City Limits’ 2008 investigation into the shift in residents’ civic liberties and essential freedoms in New York City, following the 9/11 attacks.
A 1998 New York Civil Liberties Union survey identified 2,397 surveillance cameras at street level in Manhattan. In 2005, another NYCLU survey of Lower Manhattan, Greenwich Village, Chinatown and central Harlem found 4,468 cameras in those four districts alone.
Around the five boroughs, New Yorkers are divided over the freedom they have, what they are willing to give up and what they already may have lost.
The NYPD moved in 2002 to loosen the rules on police spying, saying that they tied the department’s hands in the fight against terrorism.
In September 2004, the NYPD issued Interim Order 47, which created a system for police commanders to approve videotaping of protests, requiring merely that the taping have a “permissible operational objective.”
The federal judge had made a decision in an important wiretapping case. At least everybody thought so. But no one could be sure, because the ruling itself was secret.
The Bloomberg administration has made much of city government more transparent. But the mayor and Police Commissioner Raymond Kelly have kept their share of secrets too.
People carrying spear guns, cattle prods or meat cleavers (these items are actually singled out in the feds’ literature as no-nos) probably deserve whatever scrutiny they get.
The fear of terrorists permeates places and conversations where it was once barely present, if at all.
A 2005 survey found that keystroke monitoring was used by 36 percent of companies queried. Fifty-five percent of companies perused employee e-mail messages and 76 percent tracked websites visited by employees.
During the week of the 2004 Republican National Convention, the NYPD arrested more than 1,800 people for protesting—more than 1,100 of them on one day. As a whole, the arrests were the most seen at a U.S. protest in decades.
City Limits uses investigative journalism through the prism of New York City to identify urban problems, examine their causes, explore solutions, and equip communities to take action.
Founded in 1976 in the midst of New York’s fiscal crisis, City Limits exists to inform democracy and equip citizens to create a more just city. The organization is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit funded by foundation support, ad sponsorship and donations from readers.
Support local, investigative journalism that has informed and empowered New Yorkers for 45 years.
Support local, investigative journalism that has informed and empowered New Yorkers for 45 years.
