Re: Real-time surveillance of the police

[Joe Turner <turner@telecheck.com>]

> I have another point of view to add: I don't want to see my local cops
> have all of their actions videotaped and reviewed for quite another
> reason--I don't want a "mechanization" of the enforcement process!

Its already here.  Its a show called COPS.  My brother (the black sheep)
used to watch it quite a bit before he became one (a cop, not a sheep).
More and more police cars here in Texas are becomming equiped with
video cameras.  Some of the stuff is just unreal, although I prefer
the subtle comical tones of one who is under the influence of minde
altering subtences.

> Forcing the cops to surveill themselves will almost certainly take
> away what enforcement discretion they now have.

Actually, it usually gives them more credibility in court.  I had the
pleasure of going to court for a traffic violation to try to plead 
guilty so they would cut the fine in half at the local court house.
What I saw amazed me.  I saw person after person trying to defend
themselves.  They had a police officer referring to his notes, while
the government's lawyer quickly won every case.  He would ask
some simple questions such as, what was the color of the car, etc.
and the judge would just fine the defendant guilty.

UNTIL, someone came in with his own lawyer.  I asked him why he 
brought a lawyer and he had apparently received a few too many
tickets (DUIs) and could loose his license.  Anyway, this case
started just as the others had.  Poor guy, I thought, he's going
to loose his license and have to pay this lawyer too.  But then
just as soon as the officer started to read from his note pad,
his lawyer yelled, "OBJECTION!  your honor... *please*".

To which the judge replied, "your right, " pointed to the officer
and told him to put away the notes.  After that, he just jumped
all over the officer.  He went nuts when the officer said he
smelled alcohol on his client and even brought in a chemist to
testify on the properties of alcohol (which is oderless).  To 
make a long story short, the guy was guilty, but it was thrown 
out because of the officer.

I say this becuase I am tired of hearing about court cases who
put the victims on trial rather than the criminals.  I would
like to see a criminal deny video tape.  

[ much omited..]

Given an effective range of a few miles, your devices must be operating
in the 220MHZ + range of freqs (??) and at relatively low power?
 
> (A skier lost in the mountains, a child who has wandered away....all
> are cases where the needed bits per second is _much_ less than 1000
> bps. Indeed, most of the localizers are either not sending info at
> all, or very sporadically.)

Actually, if you've ever gone on a fox hunt with some amateur radio
buffs you would quickly find a problem with this.  I'm sure on more
than one occasion a fox-hunter has driven several miles only to
find that the signal he is tracking is being reflected off of a 
building or lake.

Although I do recall that there was talk of a cellular telephone company
(in Chicago??) was working on a software modification to do essentially
this.  I don't know if they are doing it now, but I remember some of
the details... the three closest repeaters would triangulate your 
possition down to the city block.  The police were either very interested
or very happy with this... I don't remember which...

-- 
Joe N. Turner		Telecheck International
turner@telecheck.com    5251 Westheimer, PO BOX 4659, Houston, TX 77210-4659
compu$erv: 73301,1654	(800) 888-4922  *   (713) 439-6597