Watching New York

Here's some real news: New York City is planning to waste a whole bunch of money. Building a large surveillance network in midtown Manhattan. To stop terrorism.

Let's get one thing clear. Surveillance cannot prevent terrorism. At best it can (maybe) help track down whodunit. Which is rarely a question in true terrorism. The whole point of terrorism is publicity. The only thing that mass surveillance achieves is a chilling effect on the populace. Surveillance is best left to very well-defined, limited applications (say, the Mona Lisa).