Photography is Not a Crime

Carlos Miller
While the New York City Police Department has made every effort to crack down on photographers and videographers, it has vowed to set up more than 300 cameras throughout the city that would photograph every car driving into Manhattan.

Perhaps the cameras will offer further proof that NYPD officers have been running rampant against photographers.

But let’s not be surprised if they end up being used to further crack down on photographers.

After all, in these post 9/11 days, anybody with a camera is considered a terrorist.

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(Photo by Pro-Zak on Flicker)

The proposal — called Operation Sentinel — relies on integrating layers of technologies, some that are still being perfected. It calls for photographing, and scanning the license plates of, cars and trucks at all bridges and tunnels and using sensors to detect the presence of radioactivity.

Data on each vehicle — its time-stamped image, license plate imprint and radiological signature — would be sent to a command center in Lower Manhattan, where it would be indexed and stored for at least a month as part of a broad security plan that emphasizes protecting the city’s financial district, the spokesman, Paul J. Browne, said. If it were not linked to a suspicious vehicle or a law enforcement investigation, it would be eliminated, he said.

“Our main objective would be to, through intelligence, find out about a plot before it ever got to a stage where a nuclear device or a dirty bomb was coming our way,” Mr. Browne said. “This provides for our defense after a plot has already been launched and a device is on its way.”

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