Silicon Investor (SI) -- The First Internet Community

STOCKTALK

We've detected that you're using an ad content blocking browser plug-in or feature. Ads provide a critical source of revenue to the continued operation of Silicon Investor. We ask that you disable ad blocking while on Silicon Investor in the best interests of our community. If you are not using an ad blocker but are still receiving this message, make sure your browser's tracking protection is set to the 'standard' level.

Technology Stocks : The *NEW* Frank Coluccio Technology Forum -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Sailtrader who wrote (21941)	6/10/2007 12:30:17 AM
From: Frank A. Coluccio	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 46821

Sailtrader, You make some good observations and ask good questions, so I should clarify the basis of my skepticism, if not my sardonic tone, as well. Does the tower in question deter crime? Or, like the drug and prostitution sweeps that are all too common today across the globe, do they merely move the crime traffic elsewhere? If a case is being made for their use, then the best case would be to have enough towers to be able to coral all of the bad guys and cart all of them off to prison. But that would require far more than five towers, and I shudder to think just how many more it would take. Incidentally, if MS-NBC's Investigative Reports are to be believed, then prisons today already receive more federal funding for new construction and ongoing operations than colleges and universities, and they're still overcrowded to the point where early releases are now as commonplace as amusement park turnstiles, Paris Hilton notwithstanding. I've taken the time to focus on similar issues recently, after witnessing a few unsettling incidents that forced me to wonder why my neighborhood, for example, doesn't see as many sector cars patrolling its streets at night (forget daylight hours entirely) as some other neighborhoods do. Upon further reflection I realized that there are several, and not-necessarily-related, reasons for this. For starters, statistically speaking, mine is among the lowest crime areas in the city, so it receives little in the way of preventative attention. But then, so are some of the other neighborhoods I alluded to above, and they enjoy constant patrolling of NYPD sector cars, and they get it twenty-four hours per day. The difference for this lopsidedness has nothing to do with crime statistics, actually, but rather, it can easily be understood by anyone with a grasp of the squeaky wheel principle and an understanding of the leverage that can be had whenever power brokers who sway blocks of voters make a few well-placed telephone calls screaming neglect on ethnic-, religious- or a variety of other- grounds. Getting back to the steel beasts, since the NYPD is "aiming" to have a set of five of these surveillance towers eventually in its arsenal, where do you suppose they be deployed, and why? See the paragraph immediately above for some ideas. After all is said and done, would I want them in my neighborhood? If my area were suddenly under some sort of seige, or we suddenly experienced a rash of heinous crimes? Yes, sure I would. Of course. FAC