The Glade 4.0

The fun question is "What happens when a surveilled party sells the device on eBay?"

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Charged with theft and wire fraud.

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“The duty of a patriot is to protect his country from its government.” - Thomas Paine

Reasonable suspicion that can be articulated in court is all I'm asking for. If they have that, obtaining a warrant shouldn't be an issue. Furthermore, A) no is asking for approval in the court of public opinion -- just in a court of law. What "people here" think isn't relevant. B) It's not as though obtaining a warrant before deploying this technology is some insurmountable obstacle that brings law enforcement to a grinding halt anymore than requiring a warrant before a wiretap. Hell, this technology wasn't even available until recently, so you're going to have a hard time convincing me that law enforcement needs this technology so badly (and immediately!) that waiting for warrant is some terrible imposition.


Technically, as long as you don't impersonate a police officer or pretend to be an agent of the municipality in question, it wouldn't be illegal to issue someone a traffic ticket as a private citizen -- it would just be silly and unenforceable. With respect to arrests, I don't think the difference is a huge as you think it is. For municipal violations, private citizens probably can't legally pull someone over, because it's a municipal matter, not a criminal one, and they aren't an agent authorized by the municipality to enforce their traffic codes. But then, they can't enforce traffic rules for 3rd-party private entities, either. They can, however, attempt to enforce their own private traffic/parking rules on their own private property. This is exactly what private campus security does in many places, for instance. Also, while a private citizen may not be able to pull someone over for running a red light, they could certainly file a civil lawsuit akin to a municipal charge against the perpetrator. People generally don't, but they could.

As for criminal violations, I think the difference is even smaller. In most cases, someone witnessing criminal activity can certainly detain someone until the proper authorities arrive, especially for violent crime. Non-violent crime may be a little iffy. Vandalism? Probably. Embezzlement? Unlikely.

But in any case, where arrest and citation powers are concerned, these have been granted for the simple reason that we all understand it would be impossible to enforce the law without them, and that requiring a warrant before these actions would utterly cripple law enforcement. Not so with the GPS transponders, as I explained above. They're nice to have, but hardly an essential component for law enforcement.

Secondly, and more importantly, wrongful arrest is criminal. If a police officer uses their arrest powers in an unethical or unjustified way, they can be held criminally liable for it. One of the problems with this ruling vis-a-vis the GPS transponders is that it places no restrictions on their use and leaves private citizens with no recourse if their use is abused. By declaring that their use is no different than conventional observation, the police essentially don't have to answer for their use any more than they have to answer for why they deploy patrol units to one location vs. another. This is a problem.


I guess I was too obtuse in my previous post. The derivative of position vs. time is velocity. I'm alluding to the potential for tagging random vehicles for an automated speed citation system. This would absolutely be a cash cow. Why do you think that police departments have become so enamored with automated red-light cameras, automated speed traps, and automated toll enforcment cameras in recent years? They're a great source of revenue, while at the same time being safer than the alternative of using personnel to make traffic stops. And then, of course, there are things like catching people making illegal U-turns. That's very easy to do; even common consumer navigation devices these days know where median cuts occur, and the more sophisticated ones know speed limits, turn restrictions, and so forth. In many locations, you could even tie in to the municipal traffic control SCADA system to catch people turning right on red where it's prohibited, etc. The potential is there to realize virtually perfect traffic enforcement in most areas, save those for which present GPS is too imprecise to detect.

But given the pace of technology and and an economy of scale, it's not unrealistic to predict that, in the very near future, it would be economical to deploy these to everyone as a requirement for operating a motor vehicle, and for the transponders to have at least 1-meter resolution. That's sufficient to automatically detect all sorts of behavior like reckless driving (weaving in-and-out traffic, following too closely, etc.), illegally driving on the shoulder, etc. Not to mention being able to highlight erratic driving strongly suggestive of DWI, and being able to dispatch an officer to the scene immediately and automatically.


In general, I don't think you're really grasping the full potential of this sort of data mining, and you're overestimating the technological hurdles. Systems like this are already being used both publicly and privately in various capacities. And interest is picking up among police departments to use data-mining systems for their predictive value (again, see LAPD in this thread). All that's really needed is for someone to put all the pieces together into one package.

You're not looking at the bigger picture. You're only considering the narrow possibility of using position data by itself for direct arrest purposes. There are much richer and more useful purposes. First of all, let's make the simple observation that we're talking about more than just random positional blips devoid of any context. Even if the transmitters are deployed "at random", we have to assume that the police are smart to enough to write down the plates and VIN of the vehicles they attach them to, so as to know who they're monitoring.

