X-From_: info@notbored.org Sat Feb 15 18:48:59 2003 X-Original-To: info@notbored.org X-Sender: notbored@popserver.panix.com Date: Sat, 15 Feb 2003 18:44:36 -0500 To: me<info@notbored.org>From: NOT BORED!<info@notbored.org>Subject: clipping service: surveillance cameras in the news Status: RO X-Status: This clipping service is provided by the Surveillance Camera Players. https://notbored.org/the-scp.html To unsubscribe, reply with the words "But I don't like spam!" ------------------------------------------------------------------- 1. Hotel loses lawsuit (USA) 2. Orange County blimp firm to bid on defense contract (USA) 3. Video surveillance gains popularity (USA) 4. Surveillance on beat 24/7 (USA) 5. Nerve center keeps freeway traffic running (USA) ------------------------------------------------------------------- 1. Hotel loses lawsuit: Former clerk to get $500,000 for wiring of bar, front desk Toby Coleman Daily Mail staff Friday February 07, 2003; 10:30 AM In a ruling with implications for businesses across the state, a Kanawha County jury ordered the owner of a Cross Lanes hotel to pay $500,000 for bugging the hotel's front desk and bar. Jurors said the award, given Wednesday to one of the Comfort Inn's former desk clerks, was meant to send a clear message: listening in on employees and customers is an illegal invasion of privacy. "It was a snoopy system," said juror Bobbie Martin. "It's something that just shouldn't be done." In an age when surveillance cameras are perched nearly everywhere, the Cross Lanes Comfort Inn may not be the only business with a security system capable of monitoring conversations. According to the hotel's lawyers, a number of other West Virginia businesses have buffeted their video surveillance with microphones. The claim, however, could not be independently verified Thursday. During trial, the hotel withdrew what it claimed to be a list of businesses with audio monitoring capabilities because it couldn't confirm that it was accurate. The six-person jury's decision raised the possibility that the hotel and its owner, Gregory Hicks, violated the state's wiretapping law by installing and using an audio surveillance system. When asked during pre-trial questioning if he ever listened to the sounds picked up by the system, Hicks invoked his Fifth Amendment right to refuse to give testimony that could incriminate him. Hicks refused to comment on the verdict because he plans to appeal. The jury gave Brad S. Bowyer, 38, of St. Albans $100,000 in compensatory damages and $400,000 in punitive damages for the emotional trauma Bowyer said he suffered as a result of the monitoring. Bowyer's lawyer, Jim Lees, said the verdict clearly showed that Americans won't tolerate businesses listening in on them. "Americans still have an expectation of privacy in private conversations, and we will not permit employers through the guise of security' to invade that privacy," Lees said. Two jurors interviewed Thursday said that they gave Bowyer the large award because they believed the Comfort Inn's audio surveillance was illegal. "I don't want what I think to be my private conversations intercepted by anyone," said Martin, a Cross Lanes retiree who sat on the jury. "I think it's pretty well established that, at least in state law, that's a violation." Juror Teresa Mace, a state worker from Charleston, said that the hotel's claim that other businesses are doing it didn't make the audio surveillance acceptable. "Everybody speeds on the Interstate, but that doesn't mean the speed limits are wrong," she said. She said that the jury didn't buy the company's claims that the audio monitoring helped protect the hotel and ensure that customers were waited on quickly and efficiently. "It seemed pretty clear to me that there wasn't any actual purpose for an audio feed," Mace said. The Comfort Inn installed audio and video surveillance equipment in its front desk and bar area about five years ago, according to court documents. Hicks, the hotel's owner, said he decided to start using the system after a salesman from a Jacksonville, Fla., company convinced him that it would be completely legal. The system fed a constant audio and video feed into a small office near the hotel's front desk. Hicks also owned equipment that allowed him to monitor the feeds from his house. The system's microphones were quite sensitive, according to Lees. In one recording Bowyers took from the hotel, a man making a phone call from the front desk can be heard giving his name, address and credit card information, Lees said. Bowyers said he learned about the surveillance system a few days after he began working at the hotel in April 2000. He said co-workers at the front desk told him to speak carefully because "supervisors were monitoring our conversations." Once he discovered that the hotel did have microphones in the bar and front desk, he went to Lees. The two sued the hotel's corporate owner, Hi-Lad of Vienna, in August 2000, saying that it violated the state's wiretapping law and emotionally traumatized Bowyer by listening in on his conversations. The hotel fired him in February 2001. Bowyer filed a wrongful discharge suit against the hotel last year, saying it didn't give a reason for dismissing him. In the eavesdropping suit, the hotel said Bowyer didn't deserve any money because his bosses told him when they hired him that he would be monitored. It also argued that Bowyer didn't have any definitive proof that the hotel recorded his conversations. The suit also originally named Choice Hotels International, a hotel franchise that the Cross Lanes Comfort Inn belongs to. But Bowyer dropped Choice Hotels from the case after discovering that Choice Hotels didn't require its member inns to install audio monitoring equipment, Lees said. http://www.dailymail.com/news/News/2003020716/ 2. O.C. blimp firm to bid on defense contract Sunday, February 9, 2003 By JEFF ROWE The Orange County Register Blimps were a signature part of Orange County's military past; they may be part of the county's defense future. A Defense Department plan to build and position five unmanned blimps along both coasts could provide a use for the old blimp hangars in Tustin. As proposed, the airships would be crammed with 2 tons of surveillance gear and hover in place at an altitude of 70,000 feet, well above air traffic and weather. Laguna Beach-based Blimp World Inc. says it will bid on the first step in the project, a $50 million to $100 million contract to build a test version of one of the high-altitude blimps, which the United States hopes will help prevent terrorist attacks. "The cameras planned for the blimps are so sensitive they can zoom in on a golf ball on the ground," said Terry Barnes, president of the company. If he gets the contract, Barnes said he wants to use two airplane hangars at the old El Toro Marine base to cut the fabric and stitch together the blimp bag; the empty airship then would be trucked to one of the Tustin hangars for inflation with helium. Blimp World also wants to build blimps that would be based in Orange County and haul passengers aloft for sightseeing. Barnes has agreed to give backers of a military museum at one of the hangars a portion of ticket sales from the rides. In return, the museum would promote the rides on its Web site. In the defense contract, though, Barnes will be competing with industry titans. Lockheed Martin Corp. says it will bid on the project. If it is successful, the aerospace company will build the airships at its Akron, Ohio, blimp complex. The blimp project is intriguing for Orange County because it could provide at least a temporary use for one or perhaps both of the blimp hangars at the old Tustin Marine Corps Air Facility. And a blimp project in Orange County would cheer a North Tustin man who has spent his life flying blimps, working on blimp projects, or thinking about the big, slow airships. Herb Biedebach is president of the Naval Airship Association, which counts 1,130 people blimp pilots, experts and enthusiasts as its members. Biedebach flew blimps in World War II, cruising hundreds of miles off the California coast searching for enemy submarines and floating mines. After the war, he flew blimps that patrolled the coast watching over Soviet trawlers outfitted with spy gear. Biedebach thinks the high- altitude surveillance role is perfect for the big airships. "When you need a stable platform, that's where blimps come in," he said. As proposed by the Defense Department, five blimps would be positioned off the West Coast and five off the East Coast. Although blimps have been retired from military service for 40 years, they clearly are gaining favor as a possible national security tool. Aerostats, which are low-altitude blimps tethered to Earth, have been watching the Gulf Coast for about 15 years, mostly using their sensors to track drug smugglers. Each of the proposed high- altitude blimps would carry up to 2 tons of camera, radar and other surveillance equipment, peeking down on a 700-mile radius. A role for the blimps in telecommunications also is envisioned. Solar panels would generate enough electricity to power the cameras and other gear and power the propellers or other propulsion used to get the blimp to its assigned location and keep the blimp in place. The airships would be unmanned, which among other things, relieves the problem of keeping pilots warm. The air temperature at that altitude is well below freezing. Unlike satellites, a blimp can be directed back to Earth when its surveillance equipment, or the blimp itself, needs repair. The blimps would be expected to remain aloft for a year between Earth maintenance visits. "It's a viable concept," says James DeLaurier, a professor of aerospace engineering at the University of Toronto and an expert on blimps and other exotic aircraft. DeLaurier is intrigued by the extremes in aircraft size. Besides blimp research, he also is developing micro air vehicles, devices that can fly down a hallway, for example, and poke an on-board mini-camera into a room that might be filled with, say, armed terrorists. But it's the blimps that are the focus of intense effort by DeLaurier, Blimp World, Lockheed and other companies. Chicago-based Boeing Co. and Canoga Park-based World Wide Aeros also have been invited to bid on the project, the Defense Department said, but neither company returned calls. Boeing builds the Air Force C-17 cargo plane in Long Beach and has aerospace operations in Seal Beach. The Defense Department says it expects to award the contract for the test airship in April. If the high-altitude surveillance blimp project is successful, the advanced blimp technology may herald a new age for the big airships. Among other proposals floating around Washington are blimps big enough to unload container ships or haul a brigade of soldiers. http://www2.ocregister.com/ocrweb/ocr/article.do?id=24617&section=LOCAL&subsection=LOCAL&year=2003&month=2&day=9 3. Video surveillance gains popularity First published: Sunday, February 9, 2003 -- Dennis Yusko The idea of installing video surveillance to combat crime and vandalism has grown popular in some small communities of the Capital Region. Saratoga County's two cities, Mechanicville and Saratoga Springs, have already installed surveillance equipment, and Schenectady is considering it. In the suburbs, the Malta Town Board is grappling with installing cameras at two town parks. It set aside $14,000 in this year's budget after the bathrooms at the Plains Road Park and the Shenentaha Creek Park were vandalized. "It's a slippery slope of sorts," Supervisor David R. Meager said recently. "Everywhere you go today, there's cameras. The question is: Is privacy being invaded?" In other parts of the country, cameras recently caught a mother shaking, slapping and punching her 4-year-old daughter in an Indiana parking lot and provided a last chilling glimpse of terrorist Mohammed Atta boarding a plane on the morning of 9/11. At least 2,397 surveillance cameras monitor the streets of Manhattan, according to the Electronic Privacy Information Center of Washington, D.C. In the nation's capital, hundreds of cameras, some with night-vision capability, watch over the monuments and streets. http://www.timesunion.com/AspStories/story.asp?storyID=103666&category=FRONTPG&BCCode=HOME&newsdate=2/9/2003 4. Surveillance on beat 24/7: Hidden cameras spur the debate between security, privacy By DENNIS YUSKO, Staff writer First published: Sunday, February 9, 2003 Mechanicville-- Investigator James Fiorino once patrolled this one-square-mile city with a German shepherd. Starting this month, he'll be manning a high-tech wireless surveillance camera system. The mobile system consists of a VCR and small cameras, which will be disguised in miscellaneous fixtures on city streets and in items such as pens and smoke detectors in stores. The cameras will be placed in designated high-crime areas without warning to crack down on rising rates of vandalism, drug dealing and employee theft from private businesses, Police Chief Joseph Waldron said. The cameras transmit signals to the VCR. Fiorino and other officers later view the tapes, watching for crimes. "I want to make Mechanicville the safest place to live," Waldron said in a recent report to the City Council, in which he detailed a recent crime wave. "We've got to be proactive." Around the Capital Region, surveillance cameras have existed for years. They can be found in schools such as Shenendehowa, Crossgates Mall, Albany International Airport, the Cohoes police station, Albany County jail, and on buses, roads and banking machines. But now, faced with stalled economies and rising crime, some small cities are using public surveillance as one of their primary tools to catch criminals. Police and some neighborhood activists say video surveillance can cut down on