"The new way police are surveilling you"
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Calculating your threat ‘score’"
While officers raced to a recent 911 call about a man threatening his ex-girlfriend, a police operator in headquarters consulted software that scored the suspect’s potential for violence the way a bank might run a credit report.
The program scoured billions of data points, including arrest reports, property records, commercial databases, deep Web searches and the man’s social- media postings. It calculated his threat level as the highest of three color-coded scores: a bright red warning.
The man had a firearm conviction and gang associations, so out of caution police called a negotiator. The suspect surrendered, and police said the intelligence helped them make the right call — it turned out he had a gun.
As a national debate has played out over mass surveillance by the National Security Agency, a new generation of technology such as the Beware software being used in Fresno has given local law enforcement officers unprecedented power to peer into the lives of citizens. (read more)
12 comments:
It's better than having nothing to go on. Of course it could accidentally make the innocent seem more dangerous than they are, but I think that's the dangerous default position already, so this may help.
Surveillance, you say?
I changed auto insurance and am now with Progressive. I just received an email telling me that I'll be receiving my Snapshot device in the mail soon. --
As soon as it arrives, plug it in to keep saving with your initial Snapshot Participation Discount:
Locate your car's diagnostic port and plug in the device.
Start your car to activate the device. You'll hear three beeps each time you start your car to let you know it's plugged in correctly (in some cars the beeps may be delayed several minutes). You'll also hear one beep each time there's a hard brake.
Keep the device plugged in--we'll send you a postage-paid return package when it's time to return it.
I didn't realize this when I signed up, but they want to see what my driving habits are. Here's more --
For the best Snapshot experience:
Plug the device in right away to keep saving with your initial Participation Discount . If we can't detect the device, we can't see if you could save.
Check your Snapshot results early and often. Because your rate could go up, down or stay the same when your policy renews, it's important to log in and review your progress regularly so you have time to improve your results.
Use the early reports to gauge if Snapshot is a fit for you. If you like what you see, great. Keep the device plugged in. If not, you can opt out of Snapshot within the first 45 days after you sign up without penalty. You will, however, lose your initial Participation Discount. If you leave the program after 45 days, you'll experience a surcharge when your policy renews.
Not good, Flo.
This perfectly reasonable tool will be attacked as racist profiling in 3 2 1....
Just so long as the government isn't looking into radical Islam. That would be insensitive and would inspire radical Islamists to want to kill us even more.
Now I wonder what my threat assessment is.
A newspaper took my picture at a tea party rally in, I forget now, 2009?
For the record, I did not order one of these.
On the other hand, as in life, I don't get reward points for omission.
Just so long as the government isn't looking into radical Islam.
Are they going to make it so that the only way to have some privacy is to become a jihadi?
How low have we sunk?
AllenS experience is telling.
It'll cost you, if you want to have your privacy.
Yesterday I read an item that said the phone I just bought through the service I have has installed a "president's alert" like weather alert on cable that cannot be turned off, and I'm all, what? what? what? No way! That does it. You're dead to me. Then I looked and it's not there Psych! Punked again.
Comments: Can I respond to mandatory presidential alerts with a photo of my ass?
Another said, my two upraised fingers?
I do not have that in my settings, help says no emergency alert. Total punk. I must stop being so eager to find things to hate about this phone.
On the British crime dramas I watch, the look at the CCTV footage from cameras installed at street corners. We now have those I think? Is it a good idea or bad? Didn't something like that help ID the Marathon bombers?
Chip, it is probably there, because it is a FCC law. In this case, a Congress passed law monitored and managed by the FCC. It is not something developed by FCC regulators.
At first, I took issue with it. After all, I got tired of Amber Alerts for people missing some 700 miles away. But FCC exists because there are a finite number of transmitting frequencies, and they do need to be regulated or systems would be doing the equivalent of yelling over each other. On top of this, someone does get to be loudest voice. It was decided long ago, well before cellular phones, that the government had a need to be the loudest to help warn. From this decision was born the emergency broadcast system. This cellular version seems to be just an extension.
Sure, it is ripe for abuse. But it can also save lives. Considering it has yet to be used to tell us of Obama's last SOTU address or the glory of SCOTUS ruling to allow gay marriage; I think this power is being properly unexercised until absolutely needed.
As usual, Progressive policies are obnoxiously intrusive and involve submission to the BORG at the expense of your privacy, or some other longstanding cultural expectation, in exchange for a one-time discount that will probably vanish in a year or so as the "Snapshot Participation Program" (Smile!) becomes the default corporate expectation of its, er, paying customers.
"It'll cost you, if you want to have your privacy."
Solution: Make it costly to them to fuck with you.
When I applied for insurance with Progressive, like other auto insurance, I wanted a plan for a year. They said no, 6 months, so I paid for 6 months. When that 6 months is up, I think that I need to move on. I can't remember any discussion (on the phone) about a Snapshot device.
This is like trying to buy Viagra, and having someone say yes, but we need to put a camera in your bedroom.
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