Claiming a need to fight terrorism is a way for the Police-Surveillance State to become empowered and grow.

The helicopter's unmarked paint job belies what's inside: an arsenal of sophisticated surveillance and tracking equipment powerful enough to read license plates — or scan pedestrians' faces — from high above the nation's largest metropolis.

...Police Commissioner Raymond Kelly has said that no other U.S. law enforcement agency "has anything that comes close" to the surveillance chopper, which was designed by engineers at Bell Helicopter and computer technicians based on NYPD specifications.

The chopper is named simply "23" — for the number of police officers killed in the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks.

Throw in a little 9/11 sentiment, and the state's militarized spy game sounds warm and fuzzy. This brings to mind the movie Blue Thunder, only without the gadfly Roy Scheider. There's more:

The NYPD also plans to spend tens of millions of dollars strengthening security in the lower Manhattan business district with a network of closed-circuit television cameras and license-plate readers posted at bridges, tunnels and other entry points.

Police have also deployed hundreds of radiation monitors — some worn on belts like pagers, others mounted on cars and in helicopters — to detect dirty bombs.

Kelly even envisions someday using futuristic "stationary airborne devices" similar to blimps to conduct reconnaissance and guard against chemical, biological and radiological threats.