In last week's re-cap, we touched upon the Post Office's video surveillance of a Philly murder and how such incidents strengthen the bond between the private sector security community and our nation's law enforcement officers. Apparently we weren't the only ones who thought as much, and a couple of our news sources pulled together excellent articles documenting how private cameras are serving to stop public crimes.
Those articles are the following:
- Using Private Sector Surveillance Cameras to Stop Crimes
- The Unblinking Eye: How Private Sector Surveillance Is Shaping Law Enforcement
The NBFAA was in the news this week when it released a detailed report about VoIP. The report was highly comprehensive and should be a topic of discussion at your next security meeting, especially if you're involved in the sales and installation of security systems. Don't have time to read the entire report? Check out an interview with NBFAA Executive Director Merlin Guilbeau, where Merlin discusses what VoIP means for our industry.
This was the week of East Coast events, especially for the end-user community. Up in New York, the city's ASIS chapter held its summer tradeshow, known as the Security Systems & Solutions Expo (SSSE). Check out the SSSE photos from the opening day. Further down the coast, in Washington, D.C., GovSec kicked off. This morning, everyone is getting back to their desks from attending that show, and the report was that it was a quality show but without the attendance levels expected. In this era of FIPS implementation the turnout was a bit surprising. Want to find more events? Visit our online calendar for the industry.
We all remember TOPOFF, the major East Coast bioterror exercise held in early April. Not to be outdone, the CIA recently conducted a major test of the cyber-terror response systems. The cyber attack was designed to be on the same scale as the Sept. 11 attacks in terms of disruption to the economy and to business continuity.
Everyone talks about ROI in our industry, and how corporate administrators are starting to ask about what the value is of a security system. The Stratosphere Casino's security staff should have no problem explaining their surveillance system's ROI after catching a cheating duo that allegedly included one of the casino's own dealers and an out-of-town and off-duty police officer from California. Do you have similar stories of how your security system saved you some money? Tell us about those experiences.
Finally, let's all give a big round of applause to the security directors at our nation's schools who are wrapping up graduation weeks (or about to encounter those). Every year at this time, school alarm systems and contract guards pay for themselves when they stop the annual pattern of school vandalization that occurs when newly graduated seniors decide to thank their alma mater with extensive vandalism. If you've not had to secure a facility against this kind of experience, you should read about this gripping act of high school vandalism to know what your peers are experiencing and what they're up against.
Finally, our most read stories of the week:
- Securing the Wynn Las Vegas Casino, Hotel and Resort
- Cabela's Reports Major Theft of Guns from Store's Storage Site
- Coming to Terms with What VoIP Means for the Alarm Industry
- Survey: Many Companies Monitoring, Recording, Videotaping Employees
- Post Office Surveillance Cameras Capture Philly Murder
- At the Frontline: A Q&A with Atlanta Airport Security Director Richard Duncan
Thank you all for making us the most visited security industry news site on the Internet, and have a very respectful celebration of our nation's heros this Memorial Day.
