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! [...]
Entries Tagged as 'Publically Owned CCTV'
Newark Airport surveillance cameras don't record
January 6th, 2010 · No Comments · Public Surveillance Failure
Guangdong province installs 1 million cameras, claims success in buses
September 14th, 2009 · No Comments · No Verdict
China Daily had an interesting article about surveillance cameras in China's Guangdong province.
GUANGZHOU: A new province-wide intelligent video surveillance system comprising 1 million cameras is putting criminals in the frame in Guangdong province.
The system, which will be fully operational next year, will automatically alert police about fights, robberies and other major crimes and incidents, according [...]
Tags: Buses·Publically Owned CCTV
CNN: Baghdad surveillance crews watch helplessly as bombs explode
September 2nd, 2009 · 4 Comments · Public Policy Failure, Public Surveillance Failure
Embedded video from CNN Video
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 [...]
Tags: Publically Owned CCTV
West Australia's voluntary CCTV camera registration program a failure
September 2nd, 2009 · Comments Off · Public Policy Failure
Back in April, the West Australia police launched a voluntary CCTV camera registration program called Blue Iris. I thought this was a good idea, so I wrote an entry about it. It turns out the program was either not well received, or lacking communication with local businesses. According to Australian news WA Today:
WA [...]
Tags: Publically Owned CCTV
UK: 1,000 public cameras to solve just one crime
August 25th, 2009 · No Comments · Public Policy Failure, Public Surveillance Failure
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 [...]
Tags: Publically Owned CCTV
Armored truck loaded with cameras runs bad neighbors out of town
August 17th, 2009 · No Comments · Public Surveillance Leading Practice
Carrie Porter from The Wall Street Journal is reporting how Peoria Illinois deals with rowdy citizens and drug dealers: shame them with a armored vehicle loaded with cameras.
Police here call it the Armadillo. They say it has restored quiet to some formerly rowdy streets. Neighbors' calls for help have dropped sharply. About half of the [...]
Tags: Publically Owned CCTV
UK Police launch "flying saucer" surveillance camera
August 17th, 2009 · No Comments · No Verdict
The UK Police have created a remote control surveillance camera which has been dubbed a flying saucer. According to the Daily Telegraph:
Similar to a mini-helicopter, the device has four pairs of carbon-fibre rotor blades which support a camera. An operator on the ground controls the vehicle's flight using a hand-held control panel with two joysticks.
The [...]
Salt Lake City public park: cameras displace drug dealers
August 15th, 2009 · No Comments · No Verdict
WKSL out of Salt Lake City Utah is shedding more insight into what happens when surveillance cameras are installed in high crime public parks. According to the first article, four cameras were installed in Pioneer Park to battle the drug dealing problem. The police were looking to achieve three objectives:
• Deter crime
• Document crime
• [...]
Tags: Another Politician Claims Success·Public Parks·Publically Owned CCTV
Laguardia Airport security cameras missed "bomb"
August 12th, 2009 · 1 Comment · Public Surveillance Failure
Bruce Schneier coined the term security theater. Security theater is defined as, "Ostensible security measures which have little real influence on security whilst being publicly visible and designed to demonstrate to the lesser-informed that countermeasures have been considered".
Philip Messing and Murray Weiss from the NY Post wrote about an "fake bomb" incident at [...]
Norwich, UK: CCTV cameras stop vandalism in the school bathroom
August 4th, 2009 · 3 Comments · Public Surveillance Leading Practice
Surveillance cameras can do a pretty good job at stopping vandalism in certain contexts like public parks. However, the vandalism being performed in this case was against sinks and located in a childrens bathroom. According to Norwich Evening news, the cameras were a “last line of defence” move because of the thousands of pounds [...]
