Big Brother’s Technical Difficulties

With names like “Talon,” surveillance programs not only evoke Big Brother, but also assumptions that they are operated in supremely futuristic fashion. Big Brother never wants for the latest gadgets, the thinking goes; he’s had them for years in a sparkling hive where your every move is tracked.

Well, not so in San Francisco, at least, where ambitions to keep a closer eye on dangerous areas of the city have run into a problem as old as its many hills. Big Brother has budgetary constraints there, so the two-and-a-half year-old system is rife with problems, The San Francisco Chronicle has concluded after a thorough review:

The 68 city-funded cameras perched above San Francisco’s toughest street corners have been under fire in recent months for failing to provide evidence leading to arrests, and one of the reasons may be simple:
Choppy video.
Run on a modest budget, Mayor Gavin Newsom’s surveillance camera program has produced footage that is disjointed and less clear than the nearly seamless and sharp quality of video that the devices are capable of delivering.

http://thelede.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/01/28/big-brothers-technical-difficulties/index.html?ex=1359262800&en=f5cd6690b2356ba6&ei=5088&partner=rssnyt&emc=rss

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