RE: Real-time surveillance of the police

[Sandy Sandfort <sandfort@crl.com>]

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                         SANDY SANDFORT
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C'punks,

Michael Crawford wrote about my article in the December '94 issue
of Wired, ("Watching the Detectives", p. 141):

    ... The advantage for society is that the cop's
    behaviour, such as billy-club swinging velocity, can be
    monitored. It could detect gunfire, too, ...  This would
    work to the extent that the equipment is actually
    mounted on the cop it claims to belong to, so some
    manner of authentication would be needed.

Fleming told me that the localizers would also take biometric
readings to monitor the cop's physical status.  It turns out that
individual biometric readings vary significantly from person to
person.  It would be very hard for one cop (or a dog, suspect,
whatever) to pose as someone else by wearing his localizer.

    ... 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.

I don't like this idea one bit.  I agree with Tim that it is the
first step on a very slippery slope.

    ... I expect that it will be difficult to convince our
    Nation's Finest to adopt this new technology - though
    I'm sure they'd be happy to apply it to parolees and
    those serving on probation....

It would be difficult for the cops to reject it.  After all, it
definitely benefits vast majority of good cops.  It only hurts
that teensy-tiny minority who violate people's rights.  Right?

Michael also argued that it might be more easily sold to private
security firms for legal liability reasons.  This argument is
even more persuasive for police officers.  Cities routinely pay
astronomical settlements, or fight expensive law suits, arising
out of alleged incidents of police misconduct.  Frivolous
lawsuits would be quickly thrown out of court.  Rogue cops would
be identified and thrown off the force.  Works for me.


 S a n d y

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