http://tags.library.upenn.edu/tag/city_planning+surveillance PennTags Feed http://tags.library.upenn.edu/makerecord/url/23895 http://tags.library.upenn.edu/makerecord/url/23895 NYC's Subway Spycam Network Stuck in the Station<br />By Noah Shachtman EmailJanuary 24, 2008 | 8:59:00 AM<p> New York City's plan to secure its subways with a next-generation&nbsp; surveillance network is getting more expensive by the second, and slipping further and further behind schedule. </p><p>A new report by the New York State Comptroller's office reveals that &quot;the cost of the electronic security program has grown from $265 million to $450 million, an increase of $185 million or 70 percent.&quot; An August 2008 deadline has been pushed back to December 2009, and further delays may be just ahead.</p><p>Shortly after a series of bombings in the London Tube, The Metropolitan Transit Authority, which oversees New York's mass transit systems, signed a contract in 2005 with defense contractor Lockheed Martin to put in thousands of security cameras, electronic tripwires, and digitally-controlled gates into New York's sprawling network of subways. The deal was inked just a few months after MTA chairman Peter Kalikow argued against &quot;wasting money on unproven technology.&quot;</p><p>At the heart of the program was a network of surveillance cameras, passing what they saw through a set of intelligent video algorithms, designed to spot suspicious behavior: a bag left on the subway platform, a person jumping down to the tracks, a mob running up a down escalator. <br />...</p>