Re: Real-time surveillance of the police

[tcmay@netcom.com (Timothy C. May)]

Michael D. Crawford wrote:

> In the December '94 issue of Wired, ("Watching the Detectives", p. 141),
> Sandy Sanfort describes Bob Fleming's work to make real-time permanent
> recordings of the body positions of police officers.
> 
> One could place a small sensor on each wrist and ankle, and record the
> positions (and velocities) of the cops body to with a _centimeter_,
> anywhere in a city.

As it happens, I'm a investor in Bob Fleming and Cherie Kushner's
start-up company. (One of several investors.) I've known them for
several years and have visited their lab/home many times.

(It was at their party that I got to spend a day talking to Vernor
Vinge, as some of you may recall me commenting on.)

So, I'd like to comment on some of these points.

> The advantage for cops is that a fallen officer can be quickly located, and
> a cop's claim to have witnessed an event can be corroborated by
> demonstrating that he was actually there.

Bob and Cherie _cringe_ when I joke about their loalizers being the
basis of the nation's "position escrow system." They fully understand
the ramifications and potential abuses of a system which could allow
position tracking to a few meters of every citizen-unit in a country.

(And a huge early market is expected to be "child localization," a la
the child-minder beacons some parents are already attaching to their
children. Bob and Cherie's system is much smaller, cheaper, etc.

> After the Rodney King incident, I had the notion, (which I did not act on
> to actually promote, I'm sorry to say), that organizations representing
> people that feel persecuted by the law could issue disposable cameras to
> all there members. For example, if a street gang felt the cops were

This was an idea explored in detail by David Brin in 1990 in his novel
"Earth." Video cameras are ubiquitous and have a major effect on
casual street crime.

...
> Yes, that's right - keep surveillance cameras going on _yourself_. If
> you're not doing anything illegal, you've got nothing to fear from taping
> everything you do.

This scenario is a likely way that "position escrow" will evolve, from
a voluntary escrowing (incl. timestamping, etc.). "Those with nothing
to hide" will agree to escrow their movements...this will exculpate
them in suspected crimes, etc. A slippery slope.

On the topic of how these localizers actually work, I'm not at liberty
to talk about the technology. It's novel, and uses a *lot* if digital
signal processing. It doesn't use GPS and it's not a variant of
cellular telephones.


--Tim May


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