Hennepin County Sheriffs Department has received approval from its Board to purchase a Kingfish cell phone tracking system. They were denied approval twice before from the board which had reservations over privacy issues.
The equipment would be used by the sheriff’s investigations bureau, according to County Board documents. “The system acts as a mobile wireless phone tower and has the capability to find, track and/or deny mobile phone service,” the documents state.
The tracking device can receive information from all cell phones that are on, even if they are not being used.
One scenario given by law enforcement for using the KingFish is tracking abduction victims via their cell phones.
Herman Jacob and his daughter were camping in South Carolina and found a hidden camera out in the woods. They went on to find that the US Forest service has been installing surveillance cameras since the Clinton days.
The above image is from an art exhibit called Seeing Green. The cameras placed in the woods are actually bird houses. The artist is Colin Matthes. More info here and here. This picture is not affiliated with the above story but says a lot about it.
The city of Chicago has 3000 CCTV cameras that are operated by the police department. They are in big boxes mounted on street lamps that are clearly marked as to what they are. Now the city wants to add covert cameras that wouldn’t be identified.
“We have blue-light cameras all over the city,” Weis said recently during a radio interview. “I think the next stage we’re going to go to is having more covert cameras.”
We all know that law enforcement has a serious Jonesing for new technology. They must spend an awful lot of time surfing Engadget and reading spy thrillers. It is way easier to get grant money for futuristic weapons and spy gadgets than it is to get salary to pay for new officers.
Hennepin County (my county) has decided to curb the fuzz’s techno-lust by shooting down a request for a new gadget. The Hennepin County Board voted 4 – 3 to not approve a request for a KingFish cell phone tracking system. Not to worry though because the local lovable branch of the FBI will gladly let Hennepin County its’ KingFish system anytime it is available.
My guess is that we have not heard the last of this. There are always ways to go around the vote of the County Board. Also with the vote being 4-3 all Sheriff Rich Stanek needs to do is get one member to side with him and everything is a go.
If you still doubt that aerial drones, similar to ones used in military combat missions, will never be used at home then think again. Recent accounts of British police using them during criminal pursuits and large demonstrations are popping up weekly. There has been very little in the way of announcements from these police departments as I’m sure they fear public backlash. This method of testing new technology and then setting policy latter is a dangerous precedent for police tactics.
Police departments keep very quiet until they have documented evidence of their new tools having caught some horrific crime. They then go on the marketing offensive, touting cost savings and the safety they will bring to officers. Like CCTV these drones will be an even easier sell here in the US because of the boost these sectors will bring to the economy. People who come out against these new systems will be labeled as anti-law enforcement or even anarchists.
Before the police have the chance to roll out such tools we need to be proactive in our opposition to such tools. These drones are not flying at 10,000 ft like their military cousins but able drop down and look in windows of houses. The real push will come from the private sector which stands to make millions of dollars in the sale of these devices to local law enforcement.
It must be nice to be Ramsey County Sheriff Bob Fletcher. He is a kid in a candy store. Over the last couple of years he has been able to fulfill his techno lust for every crime fighting device imaginable.
First he is having money thrown at him to protect the Republican National Convention and now he is given grants to install spy systems that he doesn’t even have a plan for.
The RNC allowed him to outnumber anarchists 100 – 1, with the most frightening show of force that the mid-west has ever seen. With his share of the military convention budget he was able to stockpile enough weapons, armor, chemicals and vehicles to stop a modern day Visigoth invasion.
Now he is putting up cameras around the county without a plan to monitor them. These CCTV systems have been shown by studies and experts to be a questionable expense in fighting crime. But money is no object when we talking about descent.
I’m sure next year there will be opportunities for Sheriff Bob to broaden his toolbox to include drone planes.
It is a slippery slope and allowing cameras now will only show precedence when the next technology comes along.
