New York Post July 23, 2005 -- Say this for London's Metropolitan Police: They wasted no time moving against the terrorists behind the latest attacks in the British capital.
It took all of 24 hours before officials were able to release to the public video images of four suspects in Thursday's partial detonations at subway stations and on board a bus.
The reason those images were available, of course, is that London has ample closed-circuit cameras monitoring its public-transit system. And Britain also has strong anti-terrorism laws, rooted in the decades-long struggle with the IRA.
In New York, by contrast, even minimal plans to install security and anti-crime cameras at key locations have come under attack from civil libertarians.
Fortunately, that hasn't hindered the MTA's efforts to ramp up security.
At present, 276 of the transit system's 468 stations have security cameras installed. Of those, images from cameras at 76 stations are recorded; the rest are monitored live in real time.
MTA officials note that they've already spent $200 million in security improvements since 9/11, and are on track to spend twice that amount this year.
Just last month, the MTA completed the installation of 120 high-tech cameras — including both monitored and recordable — at 10 different Brooklyn stations along the N, D and F lines.
The MTA plans to install more — including so-called "intelligent video" systems, which recognize suspicious activity, zero in on the problem and send an alert to police.
Still, as former city Police Commissioner Howard Safir, now a private security consultant, said this week: "The MTA [has] a lot of ground to catch up."
Certainly live cameras are a risk; those monitoring them can quickly lose interest in what will virtually always be mind-numbingly routine activity.
On the other hand, an officer who does spot something suspicious may well be able to prevent a catastrophe.
Bottom line: Flooding the system with security cameras is a potent weapon in the fight aganst terrorism.
The past two weeks' events in London demonstrate that.
After the deadly bombings two weeks ago, video was discovered showing all four suicide bombers entering a subway station, then taking a train to another point. Cameras also recorded one of the bombers at his target station.
Now those same cameras have identified live suspects — increasing the chances for police to roll up the bombers quickly.
Sometimes it's necessary to permit police to confront an unprecedented threat with unprecedented methods.
Such as the newly begun random searches of passengers' bags here in New York. As one straphanger told The Post: "I'd rather have someone looking in my bag than to be taken out of here in a bag."
Security cameras would help in a big way. Hopefully, they'd even make more intrusive security measures unnecessary, or at least allow them to be scaled back.
But getting those cameras installed — pronto — in every single station has to be the MTA's top priority.
It took all of 24 hours before officials were able to release to the public video images of four suspects in Thursday's partial detonations at subway stations and on board a bus.
The reason those images were available, of course, is that London has ample closed-circuit cameras monitoring its public-transit system. And Britain also has strong anti-terrorism laws, rooted in the decades-long struggle with the IRA.
In New York, by contrast, even minimal plans to install security and anti-crime cameras at key locations have come under attack from civil libertarians.
Fortunately, that hasn't hindered the MTA's efforts to ramp up security.
At present, 276 of the transit system's 468 stations have security cameras installed. Of those, images from cameras at 76 stations are recorded; the rest are monitored live in real time.
MTA officials note that they've already spent $200 million in security improvements since 9/11, and are on track to spend twice that amount this year.
Just last month, the MTA completed the installation of 120 high-tech cameras — including both monitored and recordable — at 10 different Brooklyn stations along the N, D and F lines.
The MTA plans to install more — including so-called "intelligent video" systems, which recognize suspicious activity, zero in on the problem and send an alert to police.
Still, as former city Police Commissioner Howard Safir, now a private security consultant, said this week: "The MTA [has] a lot of ground to catch up."
Certainly live cameras are a risk; those monitoring them can quickly lose interest in what will virtually always be mind-numbingly routine activity.
On the other hand, an officer who does spot something suspicious may well be able to prevent a catastrophe.
Bottom line: Flooding the system with security cameras is a potent weapon in the fight aganst terrorism.
The past two weeks' events in London demonstrate that.
After the deadly bombings two weeks ago, video was discovered showing all four suicide bombers entering a subway station, then taking a train to another point. Cameras also recorded one of the bombers at his target station.
Now those same cameras have identified live suspects — increasing the chances for police to roll up the bombers quickly.
Sometimes it's necessary to permit police to confront an unprecedented threat with unprecedented methods.
Such as the newly begun random searches of passengers' bags here in New York. As one straphanger told The Post: "I'd rather have someone looking in my bag than to be taken out of here in a bag."
Security cameras would help in a big way. Hopefully, they'd even make more intrusive security measures unnecessary, or at least allow them to be scaled back.
But getting those cameras installed — pronto — in every single station has to be the MTA's top priority.