High-Tech Video Cameras a Weapon in War on Terror

July 15, 2005 — -- Images from some of the 200,000 surveillance cameras in London were key in cracking the July 7 subway and bus bombings there. American cities, too, are hoping video cameras will be important weapons in the fight against terrorism, especially by helping to prevent attacks.

Several U.S. cities already use surveillance cameras to fight crime -- there are more than 2,200 cameras in Chicago, 7,000 in New York and 150 in Baltimore. Police officials say they are a major crime deterrent.

"You put a camera in a location and you have immediately a 40 percent decrease in crime for six months in that area," said Leonard Hamm, the commissioner of the Baltimore Police Department.

The Hollywood version of this technology can be decades ahead of the reality. But there are some recent innovations that make surveillance cameras more effective, such as a 360-degree spherical lens called a fisheye that enables the camera to follow a person wherever they go.

"These cameras don't have any blind spots," said Clara Conti, president of a technology company called Ipix Corporation. "Fixed cameras have blind spots."

Computers in the cameras can be programmed to look for particular faces -- like those on watch lists -- by measuring the distance between a person's eyes or the length of their nose. If the computer recognizes a face, the camera can freeze frame and zoom in.

Video can also be enhanced for extreme close-ups, for example, to read license plates. Cameras surrounding London after the bombing can photograph every license plate and driver entering and leaving the city.

Video footage helped determine the shoe size of a suspect in the 1996 Olympics bombing in Atlanta, later matched to the bomber.