While the nation's eyes watch the All-Star Game in July, someone in the City of Pittsburgh's Office of Emergency Management will be flipping through feeds from scores of video cameras, looking for trouble and preparing for the worst.

The Pennsylvania Department of Transportation's 82 traffic-watching cameras will feed into the system as will Port Authority's 55 cameras, posted at transit hot spots. So too will cameras in and around both stadiums, plus new ones the city will install in strategic spots, like the top of the U.S. Steel Tower and in Point State Park.

City Council yesterday gave its initial approval to a plan to spend $1.1 million in federal money on the project, and Mayor Bob O'Connor said it would be up and running for the big game.

"You will have cameras and evacuation plans," he said. "We will tie everybody into the same system -- Port Authority, PennDOT" and stadium security, for starters.

The city will buy software, hardware and fiber-optic connections from the Rhode Island firm LiveWave Inc., linking existing systems into a unified network of remote-controlled cameras.

The city may also approach the University of Pittsburgh about tying its substantial camera network into the system, said Raymond DeMichiei, city deputy director of the Office of Emergency Management and Homeland Security.

There is no legal right to privacy in public, said Barb Feige, director of the Pittsburgh chapter of the Pennsylvania American Civil Liberties Union. But if a public-private system of linked cameras develops, it should be subject to written, publicly available rules, she said.

"Are they going to pick up the Middle Eastern-looking man walking down Fifth Avenue?" she asked. "All of these images get stored somewhere," she said, and there should be strict rules on accessing them.

Mr. O'Connor stressed that Pittsburgh will bear no resemblance to the 1993 Sharon Stone thriller "Sliver," in which a voyeuristic landlord watched his tenants. "It's only monitoring traffic," he said.

Mr. DeMichiei said an internal tracking system will allow the city to detect misuse.

The cameras will be used to help write a new Downtown evacuation plan, the mayor said. In case of disaster, their live feeds would help officials tell people how to best get out of town.

If the city had had the system in place March 22, when a maintenance man stalking pigeons with an air gun caused a sniper scare, cameras would have been trained on the building, said Mr. DeMichiei. The situation might have been located, diagnosed and defused more quickly.

The system could also help solve crimes, "like a camera at a 7-Eleven," said the mayor. But most days, rather than actively searching for crimes in progress, the system would be to look for evidence.

New York, Boston and Washington, D.C., are also beginning to integrate video surveillance systems, said Doug Tuthill, director of operations for LiveWave.

The funding comes from a federal earmark inserted in legislation by U.S. Sen. Arlen Specter, R-Pa., and which specifies LiveWave as the vendor. A local vendor will help with installation, said Mr. DeMichiei.