Tag: law enforcement

When the banker wants to pick up the policeman’s gun, no one is safe

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A recent story out of Seattle states that an amendment proposed for a bill that would safeguard employee passwords from being requested during job interviews, however should an internal investigation be started that protection of the employee’s private information goes right out the window.  Thankfully the provision was pulled a day later and the bill protecting potential employees from having to divulge unnecessary private information went to the floor without the excessive intrusion attached.

It’s not the first time an amendment/ provision/bill like this has been introduced, nor will it be the last.  The horrifying part of the story is not so much the provision, but the intention of the representative who added it (quote from The Columbian story linked above):

On Wednesday, House Labor and Workforce Development Committee chair Rep. Mike Sells withdrew the amendment. He had introduced it at the behest of business groups, who say the original bill would open an avenue for possible illegal activity by employees, such as divulging proprietary or consumer information to outsiders.

The fear by business groups who were concerned that this would open up an avenue for possible illegal activity apparently forgot that should illegal activity occur there is a process by which they contact the police and then the proper law enforcement agencies, who are trained and the only bodies by law who can do this, SUBMIT A WARRANT for the personal information directly to the site in question.

I respect a need for businesses to protect their trade secrets, yet it seems that Apple’s latest iPhone doesn’t so much show up on an employee’s news feed or blog spot, rather in a bar after they’ve had one too many.  If there is potential theft of intellectual property, embezzlement, or or other such criminal activity going on, my first advice to a business owner would be to get the police involved (i.e. get the folks whose job it is to sort this kind of thing out) rather than trying to play cowboy and find it on their own.  The process, should it have proceeded, would have been, as privacy advocated pointed out, rife for abuse, and could lead to lawsuits from employees should other private information be divulged to a company who has not right or reason for having said information.

Lastly, to the state and federal representatives of the nation.  Take a moment to think on this matter when it comes to you.  Realize that anyone looking to pick up a duty of law enforcement must be addressed with great care and skepticism.  Any effort by a business to take on a responsibility or to take an action that would circumvent the law of due process, those pesky warrants that police need in criminal investigations, needs to be shuffled off, and documented for public consumption.  These business leaders should be named, and their organizations chastised by the public, but I feel comfortable in saying that none of the barking voices that decry the vices, real and imaginary, of the government will raise a word against the corporate sector.

Simply because people work for a company does not mean that they are to have access to every nook and cranny of their employees lives.  If we as a political body fear the encroachment of a nebulous, faceless monstrosity trying to worm its way into every aspect of our lives, why should we treat the businesses who are not restrained by the rules of our Constitution with less caution than the government which we can control?

A moment of reflection

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I heard about the shootings in Connecticut in passing.  I didn’t get the full weight of what had occurred until Patricia called me and asked if I had heard about the hideous body count.  A little research, and quick check of Facebook (which I was not surprised to find quite a few pages for the shooter, and how he was a great guy and a fantastic photographer), and I was up to speed with the rest of America.  What bothered me further was the comment section under every news article, and a few Facebook posts.

In short, I unfriended someone today.  Not a monumental accolade or something that need be noted in the archives of WordPress history, but it was the statement that summed up the illness of it all.  In short, a man I knew some time ago, and considered intelligent, reasonable, and tolerant stated on his page that he was not surprised that this occurred because it happened in a nation without a soul.  He then went on to give a paltry wave of the hand and condolences to the families that lost loved ones, but the first statement.  “A nation without a soul” stuck hard in my craw like a jagged pebble.

There are now millions, if not billions, of condolences of perfect strangers floating across the world-wide web.  Fundraisers are going up by the hour to help with relief efforts, pay for grief counselors, etc.  We, as a nation, are painted in a muddy hue of soullessness because we do not adhere to the tenants of a self-declared ‘militant’ christian.  My only response would be that the longer you look down the irons of the rifle you believe is protecting you, the more everything begins to look like a target or an enemy.  That immediate attachment of this incident as an indictment of our nation as a whole is disgusting, ill reasoned, and ignorant.

Couple that with the almost instantaneous prattling of fear over gun control legislation, and how the President will steal away our automatic weapons before he has even had a chance to speak on this tragedy (which he did eloquently by the way) lends further to the stereotype that the right is so desperately trying to fight.  My only request is that we stop worrying about our own fears for a moment, and think on others.  Know for a moment that your family is safe, and, for those of you who have children, might dote on them a little more this evening; be inclined to hold them a little tighter tonight before they go off to bed.  For those who lost a child or a loved one today, my deepest condolences.

The die has not been cast with regards to why this wretch took those lives, but the evidence piling up appears to indicate that there were issues at home (at last report his brother was found dead at the residence).  In the days and weeks to come we will know everything about the gunman, his name being avoided here as I do not want to recognize the monster outright.  No, we will find out the why, what, where, who, and when of everything in this case, then it will fade.  My only request would be that we allow that process to be completed before we begin the process of trying to address the results.

Access to firearms and mental health are going to take front stage.  Let us, for a change, be informed before we go into political battle and rattle our sabers for our cause, and decry the boogeymen of the opposition.  This is, as has been stated by many public figures today, a time where consensus can be reached with little thought.  The only matter in that case is giving the people time to grieve and learn what happened.  Then, and only then, can we find a true answer that may very well prevent future incidents like this one.

