HONOLULU -- The Honolulu City Council is being asked to approve a plan for the Honolulu Police Department to use the traffic cameras to help with security during the economic summit in November.

McCully Avenue is one of the possible routes that members of various foreign delegations may take while on Oahu for the Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation November economic summit. A camera sits perched on a poll. It is one of about 200 traffic cameras that the Honolulu Police department wants to be able to control to help with security.

The plan calls for 34 new surveillance cameras. It will also require a system to allow police to integrate the current security cams in Chinatown, downtown and Waikiki with the city's traffic cameras that were installed more than a decade ago.

“They will be monitoring cameras during APEC over a system to allow the cameras to be viewable on one platform,” said Gordon Bruce, the city’s chief information officer.

The project will cost $1.4 million. The money is partly from a homeland security grant and from the budgets of about four city departments.

Four cameras will be installed on Waikiki's Kuhio Avenue over the next few weeks. The rest of the cameras will be placed in strategic spots where top level meetings will be held.

“They are all in various stages of being installed. We’ve got fiber optics and electrical systems to be installed. In some cases where we don’t have electrical, we are putting in wireless,” said Bruce.

Kailua resident Shannon Wood signed up to be an ACLU monitor during the APEC conference. She worries the public's privacy and right to demonstrate may be violated-- in the name of security.

“It was very, very important to me that we protect people’s first amendment rights,” said Wood.

Current law provides that the public have ample notice about what’s planned so when the city turns the cameras on people know they are being watched

The city plans to publish information in the paper and will have to post signs warning that the area is under police surveillance.

Some have already raised questions about what happens to the recordings once APEC is over. The city says the cameras will be turned back over to the transportation department for traffic monitoring.