crime and improve neighborhoods. But others argue the practice is riddled with potential pitfalls, tramples on civil liberties and might not work. Nine swiveling cameras costing $50,000 were installed in birdhouse-like structures in Congress Park in Saratoga Springs in 1999 after two teenagers vandalized the historic Spit and Spat statue. They are turned on between midnight and dawn and monitored by the Department of Public Works dispatcher. Mayor Kenneth Klotz, who took office months after the City Council voted to install the cameras, remains uncertain about them. "My desire is to not impose on private citizens the systemic oversight by government of everything they are doing. I'm not comfortable with surveillance. It should be used as a last resort and with reluctance." The state has 17 highway cameras in the Capital Region, the first eight of which went up in 1999, to track the flow of traffic. Schenectady officials have weighed installing surveillance on crime-plagued Emmett Street in Hamilton Hill and the Vale area of the city since August. In June, members of Schenectady's Hamilton Hill Neighborhood Association erected a camera to watch over the new tennis courts at Jerry Burell Park. That video is broadcast live over the Internet on http://hamcam1.tripod.com. "By doing that, we will make the children of this community safer," said Joanne Johnson of Schenectady Street, who said she supports increasing the number of cameras in the neighborhood. Camera usage can cut both ways. At least one surveillance camera was put into a Schenectady police patrol car in May to record officers interacting with the public. The Mechanicville Police Department championed surveillance video most recently. Waldron, an ambitious 34-year-old, began ordering the use of a hand-held camcorder to target problem areas a few months after he took office in June 2001. Mobile cameras have monitored retail squares, city streets and the city garage for everything from theft to illegal dumping. One video sting in 2001 resulted in about 30 students being suspended from high school for smoking cigarettes and pot on a staircase. Last week, after a local businessman reported two suspicious men in his store, city police set up the new surveillance camera to record the men. An investigation determined the pair, Herbert J. Hutchins, 47, and Michael J. Griggs, 42, were wanted in the Binghamton area for violating parole. Police and parole officers from the state Division of Parole's Absconder Unit took the subjects into custody and both were sent to county jail and face parole violation charges, Fiorino said. Linda Guzelak of First Street, a mother of three kids, said she supports the school's policy of using cameras on school buses. She added, though, that she preferred extra DARE officers working with children to random surveillance. "I'm not in for sneaking video cameras," she said. Heidi Seigfried, interim executive director for the American Civil Liberties Union Capital Region Chapter, said surveillance creates concerns about the potential for privacy invasion and discriminatory targeting. She said studies in Britain, where cameras are used more frequently, showed that surveillance is not effective. "There's no proven effectiveness. We give up all these civil liberties and what increase in security are we getting?" Seigfried said. "Criminals will just move away -- delocalize somewhere else in the county or region," said Cedric Laurant, staff counsel for the Electronic Privacy Information Center, a public interest research center in Washington, D.C., formed to protect privacy. Laurant added that the people operating the cameras and viewing the tapes could target minorities or spy on women. But Waldron said he believes the new wireless system, purchased from Supercircuits of Liberty Hill, Texas, is the best way to halt what he calls a recent crime spree. During 2001, criminal arrests jumped from 237 to 419, or 77 percent; felony arrests more than tripled from 22 to 68; and the department handled more than 10,000 calls for the first time in its history, Waldron said. "People are desperate. No one has stable jobs anymore. And when that happens, crime increases," Waldron said. Employers in the city are concerned about employee theft, including money, store supplies and items such as lottery tickets, police said. Cameras hidden in everyday items will be used in stores at the request of owners. One camera and the VCR cost approximately $1,000, not including installation, monitoring time and management, Waldron said. Fiorino misses K-9 duty, but he said the new technology would assist him in his work. "We had a problem last year with kids destroying a Laundromat. This system would have been really useful because you can't sit there and watch it 24/7," Fiorino said. http://www.timesunion.com/aspstories/storyprint.asp?storyID=103692 5. Nerve center keeps freeway traffic running 02/10/03 JOE FITZGIBBON The next time your car breaks down, or you're forced to the side of the road, stay calm. And smile. The Oregon Department of Transportation may be watching you. From deep inside its Old Town command center, quick-response operators with the department keep their eyes on a wall of monitors that transmit images from more than 70 cameras along freeways and state highways. Within seconds of a vehicle mishap, responders such as Darren Branum spring into action. From his semicircular console, Branum quickly zooms in a camera on the disabled vehicle. He snatches a microphone, checks an electronic map and pages one of the agency's roving Comet emergency response trucks. He continues to study the screen and directs police or emergency vehicles to the scene if they are needed. In less than five minutes, help is on the way. "Our primary job is to keep traffic moving safely," Branum said. "A lane tie-up of one minute can back up things for miles, and if you've got an accident or stall, it can be a real mess." The command center opened in 1997 with 10 cameras and hookups to a few ramp meters at freeway entrances. In an effort to keep pace with the region's growing congestion and nearly 1,800 roadside emergencies a month, administrators put Comet dispatchers on duty around the clock, seven days a week. A quick response is critical. Studies estimate that every minute of blocked roadway creates as much as seven minutes of traffic congestion. A single accident taking 30 minutes to clear can result in nearly three hours of tie-ups in adjacent lanes. Meanwhile, inside the command center, a trio of operators rely on computers, traffic monitoring equipment and surveillance cameras to identify incidents or accidents along the region's network of highways. During rush hours, the center bustles with activity. Operators work as a team to link up with law enforcement agencies and emergency crews through a dozen radio frequencies that crackle nearby. Branum recounts scores of accidents and disabled vehicles he's encountered during the past two years. He has dealt with truck spills, animals on the freeway, high water and police chases. Assisting a stranded driver safely back onto the road gives him personal satisfaction. But he admits that there's an adrenaline rush when he helps nab a criminal, as when Branum responded to a call that some juveniles had set a fire along the freeway. "I scanned the area with one of our cameras, and there they were walking along the overpass," he said. "I got in touch with the closest patrol car and really felt good when they captured them." Stranded motorists who call in on their cell phones are often surprised when they hear a voice from the command center. "One woman really freaked out when she started to describe her location, and I told her that I could already see her," Branum added. "Most people aren't aware that our cameras are out there, until they get into trouble." Center handles reader boards In addition to handling traffic and emergency radio calls, command center operators control messages on freeway reader boards, set the timing for most of the on-ramp signal lights, and alert agencies, radio and television stations of poor road conditions. "I have to keep focused, because there are a lot of people depending on me," said Mark Dorin, who formerly worked as a truck dispatcher. "I love the pace and the fact that it's always changing." During each of the next two years, the transportation agency will spend about $3 million to install additional traffic sensors -- circular cutouts that measure traffic volume -- add more reader boards and coordinate response efforts with regional law enforcement agencies, including Southwest Washington. Cameras will be added along Interstate 84, west on the Sunset Highway and along southern portions of Interstate 205. As with larger cities such as Seattle and San Francisco, Portland will rely more and more on technology, instead of road construction, to solve some of its traffic problems. Privacy is protected. But Richard Santa Ana, who supervises the traffic center, said neither motorists nor nearby residents should worry that Big Brother is watching. None of the video data is recorded, and operators are forbidden from using the roadway cameras for anything except monitoring traffic. "All of our people are highly trained to handle stress and deal calmly with the public, but they're also quite aware of privacy issues," Santa Ana said. Traffic reporters tap into the data or view the monitors from a small glass-encased studio at the department's regional headquarters and relay road conditions to their listeners. Plans call for TriMet drivers and truck fleet owners to use the information to adjust schedules for their vehicles. "The challenge is that sometimes the situation changes so quickly that drivers have little time to react," said Dennis Mitchell, regional traffic engineer. "We know that the quicker the center responds, the less of a bottleneck out on the highway." Speeding and careless drivers are equally difficult to control. "I had to watch a man get hit as he walked around to the back of his stalled vehicle," said Branum. "If I could tell people one thing, it would be stay with their vehicle. We'll find you." Will increased monitoring and added technology make driving less stressful? Even with scores of sensors and cameras, some problems remain. These include tie-ups occurring out of sight of reader boards and ramp lights that aren't coordinated with traffic from nearby feeder streets. "We may never completely solve the problems, but we're keeping it from getting worse," Mitchell said. "There are simply more cars and trucks out there than road capacity." http://www.oregonlive.com/portland/oregonian/index.ssf?/base/portland_news/1044709490247310.xml X-From_: info@notbored.org Sat Feb 15 19:43:35 2003 X-Original-To: info@notbored.org X-Sender: notbored@popserver.panix.com (Unverified) Date: Sat, 15 Feb 2003 19:39:12 -0500 To: me<info@notbored.org>From: NOT BORED!<info@notbored.org>Subject: clipping service: surveillance cameras in the news (again) Status: RO X-Status: This clipping service is provided by the Surveillance Camera Players. https://notbored.org/the-scp.html To unsubscribe, reply with the message "But I don't like spam!" **************************************** 1. Surveillance system will improve security, efficiency of jail facility (USA, of course) 2. Politics Follow Iraq's U-2 Approval (USA) 3. CCTV: Crashed Circuit Television? (England) 4. London driver, toll is for thee (England) 5. More about london car tolls (England) **************************************** 1. Surveillance system will improve security, efficiency of jail facility By Abby Morris Star Staff The addition of a new video surveillance system to the Carter County jail will serve to protect the law enforcement officers and inmates as well as lower costs for the county, Sheriff John Henson said. Installation of the surveillance system, which has been in the planning for approximately a year and was approved by the finance committee about six months ago, began last week and should see completion by the end of February or early March. "Probably within the next 30 days I'll have the whole system up and running," Henson said. As part of the system, video cameras will be placed outside the building which houses the jail as well as in the day rooms in the jail itself and in hallways. "It will be a big asset to the building," Henson said. The cameras will record footage 24 hours a day, Henson said, and two monitors will be located inside the facility which show live feed from the cameras. One monitor will be located in the dispatch room and the other in the jailer's office. "In my opinion, it's one of the best things we've done to the jail since I've been here," Henson said. The system will help increase the safety of Sheriff's Department employees while they are on duty in the building. "At night, the dispatcher can't see what's going on outside the building," Henson said. "You've got to know what's going on around the building." Inmates at the detention center will also be helped by the system. According to Henson, the surveillance equipment will help improve safety in the jail by keeping the jailers better aware of what is going on around them. "There is no way two or three jailers can keep an eye on all the cell blocks 24 hours a day. But, with these cameras, we can do that," Henson said. "If someone is fighting back in the cell block, we can be on it in less than a second." In the past, inmates sneaking contraband in through the windows of the jail by lowering string to people on the sidewalk has posed a problem at the facility. Henson has hopes that the new system will alleviate that problem. "If someone were to try to sneak something upstairs through the windows, there will be cameras there to see it," he said. "Then, all the dispatcher has to do is call one of the road officers to come