Nassau cops deployed a new surveillance system Saturday night in Uniondale, videotaping the revelers gathered to see the annual lighting of RexCorp Plaza's Christmas tree.

With nearly 20 cameras surrounding the ice rink and beyond, police eyeballed crowds and monitored video feeds from a command truck. Computer files of the video are being stored so police can assess the system, said Nassau Police Insp. Wesley Van Wallendael.

The surveillance was part of a test arranged by AgileMesh, a Richardson, Texas, company trying to sell tens of thousands of dollars in cameras. Three of the company's cameras were among the 20.

AgileMesh's wireless video system was used in October to let Long Beach police scrutinize partygoers at the Irish Heritage Festival.

Each one of the cameras, which AgileMesh lent the county for Saturday night's test, costs between $6,000 and $10,000, in addition to the $2,000 or so for the device to monitor and control the video feeds.

The county will decide within a few months whether to buy them, Van Wallendael said.

Joseph Stefan, AgileMesh's president and chief executive, said his cameras are used by about a hundred "end-users" around the country -- ranging from police departments to NASA. The system can be deployed and dismantled quickly, and could be used by SWAT teams during a crisis or to watch people at events like last night's tree lighting.

"If somebody walks in with a bomb or a gun, and they intend to do something," Stefan said, "law enforcement folks can notice that person by way of the video surveillance before anything happens: they might be able to prevent the incident."

Lee Tien, a senior staff attorney with the Electronic Frontier Foundation, a San Francisco-based privacy group that opposes government surveillance, said civil libertarians bristle at the proliferation of police cameras in public spaces.

"Nassau County has no reason to believe that anyone at this Christmas-tree-lighting ceremony is going to commit a crime or do anything that warrants police action," Tien said.

But a decidedly unscientific poll of a half-dozen revelers last night showed strong support for the cameras.

"I'm not doing anything wrong, but someone else could be," said Susan Dolan, 47, of Freeport, as she danced to "Rockin' Around the Christmas Tree."

http://www.newsday.com/news/local/longisland/ny-livide1202,0,699424,print.story?coll=ny_home_rail_headlines

Ah, typical kwan reaction there in the last sentence by Suzie soccermom.