Escalation of force and your friendly neighborhood SWAT team

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Stories like this one are becoming more common in the news.  Swatting, or the act of placing a fake phone call from a VoIP hone or internet server to emergency providers indicating that there is a shooting/violent crime/ general mayhem going down at a particular address. Everyone from Politicians to kids playing video games have been surprised to see teams of fully armored, automatic weapon toting law enforcement officers knocking down their doors, causing thousands of dollars of damage and wasting police time and funds chasing down ghost leads with the most militant branches of their organizations.

I want to make something clear before I continue, I have nothing against SWAT teams.  I respect what they do, and recognize that they should be called into the most dire of situations.  What I do have a problem with is the escalating frequency with which they are being sent out to enforce mundane legal activities.

From serving warrants to handling armed 79-year-old ladies the rank and file police duties are quickly getting picked up by SWAT teams across the country.  The horrify notion that the military is selling off extra hardware to police departments doesn’t bode well.  Especially when those same police departments turn around and sell it off to, as the article from the Sacramento Bee puts it, “pad their budgets”.

There is a need for the SWAT teams in cities across America, but there appear to be a greater need for restraint in their deployment.  If the basic assessments are being accomplished, and it is duly warranted that an escalation to a para-military level is required, then by all means send in the SWAT team.  If the department didn’t bother to check the residence or call the house, and proceeded to break down a door, flash-bang innocent civilians, and then physically treat them like common criminals, then, frankly, someone needs to lose their job.

When a bad idea meets a functional tool, nothing good comes of it

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Last weekend I was having a conversation with a friend and the topic of the recent expansion of government surveilance via drones came up.  There is genuine concern over how the information will be used, and, considering the manuverability of some of the drones being employed, where they go, and what they will be able to see is of extreme concern.

I aruged that the drones will be used, but they will be fairly restricted, and the government is going to find out very, very quickly that they are not the best tools for the job when it comes to law enforcement.  As if on queue The University of Texas, challenged by the Department of Homeland Security, downed a drone in mid flight.

Not to take some shine off of the University of Texas’ achievement, but this is old hat.  Iran dropped a stealth drone, piloted by the best and brightest, and slapped together by DARPA and operated by the DoD.  In terms of intellectual firepower, I imagine that the DHS has quite a few brilliant minds, but the military has an entire organization devoted to development everything from quantum encryption to weapons systems that fire 1.2million rounds a minute.  I’m going to go out on a limb and say that the Stealth drone was harder to drop, but when it was released that they went through the GPS system to bring it down, I fell over laughing.

A paper I wrote in my last year at the Old Dominion University was on robotics on the battlefield, and the number one issue with these devices have is the communication and GPS systems.  Avionic systems have some play, but the real bugs were in terrestrial based sword bots, so named because they have monikers like ‘claymore’ and ‘saber’.  These battle bots were failing remote tests because they could not respond fast enough, did not respond at all, or did things like firing off around 45 seconds after being issued the command to do so.  You could strip away the electronic protection on them, and give the operator faster reaction time, but then there is nothing to stop a local Al Qaeda operative, trained by a technician from a relatively unfriendly state, with a wireless connection and few tools of the electronic warfare trade, to hack in and either disable the robot on the field, or, in the worst case scenario, take remote control of these electronic weapons platforms and turn them on the soldiers standing right next to them.  Granted, that scenario is half a world away, but imagine small drones with live video feed hovering about, each one supposed protected by encryption on par with, say, any of the banks that have recently been hacked, or the police departments that have had their records compromised (and I can guarantee that the LAPD servers are not going to have the same encryption as government security contractor companies, or  international banking systems).

Lastly, the drones offer an odd stretch of police power reaching into the personal domain.  Currently police can fly over your house and if they see pot being grown in the back yard, they can get a warrant and conduct a raid.  It’s legal, there was a supreme court case on it, and it flew.  Drones will be able to do the same, but there is a twist regarding that maneuverability issue. Smaller drones means that they can go places helicopters and larger drones cannot.  So we can’t see anything in your yard, but what about that shed at the corner of your property.  We’re still flying, technically we’re not trespassing (you wait, this will be one of the first legal arguments), and we happened to peek in this window and saw that you had a shotgun.  We checked the state gun registration and you don’t have a shotgun on record with us.  That’s a bust.

Is it a silly scenario, absolutely, but it is completely plausible. Why put a GPS tracker on a criminal’s car when you can just tail him incessantly with a drone?  Easy way to get around that pesky warrant problem:

“no your honor, the drone was not following the individual in question.  It just happened to be everywhere he was going.”

You can see where this is going.

I am all for the thin blue line doing its thing and bringing in the bad guys, but with great power comes great responsibility, and this is another example of military tech rolling down to police departments that don’t need more military tech.  For the price of a drone operation system and related drones you could probably hire another dozen cops.  Humans that need jobs, can form intellectual and emotional bonds with the community, grown and learn, become leaders of the community, and, best of all, can’t be hacked to dive bomb cars on the I-95.