PGHIMC - Pittsburgh Independent Media Center

Pittsburgh City Council says YES to robotic surveillance network.
by stephen donahue Tuesday, Apr. 04, 2006 at 3:46 PM

Council’s final vote, this is the final story

With no discussion the Pittsburgh City Council today gave its final thumbs up to using over $1 million of grant money from the US Department of Justice to build a robotic video surveillance network for the downtown and Oakland sections of the city.

On April 26, 2004 the city council had enacted a “Local Resolution to Protect Civil Liberties in the City of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.” This resolution was passed even though the US Attorney Mary Beth Buchanan (US Dept. of Justice) had lobbied against it. Promoting this resolution was a rather large group organized as The Pittsburgh Bill of Rights Defense Campaign, which included the ACLU. These parties were largely absent from city council this time.

The civil liberties resolution passed by the city council back in 2004, states among other things that the Council of the City of Pittsburgh directs that the city is to: “REFRAIN FROM ESTABLISHING A GENERAL SURVEILLANCE NETWORK OF VIDEO CAMERAS within the City of Pittsburgh.” The measure passed today by council contradicts the civil liberties resolution yet questions to council members about this contradiction were simply ignored.

This measure was strongly supported by Pittsburgh’s new activist crime fighting Mayor Bob O’Connor and council is still on the honeymoon with him. This might explain the ease with which this measure moved through council. But not wanting to sell council short – they do think for themselves – they most likely were never too interested in enforcing the civil liberties protection resolution that they passed in 2004 anyway. After all it was a non-binding resolution good mostly for wiping ones ass.

So it’s over. Look for robotic surveillance video cameras that will be archiving footage and sharing info with every branch of government to be up and running in downtown Pittsburgh and in the Oakland section of the city by July.

Ps: Just in case anybody has not heard the Allegheny County Council is taking up legislation directing the county police to network with the Feds in rounding up illegal immigrants. The lead sponsor of this bill says that the intent of this bill is to combat terrorism and that illegals are not just a problem in border states but are even coming into the Reich land, I mean homeland.