IMS research

It's always disappointing when good ideas don't materialize. I was very excited to blog in October about Ohio's plans to integrate thousands of video cameras to provide law enforcement and other officials with improved ability to view cameras owned by public and private entities. Here's what I wrote in my blog about the Camera Integration Project:

And, it’s heartening to know that the government (local and federal) as well as private organizations have the ability to learn from past incidents, aim to change it, and actually receive the resources to do so.

Well, now I'm disheartened that the funding for this initiative was pulled. According to this article the primary reason was money. Obviously. It's always about money.

Ohio Homeland Security director Rob Glenn told the Associated Press that the state can use the $234,000 that was originally set aside for the integration project "to develop a capability that benefits everybody."

One consideration is implementing GPS and computer modeling systems that could provide more useful information to state agencies both before and after disasters such as tornadoes or flooding, he said.

Emergency management is obviously critical for all states (and our country as a whole), but so is making the video systems in place actually useful to a wider body of officials. And, it has an emergency management component. Can you imagine the situational awareness from being able to quickly pull up a camera, hundreds of miles away, and be able to determine what resources are needed?

What do you think? Was Ohio's decision a good one?

In the security world, casinos are often thought to have top-of-the-line security toys, I mean, technology. And for good reason: They have a lot of money and valuable assets to protect. But, of course, it's no easy task.

Not long ago we published this story about two South Dakota casinos using HDCCTV to protect their facilities. But don't let the image of big money flowing through these places fool you. Casinos are also facing budget cuts like most other organizations. We wrote this story in September about the St. Croix Casino cutting the security budget in half during the construction of the casino.

Well, beware. I just read this story about the Bellagio in Las Vegas getting robbed last week by a man on a motorcycle:

Police say a man wearing a jumpsuit and a motorcycle helmet with white stripes walked into the casino with a gun, robbed a craps table then sped away on a motorcycle in the dead of night.

The thief is reported to have taken chips ranging in value from $100 to $25,000. The police are saying the robbery happened "about as quick as you can do it." Frankly, I don't find that very comforting and I'm sure the security folks at the casino don't either. There's no way someone should be able to walk into a casino, wave a gun, steal chips and speed off. I don't care if it's 4 a.m. or not. Of course, casino folks are saying that the guy hasn't stolen any money until he cashes in the chips and, obviously, they're on the lookout for someone trying to redeem large denomination chips.

Of course, there is video of the incident, but it doesn't seem like it's going to be much help: Police later released an 11-second video showing a man running through a casino entry lobby with a gun in his right hand.

And the craziest part is that it appears that this guy is on a roll. The week before someone on a motorcycle also robbed the Las Vegas Suncoast Hotel & Casino, speeding away with more than $20,000 from a poker room cashier.

Perhaps I've seen Oceans Eleven one too many times, but I know it's suppose to be harder than that.

Privacy issues are nothing new in the security industry. There will always be people who come out with the whole "Big Brother" argument in an effort to stifle surveillance efforts. And, sometimes security loses. Remember this story about a school in Sutter, Calif. that had to rip out a smart card system it had put in to streamline attendance-taking because it failed to inform students and parents about the use of the tracking technology? The American Civil Liberties Union got involved, claiming the technology threatened students’ privacy and eventually the school removed the system. Talk about a poor investment.

Then there was this story about an effort in Lancaster, Pa. to install a city-wide surveillance system. Citizens were outraged (well at least the outraged ones were vocal, which is often the case). A lot of those issued stemmed from the fact that it was a private company monitoring the cameras, not the police, but the city had to make adjustments to what the cameras could view because of privacy concerns.

Privacy issues ain't going away, that's the point.

But, I thought some of you might find this story interesting and entertaining ... and strange. A professor at NYU had a video camera surgically implanted in (or on, it's unclear) his head for an art project.

Addressing the ubiquity of cameras in our lives, he seeks to explore the state of privacy (or lack thereof) in our society, according to this article.

The best part is that he will be required to to wear a lens cap when he's on campus, to protect his students' privacy. He'll record his daily routine for a year. Yep, a whole year.

And, in a similar vein, I also recently read this story about how the FBI issued an alert about a Barbie doll that has a video camera installed in it (as a necklace, not on her head - jeez, Barbie is way classier than that college professor art guy). Anyway, the FBI is more worried about Mattel's "Barbie Video Girl" being used for child pornography than violating privacy issues, but I'm surprised no one's made the privacy argument yet. I guess if you buy such a thing for your daughter, you actually want her to go around video taping things in your home, right? I can't wait for some of those videos to make their way on YouTube. Mom and Dad may quickly regret that Christmas gift.

