Ever have the feeling you’re being watched? At the Herald Square subway station, it’s because you are — from every angle.
At least six hidden cameras — distinct from the ubiquitous domed video-surveillance cameras easily spotted in stations throughout the city — are located near MetroCard machines, turnstiles and token booths at the 34th Street station as part of a covert MTA surveillance network that monitors commuters.
The cameras date to as far back as the 1990s, MTA spokesman Kevin Ortiz said, but the agency revealed it prefers using other, equally covert “enhanced equipment” — even better cameras “that serve in a number of various capacities.”
The MTA described the cams as “antiquated” — yet some of the cameras found by The Post appeared to be housed in brand-new metal casings.
“They are covert cameras for high-priority areas or high crime,” one source noted. “They record, but can be monitored real-time if it’s deemed necessary.”
The agency refused to say where the camera feed is transmitted, which other stations might have them or how they work, citing security reasons.
And they are so well hidden, even agency staffers and transit advocates were clueless to their presence.
“I think I may have first heard they were planning to put cameras in less obvious places last year — but I never noticed these,” said William Henderson, executive director of the MTA’s Permanent Citizens Advisory Committee.
In all, there are more than 4,500 cameras throughout the subway system, according to the MTA.
Experts marveled at the cameras, which are housed in what look like electrical conduits.
“These are fascinating,” said Robert McCrie, a professor at John Jay College of Criminal Justice’s Department of Security, Fire and Emergency Management. “What we are seeing is something very well adapted to the circumstance — not only in the sense that they look like a part of the industrial environment of the MTA, but also in the sense that they are positioned in ways to get people’s heads and shoulders.
“These add something different because the perp isn’t looking for it — because he doesn’t know what to look for,” the professor added.
“The Fourth Amendment requires law enforcement to adhere to reasonable and narrow exceptions to privacy concerns,” he said. “These cameras obliterate the privacy concern — what you have is a vacuum-cleaner sweep — they sweep up everything.
“My instinct is that the government should be forthcoming with what it’s doing and not deceptive,” he added.
And some straphangers are also not thrilled to always feel like somebody’s watching them.
“I glanced to my right and saw a lens,” said an engineer who spotted the spycams.
“I was perturbed — there are a lot of cameras in the subway, and I’m not worried about cameras. I’m more concerned not knowing there are cameras when they are there. It struck me as strange that there were these things, roughly at eye level, pointed at the crowd.
“I was irritated that there was a second hidden system underneath the big obvious one,” he continued. “But that’s the world we live in now.”
Gene Russianoff, staff attorney for the Straphangers Campaign, predicted the surveillance trend would continue.
“Maybe they’ll put them next in the stalactites and stalagmites that develop in the subway because of a drip,” he quipped.
Additional reporting by Rebecca Harshbarger