NYPD eyes vehicle security plan
NEW YORK— The New York Police Department is working on a plan to track every car, truck or other vehicle entering Manhattan and screen it for radiation or other terror threats.
The ambitious proposal, called Operation Sentinel, is being developed alongside a separate $90 million security initiative to tighten security at the World Trade Center site and throughout lower Manhattan in response to the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks.
“It’s our goal to make lower Manhattan the safest and most inviting business area in the world,” Police Commissioner Raymond Kelly said.
Police officials say Operation Sentinel would rely on license-plate readers, radiation detectors and closed-circuit cameras installed at the 16 bridges and four tunnels serving Manhattan. About a million vehicles drive into Manhattan every day.
The vehicle data — license plate numbers, radiological readings and photos — would be automatically analyzed by computers programmed with information about suspicious vehicles.
Police said the terror-alert system could help them intercept attackers before they do harm or confirm that the attackers hadn’t entered the city and should be sought elsewhere.
There is no estimate for the cost of Operation Sentinel since it is still only in the planning phase.
The proposal has raised red flags for civil rights advocates.
“We think that Operation Sentinel and a lot of the surveillance initiatives that the police are planning are an attack on our right to privacy here in New York,” said Matt Faiella, a staff attorney for the New York Civil Liberties Union.
Faiella fears an untold number of innocent motorists could end up in “a database of all of their movements and faces.”
But police say law-abiding New Yorkers have nothing to fear. Vehicle data deemed innocent would be purged from records after 30 days, they say.
