New street lights called “Intellistreets” are coming to Chicago. These are not your average street lights. These lights also double as surveillance monitors. They can play music, direct traffic, monitor conversations, take pictures, and send emergency signals. The lights include “Homeland Security” applications and are being installed in a few cities, including Chicago, Pittsburgh and Detroit, with the aid of government funding. The first concept installation of the system was launched in Farmington Hills, Michigan.
Some say these lights should be called, “Spying Street Lights.”
The system detects movement and can identify whether the movement is a car, person or animal. If too much movement is detected, the police are notified.
As you can imagine, some view this as an invasion of privacy, “creepy” and the feeling that Big Brother is watching. Others see the system as a way to keep their neighborhoods safer. One example is that some believe such a system could have prevented a deadly shooting that took place in the Uptown area of Charlotte, NC, last May. The shooting is believed to have been gang related.
The Deputy of Charlotte, North Carolina Homeland Security chief was quoted as saying, “If the City installed street lights with surveillance abilities…you would never know.”
The founder of the system, Ron Harwood, said he came up with the idea after 911 and Hurricane Katrina. He is the president of the company that manufactures these lights – Illuminating Concepts. In an interview with Fox News, Harwood said that if speakers are installed in the poles, authorities could speak to people to tell them what to do if there is an emergency. He also said that access to pictures/images would not be available to just anyone. He said that a police officer, city official or city employee would have to “ask” to retrieve an image from a pole and that image would be in the form of a “picture.” It was after Harwood’s development that he began discussions with Homeland Security.
It seems to me that law enforcement or investigators would need more than a picture if they were trying to analyze a crime – who did what and when, etc. It would seem you would need active surveillance to determine what took place during a crime. When people don’t feel they are being told everything, they aren’t going to trust the system. If the system is capable of surveillance and monitoring conversations, why would one believe that only a picture would be released to authorities? Read the full article »