RICHMOND, Calif.--Taking a cue from surveillance camera-laden London, this San Francisco Bay Area city is installing security camera systems for the police and at the port to reduce crime and protect against terrorism.
The systems are being built and maintained by ADT, known for its home burglar alarm systems, and use a high-speed wireless mesh network.
Clusters of video cameras transmit data to wireless radios, which then send it over a 1-gigabit back-haul feed to servers in the Port of Richmond's security office, and for the city to police headquarters and the dispatch center. Eventually, the video will be transmitted directly into Richmond police patrol cars.
There are 34 Internet Protocol cameras monitoring high-crime areas of Richmond, which has a population of nearly 101,000, covers 56 square miles, and is located about 15 miles northeast of San Francisco. The price tag for that installation is about $1.8 million. It is expected to be completed next month.
At the Port of Richmond, there are 82 IP cameras monitoring the port's 15 square miles of perimeter and facilities, where the city runs five terminals and 10 more are privately owned. About 19 million short tons pass through the port every year, mostly noncontainerized liquids, dry bulk products, and automobiles, making it the third-largest volume of tonnage among California ports.
The cost for the port installation, $2.3 million, was paid for by a Department of Homeland Security grant. The project was completed in March.
ADT has other wireless video security systems in place, including in a Chicago suburb and on Long Island.
During a tour of the Port of Richmond officials showed off the two server racks, which include 73 terabytes of data storage. They also demonstrated how the system's analytic software works to alert security by automatically recognizing when it detects something suspicious.
For instance, the alarm--visual on the computer only at this point--will go off if someone walks into an area which is off limits or if someone leaves something behind in an area that is open.
"The analytics recognizes certain exceptions (to pre-established rules like) if somebody jumps the fence or is loitering," said Jeff Gutierrez, a national accounts manager for ADT, which also has contracts with the London Underground, the Sydney Opera House, and Chicago and New York suburbs among many others.
Eyes on the Port of Richmond: Click on the image above to watch a video of the security setup in one of Northern California's busiest shipping areas.
Security officials monitoring the system can then see various camera angles of the area, follow someone with the cameras and zoom in or out. The cameras can display license plates as much as a mile away, he said.
In the line of site are large crude oil and jet fuel storage tanks, across the channel from the port's office, which Norman Chan, port administrator, said are vulnerable to attack.
The port cameras are not focused on private property now, but may be used for that in the future, he said.
"All the federal and state ports are working with the Department of Homeland Security to try to make our seaports safer, better secured and less vulnerable to acts of terrorism," said Jim Matzorkis, executive director of the port. The system "allows us to see what's happening in real-time" and it creates a deterrent.
While Richmond city and port officials were showing off their new systems, the city council in Washington, D.C., rejected funding for a video surveillance system there, said Marc Rotenberg, executive director of the Electronic Privacy Information Center.
Real-time video surveillance raises privacy questions, such as who has access to the data and for what purpose, he said.
"You can pan into peoples' living rooms and bedrooms. Board operators are zooming in on attractive young women. It's not a pretty picture," Rotenberg said, adding that real-time surveillance also hasn't been proven to reduce crime.
There have been recent reports that surveillance cameras don't do much to deter crime and instead have been used to investigate minor things like littering and misuse of disabled parking passes.
Very few pitches instill a sense of urgency, even duty in me. But when I received an e-mail pitch on Monday about a gaping hole in the country's security infrastructure, I felt compelled to share.
You don't know, it but every time you walk or drive down the street potential threats to your safety are literally under your feet. Those round portals to the sewers are veritable open doors for anyone with a nasty plan and the means of moving 100 pounds of solid metal.
The September 11 attacks illustrated how vulnerable the country was to terrorism, prompted a marketing campaign by merchants encouraging people to just keep shopping, and also launched a wave of companies seeking to address both of those concerns.
One of them was Manhole Barrier Security Systems, commonly referred to as MBSS. The company's flagship product is the Manhole Barrier Device (MBD), for which it has a utility patent. The MBD, a self-contained locking cover, has attracted customers from the telecom and cable industries, prisons, ports and energy plants, among others with holes in the ground they need to secure.
Here's what it looks like:
(Credit:
Manhole Barrier Security Systems)
MBSS is urging cities to lock up their manholes to prevent terrorism as well as to avoid liability if sued by someone who falls in one.
You might ask, what's the tech angle to this story? There is none, really. It's a blog and I'm taking my liberties.
About six months ago, German police reported disrupting a terrorist plot against U.S. installations in their country, thanks in part to intelligence tips from American agents. Now officials in the two nations have hatched a formal plan to share more information about known and suspected terrorists.
U.S. Department of Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff, Attorney General Michael Mukasey, and their German counterparts--Interior Minister Wolfgang Schaeuble and Justice Minister Brigitte Zypries--initialed an agreement on Tuesday to swap fingerprint and DNA data.
U.S. Department of Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff and German Interior Minister Wolfgang Schaeuble (shown here at a September 2007 meeting) have signed a new agreement to share biometric data.
(Credit: U.S. Department of Homeland Security)At a Tuesday press conference at German government headquarters in Berlin, Mukasey hailed the proposed cooperation as a "great achievement" that would make both countries safer.
"Terrorists who threaten our way of life see no barriers in borders between countries--neither should our efforts to stop them," he said, according to a transcript.
Details on the plan are sketchy thus far--and reportedly subject to approval by both German and U.S. legislators.
By Mukasey's description, the new system will be configured so that each of the countries can access the other's fingerprinting databases on a "yes-no" basis. That is, if evidence is picked up at a scene by one country's agents, they can check that evidence against the partner country's database. If a match comes up, then "the agreement also sets forth procedures for obtaining it through lawful processes that also ensure appropriate protection for personal data," Mukasey said.
