7/30/2012
By Ivan Pereira
The NYPD is set to launch a new technology that the top cop said would help keep track of potential threats against the city.
Police Commissioner Ray Kelly told the participants of the Aspen Security Forum in Colorado on Saturday that the system, that was created with the help of Microsoft, would aggregate surveillance tools and law enforcement databases to track criminals.
“It brings all the historical information from those cameras and querying all the databases into a work bench all sort of instantaneously,” he said.
The commissioner did not go into specific details about how the system would work but told the audience that it would be unveiled as soon as next week.
The system will link license plate readers, thousands of security cameras and other sensors being used in the zones like the Lower Manhattan Security area and Midtown with law enforcement data bases, said one city official who didn’t want to be identified.
The New York Civil Liberties Union, which has gone after Kelly for the police’s spying of Muslim communities in the tri state area, said the aggregator system raises too many questions.
“Coming from a Police Department that has a record of spying on people because of their political and religious backgrounds, word of this new plan is deeply troubling and it should concern all New Yorkers,” NYCLU executive director Donna Lieberman said in a statement.
Lieberman has also chastised Kelly for the NYPD’s controversial “stop and frisk” tactic, but the commissioner defended the practice during the forum, contending that it has helped to drive crime down.
