Using $53 million from a cable company settlement, Chicago will create a fiber-optic grid almost 1,000 miles long with cameras and biochemical sensors to watch for signs of terrorism, crime and traffic tie-ups, city officials announced Thursday.
The new system, dubbed the Homeland Security Grid, will include “a significant increase in the quantity” of surveillance cameras pointed at public spaces across the city, said Ron Huberman, executive director of the Office of Emergency Management and Communications.
In September, Mayor Daley said the city would add 250 cameras to more than 2,000 already in use, making it the largest video surveillance system of its kind in the world.
The new effort, to be completed in 18 months, will add even more cameras, made possible by cable operator RCN’s providing the city with 388 miles of fiber-optic cable, Huberman said.
Many of the new cameras will be along the lakefront and Lake Shore Drive, monitoring parks, water filtration plants and popular public venues like Navy Pier. Thirty-two miles of lakefront from Evanston to Chicago’s southern edge will be wired into the new system.
Some critics have said the city’s use of surveillance cameras is eerily similar to tactics employed by governments that control every aspect of individuals’ lives in George Orwell’s “1984.”
“We question whether cameras provide the kind of security boost they credit to them,” said Ed Yohnka, Chicago spokesman for the American Civil Liberties Union.
