Hundreds of Cameras going up Downtown (Houston)

[TBF]

Well it appears that scanners at airports are not enough, now we are going to have cameras everywhere monitoring our movement. And this in a city with an otherwise wonderful mayor (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Annise_Parker).

Here's the story from the Chron this morning:

Smile, if you're in downtown Houston
Homeland Security picking up tab for 250-300 surveillance cameras
By BRADLEY OLSON and ZAIN SHAUK
Copyright 2010 Houston Chronicle
Nov. 24, 2010, 10:15PM

The city is installing 250 to 300 cameras at downtown intersections in an effort to prevent and fight terrorism and crime, part of a security initiative sponsored by the U.S. Department of Homeland Security.

The cameras, which the city began installing in earnest this summer, already have helped police catch car burglars in the act, said Dennis Storemski, the city's director of the Office of Public Safety and Homeland Security. Eventually, he said, the cameras could be used to allow dispatchers or officers approaching a crime scene to survey what's happening from their patrol vehicles before they arrive.

"The intent is to protect critical infrastructure and prevent terrorism," he said. "Experience has shown that when people plan terroristic acts, they plan and they do dry runs, so what we would be looking for is suspicious activity around certain locations. And for any crimes, you can go back and look at the video and identify the perpetrators."

More than 50 cameras already have been installed around the George R. Brown Convention Center, Discovery Green Park, the theater district and Minute Maid Park. Every downtown intersection will be equipped with a camera. Eventually, Storemski said, the program may be expanded to include the Reliant Stadium complex, the Port of Houston, even some city parks where festivals frequently are held...

Much more at the link: http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/metropolitan/7310659.html

[csziggy]

1. And to see how they can be used again people, watch Law & Order UK

Or any other law enforcement type show made in Britain and set in the last ten years. They routinely pull the surveillance video from series of cameras to backtrack people's movements. Very creepy and one of the reasons I don't watch the show, even though it is well written.

[DCKit]

2. And it's complete bullshit.

With all their surveillance (and for how many years?), they finally admitted the cameras in London "helped" solve... wait for it.... two crimes.

The presence of all this security is simply a means to conditioning teh little peoples to compliance.

[csziggy]

3. Really? The TV shows and movies use them all the time - and it is all LIES?

Oh man. Just like our "security theater" at the TSA checkpoints, it's all BS?

[MadHound]

4. And this is only the government authorized cameras,

I'm betting that there are twice as many private cameras in the same area. The average American is filmed by some camera or another over two hundred times a day. Not to mention that microphones "to alert for gunshots" and other bullshit reasons are being installed throughout our cities, the better to eavesdrop on us.

We are becoming a police state, no, wait, we are a police state.

[TBF]

6. I agree, I think we're already there and are just being conditioned

to accept it at this point.

[MilesColtrane]

5. Quis custodiet ipsos custodes?

[TBF]

7. "Who watches the watchers" indeed - in this country certainly not our MSM.