Now think bigger than just random deployment. Start tagging the vehicles of known or suspected gang members. Use the data to start mapping out gang turfs in a GIS system, and use that to configure optimal patrol deployment. Analyze the data for patterns of congregation that suggest gang hideouts. Use it to determine when one gang is making incursions into another's territory to predict likely armed conflicts.

Tag drug dealers and use the data to model where specific types of drugs are going. Use the patterns to identify likely buyers and suppliers, and use this to work your way up the food chain. Use it to find out, in real-time, when known dealers are hanging out around schools, parks, etc.

The system gets even more powerful when you tie it in to property data from the local appraisal district, existing criminal records, and so forth. There's all sorts of potential uses that you're not even considering. You could see when a known armed robber (repeat offender) has been meeting frequently with known accomplices and driving around casing jewelry stores or high value homes (whatever his predilections may be, based on criminal record). It's not as good as having every citizen wearing an ankle bracelet, sure, but it still adds a wealth of data to feed automated analysis and predictive systems. This is precisely the use that you heralded as being a good idea in the thread I linked earlier; you just aren't taking the idea far enough.

Finally, there's no reason why this kind of system has to "overload" the police department with constant reports. Data that can be automatically analyzed can also be automatically filtered. My server here at work generates thousands of messages in its system log every error, but even though some of these message are indicative of warnings, or even errors, it rarely actually notifies me by sending email to the root account, or whatever. It has a sense of priorities, and can be tweaked to inform me only in those instances when I really want to be alerted. There's no reason that you couldn't do the same with real-time GIS analysis.

The situation is not that different from, say, spam analysis. Heuristic algorithms can be tweaked and adjusted with somewhat arbitrary granularity until you get exactly the sensitivity you want out of the system. Or, if you want to get really sophisticated, hook the parameters up to some kind of neural net feedback system and use a real human to train it until it learns what does and doesn't resemble a good report. Such systems have already been deployed to analyze arbitrary data like EKG readouts and identify how likely it is that the pattern represents a particular type of heart condition. The freaky part is that after adequate training, the neural nets were better at predicting the condition than expert cardiologists. Again, I don't think you realize what's really possible in the here-in-now, and more than just possible -- affordable. You would be surprised at just how much processing power is available with relatively inexpensive "off-the-shelf" hardware.

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Sail forth! steer for the deep waters only!
Reckless, O soul, exploring, I with thee, and thou with me;
For we are bound where mariner has not yet dared to go,
And we will risk the ship, ourselves and all.

Sorry I stepped away from this thread for a while, trying to catch up.


What would be an example of abuse/misuse?


So your problem is that it would be too effective a deterrant to crime or that cops will know now when you are breaking the law?


So your argument here is that it would reveal too much about crime patterns and criminal proclivities?

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Hopwin:

I believe Stathol's argument is that none of those things are 1) Constitutional or 2) Evident of a free society.


Edit: Nm. See what I get for putting word's in the Stat-hole's mouth?

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“The duty of a patriot is to protect his country from its government.” - Thomas Paine

No, not exactly. I'm just offering a response to Diamondeye's assertion that this technology is only useful for specific investigations with prior suspicion, and that it wouldn't be "worth their while" to deploy them in any other way.

In general, so many of these surveillance arguments revolve around "oh, don't worry about that -- it wouldn't be worth the police's time to do, X, Y, Z.". The problem with this kind of thinking is that we're moving into an era of automated information processing and pattern analysis that fundamentally and dramatically alters the relationship between between time, effort, and money. As the time and effort required to accomplish something approaches zero (and the exponential growth of computing power will do exactly that...), what it becomes "worth the effort" for law enforcement to do is very different question. Where there is essentially no appreciable cost, or where the cost is less than the benefits, the question stops being "why would they do that", but rather, "why not?"

There's no question that, if the technology existed for total, omnipresent surveillance and its associated automated analysis, and if that technology were affordable, it would be a hands-down win for law enforcement. But it would certainly suck for everyone else. We're not there yet, but we're getting closer than you might think given the geometric growth of information processing technology. We're already dealing with some of these issues now, which is precisely what this thread is about. The time to be pushing back against "surveillance creep", as Khross put it is now, while the door is still only open just a crack. This is a genie that will be very difficult to put back in the bottle. The technology that I've described is mostly feasible now. The only reason it hasn't seen wider user is that frankly, law enforcement has been been slow to wake up to the potential. They're catching on a bit with the existing automated systems I alluded to (traffic cameras, etc.), but they haven't quite caught wind of the big picture. In general, law enforcement tends to be pretty technically incompetent and slow to catch up with the rest of the world. During the hay-day of the 80s and 90s, the FBI was the perpetual butt of the security world's jokes due to their inability to keep up with pace of the rest of the world. It took them quite awhile to get their collective head of out the sand and get reasonably caught up. We're in a similar position now with respect to surveillance and surveillance processing technology.

