated there was no CCTV working when a crime has been committed, it said.

It also said that increasingly members of the public were complaining that officers had not bothered to view available CCTV images when trying to track down criminals.

It disclosed a “significant rise in the level of complaints from the public, where it is perceived that police have not viewed CCTV. This is now approaching 100 per year.”

The report found that untrained officers were often downloading and viewing CCTV images in their hunt for evidence. The cameras were effective in crime-fighting if the images and information from them was used properly.

Detective Superintendent Michael McNally, who commissioned the report, admitted there were “some concerns” about how CCTV was being used.

The report also revealed concerns at Scotland Yard that the Conservatives could cut back on numbers of cameras or the way that they are used if the party wins the next general election, likely to be next May.

Under a section headlined “Strategic Issues”, the report said: “Potential change of Government – the Conservatives are not CCTV friendly – we need to start showing that we are targeting serious crime.”

Earlier this year separate research commissioned by the Home Office suggested that the cameras had done virtually nothing to cut crime, but were most effective in preventing vehicle crimes in car parks.

A report by a House of Lords committee also said that £500million was spent on new cameras in the 10 years to 2006, money which could have been spent on street lighting or neighbourhood crime prevention initiatives.

A large proportion of the cash has been In London, where an estimated £200 million so far has been spent on the cameras. This suggests that each crime has cost £20,000 to detect.

Britain has 1 per cent of the world’s population but around 20 per cent of its CCTV cameras – which works out as the equivalent of one for every 14 people

David Davis MP, the former shadow Home Secretary, said the latest report “should provoke a major and long overdue rethink on where the Home Office crime prevention budget is being spent”.

He added: “CCTV leads to massive expense and minimum effectiveness. It creates a huge intrusion on privacy, yet provides little or no improvement in security.

“The Metropolitan Police has been extraordinarily slow to act to deal with the ineffectiveness of CCTV, something true both in London and across the country.

“A combination of overdependence on CCTV and ineffective use of the cameras means that this money could have been much better spent on more police officers."

Chris Grayling, the shadow Home Secretary, said: "It's just not possible to fight crime with technology alone, CCTV can help in some situations but there is nothing to beat getting more police back from behind their desks and on to the streets."

“There is no evidence that it saves us from gun or knife crime, or for that matter that it stops terrorists – many terrorists are only too glad to advertise their evil deeds.

“Nor are cameras much good in getting convictions. Evidence from them is only allowed in court if the images are securely stored and handled, so that there is no possibility that they have been tampered with.”

The National Police Improvement Agency is currently undertaking a review into the effectiveness of CCTV.

A Metropolitan Police spokesman said the CCTV detection rate was based on "an estimate only and based on a small sample".

She added: "They do not reflect the complete picture of cases resolved in London in which CCTV evidence is an important factor."

Mick Neville sure said a mouthful.  I agree with a lot of Mike's statements but think that there is only room for improvement when the prognosis is "poor".  The UK embraced CCTV technologies a decade ago, there is no doubt that the camera technologies could be brought up to date, practices improved, and installation contexts revisited.

It's interesting to hear Mike admit the anti-deterring-terrorism sentiments when American politicians have taken the opposite stance. NYPD politicians are selling the lower and midtown Manhattan security initiatives as a way to deter terrorism. I think it's obvious who is correct.

Related: CCTV cameras: If they do not stop crime or catch criminals, what are they for?
Related: Surveillance crews watch helplessly as bombs explode

Philip Messing and Murray Weiss from the NY Post wrote about an "fake bomb" incident at Laguardia airport which reinforces Bruce Schneier's assertion.  According to the article:

Investigators made the shocking discovery after they retrieved tape from Port Authority cameras, fully anticipating watching the near tragedy unfold and ultimately using it as evidence against the mentally ill terrorist wannabe.

But when they rolled the tapes, the entire episode was nowhere to be found because of a glaring lack of surveillance coverage. "There was zilch," one flabbergasted law-enforcement source said.

"There was nothing of use," said another.

The sources also disclosed that what little video they did recover from cameras in the general vicinity was "grainy," of "poor quality" and basically "showed the tops of people's heads."

In fact, PA investigators and prosecutors at the office of Queens DA Richard Brown agreed that the tapes were of no forensic value and "unusable" against McGann.

The sources said both Big Apple airports — La Guardia and John F. Kennedy — are dogged by video blind spots.

"It's amazing how eight years after 9/11 . . . you would think they would ensure seamless camera coverage," said a source.

PA cops grabbed McGann, 32, as he "closed his eyes" and repeatedly clicked a trigger attached to wires running up his sleeve to what turned out to be a bogus bomb.

Sometimes politicians tell the public that these systems can fight terrorism even when there is a mountain of logic (and evidence) that these systems don't.  This failure at Laguardia airport is just another example of how ineffective publicly managed CCTV systems are.  In this case, the camera didn't even record footage that could be used as evidence against the man with the fake bomb.  The cameras were nothing but security theater, and bad theater at that.

Detective Chief Inspector Mick Neville of the Met Police's CCTV Unit has admitted that the UK is not using CCTV camera surveillance systems properly.  Mick tells Newsnight that, "CCTV is not being used to tackle crime as well as it should because some forces do not know how to use it effectively".

BBC News reports:

Most forces do not have systems to retrieve, process and distribute CCTV crime scene images.  Officers in some London boroughs are failing to solve any tier one and two crimes such as serious assaults and robberies using CCTV, he added.

A new study says there may be a million fewer UK CCTV cameras than thought.

He added: "Because we had CCTV first, we made all the mistakes.  And the mistake was spend it on kit, don't spend it on people or processes and that's what's gone wrong.  Unless there is a systematic way of gathering CCTV then it will continue not to be as effective as it could be."

"What I would say," he continued, "is we've got enough cameras, let's stop now, we don't want any more cameras.

"Let's invest that money that's available and use it for the training of people, and the processes to make sure whatever we've captured is effectively used."

His comments come as the government is considering whether every CCTV camera in the country should be registered and whether the entire industry should be regulated.

It's great to hear this public official not make false claims of success and also that the system needs to be improved.  I agree with Mick that a camera registration program should be put in place for private cameras.  I also agree that regulation is a good thing, because it will provide guidelines for practices and technologies for the private and public sector.  If we approach CCTV surveillance systems systematically using a research based approach, we will be building powerful tools for investigation analysis. We may even be able to leverage some aspects of deterrence, as found in parking lots.

While the UK did embrace CCTV technologies first, it does not appear that the U.S. is learning from the U.K.'s mis-steps.  Now is the time to start collecting effectiveness data so we can make more informed decisions going forward.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=-eFA0jFfpvA

This privately owned CCTV camera was supposed to monitor patrons outside of Lawrence's Grill and Bar.  It soon served a second purpose -- as contradictory evidence to an altercation with a local Passaic police officer.

Holloway, who is on medication for schizophrenia, joined more than 80 others outside that community's city hall Saturday to demand that Officer Joseph R. Rios III be fired.

The tape shows Holloway, 49, waiting outside Lawrence's Grill and Bar restaurant in Passaic when a police cruiser pulled up and a female officer asked him to zip up his sweatshirt. Holloway appears to comply, but Rios jumps out and begins hitting him with his fists and a baton.

His mother, Betty Holloway, said that without the surveillance tape, the truth about what happened would never have been revealed.

If cameras are supposed to make us safer, the question that remains is safer from who?  It seems that every week evidence surfaces that shows civil service workers aren't acting very civil at all.