A sharp-eyed reader has spotted what appear to be security cameras popping up on traffic signals at intersections in Midtown over the last couple of weeks. “I assume this is an extension of the downtown camera system that was announced in December,” notes the camera-watcher, who submitted these uh, surveillance photos of the installations at Gray and Bagby (top) and Webster and Bagby in front of the Capital One bank branch (above right). “They appear to be spreading south. Currently I see them on Gray and Webster. The intersections at Bagby got 2 cameras each. Microwave backhaul antennas are visible in the photos.”
- Houston adding 180 security cameras downtown [Houston Chronicle]
Photos: Swamplot inbox
It’s Springtime for Surveillance
Man would I love to review the shots that has on Saturday nights. Talk about great people watching.
Be sure to wave to Big Brother Parker.
Cameras make sense in densely populated urban areas with significant pedestrian traffic. In other words, all the the things that Houston is not. Short of license plates and late-night revelers availing themselves of the facilities (bushes, lamp posts), what do the city expect to see on film?
well I for one salute big brother. I’d imagine the city hopes to see everything and nothing all at once. I’d think most of us expect that cameras will be the wave of the future moving forward as seen in most other large metro’s at this point in time. whether the camera’s are just a contrivance or not doesn’t necessarily bother me as long as they’re being used to set up standard protocols and processes for our camera system of the future.
i can’t wait until we finally rid of ourselves of the dangerous and pointless exercise of using cops for traffic maintenance. a camera system could perform the same job on a completely new scale: ticketing owners for all infractions such as speeding, improperly secured loads, busted out rear windows, improper lane changes (which at freeway intersections has been the root cause of contless lives lost and continues to be ignored by the city) and etc. the skies the limit on what you’d want to design for. back it up with a remote drone surveillance dispatch unit and we’ll be off to a modest start.
Can they identify bicycles running red lights? Bikes don’t have license plates, so I suppose the riders get a free pass (the ones that survive).
SO freakin stupid
It’s been proven that these cameras do indeed curb crime. Im not sure any block in central Paris or London isn’t completely covered with cameras–this is a bit new to Houston, but get used to it, this unfortunately is the future. It’s the early realization of 1984.
2 weeks ago I saw a fight one block south of here between 2 guys. It was mid morning and not very pretty.
Get a paint gun and practice some target shooting!
Actually, Shannon, if you do your research, you’ll find that the cameras do NOT curtail crime. Studies in London showed that crime quickly returned to normal levels shortly after the cameras went up. What the cameras MIGHT do is help to solve a crime or two, but only if the police can identify the perp on the screen. More often, the video is collected to support an already solved crime.
Here’s some light reading, Shannon…
http://www.theguardian.com/uk/2008/may/06/ukcrime1
http://www.csmonitor.com/World/Europe/2012/0222/Report-London-no-safer-for-all-its-CCTV-cameras
This is more Fed Homeland Security policy being implemented at the local level with HPD being a willing party to the fraud of the “threat of terrorism” being used to change our society into one of a complete checkmate of surveillance. Additional helicopters are now a constant thanks to Harold Hurtt and now this. Real terrorists wear ties, not turbans. Research 9-11-01.
Can anyone confirm my suspicions that 1. these cameras are not actively monitored and 2. they are not recorded. I haven’t seen anything in the press about either point. Furthermore, the only actual example of these being used for anything productive that I’m aware of was an HPD surveillance operation to catch a car burglar downtown in April 2012. This is the government we’re talking about so I assume there’s no consideration for evaluating return on investment.
You idiots should be careful what you wish for.
Pretty sure they just installed one a couple of weeks ago at Washington & Studemont
Glad to see these. I’d rather pay money for a camera on a pole than a cop who’d probably just setup a speed trap on Bagby while ignoring true trouble makers… while having to also pay pension and overtime for them. These cameras can help solve crimes, serve as tools for evidence, and can even protect the public from police abuse and he said she said scenarios.
The cameras are all along Washington and have been there for some time. I think they went up around the same time as the parking meters.
How does one have an “early implementation of 1984” 30 years after the fact?
Agreed, however, that this is the future, so to speak.
Uh-oh! Just had a late realization concerning my use of the word ‘implementation’.
Many opinionated Einstein’s above, cannot even figure out that security cameras are NOT traffic cameras.