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Sail forth! steer for the deep waters only!
Reckless, O soul, exploring, I with thee, and thou with me;
For we are bound where mariner has not yet dared to go,
And we will risk the ship, ourselves and all.

Big Brother is watching you... and some here seem to be arguing in favor of it. Hmmmmm.....

While we're not there yet, that could be the slope we're on. Better to fix it now than try to fix it later.

Big Brother has always been watching you.

Why would I do that? You already stated what the measures were: Forcing them to scan vehicles for the devices. As for criminals using them to feed misinformation, that's a possibility but we're already talking about a fairly sophisticated criminal here. Most criminals won't be able to do so convincingly.



I don't see how you think this is the best case scenario. The best case is the criminal is unable to detect it at all. Not all criminals are sophisticated movie-type technology mavens.

In any case, all those things the investigator would have to do, they would have to do anyhow, and if they did not, they would have to invest time and effort in other means of investigation anyhow.



I think you are making it sound more difficult than it actually is, and I really don't think you have much basis on with to know how much effort any given type of investigation requires.

I do know a little something about covert GPS devices, and that's all I have to say on that.

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"Hysterical children shrieking about right-wing anything need to go sit in the corner and be quiet while the adults are talking."

"Could be the slope we're on" is not much of an argument. This is exactly the "We've got to do something NOW!" logic used in favor of major regulation to combat HIGCC.

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"Hysterical children shrieking about right-wing anything need to go sit in the corner and be quiet while the adults are talking."

In which case, you have not been reading what I've been saying very carefully. I do think the burden of reasonable suspicion ought to be met before emplacing these devices, just not probable cause.

The reason it wouldn't be worth while to simply slap them down everywhere is that regardless of how good the information processing is, you'd still have only one, very limited type of information, and you'd have it in droves. - far beyond anything useful.

Regardless, furthermore, of the amount of effort to process the information, the effort and expense to make each of these devices and emplace them would grow rapidly - and they would not have an unlimited lifespan. Power supplies and exposure to the elements would take their toll no matter what.

The problem Rafael mentions of cost reverses itself once you start putting them all over the place for no reason: It takes time, effort, and energy to do all these things in order to get information that is of no great use in the absence of some other reason for suspicion.

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"Hysterical children shrieking about right-wing anything need to go sit in the corner and be quiet while the adults are talking."

If you allow the government to secretly attach tracking devices to vehicles, then next thing you know, you'll have a Death Star knocking on your door.

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Why would I have a problem with total surveillance when in public? I am not a criminal and don't do anything in public that I'd be squeamish about anyone seeing (in case the argument is made that this data will be leaked somehow).

If a police officer knocked on my door tomorrow and said can I put a GPS device on your car to see where you go, I'd agree. Hell if a college student said they were doing a study I'd agree. In fact insurance companies are already doing this as a way to get to a pay-per-usage method of buying auto insurance and further some cars have blackboxes similar to aircraft that record pre-collision data, including audio and I haven't seen that data abused either.

I guess I feel like the only people who should fear surveillance are criminals, but considering how naive and trusting I am (see all my relationship posts) I might be considered a pie-eyed optimist.

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Because those two situations are so comparable.

I've got no words.

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"Dress cops up as soldiers, give them military equipment, train them in military tactics, tell them they’re fighting a ‘war,’ and the consequences are predictable." —Radley Balko

I approve of this ruling/opinion.

As for the argument that covert GPS tracking of your car is no more an invasion of privacy than human surveillance because your car has no expectation of privacy because you drive it in public:

How do you feel about bump-plants of GPS transceivers onto your coat's collar, then? Is this an invasion of privacy, because after all, you wear your coat in public on public streets?

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"Aaaah! Emotions are weird!" - Amdee
"... Mirrorshades prevent the forces of normalcy from realizing that one is crazed and possibly dangerous. They are the symbol of the sun-staring visionary, the biker, the rocker, the policeman, and similar outlaws." - Bruce Sterling, preface to Mirrorshades

As I acknowledged above I know I'm the minority. I just cannot wrangle how tracking (or even filming) someone in public is an invasion of privacy. People see me go in and out of stores, at the park, pulling into my friends. I just can't fathom how this could be abused.

