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Following the city's unveiling of a crime camera monitoring station on the edge of the French Quarter, the New Orleans Independent Police Monitor (IPM) has warned the New Orleans City Council of the city's sweeping surveillance program's "potential for mismanagement, poor information security, public records law compliance challenges and user abuse."

This month, Mayor Mitch Landrieu and city officials debuted the Real Time Crime Monitoring Center on Rampart Street, serving as the nerve center for a planned network of dozens of city-owned crime cameras, with plans to add street-facing crime camera feeds from nearly every bar and restaurant and many private homes ? all part of a multi-million dollar crime prevention program announced in January.

Though the plan greatly expands the city's surveillance footprint, which the city says will reduce crime and the time it takes to find suspects, acting police monitor*Ursula Price writes in a Nov. 28*letter that the plan presents a number of "high-level risks" and seemingly*"does not earmark resources or personnel to monitor the implementation of the plan."

The IPM recommends the City Council*consider public meetings on the cameras' use and discuss how the city plans to monitor surveillance efforts and data collection.*"A failure to build in monitoring and oversight may expose the City of*New Orleans to a civil liability risk," the letter says. "In the event that evidence in these systems is used for prosecution, these systems could also present a risk unconstitutional criminal justice practices as well."
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