FBI Uses Times Square Billboards to Track Down Criminals

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Technology nowadays lets people do some extraordinary things. That’s how some brilliant minds at the FBI decided to use some of this public tech in their favor. FBI’s most wanted list is now being featured in New York, right on one of those impressive digital billboards otherwise used to influence the mind of consumers with aggressive advertising campaigns.

And given the fact that the Times Square is a very popular area in Manhattan, chances are that some people might notice the FBI billboards and actually come up with some useful information for the Bureau. The FBI-dedicated billboard has been turned on yesterday and it will be used to air pictures of well known fugitives and missing persons.

This is not the first time such an initiative has been used. A similar pilot program in Philadelphia led to two arrests before Clear Channel Outdoors offered this particular New York billboard to the FBI. The billboard is located above the entrance to the W Hotel and it’s surrounded by regular billboards that advertise Broadway musicals.

Furthermore, the FBI has now access to 430 billboards in 33 cities which are also managed by Clear Channel.

Tim Tompkins, president of the Times Square Alliance had this to say about these unusual crime-fighting billboards:

As far as I’m concerned, this makes Times Square even safer. No bad guy is going to want to hang out in a place where there’s a 100-foot image of him for all the world to see.

But what do you think, folks? Do we really need to advertise the worst in us on huge digital billboards? Should such a measure be employed on a worldwide scale?

One would think that with all the tech around us it would be a lot easier to catch bad guys in the 21st century. Well apparently it isn’t and we still have to rely on “Wanted” signs to capture some of those criminal minds.