Bloomberg Looks At London's "Ring of Steel"

NYC Mayor's Office Twitter

Bloomberg has been looking to increase the city's camera surveillance in the wake of the Times Square bomb scare, and headed to London yesterday to check out their famous "Ring of Steel" system of over 500,000 cameras. He met with City of London Police Commissioner Mike Bowron, toured the tube with Mayor Boris Johnson, and was done in time for tea. Bloomberg said, "I am here to learn from others, see what works best, and try to fix things before they become a problem." So what did he learn?

Despite the average Londoner's being caught on camera about 300 times a day, Bloomberg told reporters, "It's not clear that they would have helped in Times Square. Other than if the perpetrator knew there were cameras, he might not have tried to come into Times Square." Though Times Square is equipped with security cameras, they weren't able to catch any clear images of failed bomber Faisal Shahzad.

The city's subways are equipped with 4,000 cameras— half of which don't work—which is just 1/3 of London's subway system's surveillance. However, Bloomberg said that crime is low in the subways, so street surveillance would be better for catching terrorists. "The street crime rate in both subway systems are probably as low as you can get. We've had only two murders since 2007, and it was one guy who killed two people. So fundamentally you are very safe on both systems."

London's "Ring of Steel" was already the inspiration for the 3,000 camera surveillance system in downtown Manhattan, but both Bloomberg and Police Commissioner Ray Kelly want to set up a similar system in midtown. Bloomberg said, "Nobody's going to make the world perfectly safe, but wouldn't you rather be somewhat safer?" Would you feel safer if you knew you were caught on camera 300 times a day?

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By Jaya Saxena in News on May 12, 2010 12:13 PM

Comments [rss]

zincink

CCTV will not stop a human from committing a crime. I often wonder why people don't shoot out the cameras located in London.

Nyctini11

and even with all the great security we have, somehow a man manages to fly out of JFK with 2 9mm handguns, bullets, swords, etc... Maybe we should stop wasting money on technology that clearly isn't working

http://www.nydailynews.com/news/world/2010/05/12/2010-05-12_egypt_detains_passenger_arriving_from_new_york_carrying_guns_swords_in_luggage.html

JacqueMehoff

we should start by putting cameras in police stations and cop cars.

whitecastlerock

Instead of flying to London on the taxpayer dime, go to fucking Best Buy and look at some cameras there...

metalnyc

"...right. & the "average Londoner" isn't a terrorist. This is yet another measure that restricts citizen's rights & criminalizes the law-abiding."

WHO THE FUCK CARES!!?? How does being captured on video restrict citizens rights and criminalize them? So someone watches you pick your ass - big fucking deal!

Put a camera in my house and watch me take a shit if it will save my ass in anyway from being blown up.

mlcastle

Except that there is no evidence whatever that putting a camera in your house would save you from being blown up. And if the money that would otherwise be spent on something that could in fact save you from being blown up gets redirected towards putting cameras everywhere, then we are in trouble.

yttrstein

I wonder if they mentioned to bloomberg that somewhere between 75 and 90% of those CCTV units are inoperable, because the UK cannot afford to hire the approximate 5K individuals necessary to run that sort of "ring of steel".

With any luck, we'll have an identical system in a couple of years; hundreds of thousands of broken CCTV cameras all over midtown and the financial district, and a $5 fare to anywhere on the MTA.

JacqueMehoff

Most London cops don't have guns.

will he take that idea with him? cops without guns.

BDS=(Boycott.Divest.Sanction)

What did bloomberg learn there?

that a city could have 500,000 cameras and it not stop this

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/7_July_2005_London_bombings

or that even with all that technology it didnt even keep the cops from knowing who to shoot afterwards. they shot a guy they mistook for a terrorist 7 times!

haha. Terrorism, what a racket.

You want to stop terrorism, start looking at the news the rest of the world sees. start understanding WHY terrorism exists, then you'll understand how to stop it.

http://desertpeace.wordpress.com/2010/05/08/popular-resistance-continues-in-palestine/

Spirit of 76

I saw him on the news with a quote the Post didn't report. He admitted that cameras wouldn't be able to stop a would-be bomber, then said it might act as a deterrent if they knew they could be caught afterward. Nice thinking, Mike, except what if they're suicide bombers, unlike Shahzad? Think they'd be scared about what comes afterward?

Mordicai

"...the average Londoner's being caught on camera about 300 times a day..."

...right. & the "average Londoner" isn't a terrorist. This is yet another measure that restricts citizen's rights & criminalizes the law-abiding.

EastRiver

I'd like you to expand on your ideas since I disagree that you have a right to be invisible when out in public. And what behavior is being criminalized by having cameras?

Mordicai

http://www.amazon.com/Nineteen-Eighty-Four-George-Orwell/dp/0452284236/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1273687474&sr=8-1

On a less snide level-- social control is a bad thing. We live in a world where who you have sex with is a political issue. You can be fired, fined, & socially maligned. In a place where your opinions on, lets say riding bicycles? Can get you assaulted by the police, & then that assault covered up. The abuse of a system of panopticon is only exacerbated by a world influenced by the tyranny of the majority.

The easiest way to illustrate this is to think about your home. Currently, police can't enter your home without your consent or a search warrant. Theoretically, you aren't doing anything illegal. So why should you care? Shouldn't the police have unfettered 24-7 access to your home? I mean, I'm a middle class white male who follows the law, what do I have to be worried about?

EastRiver

You completely failed to answer the question. And you're playing the slippery slope card. And fear mongering.

BDS=(Boycott.Divest.Sanction)

as the saying goes, who watches the watchman?

the more you power you give the goverment to protect you, the more difficult it becomes to reform your goverment. the more difficult it becomes to have free society as the goverment will see threats as reform as terrorism.

its happened in the 50s when Americans who had communist views and were branded criminals. it happened in the 60s when people protested the war, civil rights and were branded criminals. Its happening today when people protest our policies in the middle east and are branded 'terrorist' supporters.

there was a case last year, a man in staten island sole cable television with a lebanese channel and was sentenced to 7 years for supporting terrorism. Senator liberman just suggested stripping people of their citizenship if they were suspected of supporting terrorism.

rest assured, the more power you give the govt, the less you will have.

Mordicai

Oh, you are playing that card where instead of engaging in a discussion you're going to repeat logical fallacies you read about on Wikipedia! OOOooohh I get it.

EastRiver

I tried engaging you in a conversation. Fallacies and Wikipedia? What are you blathering about?

GoldenRuler

indeed, mordicai.

invasion of privacy is only seen as harmless when one is not the current enemy...but the tides are constantly changing: native americans, blacks, germans, russians, japanese, "middle easterners"... there's always some group pushed forward as the THEM we should all fear, hate and be "protected" from.

there is no protection from cameras. none. there have been numerous bombings, murders, rapes, beatings, wildings, what have you, done on public streets in full view of obvious cameras. they didn't deter crime before, and they won't deter crime now.

"Fear encourages intolerance, racism and xenophobia. Fear creates the need for a constant series of symbolic actions manufactured by the authorities to show that - yes, they are protecting us from all possible dangers." - JTH

How Ya Doin

Of course, that way after something horrible happens to me, they'll have a fuzzy image of a guy with a hoodie and sunglasses on.

Rather take the money to spend on cameras and put it towards education so those would-be criminals never exist in the first place.