in and they've got them." Last week, CCSD deputies arrested a subject who was trying to sneak items up to an inmate that included three pieces of hacksaw. In addition to decreasing crime and increasing security, Henson anticipates that the new system will also help to cut expenses. "I feel this video surveillance equipment will save the taxpayers money in the long run due to lawsuits," he said. It will also cut down on the required manpower by allowing the jailers to watch over the entire jail facility from their desk. The new system cost approximately $18,000, Henson said, adding that he thought it was well worth the price. "If you have one accident up there, it will cost you more than that," he said. Henson stated that since he took office six years ago, he has been working to increase safety in the Sheriff's Department. "When I first came here, there was not a car with a video camera," he said, adding that now all but four or five of the patrol cars are equipped with video surveillance equipment. Also in the last six years, the Sheriff's Department has seen the installation of video surveillance equipment in the holding room for persons brought in on alcohol charges as well as the suicide watch cell. According to Henson, the installation of those cameras has helped to save two lives. "Due to the camera, the jailer was able to see what was going on and got there before the person harmed themselves," he said. http://www.starhq.com/html/localnews/0203/021003Security.html 2. Politics Follow Iraq's U-2 Approval CHARLES J. HANLEY Associated Press BAGHDAD, Iraq - Slipping silently through the skies, the camera spotted double fences and watchtowers at an unexpected location, unusually heavy traffic at another site, a new advanced ventilation system on a rooftop at a third. Following such leads from the American U-2 spy plane - an "eye in the sky" - U.N. inspectors in the 1990s uncovered hidden corners of Iraq's advanced weapons establishment, swooped in and demolished them. A new corps of inspectors will soon deploy the vital U-2 again, now that the United Nations and Baghdad have broken an impasse that kept the reconnaissance plane grounded. That breakthrough, announced Monday, could help set the tone of U.N. debate over pursuing inspections - or preparing for war - in Iraq. In 1991, Iraq also objected to U-2 deployment, just months after it was defeated in the Gulf War. To allow the U-2 to fly in support of U.N. inspections, Baghdad said, would require it to shut down its air defense system while the American plane was airborne, making Iraq vulnerable to attack. Iraqi officials raised a similar argument in recent weeks, contending they couldn't guarantee the safety of a U-2 if it was overflying Iraq at the same time as U.S.-British air patrols in the "no-fly zones" of northern and southern Iraq. Unless those warplanes were kept at base during the U-2 flight, the reconnaissance craft might be targeted by anti-aircraft fire, they said. Iraq wanted "safeguards to secure our right to defend our sky and our ground," said Maj. Gen. Hossam Mohamed Amin, chief Iraqi liaison to the U.N. inspectors. The no-fly zones were declared by Washington, without U.N. authorization, to protect what were considered anti-government areas from Iraqi aircraft. The Iraqis consider the zones to be hostile, illegal operations. In weekend talks with visiting chief inspectors Hans Blix and Mohamed ElBaradei, Iraqi officials had been expected to relent, as they did in 1991, and allow U-2 flights in support of U.N. inspections, even while U.S. warplanes range over much of Iraq. But no immediate agreement was reached. Instead, the reply came Monday in a letter accepting the U-2 plan sent to the United Nations. Allowing the U-2 flights should win Iraq higher marks when Blix and ElBaradei submit their latest reports assessing Iraqi cooperation to the U.N. Security Council on Friday. The surveillance plan grew more complex recently, as the U.N. inspection agencies proposed deploying a "package of platforms" at various altitudes - the U-2 at up to 90,000 feet, a French Mirage reconnaissance plane at a lower altitude, a Russian Antonov with night-vision surveillance still lower, and German drones, unmanned aircraft, closer to the ground. A U.N. source, speaking on condition of anonymity, indicated that surveillance "mix" was at least in part politically motivated, since France, Russia and Germany are Security Council members who oppose U.S. war plans. Their presence should make the U-2 more palatable to Baghdad. The U-2 - a gangly albatross of a jet - has been used by the United States for reconnaissance since 1955. It has a highly unusual design, with a 103-foot, glider-like wingspan on a 63-foot-long fuselage, its 1,000-square-feet of wing area keeping it aloft in the thin air of the stratosphere. It can fly more than 7,000 miles for 12 hours, giving it the ability to slowly circle over a reconnaissance target for hours at a time, firing away with its advanced cameras, and its electro-optic, infrared and radar-imagery devices. It can also pick up communications data from below. The U.N. inspectors also make use of images from reconnaissance satellites, whose photos can be finer than the U-2's. But the high-flying plane has flexibility, not the rigid path of a satellite, and would give inspectors the ability to maintain focused surveillance on a site for hours at a time, to monitor suspicious movements or objects. When the disarmament teams deployed the single-seat U-2 over Iraq in the 1990s, from an air base in Taif, Saudi Arabia, the pilot, necessarily, was American. But a large "U.N." was painted on the plane's side. "That was important, because if it had been shot down, he would be arrested and hanged as a spy if he had not been under the U.N.," former chief inspector Rolf Ekeus said in an interview. Nonetheless, Baghdad complained the U.S.-U.N. surveillance plane collected conventional military intelligence about Iraq. That concern may be raised again. As they open their skies again to the U-2, Iraq's leadership may wonder: Which U-2? Turkish television reports American U-2s from German bases already have begun crisscrossing Iraq in preparation for possible war. 3. CCTV: Crashed Circuit Television? Redbridge's brand new crimebusting CCTV van had a disastrous first assignment after its mast was snapped off by a low bridge. The hi-tech vehicle, unveiled in Wanstead last week, was due to survey the streets of Hainault on its maiden voyage last Thursday night but its driver failed to spot a bridge which wrecked the van's surveillance aerial. A bemused eyewitness told the Guardian: "I heard a tremendous bang and I looked out of my window to see the mast hanging off the top of the van which had been driven under the bridge. "I can't believe the driver hadn't clocked how tall the mast was before getting behind the wheel. I had seen a picture of the vehicle in last week's Guardian and realised it must have been on its first journey." He added: "So much for Redbridge's eyes of crime looks like they will be turning a blind eye until the mast is repaired!" A Redbridge Council spokeswoman said: "The mast was damaged while the van was being used in a joint operation with the police last Thursday. "As it passed under Fairlop station bridge its mast was clipped and damaged. Repairs are being carried out and the vehicle will be back in service as soon as possible." She added: "Fairlop station has the lowest bridge in the borough and it was just six inches lower than the top of the mast." Boasting nine cameras, three of which will monitor the vehicle itself, the CCTV vehicle is aimed at deterring criminal and anti-social behaviour on the streets of Redbridge. Designed to be used in areas not currently covered by CCTV, the 110,000 cameras will be mounted on lampposts and will transmit images back to the council's CCTV control centre in Ilford. 13th February 2003 http://www.thisislocallondon.co.uk/misc/print.html?nwid=696738 4. London driver, toll is for thee Eric Pfanner/IHT International Herald Tribune Saturday, February 15, 2003 LONDON Gray London is a long way from the sunny Riviera, but sales of Italian scooters are careering along like out-of-control Vespas. "We did double in January what we did last year," said George Dennison, the owner of Scooterden, a chain of London shops. "Normally we'd be sitting on our hands at this time of year; now it's bedlam." The reason, Dennison said, is the "congestion charge" about to be levied on London motorists. Scooters - along with taxis, emergency vehicles and cars using alternative fuel - will be exempt, but other motorists will have to pay 25 ($40) weekly, starting Monday, simply for the privilege of entering an 8-square-mile (21-square kilometer) area of the city center during working hours. The plan, championed by Mayor Ken Livingstone, is intended to ease London's gridlock, which has slowed traffic on many streets to the speeds of a century ago, when the problem was too few cars, not too many. "Everything else we've tried has been ineffective in raising traffic speeds from the horse-and-buggy level," said Malcolm Murray-Clark, director of congestion charging at Transport for London, the agency overseeing the project. "It's the first time something of this scale has been tried." Indeed, experts say it is the world's most ambitious experiment in urban traffic control. Several other cities, including Singapore and Trondheim, Norway, have limited traffic in small downtown areas through user fees for more than a decade. A few American cities have set up "fast lanes" on highways, available for a special charge. But those efforts are dwarfed by London's scheme. The city aims to lower the number of cars that enter the central area by 10 percent to 15 percent, reducing bottlenecks and speeding up journey times, and to raise millions of pounds a year for transport improvements. If the program works, experts say, it could be emulated by other cities in Britain and elsewhere that are troubled by too much traffic. The congestion charge is also one of the sternest tests of British politicians' embrace of market-based approaches to deal with public policy issues. It has given Livingstone, once known as Red Ken for his socialist leanings, some strange ideological bedfellows. "I nicked the idea off Milton Friedman," the mayor admitted when he introduced the plan in 2001, referring to the conservative economist. For many Londoners, however, used to complaining about the weather, a crumbling transport system - and, of course, congestion - the charge is just another thing to grumble about. The 25 fee will simply make living in what is already one of the world's most expensive cities that much more costly, they say. Residents of the charging zone will get a 90 percent discount. Small-business owners say they will be hit disproportionately hard. Workers with modest incomes in jobs that require them to drive into London because of late shifts - theater employees and hospital workers, for example - fought, unsuccessfully, to win exemptions. The actress Samantha Bond, who plays Miss Moneypenny in the latest James Bond film, has led a high-profile campaign against the plan, contending that it is unsafe for actresses to take public transportation late at night after performances finish. Though polls show that a quiet majority of Londoners is willing to give the plan a try, a vocal few have threatened to engage in civil disobedience. "The best thing we could do is not pay," wrote one angry commuter on a Web site set up as a forum on the congestion charge. "I can't see them being able to trace every car that goes in the area and follow it up. It'll cost more to do that than anything else; they will have to stop it." Murray-Clark says the government will review the plan when its effects become clear, perhaps after six months. But noncompliance, he vowed, will not be an option. A group called Motorists Against Detection has threatened to vandalize the tracking devices, but Murray-Clark said only two incidents had been reported. To enforce the system, the authorities have installed cameras, like the ones used to document speeding offenses, at more than 200 intersections marked with giant red and white "C" logos, where drivers enter the fee zone. In addition, 10 mobile camera units will prowl the area. The aim is to snap images of every car and license plate that enters between 7 a.m. and 6:30 p.m. on business days. Those pictures will be matched against Transport for London's records of motorists who have paid. Fines will increase for offenders who do not ante up by midnight. Drivers can pay the fee at some retail outlets and gas stations, online, by phone, at special vending machines, by mail and even by text message, using their mobile phones. More than 30,000 motorists have registered for the latter option, Murray-Clark said, allowing impulse trips to, say, Selfridges department store for a new pair of shoes. Many businesses have already registered fleets of cars. Yet experts say the system does not appear seamless. While Singapore's system, for example, has worked well, it has several advantages. It is less than half the size of London's, the charging area is far more limited, and the culture is more orderly than freewheeling London's. It also has a technological edge, using a system based on transmitters and receivers to track cars' movements; "smart" cards bought by drivers are "read" as they enter the central city, and fees are automatically deducted. Sorting out the offenders could prove difficult. Though computers will do the main work of matching license numbers with payment records, no fines will be levied until a human set of eyes has reviewed each case. With roughly 250,000 vehicles entering the charging zone every day, the numbers could pile up. Even if London manages to collect most of the