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NYPD, Microsoft Launch All-Seeing "Domain Awareness System" With Real-Time CCTV, License Plate Monitoring [Updated]
By Neal Ungerleider|
August 8, 2012

The New York Police Department has a new terrorism detection system that will also generate profit for the city.
The New York Police Department is embracing online surveillance in a wide-eyed way. Representatives from Microsoft and the NYPD announced the launch of their new Domain Awareness System (DAS) at a Lower Manhattan press conference today. Using DAS, police are able to monitor thousands of CCTV cameras around the five boroughs, scan license plates, find out the kind of radiation cars are emitting, and extrapolate info on criminal and terrorism suspects from dozens of criminal databases ... all in near-real time.

New York Police Commissioner Ray Kelly first announced that Microsoft had the NYPD's Domain Awareness System under development at the Aspen Security Forum in July. Microsoft has quietly become one of the world's largest providers of integrated intelligence solutions for police departments and security agencies. Although DAS is officially being touted as an anti-terrorism solution, it will also give the NYPD access to technologies that—depending on the individual's perspectives—veer on science fiction or Big Brother to combat street crime. The City of New York and Microsoft will be licensing DAS out to other cities; according to Mayor Michael Bloomberg, New York City's government will take a 30% cut of any profits. "Citizens do not like higher taxes, so we will (find other revenue outlets)," said Bloomberg. Bloomberg continued that "I hope Microsoft sells a lot of copies of this system, because 30% of the profits will go to us."

According to publicly available documents, the system will collect and archive data from thousands of NYPD- and private-operated CCTV cameras in New York City, integrate license plate readers, and instantly compare data from multiple non-NYPD intelligence databases. Facial recognition technology is not utilized and only public areas will be monitored, officials say. Monitoring will take place 24 hours a day, seven days a week at a specialized location in Lower Manhattan. Video will be held for 30 days and then deleted unless the NYPD chooses to archive it. Metadata and license plate info collected by DAS will be retained for five years, and unspecified “environmental data” will be stored indefinitely.

Cameras are primarily deployed in the Financial District, Midtown Manhattan, and at strategic transportation points like bridges and tunnels. In addition, radiation detectors capable of identifying radiation contamination from chemotherapy, x-rays, medication, industrial uses, and terrorism will also be deployed.

Although NYPD documents indicate that the system is specifically designed for anti-terrorism operations, any incidental data it collects “for a legitimate law enforcement or public safety purpose” by DAS can be utilized by the police department. The NYPD will also share data and video with third parties not limited to law enforcement if either a subpoena or memorandum of understanding exists. The DAS system is headquartered in a lower Manhattan office tower in a command-and-control center staffed around the clock by both New York police and "private stakeholders." When this reporter visited, seats were clearly designated with signs for organizations such as the Federal Reserve, the Bank of New York, Goldman Sachs, Pfizer, and CitiGroup.

The system also allows deep, granular analysis of crime patterns in real time. Information about suspects can also be quickly called up. At a press conference, Microsoft's Jennifer Tisch showed how integrated geographic information systems could display layers of real-time crime analysis for both misdemeanors and felonies. In addition, real-time access to multiple databases belonging to the NYC and other organizations can bring up a massive personal history--including both criminal and public domain information--from any suspect in a matter of seconds.

At the Aspen Conference, Kelly praised DAS as a next-generation law enforcement tool. Civil libertarians, however, are concerned. The NYPD has been at the center of recent controversies involving civil rights and surveillance; in July, a 911 call revealing an NYPD anti-terrorism safe house in New Jersey was released. The safe house in the college town of New Brunswick was monitoring Muslim-American college students; the safe house/apartment's landlord feared the NYPD apartment might have been harboring terrorists.

In response to a question about civil liberties at the press conference, Bloomberg and Kelly noted that similar systems have been used in the private sector for years--and that mobile phone companies track the intimate, granular details of users' locations.

Similar systems have already been deployed in Baltimore and the United Kingdom. However, the NYPD DAS system is one of the largest in scale that has been publicly announced.

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http://www.fastcompany.com/3000272/nypd ... ate-monito

Now that is a remarkable development. Thanks for the heads-up. Public-private partnership indeed.

