BBC: Some Residents 'Furious' Over NYC Terror Checks

[Hissyspit]

Source: Raw Story

BBC: Some residents 'furious' over NYC terror checks
David Edwards and Stephen C. Webster
Published: Tuesday August 19, 2008

'Operation Sentinel,' a project of the New York Police Department which would have every vehicle in Manhattan tracked by a series of license plate scanners, is cause for fury among some New York City residents.

Details of the program were reported by RAW STORY on August 12. A similar security grid is being developed for Washington, D.C. In an August 19 report, BBC's Wendy Urquhart found that while some are accepting of the plan's invasive measures, others are not taking the news so lightly.

"It is a comprehensive security program to protect the lower Manhattan area -- indeed, all of Manhattan -- from vehicle-born explosive devices," said Ray Kelly, New York City's police commissioner. He added that data gathered by the system will be expunged within 30 days unless police have use for it.

"This is more like being under communist reign, instead of being in a free country and being able to choose where you want to go, when you want to go, and not be monitored at all times," said a NYC man interviewed by the BBC. "I don't think it's right." Despite assurances from police and city officials that the thousands of cameras are for the benefit of residents, convincing New Yorkers to accept the plan 'won't be easy,' says Urquhart.

Read more: http://rawstory.com/news/2008/BBC_Residents_furious_over_NYC_terror_0819.html

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[Demeter]

1. In the Name of Little Green Apples WHY Would Anyone Want to Do This?

It doesn't make any sense! And it's un-American on the face of it.

[pattmarty]

2. You're kidding right? With these ass holes in charge now.......

......this is the same kind of shit as the Patriot act, Guantanamo, need I go on?

[TechBear_Seattle]

3. Because a totalitarian state is a safe state n/t

[aquart]

4. Well, no.

Much as they like to think so.

[TechBear_Seattle]

14. Arguably, yes

Especially in light of modern technology. To pick what I think is a very close reality:

All persons in the United States have an RFID chip embedded in their hand. This chip contains a code that uniquely identifies the individual. Foreigners who enter the country must get a temporary chip embedded; this temporary chip will work only for as long as they are allowed in the country (meaning that if you are a Canadian in the states for the weekend, your chip will work until midnight, Sunday morning.) When you leave the country, your chip will be removed. Removal of a chip deactivates it and renders it useless, thus there is little risk of having your chip taken from you by force. People accepted this because it made illegals blatantly obvious: if you did not have a chip, you were in the country illegally.

No hard currency exists in the US. If you wish to buy something, you place your palm against a chip reader, much like using your debit card now. Registered foreigners will palm the reader, then use a debit or credit card. People accepted this for the same reason they accepted debit cards: convenience and much less risk of theft.

There is no need any more to carry keys, remember passwords or get identification cards, as you can use your RFID chip to unlock your front door, start your car, access the internet, get into your office building, take public transit, etc. People accepted this because of the convenience of having a single, unstealable means for security.

These chips are biometrically sensitive. If your blood alcohol exceeds legal limits, your car will not start. If your blood alcohol starts to climb while you are driving, the police are notified; they track you down using the GPS device that is even now a mandated part of all new cars. Any trace of illegal substances, such as TCH or cocaine, will also notify the police. People accepted this because it almost completely eliminated intoxication related driving accidents and allowed the war on drugs to finally be won. Additionally, these same biometric subroutines provide, at government expense, a whole host of medical monitoring services, such as immediately summoning medical personnel if you have a heart attack or stroke, warn you of dangerously high or low blood sugar levels, etc.

Then there is the utility of all this for catching criminals. Just as cell phones and card transactions have proven invaluable to catching criminals, our personal RFID chips would make it much easier to put dangerous people behind bars and keep them there. How could the people not accept this?

By contrast, personal freedoms are dangerous. If we are allowed to enter and leave this country at will, so can the terrorists. If we are allowed to drive our cars without being surveilled and someone commits an atrocity with a car, it will be very difficult to bring the people who were responsible to justice.

Mind you, I am most definitely NOT endorsing a totalitarian state. I just wish to point out that a lot of people would say that security is more important than freedom, and if freedoms must be sacrificed for security then so be it. I mean, if you are not doing anything wrong anyway, what does all this surveillance matter?

[dmr]

23. History shows many do nothing wrong yet they end up losing their freedoms n/t

[treestar]

25. Simply not true, liberty cannot be traded for security

Ben Franklin was right.

