Across the country, the public's safety remains a top concern of governments and citizen alike. Getting more policing while holding down costs seems to be on a lot of people's minds. Judging by several recent news accounts, governmental organizations and policing agencies appear to have found a key force multiplier in the form of IP video surveillance. The term is used in several stories describing how video surveillance systems are being used to fight crime. Newsday's report about the video surveillance system on New York's Long Island said it will eventually include thousands of cameras at shopping malls, hospitals parks, and beaches. Live footage will stream into a police communications center through a single, integrated network. According to the newspaper, "Nassau officials say the camera system is a 'force multiplier,' allowing authorities to reap the benefits of having electronic eyes on the ground in many areas without having to assign officers there full time." It said, "Development of Nassau's camera program was inspired in part by New York City's Domain Awareness System—the so-called "Ring of Steel"—which collects and analyzes video and information from thousands of New York Police Department cameras, various law enforcement databases, license plate readers, and radiation detectors. Several other large cities, including Baltimore and Los Angeles, have similar networks in place." GCN, which delivers technology assessments, recommendations, and case studies to support public-sector IT managers, offered an assessment of Baltimore's video surveillance system. "Baltimore's CitiWatch video surveillance program has expanded over the past eight years from an initial installation of 50 standalone cameras to more than 600 networked closed-circuit cameras, which provide live video feeds around the clock. In addition, the program has access to about a thousand additional cameras operated by more than 50 federal, state, city, and private organizations." "Our mission is to make sure the crime doesn't occur,” said Lt. Sam Hood, CitiWatch's Director of Law Enforcement Operations for the Baltimore Police Department. He added, "This is a force multiplier." GCN said advancing technology has significantly reduced operating expenses. "The cost to operate the entire system today is less than the cost of managing and retrieving video recordings from the initial 50 pod cameras in 2005," GCN said. Finally, in a report on video surveillance for TodaysWirelessWorld.com, BearCom's Mike Butler wrote that, "Municipalities and police departments are always searching for new and better ways to crack down on crime, and they often look for a 'force multiplier' to help them accomplish that goal. One effective solution is IP video surveillance." After recounting several recent episodes in which IP video surveillance systems thwarted criminal activity, Butler noted, "None of this would have been possible a few years ago. The wired logistics of closed-circuit television cameras have always limited the scope and reach of such a program. But with Internet Protocol (IP) cameras, any police department or private business can easily install a camera wherever it's needed, acting as a tangible, visible deterrent to crime." "There are numerous applications for IP surveillance cameras," Butler concluded. "Since these cameras act as such a vital tool in deterring crime, it's hard to imagine any police department operating without this advantage."