The New York City Police Department is creating a web of cameras and roadblocks around Lower Manhattan designed to detect, track and deter terrorists.
The New York Times reports that the lower Manhattan Security Initiative will begin monitoring cars moving through the area by the end of this year with the use of more than 100 cameras.
The program is not yet fully financed. But if it is, it would mean a network of license plate readers, as well as three-thousand public and private security cameras below Canal Street. Police and security officers would staff an operations center and movable roadblocks.
New York City Police Commissioner Raymond Kelly says the area is very critical to the economic lifeblood of the nation. He says the initiative's aim is to make it less vulnerable.
But critics questions the plan's cost, efficacy and effects on privacy.
It would cost an estimated $90 million. The department currently has $25 million to spend on it.
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