Mayor Bloomberg Sees Necessity In Surveillance

Oct 9, 2007 4:09 PM

Residents of big cities like New York and London must accept that they are under constant watch by video cameras, says New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg.

Bloomberg, holding talks with his London counterpart Ken Livingstone, says such measures as London's "ring of steel" -- a network of closed-circuit cameras that monitors the city center -- were a necessary protection in a dangerous world, reports The Associated Press.

"In this day and age, if you think that cameras aren't watching you all the time, you are very naive," Bloomberg says.

"We are under surveillance all the time" from cameras in shops and office buildings, "and in London they have multiple cameras on every bus and in every subway car," he adds. "The people of London not only support it, but if Ken Livingstone didn't do it they would try to run him out of town on a rail. We live in a dangerous world, and people want to have security cameras."

Bloomberg received a demonstration of the ring of steel, a system of cameras and road barriers introduced during the years of Irish Republican Army bombings to protect London's central business district.

London has one of the world's highest concentrations of surveillance cameras. An estimated 4 million CCTV cameras operate in Britain, and some civil liberties campaigners have warned the country is becoming a "surveillance state."

New York has far fewer, according to The Associated Press, but the number is growing. Authorities hope to implement an $81.5 million version of the ring of steel for lower Manhattan, featuring surveillance cameras as well as barriers that could automatically block streets.

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