For as much as I write about aviation security, I’ve never had a chance to see these technologies firsthand, other than what I can observe as an average flying passenger. Well, that all changed yesterday when I was invited to Boston Logan International Airport to check out some of the initiatives they’ve taken to ensure security is the best it can be. As you might recall, I wrote a story not long ago about Logan and some of the challenges they face in terms of integrating and adding technology (and I’ll be posting a detailed story about their consolidated camera surveillance system program on our Tuesday Newswire), but the message I walked away with from my tour was the importance of partnerships.

Now, I’m not new to this reporter gig, I know people tend to only tell me the good, glowing stuff about how everyone gets along and works together and blah blah, but it was very apparent during my time at Logan that good working relationships are the foundation of their security program. Don’t forget. People here take security personal:

“When we found out the 9/11 terrorists left from here, it hasn’t been the same place since,” Tom Domenico, director of IT operations at the Massachusetts Port Authority, told me for that story. Domenico, who was my host for this tour, started out by driving me around the perimeter of the airfield. First of all, I didn’t realize the airfield was surrounded by water, which is obviously confining in terms of expansion, but there are also concerns because of the close proximity to the Port of Boston (also a Massport property). There are white buoys that surround the airfield, which are off limits to boats. During our airfield tour, I also got to see, up close (but not too close), a plane take off and, frankly, that was cool.

Next I had the opportunity to attend the airport’s 8:30am security meeting. This meeting happens every single day, and has since Sept. 12, 2001. Basically, it’s an opportunity for stakeholders to share important information about what’s happening at the airport. This particular meeting was largely about the upcoming holiday travel days and reminding everyone numbers were going to be way up for Thanksgiving. There was also mention about the media attention received by the TSA’s enhanced pat-down procedures (and lots of groans). But, it wasn’t even what was said that was significant, it was about who was there. The roll call included everyone from Logan’s corporate security folks and operations people to the FBI, Customs and Border Protection, TSA, Massachusetts Police as well as a representative from every airline carrier. I counted at least 50 people in the room.

During my tour of the facility I also had a chance to speak with many of the people in the room, too. I got to see, firsthand, how the new advanced imaging technology machines work. While I opted out of seeing my own image (I’m shy, people, really), I got to take a peak into the room where the TSA officer views the images and what the images look like. I also learned from George Naccara, federal security director for the airport, that by April, he expects to have software that replaces actual images of people with generic stick figures that highlight areas of concern.

He also showed me the airport’s inline cargo screening equipment. First of all, I had never seen so many conveyer belts in one place, but the system in the back room was even cooler. Basically, any bag that sets off sensors from the initial screening equipment are displayed for a TSA officer who can then determine if the bag needs to be physically screened.

I also got to tour the airport’s emergency operations center. I spoke with Major Michael Concannon of the Massachusetts State Police who told me the airport recently ran an active shooter exercise in the EOC. While he couldn’t give me too many details about the exercise, he said there were certainly lessons learned in terms of communication and operations from such an exercise. In addition to the EOC room, which has several rows of desks equipped with telephones and laptop hook ups and at least six big-screen televisions mounted on the walls, there is a separate room just down the hall where decision makers go to discuss whatever information the EOC is producing. One of the problems, however, is that the decision makers didn’t know exactly what was happening in the EOC, so they installed a 180-degree camera, called a scallop camera, that I was told isn’t even in production yet. The camera is divided into several segments that can be zoomed into separately and people seemed pretty excited about it.

I’m still going through all my notes and will include more details about some of the security measures and technology in place in my story on Tuesday, so stay tuned. Oh, and if you’ve never seen Boston and the surrounding area from the 16th floor of the control tower at Logan, well, you’re missing out (sorry, I had to brag a little).

It's hard enough to get public support for municipal security projects without giving people good reason to reject it. When I read this story about the mess New Orleans has made of its surveillance project, I couldn't help but cringe.

In mid-October, the New Orleans Inspector General released a report that found that 41 of 211 cameras, fewer than one in five, actually worked. A review of the program's finances from May 2009 through April 2010 revealed the city paid nearly $190,000 for equipment it never received and another $200,000 that didn't go through proper approvals.

That's not good.

But, this isn't the first time there has been a problem with the city project. In March 2009, the inspector general found that $4 million had been wasted in association with the city's video surveillance project. The 2009 investigation launched a criminal probe and led to the indictment of the technology chief of the city as well as the contractor who sold the city the cameras, reported the paper.

