Fighting Crime From Above?

The Lower Manhattan Security Initiative (LMSI) has been in the works since the 9/11 attacks. However, it still remains to be seen how cameras, license plate readers, and radiation detectors will deter terrorism as Deputy Commissioner of Counter-Terrorism of the NYPD Richard Falkenrath has stated.

According to NY1, police commissioner Raymond Kelly is proposing adding more surveillance in midtown:

Testifying before the City Council yesterday, Police Commissioner Ray Kelly said the New York City Police Department wants to duplicate its Lower Manhattan "ring of steel" security system in Midtown.

The system, which covers about 1.7 square miles below Canal Street, uses surveillance cameras, license plate readers, and radiation detectors to feed information back to a state-of-the-art command center.

Kelly said the new system would cover 34th Street to 59th Street from the East River to the Hudson River.

He says the department is asking for $21 million in federal homeland security money to help pay for it.

The radiation detectors are an interesting proposition, but how can these detectors be effective?  Does Mr. Kelly believe that a terrorist will be deterred from bringing a dirty bomb into the city by these detectors?  What if these terrorists want to use good old fashioned dynamite or a fertilizer bomb as it is a very popular form of terrorist weaponry. Does this mean Mr Kelly needs to add gunpowder detectors and fertilizer detectors as well?

Let me play out a scenerio: A car just ran a red light, the license plate says it's registered to Osama-Bin-Talibani, the radiation detectors are being set off, and all within a few minutes the police are dispatched to intercept a nuclear bomb? Is this the hopeful scenerio being propositioned by the NYPD? To alert-intervene-intercept and hope the terrorists don't detonate a nuclear bomb? Is this possible? Maybe. Plausible? I just don't see it happening.

It's easy to understand the politicians stance here: something needs to be done. I think we can all can agree on that, but putting cameras everywhere and citing London's ring of steel is poor idea. London's ring of steel has been declared an an expensive and ineffective proposition by researchers.

I think what eventually will happen is the cameras and licence plate readers will be repurposed for use in tracking down vehicle crimes like thefts or to automate the ticketing process to increase city revenue. Why doesn't Mr. Kelly just state this from the get-go?