Secrecy Shrouds NYPD's Anti-Terror Camera System

The New York Police Department is spending $160 million in city and federal funding on a massive surveillance network of video cameras and license plate readers for Lower and Midtown Manhattan. Despite the investment of public funds, NYPD refuses to reveal much of what it will purchase under the plan, how the costs are being shared, how data will be stored or used—or even what broad Homeland Security priorities the high-tech system is supposed to support.

In 2006, the NYPD announced its intention to install a network of 3,000 video surveillance cameras (two thirds of them privately controlled) and up to 96 license plate readers to protect Lower Manhattan against future terrorist attacks. The Lower Manhattan Security Initiative or LMSI, colloquially known as the "Ring of Steel," has an estimated price tag of $92 million.

Despite persistent doubts about privacy, civil liberties violations and the involvement of private institutions in the network, last October Police Commissioner Ray Kelly announced a $58 million expansion of the Ring of Steel to Midtown Manhattan at a City Council hearing—to the surprise of city legislators.

The Ring of Steel has been wrapped in a veil of secrecy that not even New York State's Freedom of Information Law can penetrate. After a nine-month FOIL saga, City Limits recently obtained a set of Homeland Security documents from the Mayor's Office of Management and Budget that offer insight into the broadest public surveillance program of any major American city.

The focus of the Ring of Steel is to prevent, deter and respond to "acts of terrorism aimed at disrupting the nation's economy." One such possibility listed is "a vehicle-borne improvised explosive device" attack on "sensitive locations" in Lower and Midtown Manhattan.

Incidents deep in New York City's history are cited in the documents as evidence that New York needs such a surveillance system. The Sept. 16, 1920 detonation of a carriage bomb outside JP Morgan's Wall Street headquarters is mentioned along with the 1993 and 2001 attacks on the World Trade Center.

Recent examples of thwarted terrorism plots against New York City cited in the documents include an alleged 2004 attempt to bomb the Herald Square subway station, an "aborted plot" to attack the Brooklyn Bridge and "surveillance of the region's financial sector and infrastructure" by al Qaeda operative Issa al-Hindi.

The "Fiscal Year 2009 Investment Justification for the NYC Urban Area" reveals that the NYPD conducted an engineering study of Midtown Manhattan to map out the area covered by the Ring of Steel's second layer, the MMSI. The MMSI's estimated cost for FY 2009 was placed at $37.9 million, with $11 million in city funds directed towards the project.

The 2009 document also details NYPD's plans to build out an integrated camera network for Manhattan and the Outer Boroughs, as reported by City Limits last year: "The NYPD has begun acquiring a dedicated (REDACTED) network to encompass all of Manhattan as well as the outer boroughs of NYC."

The documents indicate that the MMSI's bidding process extended from August 2009 through the end of January, 2010. Unspecified network enhancements intended to augment "CCTV data" and identify "patterns of suspicion behavior" were begun in August. Buildout of the MMSI is expected to be complete by 2012

However, the documents were heavily redacted. Among the information blacked out in the 120-odd pages of documents are specifics on NYPD expenditures, all contract and management information for the project and specifics on how Ring of Steel data will be used by NYPD's intelligence division.