These findings have prompted Mayor Mitch Landrieu to stop paying for the crime-camera program, which may have cost the city as much as $10 million since 2003 with little crime-fighting impact, according to the publication.

But is that really the best solution? Scrapping the whole project means the city has really wasted that money, whereas it may be quite possible that the system can be salvaged and it can be a useful tool for police. There are plenty of other cities that have implemented strong surveillance systems and found them to be quite beneficial for fighting and deterring crime.

And just to be clear, this isn't a failure of technology. I would chalk this up to irresponsible leadership and poor project management on the part of vendors and stakeholders. If nothing else, this is a good example for other municipal security leaders about how NOT to run a project. Geez, New Orleans, stop making everyone else look bad.

Back in May, the Government Accountability Office issued a report on the threats facing the nation's cruise lines. While officials maintain there haven't been any credible evidence threatening cruise ships, the GAO found that cruise ships remain high-prestige symbolic targets for terrorists. I had an opportunity to interview Charlie Mandigo, director of fleet security for Holland America, for an SDN article. Mandigo discussed some of the threats cruise ships face including waterside and onboard attacks, as well as some of the security measures put in place to prevent such attacks:

The cruise line also has security personnel patrolling the boat. For a cruise with 2,000 passengers and a crew of about 700, Holland America has at least 10 full-time dedicated security officers who conduct screening, patrol the ship and monitor the ship’s CCTV and access control systems.

In addition to physical screening, cruise lines submit extensive passenger and crew member manifests to U.S. Customs and Border Protection to compare against terrorist watchlists and the National Crime Information Center database, to determine their potential risk to the United States or the cruise ship.

Well, now there are new laws for cruise ship security. On July 27, President Obama signed Cruise Vessel Security and Safety Act, which requires cruise lines to contact the FBI and the U.S. Coast Guard as soon as a suspicious death or assault of a passenger on a ship is reported, according to this article in USA Today.

"The President's signature on this legislation is a significant milestone for American consumers and the traveling public," Rep. Doris Matsui, who sponsored the bill, said in a statement. It "will improve the safety and security of all cruise ship passengers traveling in and out of U.S. waters, and provide common-sense security measures to prevent crimes from occurring – and protections and support for victims and their families if and when they do."

Cruise Lines International Association, who represents major lines operating in U.S. waters, said that many of its membership fleets already have many of the provisions required by the legislation, such as peep holes, 42-inch railings, and video surveillance systems. The most beneficial aspect of this legislation will be that these security measures will be consistent throughout the industry.

In a recent blog I wrote that the public dislikes red-light and speed-enforcement cameras, but apparently that's just not so (actually, my point was that the public didn't like the idea of using such technology to raise revenue, and the solution I offered was for people to stop speeding and running red lights).

But that aside, this USA Today article published some real numbers regarding the public's perception of cameras and other traffic-enforcement policies. A recent survey by the Center for Excellence in Rural Safety at the University of Minnesota found that the public actually doesn't hate this technology as much as expected.

Apparently, 64 percent of Americans support the use of automated speed enforcement using cameras and radar systems. I think that's pretty high, really. (P.S. I'm not sure if it's relevant or not that this study focuses on "rural" safety and not "urban" safety. I would think the number would be lower for city dwellers who drive in a lot more traffic and probably go through a lot more lights, but I've been wrong before.)

This study also surveyed the public's perception of things like alcohol ignition interlocks, mandatory helmet laws, sobriety checkpoints and seat belt laws, and found generally high approval ratings for such policies.

And I'm not the only one surprised by these numbers:
"We were surprised by the level of support for these strategies," says Lee Munnich, director of the center, established by the 2005 federal transportation act and sponsored by the Federal Highway Administration to research rural road safety. "In many states, it's been difficult to get legislators to pass some of the tougher restrictions."

But, there is still a significant amount of resistance on the part of many states. According to this article, there are a number of states restricting the use of cameras:

At least six states — Maine, Mississippi, Montana, Nevada, New Hampshire and West Virginia — prohibit camera enforcement, according to Anne Teigen, a transportation policy specialist at the National Conference of State Legislatures; Nevada exempts cameras operated by an officer or installed in a police vehicle or facility. Arkansas, New Jersey and Wisconsin prohibit speed cameras. Illinois, Missouri, Louisiana and Tennessee are considering bans on camera enforcement, she says.

Perhaps legislators in these states should start listening to their constituents. Plus, enforcing a lot of these policies does bring in additional revenue and who can argue against more money?