fees, that might not be a desirable outcome. "How do you measure success?" said Robert Noland, lecturer in the Center for Transport Studies at Imperial College in London. "If you collect a lot of revenue, it means a lot of people are traveling in, and congestion remains high. If you don't, there's less money for transport." The system may have one unexpected benefit for law enforcement, however: In uncertain times, when London is at the front lines of warnings of possible terrorist action, the cameras will capture drivers and license plates. Though British civil liberties groups have raised concerns about the potential for Big Brother surveillance abuses, Murray-Clark said images would be released only when senior police officials made specific requests related to suspicion of serious offenses, in accordance with the Data Protection Act. As for recidivist violators of the congestion charging scheme, another fate awaits their cars: the clamp. Copyright 2002 The International Herald Tribune http://www.iht.com/cgi-bin/generic.cgi?template=articleprint.tmplh&ArticleId=86763 5. More about london car tolls By Ellen Hale, USA TODAY On Monday, London institutes a 5-a-day (about $8) charge aimed at prying open streets that have become so gridlocked that the average speed is 10 mph. No one is exempt, aside from government ministers, the handicapped, taxi drivers and some other exceptions, although opponents are busy dispensing tips on how to cheat the new system. The charge applies to anyone driving in an 8-square-mile congestion zone Monday through Friday from 7 a.m. to 6:30 p.m. (The latter deadline is a concession to the city's theater industry.) Those who want to drive in that area will have to register their cars and buy a pass. Motorists can pay the charge by the day, week, month or year on the Internet, by phone or at newsstands and gas stations. Failure to pay can result in fines up to 120, or about $200. Residents and those in some critical public service jobs, such as ambulance drivers and police, get a 90% discount when they register. More than 700 digital cameras, interspersed at 200 sites at the perimeter of the zone, will scan license plates and log them into a national database to check whether the driver has paid the charge. Mobile cameras on top of roving vans will patrol the streets inside the zone. The plan, the most ambitious anywhere to cut traffic, is being watched by cities around the world. New York City transportation commissioner Iris Weinshall has been here to study it. Optimistic that it will work on the other side of the Atlantic, she has budgeted about $200 million for a similar scheme to be launched there next year. "Everyone, everywhere is keeping a close eye on this. If it works, it will be copied all over the world," says Tony Travers, director of the Greater London Group, a research institute. "It's a good dry run for the United States because if it can be made to work here, it will work anywhere." If the plan fails, however, it could doom for decades any effort to cut back on car use in urban areas. By all accounts, London is foundering under the weight of its traffic. Every day, 200,000 cars jam a city that was designed for carts and horses. The street plan resembles more the layout of a rabbit warren than one of the world's wealthiest cities. In places, the average speed slows so much 3 mph or less that walking is faster. A single breakdown can create a domino effect that clogs traffic for blocks. The congestion charge is the surprising brainchild of the city's mayor, Ken Livingstone, often called "Red Ken" for his years espousing communist causes that don't exactly mesh with a traffic-pricing scheme that opponents say favors the rich. Livingstone believes the daily charge, which will cost a driver about $2,000 a year, will reduce by as many as 30,000 the number of cars in London each day. Meanwhile, it will add 130 million (about $210 million) to the city's coffers each year. Opponents accuse Livingstone of prolonging street repairs and setting red lights longer to worsen congestion and drum up support for the plan. It is the technology that New York transportation commissioner Weinshall is watching closely. For some time, officials in her city have been considering putting tolls on the last remaining free bridges into Manhattan. But they have wondered how to do it. "One reason the London experiment is so intriguing to us is that if we want to put tolls in, where do we put the booths? The camera technology in London is so advanced, it could solve that problem," says Weinshall, who will send a team over in April to see how the scheme has fared. If it goes well, charges could soon be applied to the four East River bridges into Manhattan. Critics here, however, predict everything from total mayhem to quiet failure. Some suggest that the area outside the congestion zone will be clogged as drivers hover there in the evening and wait for the charge period to end. Others say mud on license plates, bad weather (a London staple) and sloppy national license registration lists will make monitoring drivers happenstance, at best. Livingstone has pledged a 90% success rate in tracking drivers. Some teachers who live outside the zone but work inside it have quit their jobs because of the cost. At the legendary Smithfield market, butchers who will drive in before dawn but leave while the charge is in effect are grousing. Livingstone, meanwhile, has provoked the ire of mothers throughout this increasingly yuppiefied city by blaming parents who drive their children to school for much of the congestion. Put them on public transport, says Livingstone, 57. "At the age of six," he says, "I used to get a 2-mile bus journey on my own." (He has added hundreds of buses to accommodate the spillover.) The anti-congestion-charge campaign has attracted at least one celebrity. Samantha Bond, the latest actress to play Miss Moneypenny in the James Bond films, has launched a legal campaign against the plan. She says it discriminates against the poor and favors rich businessmen happy to pay $2,000 a year to save 10 minutes of driving time. Another group, Motorists Against Detection (MAD), is promising a campaign of civil disobedience and offering tips on cheating the charge. One person who legally won't be paying? Mayor Livingstone himself. He uses a taxi for his travel. Last year, he billed the city 5,554.63 in taxi fares. http://www.usatoday.com/news/world/2003-02-13-congestion-usat_x.htm X-From_: info@notbored.org Tue Feb 18 23:51:06 2003 X-Original-To: info@notbored.org X-Sender: notbored@popserver.panix.com (Unverified) Date: Tue, 18 Feb 2003 23:46:39 -0500 To: me<info@notbored.org>From: NOT BORED!<info@notbored.org>Subject: clipping service: surv cams in the news Status: RO X-Status: what you've got here is a clipping service provided by the Surveillance Camera Players https://notbored.org/the-scp.html to unsubscribe from it, respond with the magic words "I don't like spam." ********************************************************** 1. Electronic eyes at the University of Texas (USA) 2. Spies in the gym (Australia) 3. S.C. pilots in gulf to benefit from high-tech advances (USA) 4. Cabramatta street crime up 400% (Australia) 5. Spy planes "significant" boost to weapons inspections (USA) ********************************************************** 1. Electronic eyes of UT run by ITS Expensive surveillance systems seen by some as vast, 'Orwellian' By Jonathan York (Daily Texan Staff) February 14, 2003 Editor's note: This is the first in an occasional series examining electronic surveillance at the University. Here's a UT security quiz. If you needed a surveillance camera for a computer lab, who would provide it - Campus Planning and Facilities Maintenance, the UT Police Department or Information Technology Services? If you chose CPFM or UTPD, you were wrong. To obtain video surveillance cameras, motion sensors or a silent alarm trigger, a department administrator would do best to consult William Stephens, an ITS systems engineer. "When I meet with clients, we talk about what their concerns are," Stephens said. "Typically, they're not looking at the whole building. They'll have some specific area of interest. I think engineering may have a couple labs scattered on two floors, and may have a camera in each lab. Maybe the proctor is responsible for three labs, and he can't see them all." ITS Telecommunications and Networking ultimately provides most of the security systems on campus. The office gives advice and creates plans to suit administrative costs. It also keeps secrets; Stephens would not say which UT departments had invested the most in surveillance. From Stephens' perspective, the world of campus security is vast and incompatible. "Do they want to have high-resolution, is it going to be color, is it going to be recorded?" Stephens said. "My concern is there's no real policy on how these [systems] are managed. The University should have a policy." UT surveillance systems have provoked student debate since mid-January, when the University sued the state attorney general to withhold security camera information from a Daily Texan open records request. The attorney general had ruled that the University release the requested documents. While UT officials fight to keep those records closed, citing "national security," a picture of surveillance operations emerges from interviews and documents publicly available on ITS Web space. The Red McCombs School of Business asked to spend $44,800 for "video security" in March 2000, according to one ITS report. In its section on the business school, the same document notes that, "The surveillance system proposed is a somewhat Orwellian trend." According to an expenditure report, the UT general libraries acquired a $28,034.70 "video security system" in the same year. The minutes of an October 2001 meeting of UT general libraries department heads refer to "the recently installed surveillance cameras which may be upgraded." Cameras routinely show up in parking garages, computer labs and "security-sensitive areas," according to the University's online explanation of security systems. They also peer within libraries and at exterior doors and elevator lobbies in San Jacinto Residence Hall. But Stephens mentioned another setting where people are watched - auditorium-style classrooms. In another case, UT cable channels 32 and 33 are designated by ITS for "Various Uses: Teleconference, Classroom." Sometimes, though, the classroom cameras installed for these purposes continue to transmit into the night. At press time, the blank walls and empty teaching station of a ghostly classroom lingered on channel 32. One can only guess who is watching the information from any camera at any given time. Only some cameras feed straight into monitors at the UT police station. Others may be watched by a UT department's employees - or by no one at all. Some cameras merely record videotape, Stephens said. ITS spends time in more than one field of surveillance. It has software in place that keeps track of who is logged on to the network at what time. "We have a requirement to keep certain logging information," said Angel Cruz, director of information security for ITS. He did not say precisely what information was collected. A Web page on the business school's server recently bore the heading, "Secret Medialab Staff Area," and the text, "If you have stumbled upon this page by accident, please leave immediately. You are under surveillance." "UT monitors ... constantly who is logging into what. UT always knows who you are and where you are," Joerg Becker, the business school's director of media services, said at the time of the discovery. Eight days after a Texan reporter asked Becker what the page meant, the heading and text had been changed to read, simply, "Medialab Staff." "I'm obviously not going to disclose operational issues here," said Larry Leibrock, who watches over the business school's server, in regard to questions about server monitoring. "These systems are important to us." An ITS report shows that the business school proposed spending $27,000 in academic year 2001-02 for server-monitoring software. Though surveillance cameras watch over several campus areas, Stephens sees no reason to worry about privacy, "unless there's some kind of incident that warrants going back and revealing that information [captured on tape]," he said. "Otherwise, who cares? It's boring stuff. You sit there and watch people come and go." http://www.dailytexanonline.com/vnews/display.v/ART/2003/02/14/3e4cf31e8128c 2. Spies in the gym Spies in the gym JESSICA LAWRENCE 16feb03 FITNESS fanatics are at risk of being spied on in change rooms with the latest wave of mobile phone technology. Mobiles with inbuilt cameras that can take pictures and transmit them in seconds are the latest hi-tech phones to hit the shelves. But the phones, which can retail for up to $1200, could be placing the privacy of Queenslanders at risk. Police in Japan, where the phone-cameras are very popular, have warned women about perverts using them to sneak "upskirt" photos. Last week, a man in Chiba, near Tokyo, was arrested for using one to take a picture of a girl riding an escalator. Fitness centres contacted by The Sunday Mail did not have policies in place governing the use of mobiles with cameras and their use in change rooms. Queensland casinos also did not have policies in place regarding the use of mobile cameras near gaming tables. Associate Professor Brian Lovell, of the University of Queensland's School of Information Technology and Electrical Engineering, said the new breed of mobiles were capable of taking "quite good-quality photos". "These cameras are small and portable, which means you can take photos and send them almost instantly without being obvious about it," he said. "All it takes is