PGHIMC - Pittsburgh Independent Media Center

Bankrupt Pittsburgh Will Install $500K Surveillance System
by Repost Thursday, Sep. 16, 2004 at 7:02 AM

The financially strapped, but self-flattering City of Pittsburgh will install rooftop cameras to spy on its residents, in the name of protecting them from imaginary villans, who probably wouldn't bother with a long dead city anyway.

City to install camera system for emergencies
Thursday, September 16, 2004

By Timothy McNulty, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette



Pittsburgh will use a nearly $496,000 federal anti-terrorism grant to build a robotic camera system that will help public safety officials respond to emergencies.

City Council yesterday tentatively approved using the grant from the Justice Department to buy new cameras, link with existing camera feeds from the Pennsylvania Department of Transportation and other agencies, and build a viewing system at the city-county Emergency Operations Center in North Point Breeze.

At first, the city is buying only three new cameras and placing them atop buildings Downtown. It primarily will use them and the PennDOT views of area roadways to help if there needs to be a large-scale evacuation of the central business district, city Operations Director Bob Kennedy said.

The city will buy more cameras later and may use them to help investigate crimes. Kennedy said the cameras would be powerful enough to zoom in on faces, license plate numbers and other small details.

Some council members fretted over the privacy implications of the cameras, but Kennedy insisted their main use would be for massive incidents, such as the evacuation of Downtown on Sept. 11, 2001.

The camera network is necessary to give emergency officials at the operations center firsthand looks at neighborhoods and city streets, he said, rather than relying on remote communications from officials at emergency sites.

"This is not a Big Brother effort, where we watch your car as you drive through town," Kennedy told reporters.

Similar camera networks are used in Chicago, New York and Washington, D.C., Kennedy said.



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(Tim McNulty can be reached at tmcnulty@post-gazette.com or 412-263-1542.)

www.postgazette.com/pg/04260/380086.stm

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