If you give up your liberty for security, you lose both and deserve neither. Not only can criminal/terrorist attacks still happen, you now have the government with total power against you, able to accuse you or frame you of anything - that is the most insecure way to possibly live. Surely anyone who lived in the Stalin era of the USSR, to use an extreme example, can explain that any supposed "security" from crime, if it existed, was not nearly worth the state of constant insecurity about what the government might do to you.

[TechBear_Seattle]

27. I agree he was right, but that is not the issue

The quote is: Those who would give up essential liberties for a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety. I agree. But keep in mind that while the safety is temporary, it is safety. Especially given how the corporate fascists have been hammering the need for safety, most Americans don't care that the safety that such measures would bring are only temporary.

It is the slowly heating water; by the time most people realize that we are being boiled, it will be far too late.

[treestar]

28. These people need to be reminded over and over again of how

illusory that "safety" is.

[benEzra]

26. That is the ultimate problem with the "security over liberty" philosophy.

If you believe the perception of safety to be more important than individual liberty, then there is no infringement of individual liberty that can't be justified by saying it's necessary for safety.

I'll take freedom, risk and all, thanks.

[billyoc]

7. To sell high tech gizmos at greatly inflated prices, why else?

The Police unions love it, because of all the overtime.

It's a win-win! :rofl:

[AndyTiedye]

5. I Wonder How Long those Cameras Will Remain Intact

http://www.speedcam.co.uk/gatso2.htm

[Truth4Justice]

16. Article says they are using tires filled with gasoline to fry these things. LOL!!!

[AndyTiedye]

20. Lots of Nice Pictures on That Site

[Truth4Justice]

21. They burn real good. I think over here a few Red Light cameras have been shot out by the gun nuts.

[damntexdem]

6. Can you say 'police state'?

And the Dems in Congress, and in statehouses, sit on their thumbs while the Bushistas push this shit.

[KamaAina]

8. Ever hear of fake or stolen license plates?

The terrorists have.

[dmr]

22. Thank you! n/t

[rug]

9. Might improve chances of scarfing a parking spot.

[im1013]

10. Why is it

that the BBC is the only one reporting on this? I'm still waiting for the day
that the morons that continue to swallow the endless amounts of MSM crap fed to them on
a daily basis, actually stop and pull their heads out their asses long enough to look
around at what has become of OUR country. But at least they didn't have to be inconvenienced, right?

You know, when my kids were little, I used to have to tell them that the movies and shows on tv weren't
real... only the news was real.
Apparently, I lied.

[Princess Turandot]

17. It was reported in the NY Times when it was announced..

which was over a week ago:

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/08/12/nyregion/12cars.html?scp=1&sq=Operation%20Sentinel&st=cse

Local network news here reported it as well.

[Demeter]

18. It's Nearly the Other Way Around, Now, Isn't It?

If you pick the worst news and the best movies, that is.

[wvbygod]

11. What party runs NYC?

I know bloomberg is a RINO but which party has the biggest say in law enforcement?

[intheflow]

12. I dont' see how having a record of all license plates

driving around Manhattan makes Manhattan safer. If they had an x-ray machine that could check all trunks for explosives, maybe that would make New Yorkers safer, but if a car's carrying explosives with terrorist intents, we still wouldn't know about it until the explosion began--far too late to make anyone safer. Just more invasive BS from people who hate citizens' right to privacy. :grr:

[bluedeminredstate]

13. I just saw this on our local news last week

and it seems that this has debuted in Richmond recently. Cops drive around scanning plates in parking lots looking for stolen cars is how the story was framed.

[Hubert Flottz]

15. Don't go there anymore...

Let the cops have the damned place.

[whatchamacallit]

19. Thanks to the (fake) war on terror our corporate rulers are free to shape the world of their dreams

All hail the Military/Energy/Security-Industrial-Complex

[KakistocracyHater]

24. to quote Reagan

"Regimes planted by bayonets do not take root."

"Any system is inherently unstable that has no peaceful means to legitimize its leaders. In such cases, the very repressiveness of the state ultimately drives people to resist it, if necessary, by force."Reagan June8,1982Britain

To paraphrase him "Mr. Gorbachev, America does not see its own civilians as potential terrorists"----------------how times have changed, with those same men, save a few, now going all sovietski on us.

[olddad56]

29. Terror checks? I didn't get mine. I didn't even get my stimulus check.

[alfredo]

30. Innovation and dictatorships do not mix. Destroy democracy, destroy

our innovative spirit.