pushing a couple of buttons and then you can send it, almost like a spy camera." Queensland Council for Civil Liberties president Ian Dearden called on the government to implement privacy legislation to govern the use of the latest mobile technology. "It would be very easy for someone to intrude on your privacy because if you are in the change room then you don't expect someone perving on you and this is an issue which gyms need to address," Mr Dearden said. He called on the Beattie Government to implement privacy legislation governing the use of new technologies. "We should have state-based privacy legislation and a privacy commissioner to advise the government on these issues on a daily basis," he said. Fitness clubs and casinos contacted by The Sunday Mail said they would look into the use of mobiles with cameras in change rooms. Healthworks Fitness Centres owner Maro Raimondi said his centres did not have policies regarding their use. "We don't have anything in place but we will have to think about this and look into what our policy should be," Mr Raimondi said. Michelle McCormack, from the LivingWell fitness clubs, said her organisation would monitor the use of mobiles with cameras. "We constantly review the security policy in our clubs and will investigate this situation regarding the use of mobile phones," Ms McCormack said. Spokeswomen for Fitness First and Zest health clubs said they did not have policies covering the use of the mobiles in changing rooms. Michelle Groombridge, from Conrad Treasury Brisbane, said the casino was reviewing its policy with regard to mobile phones, "in consideration of new technology available in the marketplace". A spokesman for Attorney-General Rod Welford said inappropriate surveillance and collection of images was sufficiently covered by federal privacy laws and state criminal laws. http://www.thesundaymail.news.com.au/printpage/0,5942,5984613,00.html 3. S.C. pilots in gulf to benefit from high-tech advances Posted on Sun, Feb. 16, 2003 By PAUL WACHTER Staff Writer Twelve years after the U.S. quickly established air dominance over Iraq, S.C. pilots have bad news for Saddam Hussein: The U.S. military's ability to wage war from the air has greatly improved. Col. Ken Jefferson, stationed at the McEntire Air National Guard Station, was dropping 500- and 2,000-pound bombs on Iraq during the 1991 Gulf War. "Back then, we didn't have the same advanced electronics capabilities," recalled the 169th Fighter Wing pilot. "You had to go find the target with your eyes and then fidget with the onboard system before dropping your bombs. Now, laser-guided and GPS (global positions system) navigation are standard," Jefferson said. "Our intelligence systems are much better." How much better? Jefferson paused before breaking into a small smile. "I'd say about 100 times better." THE MISSION However, if the United States goes to war with Iraq again, some things won't have changed, according to retired Col. John Warden, the man credited as the architect of Gulf War air campaign. "We had two main objectives for our air campaign in the 1991 Gulf War," Warden said. "The primary military mission was to drive down Iraq's ability to resist, which means targeting communications systems, anti-aircraft systems and electricity facilities. This won't change." But some things will change, said Warden, who now runs a consulting firm in Alabama. In 1991, "There was also a political objective, which was to destroy the Iraqi Army in Kuwait," said Warden. "We defined this as 50-percent attrition of their significant weapons, which we accomplished." This time around, however, Warden doesn't think the Pentagon will be trying to destroy the Iraqi army. "Since conquering and occupying Iraq seems to be the long-term goal, I'm not sure if Washington wants to destroy the Iraqi army," he said. "First, the army may not be very interested in fighting for Saddam anyway. And you might want that structure around when you try rebuilding the place." If Warden's thinking is right, it would coincide nicely with the new role of McEntire's 69th Fighter Wing, which has shifted from attacking ground troops. "In the first Gulf War, we carried out air-to-ground flying missions, taking out armored vehicles, tanks and airfields," said Col. Tim Rush, the wing's operations group commander and a Gulf War veteran. "But over the past few years, our mission has changed," he said. "Now, our mission is suppression of enemy air defense." The past decade of technological advances has made that job much easier, according to Rush and others. Retired Army Maj. Gen. Steve Siegfried agrees. "Suppression of anti-air weapons is something that our Air Force knows how to do very well," said the former Fort Jackson commander. THE TECHNOLOGY During the 1991 Gulf War, U.S. pilots were hampered less by Iraq's surface-to-air missile defenses than natural impediments, including poor weather and nightfall. "In 1991, only a few planes -- the F-117 and F-15E -- were equipped with night-vision goggles," said Rush, who flies an F-16. "Now, nearly every pilot has them. "It's just like flying in daytime. So, we can fly missions 24 hours, seven days a week, which means more sorties." New developments in precision munitions also mean that poor weather shouldn't limit the ability of U.S. pilots, Warden said. "During the first Gulf War, our precision air-to-surface weapons depended on favorable weather conditions," Warden said. For instance, blowing sand -- and even high altitudes -- could prevent lasers from locking onto targets and guiding precision bombs. In 1992, the Pentagon began research and development of an "adverse weather precision guided munition." The result was the Joint Direct Attack Munition (JDAM), a bomb that has a guidance kit that includes an inertial navigational system and a global positioning system. Tested in the late 1990s and used in Afghanistan, the new guidance system is more accurate than the one used in Operation Desert Storm, performing well in bad weather. The 169th Fighter Wing completed its transition to its new role, destroying enemy air defenses, in 1997, when its F-16s were fitted with high-speed antiradiation missile targeting systems. "With HARM, we're able to pick up on enemy SAM (anti-aircraft missile) sites much easier," said Rush. "To pick up our planes, the SAM sites send out radar signals. We receive the frequency and interpret it, getting a fix on their position -- all the while, staying out of their missile range. Then we send one of our missiles and kill the target." Other advances also should help U.S. airmen, including those from Beaufort's Marine Air Station and Sumter's Shaw Air Force Base now in the gulf region. Before you can fight the enemy, you have to be able to see him. With the unmanned Predator, first used in Bosnia in 1995, "We now are able to provide constant surveillance without the risk of losing a pilot," Warden said. "Had we had Predators in the first Gulf War, I think we would have gotten Saddam Hussein." PROBLEMS OR 'POOR PLANNING?' However, not everyone is as impressed with the new technology. Last year, The Washington Post reported that an armed Predator killed Afghani civilians it had mistaken for al Qaeda operatives. (The Pentagon denies this.) A 2001 Pentagon report also found that the Predator's cameras "cannot operate in less than ideal weather" and the drone had trouble classifying targets even in optimum conditions. The Pentagon said that test was outdated. Last week, the Wall Street Journal also reported that the U.S. military still has problems providing "close air support" for ground units. Noting 12 U.S. and coalition fighters were killed in "close-air support mishaps" in Afghanistan, the Journal suggested those problems could resurface in Iraq. Warden disagrees. "The problem was a few cases of poor planning," he said. "Close-air support should never happen. It means you're in range of the other guy's small weapons. That shouldn't happen in Iraq." 'THE NATURE OF WAR' Though he's impressed with the technological advances he has seen over the past decade, Col. Jefferson said some aspects of war never change. "It's a cat-and-mouse game. You never want to do what you did the previous day because the enemy adjusts," he said. "The Iraqis have adjusted. They've upgraded their SAM systems and are getting better at moving them around. But that's what we expect -- it's the nature of war." Still, Jefferson said, the Desert Storm experience plus a decade of enforcing the no-fly zones over northern and southern Iraq, means U.S. pilots know their potential targets well. "If they keep their radar systems up and operational, it's only a matter of time until we pick them up and destroy them." 2003 The State and wire service sources. All Rights Reserved. http://www.thestate.com/mld/thestate/news/local/5194121.htm 4. Cabramatta street crime up 400 pc By STAVRO SOFIOS, LILLIAN SALEH and DAVID PENBERTHY 17feb03 DRUG criminals have stepped up their heroin dealing in broad daylight on Cabramatta's streets despite pre-election boasts from the Carr Government that police are winning the war on drugs there. Confidential council documents obtained by The Daily Telegraph show surveillance cameras have detected a 400 per cent increase in street crime in the past six months in the suburb. More than 130 drug-dealing and drug-related crimes are being caught on film each month on just 13 streets half of them on John St, which runs off the railway station and is still a magnet for drug criminals. The evidence clashes with official police statistics the Carr Government is using to argue that crime in the area is showing a downward trend. Fairfield Chief Inspector Debbie Wallace revealed this month that local police, through high visibility strategies including increased beat patrols and bike patrols, had achieved significant reductions in theft, motor vehicle theft and robbery. At the same time, Fairfield Council is sitting on a report showing that its 23 closed-circuit street surveillance cameras have captured more than 130 crimes a month in the past six months compared with an average of 40 crimes a month in the previous five years of the operation of the cameras. The people who live and work in the area, interviewed over the course of three days last week by The Daily Telegraph, are divided as to how much anything has changed. Many residents say things have improved since a parliamentary report in July 2001 revealed how mismanagement and infighting by senior police had resulted in serious neglect of the suburb. Since then, NSW Police has overhauled local police management and the State Government introduced move-on legislation to target dealers. There are also more bike patrols with officers in shorts and crash helmets riding through the streets. Many of the most potent symbols of failure on drug crime -- such as the Cabra-Vale playground, once rendered unusable by dealers and addicts -- have been smartened up. That said, The Daily Telegraph found a freshly used syringe with blood on the needle and heroin balloons left lying on the grass at that same park at noon on Friday. And the clearest evidence of the crime problem dealers brazenly operating in full public view remains an obvious challenge. The complexity of the issue was reflected in the comments of many residents that the new, highly visible police presence hasn't so much fixed the problem as changed it. Several people said the drug dealers had simply changed their habits when police swooped, the dealers would disappear only to return later. Many people said that dealers had spread out to neighbouring Bonnyrigg, Cabramatta West and as far out as Liverpool to avoid this higher concentration of police in the Cabramatta CBD. One shopkeeper in Cabramatta West became irate when we asked are things better, worse or the same? He explained how the street at the side of his shop was used every night as a shooting gallery because it had no lighting. He showed us where addicts would dispose their used syringes in a charity clothing bin meant to be for collecting clothing for the poor. "I'm sick of it," the man shouted. "Every morning I have to come out the side and clean up their needles. I even got one of those special bins for syringes. Why should I have to do that? Why should I have to pick up needles every morning? I'm trying to run a business, I've got two young kids. Nothing has changed." A young married couple over the road from the shop held a different view. The woman, an Asian-Australian, said Cabramatta was now much better: "The problem is at Bonnyrigg. They have big problems there." Her husband, who works in the Liverpool Hospital trauma unit, said he was "the wrong person to ask". "I still see plenty of people coming in with gunshot wounds, people who have been stabbed," he said. http://www.dailytelegraph.news.com.au/printpage/0,5942,5996043,00.html 5. Spy planes "significant" boost to weapons inspections 6:21 17 February 03 Damian Carrington American U-2 spy planes will begin flights over Iraq early this week, chief weapons inspector Hans Blix told the UN Security Council on Friday, probably followed by French, German and Russian aircraft. According to experts contacted by New Scientist, including Bob Sherman at the Federation of American Scientists, the surveillance data they collect will "significantly" enhance the ability of UN inspectors to ensure that Iraq is disarmed of any weapons of mass destruction. Just as with most aspects of the inspections, the UN teams will not reveal what data will be collected. An UNMOVIC spokesperson in Baghdad says simply that: "The U-2 data will improve our ability to carry out inspections." However, Blix specifically mentioned trucks as a target of the flights, saying there are "persistent intelligence reports ... of mobile biological weapons production units" in Iraq. The inspector's