Mayor Rahm Emanuel chaired his first Public Building Commission meeting on Tuesday and joined his fellow members in adding three potential terrorist targets to the city’s surveillance network: the Board of Trade, the Federal Reserve and the AT&T switching center.

All three are located in Chicago’s financial nerve center. But, they apparently constituted gaping holes in Chicago’s camera network.

via Chicago expanding Big Brother camera network – Chicago Sun-Times.

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Blue-light surveillance cameras in Chicago’s high-crime neighborhoods will someday be augmented by “covert” cameras that “fit inside of a match box” and keep the bad guys guessing, Police Supt. Jody Weis said.

Now that crime-ravaged communities have been saturated with hundreds of blue-light cameras, Weis says it’s time to take Big Brother technology to “the next level.”

Blue-light surveillance cameras such as these one day will be replaced by units so small they would be able to fit inside a match box.

That means surveillance cameras similar to the hidden cameras used to snare corrupt politicians.

“They are incredibly small. I’ve seen some that would fit inside of a match box. . . . These can be secreted in locations that nobody would ever detect. It’s amazing where we’re going with technology,” Weis said during a taping of the WLS-AM Radio Program, “Connected to Chicago.”

Blue-light cameras virtually announce their presence, giving drug dealers and gang-bangers a heads-up to move out of range. Covert cameras keep them guessing, the superintendent said.

“You use the covert [cameras] to perhaps push them into an area where you have coverage. If we can interrupt their intelligence cycle, we will have the upper hand,” he said.

Last week, Mayor Daley ordered a review of the Chicago Police Department to make certain “every dollar possible” of its $1.2 billion a year budget is spent fighting crime.

‘Covert’ surveillance cameras coming to Chicago :: CHICAGO SUN-TIMES :: News

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“Taxing people under the guise of safety”

By Kristen Schorsch, Tribune reporter February 14, 2010

Valentine’s Day captured passion of another kind — the ire of Chicago motorists who joined a nationwide protest Sunday against red-light cameras.

Nearly two dozen protesters armed with posters took over the southeast corner of Addison Street and Western Avenue. They called for drivers to honk their horns to protest communities they say are using the cameras, which snap photos of drivers running red lights, to generate revenue rather than reducing crashes.

“They’re stealing our money,” car passenger Adrian Cruz shouted out his window.

Scott Tucker, who organized the protest and is the Republican candidate for the 11th District state House seat, said he’s supporting pending legislation to rid automated ticketing machines in Illinois.

“It’s a quality-of-life issue,” said Tucker, 37, of Chicago’s Roscoe Village neighborhood. “It’s taking money out of our pockets and putting it into a wasteful government economy rather than keeping it in the free enterprise system” and creating jobs.

via Red-light cameras are target of Valentine’s Day protest – chicagotribune.com.

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