According to officials quoted by Agence-France Presse, the information would only be shared in investigations of terrorism and other "serious crimes," not "ongoing criminal cases."
German and U.S. officials also attempted to diffuse the inevitable privacy concerns raised by such a scheme. Zypries, the German Justice Minister, reportedly said any requests for information--and subsequent replies--would be "recorded," seemingly for auditing purposes if abuse or misuse is alleged. Furthermore, data that isn't ultimately used would have to be "destroyed," she said.
The U.S. officials said they hope the bilateral agreement will serve as a model that other nations will follow. Sharing such data among countries is not unheard-of in Europe: The controversial Prum treaty allows a number of European Union states--Germany, Spain, Austria, France, Belgium, the Netherlands, and Luxembourg--to access each other's databases of DNA profiles, fingerprints, and motor vehicle registration data. Several other countries indicated they would also sign on.
But privacy concerns have accompanied that effort, and similar questions are already being raised about the scope of the new U.S.-German agreement.
Peter Schaar, Germany's privacy commissioner, was quoted by Reuters as expressing concerns that non-terrorism suspects--such as asylum seekers or protesters--could find their civil liberties violated.
"If I have participated in...a rally and...my identity was checked and my fingerprints taken, then this may be important to German police," Schaar was quoted as telling Deutschlandfunk, a German radio station. "But does that give the right to the United States, when I travel there and maybe have the wrong stamp in my passport, to get access to these data? I would say no."
In the wrong hands, could Google Earth become a weapon of mass destruction?
That question has been floated in the aftermath of last week's FBI apprehension of four suspects charged with attempting to explode oil pipelines at New York's John F. Kennedy airport.
Osama bin Laden
(Credit: FBI)
At a press conference announcing three of the the arrests, FBI officials said one of the plotters, Abdul Kadir, directed his associates to consult Google aerial images of Kennedy Airport as they went about their planning. Inevitably, this raised questions about
This isn't the first time we've heard that complaint. A few months after Google Earth's summer 2005 debut, the commander of India's military triggered a mini-firestorm when he criticized the satellite imaging program as a security risk. Government officials in South Korea and Russia expressed similar misgivings.
The plotters may not be the brightest bulbs in the firmament. Still, they believed that Google's aerial and satellite photographs would make their jobs easier. But before some yahoo (lower case "y," thank you) in Washington starts screaming at the top of his or her lungs for a crackdown, consider a few facts. The U.S. government can prevent licensed satellites from filming sites because of national security. It also requires a day's delay before the service can transmit high-resolution images. (So rest assured, if we want to move troops to the border and invade Mexico in retaliation for the Miss Universe Pageant, no problemo.)
If you want to point the finger of blame at something, why not single out cellular phones? After all, the terrorists responsible for the March 2004 Madrid bombings relied on mobile phones to carry out their attacks.
Fact is that the American technology monopoly is history. What with more countries launching their own satellites, there are more eyes in the sky than ever. How do you control that? The simple answer is you can't. Obviously, Google Earth is not the core problem. The challenge is the screwed up age in which we live.
One of the four terror suspects in an alleged plot to blow up fuel tanks and a gas pipeline at New York City's John F. Kennedy International Airport recommended Google Earth as a way to obtain detailed aerial photographs, according to a court complaint obtained by The Smoking Gun.
The "JFK plot" made headlines on Saturday when U.S. officials announced that they had charged four men, one of whom remains at large, in a nascent plot to target fuel tanks and a gas pipeline at the high-traffic airport. The court document in question describes a May 11 meeting in Guyana, in which one of the four defendants, Abdul Kadir, said that the surveillance video they had "was not sufficiently detailed for operational purposes, and told them to use Google Earth software to get more detailed pictures of JFK after they returned to New York."
According to a statement from Google on Monday, the search and information giant has "paid close attention to concerns that Google Earth creates new security risks." Additionally, it's willing to be cooperative. "Google takes security concerns very seriously, and is always willing to discuss them with public agencies and officials. Our experience is that security concerns can best be addressed through dialog with the relevant governmental experts." The statement then cited U.S. government studies that determined that the benefits of making imaging data (like the images found on Google Earth) publicly available outweigh the risks, and that the government can likewise limit availability if it chooses to.
The Google statement pointed out that while Google Earth might be one of the most popular and accessible sources of detailed aerial views, it's by no means the only one. "The imagery visible on Google Earth and Google Maps is not unique: commercial high-resolution satellite and aerial imagery of every country in the world is widely available from numerous sources," the release read. "Indeed, anyone who flies above or drives by a piece of property can obtain similar information. Accordingly, we expect security concerns to be addressed primarily by the companies and governmental agencies that gather and distribute the images."
That's true, but Google Earth and other online satellite mapping databases certainly do make it easier for a would-be terrorist to obtain such maps anonymously. Prior to the availability of services like Google Earth, it would've been tough to get your hands on satellite imagery without asking for it--and potentially drawing attention to yourself if you were asking for aerial views of something like an airport.
In effort to broaden its thinking about terrorist attacks, the Department of Homeland Security is tapping into the thinking of a group of science fiction authors called Sigma, according to USA Today.
"We need to look everywhere for ideas, and science fiction writers clearly inform the debate," said department spokesman Christopher Kelly.
Science fiction authors are often prone to flights of extreme fancy, but they can be good prognosticators. Indeed, in the novel Footfall, by Larry Niven and Jerry Pournelle, the government assembles a group of science fiction writers to seek their counsel about an alien invasion. Pournelle and Niven are in the group.
According to USA Today, author Greg Bear said the group brainstorms about methods of attack and prevention as well as the governmental and social responses to attacks.
Sigma's motto is "science fiction in the national interest," and authors must have a doctorate in a technical field to join.
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