current surveillance capability is not responsive enough to track moving targets. But, with the U-2's, "it will be much faster," concedes the UNMOVIC spokesman. The U-2 flights will increase the speed of the inspections in two ways. First, data will be available sooner. The UN does not have real-time access to satellite data, but the U-2's have large, steerable satellites dishes on top, meaning images could be beamed back live. Secondly, although an imaging satellite is believed to pass over Iraq every few hours, they circle the globe in fixed orbits and may not overfly the area of interest. "You have to wait for satellites to pass over the area you want," says surveillance image expert Bhupendra Jasani, at Kings College London, UK. In contrast, U-2 spy planes, with a range of over 7000 kilometres and speed of 800 km/h, can be anywhere at any time. Some analysts believe Iraq may be able to track the orbits of spy satellites. If so, then movements of the illicit weapons could be timed to avoid satellite surveillance. U-2 planes will therefore give the inspectors an aerial element of surprise. Furthermore, unlike satellites, U-2s can circle over specific sites for long periods, gathering detailed information. For Patrick Garrett, analyst at the military think tank GlobalSecurity.org, the most dramatic change that the inspectors' new eyes in the sky will bring is far clearer vision - perhaps six times sharper. That could make the difference between simply spotting a truck and identifying what it is being used for. But this improvement in vision is not because the U-2's cruising altitude of 20 kilometres is 10 times closer the Earth's surface than the orbits of spy satellites. The cameras on the US's premier Keyhole spy satellites are as powerful as the Hubble Space telescope, which, by pointing up instead of down, has captured the far reaches of the Universe in stunning detail. It is, says Garrett simply because the CIA will not share its highest quality intelligence with anyone. The satellite images Secretary of State Colin Powell presented to the UN on 5 February were almost certainly taken with 12 centimetre resolution, but were "fuzzed" to about 200 cm resolution. The U-2's cameras will provide 15 cm resolution - about the size of a petri dish - and can sweep up swathes of imagery, 120 km wide and many hundred of kilometres long. The commercial imagery that commentators believe UN weapons inspectors are using at present has 100 cm resolution - if they can afford it. A single set of commercial images covering Iraq costs about $10 million. The cover of night could also be used to hide proscribed Iraqi activities. But the U-2's synthetic aperture radar, tucked into its nose, could remove this blind spot for the inspectors, who have no night vision at present. Similarly, the U-2's "plug-and-play" interchangeable payloads can provide infrared imaging. This also works at night, and could spot wisps of warm air leaking from hidden facilities. Kit packed into the U-2's wing-mounted "superpods" can intercept communications on the ground, but it is not known if this will be available to the weapons inspectors. The planes will be provided by the US. However, for Martin Streetly, editor of Jane's Electronic Mission Aircraft, the supreme advantage the U-2's will bring over satellites is not their technology, but their human pilot. "The human brain remains the best and most flexible computer system that exists within intelligence gathering," he says. A US pilot off course over the Soviet Union during the Cold War serendipitously discovered an important space base, he notes. The inspectors appear more likely to have the time to exploit the U-2's capabilities, following the chief inspectors' presentations at the UN on Friday. These have widely been interpreted as successfully appealing for a delay in any military action, while their work continues. A significant number of the countries on the Security Council are thought to be unlikely to sanction war without the discovery of a "smoking gun". And there may be a precedent. The so-called "Adlai Stevenson moment" came in 1962 when the US ambassador to the UN brandished incontrovertible images of Soviet missile bases in Cuba - taken from a U-2 spy plane. 16:21 17 February 03 http://www.newscientist.com/news/print.jsp?id=ns99993399 X-From_: info@notbored.org Mon Feb 24 20:29:07 2003 X-Original-To: info@notbored.org X-Sender: notbored@popserver.panix.com (Unverified) Date: Mon, 24 Feb 2003 20:24:28 -0500 To: me<info@notbored.org>From: NOT BORED!<info@notbored.org>Subject: clipping service Status: RO X-Status: This is a service provided by the Surveillance Camera Players https://notbored.org/the-scp.html To unsubscribe, reply with the words, "Take your goddamn hands off of me, you barbarian!" ***************************************************** 1. Graffiti Space Trap Tested (USA) 2. Does London mayor's 'ring of steel' breach UK Data Act? (England) 3. High-tech tele-monitors sought for war zones (Canada) 4. Heavy metal shopping (Israel) 5. Bridge cameras conk out again (USA) 6. Police defend camera systems (Taiwan) 7. Cameras cut CBD crime by a half (New Zealand) ***************************************************** 1. Graffiti Space Trap Tested February 14, 2003 10:29 AM ET LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - Psssst, wanna catch a tagger? Satellites and super-sensitive sensors are now tuned to the sibilant hiss of spray cans in a space-age effort to eradicate one of the oldest and most persistent urban problems -- graffiti. TaggerTrap, a graffiti eradication system being tested in several California cities, uses global positioning system technology, cell phones and sensors that recognize the ultrasonic pitch of spray cans to alert police when vandals begin their work, representatives said. "The tagger, when he pushes down on that spray can, he's calling police," said George Lerg, co-founder of TrapTec, the Escondido, California-based company that developed TaggerTrap. The unique, ultrasonic tone emitted by aerosol paint cans trips the sensors, which signal a transmitter linked to a police cell phone or radio. The global positioning system pinpoints the location of the transmitter, Lerg said. The portable sensors have a range of 100 feet in any direction. http://www.reuters.com/newsArticle.jhtml?type=topNews&storyID=2230628 2. Does London mayor's 'ring of steel' breach UK Data Act? By John Lettice Posted: 19/02/2003 at 15:16 GMT London mayor Ken Livingstone's claims earlier this week that the capital's new charge zone cameras had a security aspect raised numerous questionmarks, not least of them being the one over Transport for London's registration under the Data Protection Act. Livingstone in the past few days has performed something of a somersault, to the extent that he now thinks the terrorist-stopping powers of the zone cameras are so great that they should and would be retained even if the original road-charging purpose turned out to be a complete failure. It was an intriguing revelation because - presuming Ken isn't just making it up as he goes along - it means that a central London security monitoring zone has been introduced not by the police, not by the government, but by a local authority, without any prior consultation at all. And perhaps not even by a local authority - it is unclear to us whether any security purpose has been discussed at the Greater London Authority itself. The consultation that went out in the run-up to the scheme's adoption meanwhile makes no mention of security zones, focussing entirely on the relief of traffic congestion and the improvement of London's transportation systems. Local authorities in the UK do of course introduce CCTV security systems without widespread 'do you want a ring of steel' consultation, but there is just the teensiest of differences here. Purpose is important as far as the Data Protection Act is concerned, schemes specifically designed as CCTV security (or indeed other) systems will have clearly defined and documented purposes, and at least ought to comply with the Data Protection Commissioner's CCTV guidelines, which are available here. Traffic management and monitoring systems however are not necessarily CCTV surveillance systems, and are frequently designed not to function in this way - if they are simply snapping number plates, then they're not identifying individuals. So the UK's speed cameras snap the rear of the car, which is only going to get somebody's face in rather esoteric circumstances, and the congestion charge scheme itself is designed to snap number plates, not people. So, when Ken talks merrily of cameras being panned, zoomed and being used to identify drivers, we have clear purpose-drift and the probable need for whole new categories of registration for TfL under the data protection act. TfL's own data protection registration is substantial, and the paranoid might care to be worried about how many of the individual categories are tagged "Transfer: Worldwide". Purpose 7 covers CCTV and traffic management (and makes chilling reading in its own right - Political opinions? Religious beliefs? Sexual life? On a bus?) but it's Purpose 28 that concerns us here. Note that among the data subjects listed are those buying permits, offenders and suspected offenders, those incurring penalty charges and evaders. But there is no reference to the cameras being used to identify individuals, and plenty of individuals not covered (car passengers, pedestrians, cyclists) could be identified by them. Note also: "Images o vehicles entering the charging zone; registration marks of these vehicles will be matched with keeper details held by the DVLA (Driver and Vehicle Licensing Agency) if a valid charge payment, exemption or discount is not held, so that a penalty charge notice may be issued." That's pretty clear, isn't it? Identification of the vehicle owner will take place in the event of suspected evasion, and will be done via DVLA records. It doesn't say anything about more general vehicle identification or zooming in on faces, so if it's doing that TfL is in breach of the 1998 Data Protection Act. If it is doing that, incidentally, it should also have a code of conduct governing how and when it should be done. And we suspect demoing the zooming in on faces to the mayor might at the very least be deemed not to be good practice. Bodies listed for disclosure are sufficiently wide to cover all of the security services, but again the lack of a stated security purpose and of a reference to direct identification via the cameras means Ken's claims aren't covered. As an aside, if you're one of the ones who thought foreign plates would be a good gag, you'll see you're probably going to be disappointed. We know we were. Distribution for both the CCTV and the congestion charge registrations is listed as being worldwide, but this is likely to be simply because of the companies involved in the implementation and management of the systems, rather than because its all being sent over to the CIA. It would however be nice to know what, why and to whom. But you could try to find out. There's a FAQ on obtaining information on what's held on you here. Note that "Data controllers may ask for the information they reasonably need to verify the identity of the person making the request and to locate the data." As far as CCTV footage is concerned, this is generally viewed as meaning you need to tell them where and when you were in the zone. This however might be a little tricky if you were moving through a zone crawling with cameras for, say, an hour or so. This could make finding the data expensive and difficult, if there is in fact qualifying data being recorded. The score from day one, incidentally, was claimed yesterday to be approximately 80,000 permits sold, and around 10,000 possible offenders. Chasing all of these would be expensive if they were being manually matched up with a picture of the vehicle, but as the DP registration doesn't mention this, we're pretty sure they're not. So we expect some interesting bloopers to emerge in the next couple of days. http://www.theregister.co.uk/content/6/29390.html 3. High-tech tele-monitors sought for war zones DANIEL LEBLANC Thursday, February 20, 2003 OTTAWA -- Defence Minister John McCallum wants to buy $700-million worth of high-tech equipment for the army to allow troops to send live video feeds of their battlefield to commanding officers hundreds of kilometres away. The Intelligence Surveillance Target Acquisition and Reconnaissance (ISTAR) system integrates information from cameras, radar and sensors into a real-time electronic display of a battlefield. The objective is to make it easier for top officers to oversee the movement of troops in dangerous areas. With ISTAR technology, the information captured by the high-tech cameras on Canada's Coyote light-armoured vehicles, for example, would be shared immediately with commanding officers at faraway headquarters. Military analyst Howard Michitsch said that ISTAR is a powerful tool that will help bring the army into the 21st century. "It links all data inputs into a system that disseminates it, giving full battlefield awareness to everyone," he said. Mr. Michitsch said the system allows troops to obtain crucial information without getting close to the enemy, which will "save lives." The ISTAR project, which would be financed over 10 years, is expected to receive Treasury Board approval in coming weeks. Mr. McCallum told a Senate committee yesterday that he is "committed" to the program. He was obviously happy with the previous day's budget, in which annual funding for the Department of National Defence went up by almost $1-billion. Now that the department has its head out of the water, he said, he wants to start transforming the Forces. The minister said that ISTAR will provide a "one-stop