Big Brother Eyeing America's Cities?

Local police departments are increasingly relying on federally-funded surveillance camera networks to pick up where local citizens and underfunded police left off -- keeping their 'eyes on the street'.

1 minute read

January 23, 2006, 2:00 PM PST

By David Gest

In the small town of Bellows Falls, Vermont, for example, "using federal grant money, police plan to put up the 24-hour cameras at such spots as intersections, a sewage plant and the town square. All told, this hamlet will have just three fewer police surveillance cameras than the District of Columbia, which has 181 times Bellows Falls's population."

"Large police departments have only started to embrace public surveillance in the past six years or so, long after privately owned cameras became ubiquitous at banks, ATMs and stores. D.C. police have placed their 19 cameras around downtown and Georgetown, and similar networks have gone up in places such as Baltimore, Chicago and New York."

"In several cases, funding to buy cameras appears to have come from the federal government, either for community policing or homeland security."

FULL STORY: Federal Grants Bring Surveillance Cameras to Small Towns

Thursday, January 19, 2006 in The Washington Post

Social / Demographics United States

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