Atlanta Security Moving Forward With Camera Surveillance
Plans to put Atlanta's public spaces under camera surveillance will move forward this week with the opening of a state-of-the-art video monitoring center.
Whether it's good that Atlanta is joining other big cities in the video surveillance race depends on your comfort level with being watched more often by police.The downtown €Video Integration Center,€ funded by a mix of private donations and public money, has already given Atlanta police links to more than 100 public and private security cameras.
Talks are underway to link up with more cameras at CNN Center, Georgia State University, the Georgia World Congress Center and MARTA, along with cameras in other parts of the area.Officials say hundreds or thousands more private-sector cameras will eventually feed into the center. €This is just the beginning,€ said a key member of the Atlanta Police Foundation, which helped raise money for the center. €This is going to grow by leaps and bounds over the years. The goal, of course, is to have the entire city blanketed.€With enough cameras, it might be possible to never lose sight of a suspect after a crime occurs, advocates say.
And camera backers say signs warning of constant surveillance help prevent crime, although they acknowledge it is difficult to know how much.For now, the center has camera coverage on only about one of the city's 131 square miles. Cities increasingly use cameras to supplement police forces, often with funding from the U.S. Department of Homeland Security.In the Atlanta region, the spread of cameras has occurred largely through contracts with a Texas-based company called Iron Sky. College Park worked with the firm to expand its public safety surveillance system and used the cameras in a prostitution sting last year. Norcross and Sandy Springs signed up for software that allows police to view any camera in the city from any computer on the cities' networks, including laptops in patrol cars.The Atlanta police force said last year that cameras in his area factored in more than 700 arrests over five years. €A camera is a police officer hanging on a telephone pole,€ one source said. Atlanta officials say they want a monitoring system in the same league as New York's or Chicago's.
The city and the police foundation have contributed $500,000 each in funding for the new center, with state grants adding another $1.2 million for this state wide Atlanta home securityA source within the department put it best: €as criminals get more sophisticated, so must law enforcement.€ It seems that they are doing just that.
Whether it's good that Atlanta is joining other big cities in the video surveillance race depends on your comfort level with being watched more often by police.The downtown €Video Integration Center,€ funded by a mix of private donations and public money, has already given Atlanta police links to more than 100 public and private security cameras.
Talks are underway to link up with more cameras at CNN Center, Georgia State University, the Georgia World Congress Center and MARTA, along with cameras in other parts of the area.Officials say hundreds or thousands more private-sector cameras will eventually feed into the center. €This is just the beginning,€ said a key member of the Atlanta Police Foundation, which helped raise money for the center. €This is going to grow by leaps and bounds over the years. The goal, of course, is to have the entire city blanketed.€With enough cameras, it might be possible to never lose sight of a suspect after a crime occurs, advocates say.
And camera backers say signs warning of constant surveillance help prevent crime, although they acknowledge it is difficult to know how much.For now, the center has camera coverage on only about one of the city's 131 square miles. Cities increasingly use cameras to supplement police forces, often with funding from the U.S. Department of Homeland Security.In the Atlanta region, the spread of cameras has occurred largely through contracts with a Texas-based company called Iron Sky. College Park worked with the firm to expand its public safety surveillance system and used the cameras in a prostitution sting last year. Norcross and Sandy Springs signed up for software that allows police to view any camera in the city from any computer on the cities' networks, including laptops in patrol cars.The Atlanta police force said last year that cameras in his area factored in more than 700 arrests over five years. €A camera is a police officer hanging on a telephone pole,€ one source said. Atlanta officials say they want a monitoring system in the same league as New York's or Chicago's.
The city and the police foundation have contributed $500,000 each in funding for the new center, with state grants adding another $1.2 million for this state wide Atlanta home securityA source within the department put it best: €as criminals get more sophisticated, so must law enforcement.€ It seems that they are doing just that.
