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Dan Weiss surrounds himself with the very latest in high-tech surveillance technology.

He runs a Houston security firm, so he knows what a good camera can do. “We have to have digital eyes out in front of our critical assets.”

Soon those digital eyes may be deployed along the entire Houston Ship Channel.

On Tuesday, Harris County Commissioners will vote on a $500,000 contract with a San Diego defense contractor - laying the groundwork for a multimillion dollar upgrade of the channel’s camera surveillance network.

County employees say that once installed, the cameras could swivel and view nearly every foot of the fifty mile channel.

The cameras would feed video to Houston TranStar, and the Harris County Sheriff’s office - in some situations, the department of Homeland Security could look in.

The upgrade would also help detect improvised explosive devices - with video equipment similar to what the US Military uses in Iraq.

Weiss says no matter how good the cameras - surveillance is only effective when it’s paired with strong intelligence: Facial recognition software can spot a suspected terrorist, and set off an alarm.

“We don’t want to identify the person when they’re actually at the critical point, we want to identify them two blocks out. So if they’re loaded with C-Four explosives, we can contain them and deal with them and not inside the facility,” said Weiss.