NightBlogger

Fox News
NYPD Launches Lower Manhattan Security Initiative
NEW YORK — The New York Police Department has quietly flipped the switch on a high-tech command center designed to protect lower Manhattan from terrorist threats. The center, located in a nondescript office tower, is part of an ambitious $100 million security initiative launched in response to the Sept. 11, 2001 terrorist attack on the World Trade Center. Earlier this month, about 30 officers assigned to the command center for the first time began monitoring 150 closed-circuit cameras trained on Wall Street. Police say there will be 3,000 cameras in the financial district by 2011. The program was modeled in part after the “ring of steel” surveillance measures in London’s financial district. But Police Commissioner Raymond Kelly says it will exceed that effort in scope and sophistication.

Photo tifotter

Mark Frauenfelder
Boingboing.net
A BB reader says: “FBI tries to convince man to infiltrate vegan potluck events to look for terrorists in Minneapolis/St. Paul, site for the 2008 Republican National Committee Convention this summer.”

[University of Minnesota sophomore Paul] Carroll, who requested that his real name not be used, showed up early and waited anxiously for [U of M Police Sgt. Erik] Swanson’s arrival. Ten minutes later, he says, a casually dressed Swanson showed up, flanked by a woman whom he introduced as FBI Special Agent Maureen E. Mazzola. For the next 20 minutes, Mazzola would do most of the talking.

“She told me that I had the perfect ‘look,’” recalls Carroll. “And that I had the perfect personality—they kept saying I was friendly and personable—for what they were looking for.”

What they were looking for, Carroll says, was an informant—someone to show up at “vegan potlucks” throughout the Twin Cities and rub shoulders with RNC protestors, schmoozing his way into their inner circles, then reporting back to the FBI’s Joint Terrorism Task Force, a partnership between multiple federal agencies and state and local law enforcement. The effort’s primary mission, according to the Minneapolis division’s website, is to “investigate terrorist acts carried out by groups or organizations which fall within the definition of terrorist groups as set forth in the current United States Attorney General Guidelines.”

Carroll would be compensated for his efforts, but only if his involvement yielded an arrest. No exact dollar figure was offered.

“I’ll pass,” said Carroll.