PGHIMC - Pittsburgh Independent Media Center

Pittsburgh City Council gives its first Yes to robotic spy equipment.
by stephen donahue Thursday, Mar. 30, 2006 at 12:43 PM

Mayor and Homeland Security says it’s only for highway traffic management.

On Wednesday (March 29. 2006) evening the Thomas Merton Center was packed with folks each filing their own personalized FOIA request for their own personalized FBI report. Earlier that day the Pittsburgh City Council had given preliminary approval on a resolution to spend more that $1 million from a US Justice Department grant to put the city on a massive robotic surveillance grid. This action took place with only one dissenting voice.

At the City Council meeting, member Bill Peduto questioned the city deputy director of the Office of Emergency Management and Homeland Security about assurances that this new robotic surveillance system won’t be used to spy on people. He was told that the system will only be used for evacuation purposed during an emergency such as a flood. This assurance was also given by Mayor Bob O’Connor who while dismissing concerns by making reference to some Hollywood movie, said to the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette that, “It’s only monitoring traffic.”

But then Mayor O’Connor contradicted himself to the Post-Gazette saying that the robotic surveillance system, which will include cameras located in Oakland will be used to help solve crimes, “like a camera at a 7-Eleven.” Most days writes Post-Gazette reporter Rich Lord the system won’t be searching for crimes in progress but looking for "evidence." What does that mean?

All this is a far cry from, “It’s only monitoring traffic.”

Those Pittsburgh residents who are so concerned about the erosion of civil liberties in this country might want to contact their city council members about this. Given the propensity of all branches of law enforcement to monitor activities of public dissent and given the long history of the US Department of Justice of spying on people and especially given that the USA is moving rapidly into becoming a full fledged national security state, this action being taken by Pittsburgh city government might raise some concerns.

Some interesting points:

• This robotic surveillance system WILL NOT be used solely to monitor traffic patterns.
• The funding for this is coming from the U.S. Department of Justice.
• Video gathered by this extensive system can be archived and then shared between federal, state and local entities and so it will be.
• Given the high levels of surveillance already present at demonstrations of public dissent it is reasonable to assume that this new and improved robotic surveillance system will be integrated into intelligence gathering at these events as well.
• LiveWave, Inc. presently has contracts with the US Department of Defense, US. Department of Energy and of course with the US Department of Homeland Security and they are the only vendor that this specific federal grant allows for.

In a national security state protecting public safety becomes synonymous with the monitoring of dissent. This is well documented and the interest by individuals to have access to information gathered about them by the FBI indicates that there is concern about this on the part of many.

On Tuesday, April 4, 2006 Pittsburgh City Council will likely give final approval on Bill No. 2006-0226 and agree to accept the money from the US Department of Justice for the completion of city’s new robotic video surveillance network. At the very least the public can demand that this be accompanied by a readily available copy of the policies that will govern it’s us. They can also demand to know just how those policies will be enforced because having a policy on paper means very little.