shop" of information and intelligence and that it will radically change the way things are done in the Canadian Forces. "The new army of the future . . . is more what you might call brain relative to brawn," he said. Mr. McCallum said the new equipment might mean fewer but better soldiers. The military currently operates with about 52,000 troops. "If we go to this new high-tech military establishment, if we go in that direction, it's not necessarily more people. It might be that we will do more with a given number of people than we did before," he said. The ISTAR technology will be provided to the army at first, but the navy and the air force will eventually get it too. While Mr. McCallum is looking to transform his Forces, critics said he doesn't have enough money. They said the money for the Defence Department in this week's budget is only to buy spare parts, undertake urgent infrastructure work, train recruits and fill empty positions. The department's base budget has just been raised by $800-million a year, to $12.7-billion. It will need billions more to launch major purchases such as new cargo planes and the next generation of armoured vehicles. "Any transformation isn't going to happen overnight. The way this government is moving, it's going to be a long time before it's started," Canadian Alliance MP Leon Benoit said. Mr. McCallum acknowledged that many of his plans for major changes are for the long term and would be introduced after a review of the government's defence policy. Major spending would likely come after the next election. Speaking after Question Period, he said he is not yet lobbying for billions in new funding. "I'm not talking about more money the day after I got a huge amount more money," he said. "I'm looking to the next stage, which is to reallocate money, which is to transform ourselves for the new security conditions, post-communist and post-Sept. 11, and to transform ourselves for this new world." http://www.globetechnology.com/servlet/ArticleNews/gtnews/TGAM/20030220/UDEFEOQ 4. Heavy metal shopping Downtown Jerusalem is to be enclosed within permanent, heavy metal gates, and security fences and hidden cameras will be installed By Esther Zandberg Before the coming summer, perhaps as early as Jerusalem Day, which falls this year on May 30, downtown Jerusalem - between Jaffa, King George and Hillel streets - will be turned into a protected space. Heavy metal gates will be placed at the entrances to the area, which will be guarded by security forces aided by hidden cameras. The construction of the eight gates will begin around Passover. Two gates will be large, two middle-sized and the rest small, in accordance with the width of the relevant streets. The gates will be attached to the building fronts on both sides of the street and can be opened or closed as needed. On the streets leading to the city center, there will be security fences known as "crowd guiders" (or perimeter fencing), and "gathering areas" for visitors will be fenced in. The Jerusalem Municipality took the initiative for the gates and fences. Many outdoor events held downtown last summer attracted numerous visitors for the first time since the Al-Aqsa intifada began but the city center has also seen serious terror attacks. The municipality credits the success of last summer's nine-weeks-long events in the Ben Yehuda pedestrian mall - food, fashion and cosmetics festivals and more - to the heavy security and gates positioned at the entrances to the mall. City Director-General Raanan Dinur says from now on, the city will no longer be satisfied with ad hoc security and temporary gates, and in the area, "a permanent security infrastructure as part of the security routine will be set up, like that in shopping malls." The infrastructure will be expanded over time, he says, to a "growing nucleus of pedestrian malls that can be enclosed." The term "security routine" is a "central concept that relates to the product that we seek to create in the city center," says Dinur. The term certainly occupies a major place in the lexicon of Hebrew euphemisms such as "crowd guiders," "gates" and "gathering areas" for an ugly reality of police barriers, traffic restrictions, surveillance and a creeping encroachment on free public space. What appeared to exist only on the other side of the Green Line is trickling into the State of Israel, and as the pessimists predicted, has become a permanent fixture in our daily life. In addition to the city of Jerusalem, the Jewish Agency, Keren Hayesod, the Ministries of Tourism and Housing and Construction and the police share in the initiative to establish the permanent security infrastructure, which they like to call the "outside mall," in downtown Jerusalem. Also involved in the project are the Israel Association of Community Centers and the Lev Ha'ir Community Administration in Jerusalem, whose role it is to make sure local merchants are involved in the project. The cost of building the gates is estimated at about NIS 6 million, including the cameras. The temporary gates cost NIS 1.5 million of the NIS 6 million total invested the summer events. Consequently, under the assumption that the political and security situation will not change for quite some time, the investment in the security infrastructure is undoubtedly an efficient and economical step. It is hoped that the funding will come from the tourism and housing ministries as well as from Jewish communities abroad. In return, the gates will be named after the communities. The architectural firm of Meltzer-Igra has been given the job of designing the gates and "crowd guiders." The firm renewed the face of the Ben Yehuda pedestrian mall a few years ago (but unfortunately was unsuccessful in improving its appearance). Initial sketches, indicate the design of the gates will be historic-nostalgic in nature, of the type that has been dominant in Jerusalem since the construction of the Hass promenade in Armon Hanatziv. Even a Mifal Hapayis lottery booth in midtown Jerusalem was recently designed in this style. The gates will have a regal appearance, including pointed and curved metal rods and torch-like lights framing them on both sides, and they will radiate strength, authority and endurance. These appear to be additional, architectural hints of the expected permanence of the current situation. Dinur says, "The intention is for the gates to last for many years. If there are no terror attacks, they will remain open and serve as decoration. One day, many years from now, stories will be written and told about these gates, and no one will remember why they were built." In addition to the construction of the gates, the possibility of building a roof over the compound, at the request of the pedestrian mall merchants, is being considered. Commerce in downtown Jerusalem has been hurt badly in recent years and almost died out, not only due to the terror attacks but also because of the construction of the malls in Malha and Talpiyot and because of the neglect of the city center that began with the construction of the new Jerusalem neighborhoods in East Jerusalem after 1967. The local merchants want to turn the streets of the mall into a roofed place providing not only security but also protection from the elements to complete with the temptations of remote shopping malls. Meltzer-Igra examined the issue and found that, technically, the chances of turning the entire city center into a roofed mall are slim. Full roofing will adversely affect the residents of the upper floors of the buildings, harm the plants and trees and turn the streets into a wind tunnel in the winter and a hothouse in summer, says the firm. Nonetheless, the architects have recommended the idea of a partial roof made of light, colorful fabric, which may not protect one from the elements but will provide "a new quality in the city scenery." Such a roof would be possible, says the firm, only if solutions are found for the drainage of rainwater and ongoing maintenance to prevent the all-too-common sight in Israel of leaky, dusty and ugly plastic awnings. Dinur says it is quite likely that the light, colorful roofs will be put up as early as next autumn, or a few months later, at the latest. The project to secure the city center and turn it into an "outside mall" is presented, perhaps justifiably so, as unavoidable in view of the security situation and as a necessary response to the economic distress. But it appears that necessity and the restriction on freedom of movement underscore the high price Israeli space must pay for politics. 5. Bridge cameras conk out again The week of February 21, 2003 For the second time in the past six months, a trailer, filled with tools, was stolen from a construction site in Boca Grande. Also for the second time, security cameras at the bridge failed to offer police any clues in the theft. Now local deputies and bridge officials say they are more determined than ever to work collectively on installing a high-tech surveillance camera system at the bridge. The crime in question occurred Monday evening, Feb. 17, according to police, when a trailer belonging to Brooks Hauling was taken from its 19th Street location. Estimated values have not been determined, police say, but the tools themselves were worth over $1,000. When deputies went to the bridge to view tapes from that night they were told there are none. The cameras weren't broken, but the taping mechanisms on them was. According to Jim Cooper, executive director of the Gasparilla Island Bridge Authority, the problem is being fixed. This same problem - a malfunction in the taping mechanism - deterred police in their investigation of a construction site theft that took place last November. That time a 20-foot trailer was stolen from a building site near 25th Street and Shore Lane. No one was charged in the crime. Police say a working surveillance system could have helped them solve both crimes. But Cooper says the cameras installed at the bridge are not meant for law enforcement purposes. Even if they had been working, they probably wouldn't have been any help, he said. The GIBA cameras predominantly point at the toll takers, for their protection, and are not sophisticated enough to pick up license plate numbers or details about drivers. "Our purpose is not surveillance, we want to monitor traffic flow," he said. After this latest incident, though, Cooper and local deputies are once again discussing the possibility of upgrading the camera system at the bridge. "I think it's the next possible step," Cooper said. "If they decide to upgrade then we can probably use some of the same cameras and we can both benefit." According to Morgan Bowden, deputy in charge of the Island Coastal District, the sheriff's department doesn't have the funds to pay for such a system, but private funding might be available. The present camera system - installed by United Toll Systems - includes five security cameras aimed at various points on the toll plaza. It cost approximately $11,000, according to Cooper. A high-resolution security system would cost significantly more, he said., but would be more reliable. "This new system would give you digital quality and record to the hard drive of a computer. It's much more sophisticated." Cooper said he plans to bring up the idea at the next GIBA board meeting, on Feb. 25. This is the fourth time that island deputies have asked to view the GIBA tapes. The first time involved a stolen barbecue pit. In that case deputies identified the pit in the tapes, but were unable to gain additional information about the theft, Cooper said. http://www.bocabeacon.com/story.htbml?number=293 6. Police defend camera systems STOPPING CRIMINALS: In response to claims that surveillance systems are an invasion of privacy, Taipei police said yesterday that cameras have helped to reduce crime By Jimmy Chuang STAFF REPORTER Sunday, Feb 23, 2003,Page 2 Published on TaipeiTimes Taipei police said yesterday they are happy with the benefits of community video surveillance, despite claims from Minister of the Interior Yu Cheng-hsien (EF) on Friday that the cameras are a violation of human rights and an invasion of privacy. Lu Pi-tsung (fv), director of the city police's peace preservation department, said that "according to our statistics, crime rates in communities with security video surveillance are lower than communities without it. In addition, many borough wardens put stickers under the cameras in their communities which read: `This neighborhood is monitored by a security video system 24 hours a day.' These labels help keep criminals away, too," Lu said. At a meeting at the National Police Administration (NPA) on Friday, Yu demanded that NPA officials consider a law to regulate the use of community security video surveillance to help maintain public order but not impinge on the public's human rights. "I understand it helps the police to investigate crimes," Yu said. "However, it is important to avoid any difficulties that could arise." Echoing Yu's call, Ministry of Justice's Senior Consultant Hsieh Jung-sheng (a) said yesterday he too was worried about the possible impact of the surveillance cameras and would not encourage communities to install video systems while concerns still remain. "Video footage can be used in a good way," he said. "However, people also have the right to refuse to be watched, don't they? In addition, there are no rules to regulate the management of the video tapes. If the tapes got into the wrong hands, then the criminals would know just about every move in the neighborhood. Who will take that responsibility?" Hsieh said. Defending the surveillance cameras, Shihlin Precinct Director Keng Chi-wen (~) said that police have greatly benefited from the system over the past year. Using the murder of former KMT Taipei City councilor Chen Chin-chi's (i) as an