Daily News Staff and Wire Reports LONDON - British police quickly closed in on suspects in the failed bomb plots in London and Scotland - only the latest terror investigation to display the crucial role of the country's vast network of surveillance cameras. The system is winning converts in the United States and Europe, to the alarm of some privacy advocates. In Los Angeles, every Metro bus, bus yard and most rail cars have cameras in them.
Officials said the cameras are considered crime-prevention and evidence-creation tools, because they keep a recording of what's happening. The cameras are monitored by a staff of about six Metro employees via about 300 closed-circuit TV monitors inside the Metro rail stations. "Cameras can be a preventative tool for someone stealing a purse," said Cmdr.
Dan Finkelstein of the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department, which oversees Metro security. "But to someone dedicated to some horrible act of terror - will a camera deter them? I don't think so.
" In New York, officials have announced plans to outfit hundreds of Manhattan buses with cameras and add 3,000 motion sensors to subways and commuter rail facilities. French President Nicolas Sarkozy says he is contemplating a "vast plan" to install more cameras on public transport. "I am very impressed by the efficiency of the British police thanks to this network of cameras," Sarkozy said in an interview published this past weekend in the weekly Le Journal du Dimanche.
"In my mind, there is no contradiction between respecting individual freedoms and the installation of cameras to protect everyone's security." Britain has about 4 million closed-circuit security cameras, and police say the average Briton is on as many as 300 cameras every day. Video was crucial in catching and prosecuting the four would-be suicide bombers convicted Monday for plotting to detonate backpacks laden with explosive charges and shrapnel on public transport on July 21, 2005.
Chilling footage showed one bomber attempting to detonate his charge facing a mother and young child in a subway. The cameras also captured moments of heroism, including an off-duty firefighter remonstrating with the bomber. In all, police had 18,000 hours of footage available, which was edited down to seven hours used in the trial.
One of the bombers fled London disguised in a head-to-toe black veil worn by some devout Muslim women - a getaway also captured on camera. Police investigating the latest failed attacks have also looked through hundreds of hours of surveillance footage, including images of both of the explosive-packed cars found in London on June 29, and one of the suspected drivers. The footage apparently helped police track the journeys of the cars and make the link between the attempts in London and the Jeep that rammed into a Glasgow airport building the next day.
The trend toward greater use of closed-circuit cameras and other monitoring technologies worries some in Britain and elsewhere in Europe. The French state-funded authority that monitors the protection of privacy and personal data warned this week of a "society of surveillance.
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