Who Guards The Guardians?

Six cameras in Maryland dedicated to catching speeding drivers have been vandalized since April. Now police are installing other cameras to keep an eye on their investment — because the speed cameras cost up to $100,000 to replace.

Add this to Connie Willis’ next list of things science fiction writers failed to predict. Not the vandalism — everyone from Heinlein to Mack Reynolds got that right — rather, the solution of a duplicate set of cameras.

4 thoughts on “Who Guards The Guardians?

  1. When I was working security at an upscale shopping/office development, the property had over 150 cameras, many of which had overlapping coverage. When a late-night smash-and-grab gang did a gone-in-90-seconds number on the Apple Store there, we were able to give the police video coverage from four different cameras. And yes, some of those cameras could be aimed to watch other cameras if we wanted. (Though our priority was more on keeping an eye on the drunks from the over-serving bars on the property.)

  2. A couple of years ago in New York City thieves were stealing the high end Nikon DX2 cameras used in their red light cameras and selling them. Several ended up for sale on the shelves of B&H Photo. The thieves (one of whom had worked for the company that made the red light cameras) had made a truck up to look like a company truck (complete with lift) so it looked like they were ‘servicing’ the cameras.

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