Washington Monument Plays Spy Role

NewsMax ^ | 11/10/03 | Limbacher

[Tumbleweed_Connection]

Ever get the feeling someone is watching you stroll along the Mall? asks Al Kamen in the Washington Post. That's because someone is -- from atop the 555-foot Washington Monument.

Seems four surveillance cameras were installed there back in March to keep an eye out for terrorists and other evildoers.

Where visitors once had eight windows -- two in each direction -- to survey the vista, now there are four. The cameras, likely mounted on tripods, are hidden in small plywood closets and peer out the other four.

The cameras can see a long way, U.S. Park Police Chief Teresa Chambers told the Post, but they are "looking at bridges and those types of things," and there is a "very strict policy in place with checks and balances. Operators know that this isn't a toy, and the only time the operator can zoom is when he or she has an articulable suspicion that the person is committing a criminal act."

If the operators see people passing a suspicious object that could be a weapon, she said, officers would be alerted.

"Suspicious persons attempting to get into cars," will be scoped.

Chambers added that the only places the cameras eyeball are those "where people do not have a reasonable expectation of privacy."

There was no fanfare when they were installed, Chambers said, because at the time "Tractor Man" was in the middle of his standoff with police in a pool in Constitution Gardens. Park Police didn't want him to know he was being watched.

Now we know--

[malia]

Good!

[jordan8]

Symbolic.