Prediction: this won't stop racially targeted stop and frisk searches, because that was never about preventing crime.

I liked this comment from the article:

Throw Away 1

"Video will be held for 30 days and then deleted unless the NYPD chooses to archive it."

So it will probably be held forever then. Gotcha.

"any incidental data it collects “for a legitimate law enforcement or
public safety purpose” by DAS can be utilized by the police department.
The NYPD will also share data and video with third parties not limited
to law enforcement if either a subpoena or memorandum of understanding
exists."

So the data collected can be used “for a legitimate law enforcement or
public safety purpose”... except when its being shared with third parties that are not limited to law enforcement or public safety purposes.

Sounds legit.

"The DAS system is headquartered in a lower Manhattan office tower in a command-and-control center staffed around the clock by both New York police and "private stakeholders." When this reporter visited, seats were clearly designated with signs for organizations such as the Federal Reserve, the Bank of New York, Goldman Sachs, Pfizer, and CitiGroup."

Well Fuck ME;
There could hardly exist a clearer example of the insidious, intimate joined-at-hip relationship between the para-public Police State bureaucracy and financial elite corporate-industry 'stakeholders' that have coopted democracy and now basicly own, manage & control government. This mass-centralization of planning & integration of military, police, legal, economic, sociopolitical, domestic & foreign policy, academia, medical, transport, commerce, entertainment, marketting, distribution, propaganda & what not is all happening completely OUT of the system of informed-citizen rule via representative democracy that these innovative anti-terror 'solutions' are claimed to be defending.

The bald-faced duplicity, deceit, hidden-agenda, corruption & treachery of this shit just keeps getting more and more outrageous. It's just amazing to what absurd lengths the deadly sabotage of our society is being 'legitimized' thru the ludicrous device of claiming its helping to 'prevent' terrorism -- this by a nation that for over 50 years has exported and been responsible for causing more global terrorism, militarized violence, corruption and injustice than any other nation, EVER.

Except that the violence, coercion, exploitation & suffering which US political/economic/military elites once perpetrated on the citizens of other nations are now being done to the US's own increasingly disenfranchised citizens. And there doesn't seem to be anything the people can realistically do about it, esp. because so many are hopelessly confused & misinformed about whats going on and why.

America's malicious conversion to fascist-Marxist bureaucratic-totalitarianism is in full stride. The latant hypocrisy, contradictions, inconsistencies, frauds, deceits and corruption are evident, the result on America's once proud, gracious & self-respecting society is the walking-corpse of a zombie-nation abomination where people are encouraged to 'succeed' by becoming vampire predators -- anyone with a vestige of moral clarity and decency can't help but be repelled and outraged by it all.

This Brave New World' experiment gone feral leaves me too disgusted for words.

It remains, that we have an immensely greater chance of being harmed or killed by a policeman than by a terrrrorist. And the actual damage done to us by corrupt political & financial elites is far greater by at least several orders of magnitude than anything we could reasonably expect from the hypothetical terrrorists -- that is, at least, without the crucial 'help' of US Deep State enablers.

Thought of this thread when I read this "Biggest story you missed" article just now at Salon--A highly sophisticated surveillance system called TrapWire has been revealed:

Busy keeping track of Olympians’ names and faces? Well, it seems a scarily sophisticated surveillance system called TrapWire has been keeping tabs on us. Created by former CIA operatives at Abraxas, a company based in northern Virginia, the system continually collects data from designated points in U.S. cities and major landmarks, before digitally recording and encrypting it and sending it off to a top-secret database. As RT reports, TrapWire is “more accurate than modern facial recognition technology.”

More info here--Wikileaks says it's not just international law enforcement that's using it to collect personal information though, it's private corporations too

LilyPat

Edited to add--reminiscent of Person Of Interest...

just a thought that's been niggling my brain -- IMO, all this new-fangled highly-sophisiticated information-technology development being used to assemble data-bases of people, events, trends, incentives, targets and what-not is going to lead to novel, new ways to USE this information to increase the power, control and wealth of those corporations (and their clients) that make use of it. The result is going to be SO much more harmful to the last vestiges of democratic societies than the threat of terrorism ever could be ...