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I will remember this when you are branded a domestic terrorist because they have GPS data that links you to a friends house and this person of interest happened to be a military veteran who is now on a national watchlist.... etc, etc.

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Darksiege
Traveller, Calé, Whisperer
Lead me not into temptation; for I know a shortcut

It's not even "abuse" I'm concerned about. The concept that if you're doing nothing wrong you shouldn't be worried about law enforcement intrusion into your life is, to me, head-in-the-sand naive. I know it sounds tin-foil conspiratorial to stress to people that they will, in all probability, do something today that they could be prosecuted for under existing laws, but it's really something that is worthy of consideration.



Full text

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"Dress cops up as soldiers, give them military equipment, train them in military tactics, tell them they’re fighting a ‘war,’ and the consequences are predictable." —Radley Balko

I get that and respect other people's position. I've learned the hard way that I am too trusting of our systems and people in general.

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Heheh, I forgot about those instances, Hop.

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"Dress cops up as soldiers, give them military equipment, train them in military tactics, tell them they’re fighting a ‘war,’ and the consequences are predictable." —Radley Balko

For what it's worth, Silverglate's book is phenomenal, well-sourced, and a must-read in my opinion.

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“The duty of a patriot is to protect his country from its government.” - Thomas Paine

If you recognize a flaw then act to change that flaw.

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"...but there exists also in the human heart a depraved taste for equality, which impels the weak to attempt to lower the powerful to their own level and reduces men to prefer equality in slavery to inequality with freedom." - De Tocqueville

That reminds me, has anyone here read Prison Nation? If so, what did you think of it? I can't tell if this is something I want to bother reading, or if it's just schlock.

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Sail forth! steer for the deep waters only!
Reckless, O soul, exploring, I with thee, and thou with me;
For we are bound where mariner has not yet dared to go,
And we will risk the ship, ourselves and all.

Because:



We could hire people to dump bags of wet leaves over criminal's vehicles and they'd be force to constantly spend time and effort clearing them to use their vehicle, but obviously that wouldn't be a cost or time efficient way to force them to use their resources. While this might skirt on the edges of vandalism, other such measures could be employed to waste criminal resources.

So to just simply assert that it forces them to take measures which waste their time and money isn't convincing. Like I said before, scanning a vehicle is incredibly easy, transponders have very distinct RFI signature which can be located quickly. It can be located with less effort and financial resources than took to plant it.

And it does not require sophisticated efforts to use the bug to dupe investigation. For instance, the bug could easily be transferred to another vehicle, even one the criminal has no idea who it belongs to. The criminal could also lend the car to a friend for their leisure ... perhaps the friend is taking a vacation. It would not require cracking open the transponder and altering the solid state electronics or something. He could also just throw it in the nearest alley dumpster or whatever happens to be nearby.



True, that would be the best case scenario. But again, we are talking in the context of being able to place them without a warrant. The assumption is that placing them without a warrant means they are being used fairly consistently in lieu of assigning an investigator to simply follow the vehicle and note its location and requiring a warrant would bog down the ability to use such devices in numerous scenarios.

If they are used consistently, then it becomes routine for criminals to make searches for such devices. And such searches are easy and basic.



Exactly. So I don't see the argument for use of transponders saving them effort. In cases where they do successfully install them, it seems to me that there is fairly obvious way to detect them, and the effort involved in installing such a device isn't minimal. Certainly not such that it saves resources vice the risk of the device simply failing.



I do know that attaching a device so it functions and isn't quickly destroyed by the elements requires a pretty specific location from vehicle to vehicle. The problem of field engineering it is met with time and circumstantial constraints. Adhesives fail in the temperature, especially that present underneath the car, and other locations cause problems that draw attention. For instance, putting it inside the wheel's outer diameter would cause immediate and massive imbalance unless the wheel was counterbalanced which requires either analyzing the current moment of inertia and finding a solution in terms of mass and location or mounting it and doing it with measurement techniques. Mechanical clamping devices are met with the challenge of field configuration not really working as intended with the design of the clamp.

I do agree that for catching mundane criminal types placing such a device would most likely work or even falsely implying that such a device was placed could cause a criminal to incriminate himself.

I just disagree with any notions (not specific to anyone) that these devices will be that useful in a number of reasons. Hence, I don't see the problem with also requiring a warrant for a plant.

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"It's real, grew up in trife life, the times of white lines
The hype vice, murderous nighttimes and knife fights invite crimes" - Nasir Jones