So I’ve been getting gradually more angry every day over the fact that Chicago is to be the most heavily surveillanced city in the US….

A Gartner Group comment.

An csoonline (chief security officer) article with some numbers.

-installed by the spring of 2006
-at a cost of $8.6 million
-$5.1 million of which will be a federal grant.
-Over 2000 cameras.
-250 specialized cameras will alert observers to special kinds of activity. The cameras can detect suspicious actions (such as loitering or leaving a package behind).

A prisonplanet article with some detail about how the cameras are going to be outfitted with listening devices.
“Technology being added to the new cameras and retrofitted to the older ones will alert police immediately to gunfire”

And a CNET article with detail that cameras might be added to Trains and Street Sweepers (that gives street sweeper a whole new meaning.)

“Rather than curb the system’s future expansion, they have raised the possibility of placing cameras in commuter and rapid transit cars and on the city’s street-sweeping vehicles.”

and a really scary quote from Daley.

“‘We’re not inside your home or your business,’ Mayor Daley said. ‘The city owns the sidewalks. We own the streets and we own the alleys.'”

Great. Are they going to change the text on those Orange signs to “On Monday the south of the street will have it’s privacy invaded from 9AM till 3PM” then on Tuesday “The north side of the street will have it’s privacy invaded from 9AM till 3PM.”

Something tells me No…