Surveillance of police raids...

[decius@ninja.techwood.org (Decius 6i5)]

> But the knock on the door and the presentation of a warrant is
> increasingly being replaced by these "dynamic entries." Given that this
> is exactly how teams of home invaders hit houses, and given the element
> of surprise, is it any wonder that many of us keep loaded and ready
> semiautomatic rifles and shotguns to repel such invasions? (And many of
> us use SS-109 green tips, which essentially punch right through
> ballistic vests up to Class III. How many SWAT members need to die in
> such raids before the courts restore the Fourth Amendment?)

These sort of "dynamic entries" and other cases of clearly burtal behavior
by the police are fearsome indeed. They also appear to be a problem the
public is very unhappy about... Rodney King riots to the public reaction
to Waco and similar incidents. It is obvious that if you hire a bunch of
people for an adrenaline intensive job where they will be taking down "bag
guys" with machine guns they are going to be difficult to keep in line. 
These aren't lawyers or philosophers. Its not the right/wrong for these
people but the thrill of the hunt.

However, I don't beleive I've seen any evidence that "keeping loaded and
ready semiautomatic rifles" is an effective response. Most people who
"fight back" seem to be killed quickley or (rarely) they get involved in
long standoffs which often end in death. Eitherway, if you do make it out
alive you will likely have racked enough charges against you in the
process of defending yourself that the original legal issue pales by
comparison. Do you know of anyone who has stood up to police raiders and
WON?   

The majority of cases that I have seen where abusive police "got theirs"
occured in a court room and not a "compound." The Steve Jackson Games
decision put a pre-emptive stop to a lot of unreasonable searches... It
doesn't really matter if the Secret Service understands *WHY* it was in
the wrong. What matters is that police agencies are aware that they can't
walk into a house and take everything with a plug on the premise that they
are investigating computer crime. Like it or not...

Now the issue of police lieing about a raid in court is at hand, and this
brings an interesting twist here for privacy advocates. Video surveillance
is an effective weapon against police brutality. Thats a fact. Many police
agencies have taken to installing "tamper proof" cameras in patrol cars.
These are effective in court when the cops are in "the right."
(Philisophical arguments about anarchy vs. democracy notwithstanding...)
They are also quite effective when the cops are in the wrong. One officer
in Atlanta was stupid enough to engage in an unprovocted beating of a
suspect right in from of his own camera. He's out of a job now.

One could imagine a CCTV system in a home with an easily accessable switch
which engages it. And X-10 remote is handy and could be programmed to do
this. The cameras could be designed to be unobtrusive. For real security
the video data would need to be streamed (over the net?) to a remote site
for storage and the system must be difficult to shut down under duress
without evidence of such coersion being saved. Audio data could also be 
saved. The nice thing about this is that the surveillance is in the
control of the home owner.  

Problem with surveillance is that its a weapon. I don't want to be
surveilled. However, I might wish to surveil others for my protection as
in the above example.          

	I absolutely hate the idea of cameras in the workplace or in
general public places. Especially in the hands of the government rather
than store owners. Crytography can protect you from phone taps, but what
can protect you from a network of digital cameras connected to face
recognition software? Thats the direction I see this overall issue
heading. One can envision a future in which all your online dealings can
be extremely secure and anonymized by virtue of crypto, but your
movements in the physical world are tightly monitored by automated video
processing systems...  

-- 
        */^\*  Tom Cross AKA Decius 615 AKA The White Ninja  */^\* 
                       Decius@ninja.techwood.org

"If the economic, social and political conditions... do not offer a basis 
for the realization of individuality, while at the same time people have 
lost those ties which gave them security... powerful tendencies arise to 
escape from freedom into submission." -- Erich Fromm