example, Keng said that police were able to locate the two suspects quickly thanks to camera footage of them fleeing the scene of the crime. "Although both of them were wearing helmets, the video still gave us lots of information, such as their escape route," Keng said. Copyright (C) 1999-2003 The Taipei Times. All rights reserved. http://www.taipeitimes.com/News/taiwan/archives/2003/02/23/195601 7. Cameras cut CBD crime by a half General crime has dropped in the city centre by 45% since the installation of the surveillance cameras in December, and there has been a significant drop of 29,5% in serious crime when comparing January 2003 with January 2002. Police spokesman Superintendent Lucas Holtshauzen compared crime between December 2001 and December 2002, and said there was a 5,9% reduction in serious crime. Holtshauzen said: "We can see crime is shifting away from where the cameras are positioned." He said that for January alone there was a 59% decrease in "common" robbery and a 45% decrease in business robberies. Two weeks ago a shop break-in was reported and four people were arrested. Inspector Yolande van der Merwe said the operators saw the suspects breaking the shop window, and contacted the police who arrested the suspects while the housebreaking was in progress. The city had 16 cameras installed at a cost of R4,5 million at the beginning of December. They relay pictures that can identify people 200 metres away. There are 12 operators and if they see something they can control the camera and follow the action, Holtshauzen said. He said the cameras "tour" (run) 24 hours a day and the recordings are kept for 14 days. "Some people have been reporting incidents to the police so that they can claim from the insurance companies, but we've been exposing them as false cases," he said. He added that in both December and January there were 28 arrests for armed robberies, theft out of motor vehicles, breaking into motor vehicles, smash-and-grabs and the display of firearms. "Last week two men were seen trying to break into a cellphone shop in Commercial Road. It was picked up by the monitors and the police were alerted, descriptions given, and the suspects were arrested." Business Against Crime chairman Des Winship said the city had been suffering an increase in crime over the years and former mayor Siphiwe Gwala, together with the police, safety and security officers, finance and business officials and the courts decided it was necessary to form the Safe City Pietermaritzburg company. He said the objective of the company is to reduce crime in the city. "This is the first such organisation in South Africa," he said. This week a vehicle was handed over to the Director Prabathie Maharaj of the Loop Street police station, which will be used as a response vehicle to respond quickly to incidents viewed by camera operators. Winship said this is the first of three phases. A total of 40 more cameras are to be installed in the CBD and in surrounding areas. However, he said people need to report crime. "That will assist us in our decisions for Phase Two, because the crime patterns are shifting," he said. "With the installation of Phase Two we will see a dramatic decrease in crime for the whole city." He also commented on bank thieves who hang around banks. "We tell the response vehicle and they get them away before a crime is committed," he said. "If we can stabilise crime we will be happy, but the whole objective is to keep the city crime-free," he said. "Come back to the city, we are here, we'll look after you," said Winship. Publish Date: 24 February 2003 http://www.witness.co.za/content%5C2003_02%5C13310.htm X-From_: info@notbored.org Wed Feb 26 13:07:11 2003 X-Original-To: info@notbored.org X-Sender: notbored@popserver.panix.com Date: Wed, 26 Feb 2003 13:03:07 -0500 To: me<info@notbored.org>From: NOT BORED!<info@notbored.org>Subject: clipping service: focus on New York City Status: RO X-Status: This is a service provided by the Surveillance Camera Players https://notbored.org/the-scp.html To unsubscribe, reply with the words, "Take your hands off of me, you damn filthy ape!" ******************************************** 1. Wall Street finds price of liberty is eternal vigilance 2. New Technology To Help Coast Guard Keep Waters Around NYC Safe 3. New System to Extend Harbor's Surveillance Beyond Horizon ******************************************** 1. Wall Street finds price of liberty is eternal vigilance By Gary Silverman Published: February 26 2003 4:00 Outside the world headquarters of Lehman Brothers in New York, there was trouble on the street. Police radios monitored by the securities company said a nearby bank had been robbed, and a suspect was heading towards Lehman's tower, a block away from Times Square. It was a time for the "pan and tilts" - adjustable video cameras used by a growing number of businesses to watch what goes on around them. A Lehman security officer circled his cameras towards 49th Street and taped the suspect as he fled down an alley. The police arrived soon after. Pan and tilt cameras have become so common in New York that police investigating street crimes regularly check with nearby businesses to see if they have recorded any evidence. This time, Lehman was able to oblige with crucial footage of the suspect. In a city plagued by fears of terrorism, the bank robbery was a minor incident, a reminder of the days when the worst thing most New Yorkers had to fear was a man with a gun and a mercenary streak. But the response to the robbery - the unseen corporate eye in the sky snapping the criminal - highlighted the growing intensity of Wall Street security after the World Trade Center attack. September 11 put Wall Street on notice that any prominent office could become a target. Tightening building security became crucial - if only to reassure staff in a city where the blare of sirens can rub nerves raw even in relatively relaxed times. Wall Street's response has relied, to a great degree, on one of its traditional skills: paying attention. With growing technological sophistication, its banks and brokerages are watching the street, the mail and even the air outside. Cameras are now monitored round the clock, giving banks 360-degree views of life as it unfolds on the street. On top of the electronic scrutiny, guards outside buildings stop visitors and ask for identification. Metal detectors loom in investment bank lobbies. Sniffer dogs patrol offices. In a chilling sign of the times, a US government website that regularly monitors radiation levels in New York is becoming required reading for Wall Street security officials fearing a "dirty bomb" attack. Security officers say they are creating more layers of defence. An onion is their favourite analogy: depending on the bank, the number of layers and their character may vary. But in all cases, the intention is to throw potential terrorists off their stride. As September 11 showed, terrorists need time to conduct surveillance before they strike. Anything that disrupts their work has deterrence value. Security experts call it "hardening the target". The impossible challenge for Wall Street is knowing exactly where to watch. That dilemma was driven home to the financial world last month by the kidnapping of Edward Lampert, a leading hedge fund manager, just outside New York. The abduction seems to have been the work of amateurs. Mr Lampert was held for more than 30 hours but then released, apparently so he could raise money. Instead, he walked into a police station and his captors were arrested. But the kidnapping shook Wall Street because it happened in Greenwich, Connecticut, a suburb much favoured by the financial community. Although experts doubt that kidnapping will become a preferred tool of US terrorists or criminals, it raised questions about the security of executives when they venture outside the hardened targets where they work. Bernard Kerik, a former New York police commissioner who has joined forces with ex-mayor Rudolph Giuliani to form Giuliani-Kerik, a security services provider, says: "Things like the Lampert case brought that to light in this area. I know I got some calls." Security experts say their response to such calls usually involves some personal "target hardening". They tell executives to vary their commuting routes, or install cameras or lights at home. Bodyguards are still a last resort. However, law enforcement veterans say they remain frustrated by the local nature of the response to incidents such as the kidnapping, or even the WTC attack. When a fund manager is abducted in Greenwich, other fund managers and other Greenwich residents take notice. The difficulty lies in getting executives elsewhere to start watching for trouble in the way that has become increasingly ingrained for Wall Street firms. Mr Kerik says executives are natural optimists in their professional lives and "are encouraged to deny evil". If the threat is not in their face, many will ignore it. He says: "I've gone to California, San Francisco and Los Angeles. I spoke about terrorism out there. It's like another world. They are oblivious to the possible threat. I think it's very foolish." Additional reporting by Julie Earle in New York . http://news.ft.com/servlet/ContentServer?pagename=FT.com/StoryFT/FullStory&c=StoryFT&cid=1045511142056 2. New Technology To Help Coast Guard Keep Waters Around NYC Safe (New York-WABC, February 25, 2003) The constant threat of a terror attack is leading to improvements in security at every level. The US Coast Guard is the latest to upgrade its anti-terror patrol. New surveillance equipment already in place and it's being put to use in the waters around New York City. NJ Burkett reports. A new radar system installed by the Coast Guard can pick up anything from a 15-foot inflatable boat all the way up to a ship the size of an aircraft carrier. Officials say once the system is fully up and running, it will be able to locate and identify ships some 30 miles before they reach New York Harbor. More than 1,000 ships cross the rivers and harbors of New York City every day. There are fast ferries carrying commuters, foreign freighters loaded down with cargo and everything in between. Meanwhile, the US Coast Guard is working hard to keep track of them all. Captain Craig Bone, US Coast Guard: "When you have these large ships that are coming in, they present a high risk to the port." The Coast Guard announced plans Tuesday to scrap their 15 year-old radar system and replace it with a high-tech tracking network similar to one used by air traffic controllers. Over the next several months, all commercial ships will be required to carry transponders that will transmit an electronic signature. That would allow all marine traffic in the area to be monitored from a central nerve center. Alan Bills helped design the system for Lockheed Martin. Alan Bills, Lockheed Martin: "If you have vessels, you don't know who they are, you'll detect them with the radar and then the Coast Guard can go and find out who they are." The system is backed up with a vast network of surveillance cameras. It was one of those cameras that caught Friday's spectacular fuel barge explosion off the coast of Staten Island. Officials say the system will enhance both harbor safety and security. Captain Bone: "This system was not built to be a security system, however, we'll utilitize it in a large way to enhance security in the port. What you have is a system designed around safety requirements that also enhances the security because of the technology and the capability it provides." The Coast Guard admits their new system is no substitute for inspections, but what it can do is help rule out familiar, legitimate ships, allowing the Coast Guard to concentrate their resources on suspicious vessels. http://abclocal.go.com/wabc/news/WABC_022503_portsecurity.html 3. New System to Extend Harbor's Surveillance Beyond Horizon February 26, 2003 By DIANE CARDWELL When it comes to watching what travels through the busy waters surrounding New York City, the surveillance cameras that captured a deadly explosion off Staten Island last week are just the tip of the iceberg. The cameras, which are in place to record the activity of just about everything that floats, are scheduled to expand their range under a new system announced yesterday that will enable the Coast Guard to automatically identify vessels up to 30 miles away. The system, designed by Lockheed Martin Corporation under a contract awarded in 1998, will allow for an "over the horizon view" of arriving vessels, said Capt. Craig Bone, the Coast Guard's captain of the Port of New York and New Jersey. It will allow Coast Guard officials to know not just which ships are on their way, Captain Bone said, but where they are likely to go. The system, which is also to be installed at Houston-Galveston and Port Arthur, Tex., lets operators sitting before two computer screens "pull up a display that will tell us where they were last time they were here, how long they stayed and what cargoes they transferred," he added. The current system, which has been in place since the early 1990's and serves a similar function to air traffic control, was set up in the wake of the Exxon Valdez disaster in Alaska in 1989 to help prevent collisions and spills. Called the Vessel Traffic Service program, its headquarters is at Fort Wadsworth in Staten Island. It uses closed-circuit television cameras and 12 radar systems placed throughout the harbor, in addition to cutters and aircraft that patrol the waterways. Under the upgrade, more cameras will be added to expand the range of vision along the Hudson River, including "the ferry transit area" and "the cruise ship area," Captain Bone said. He said he could not be more specific because of security concerns. The existing radar systems, whose technology is about 15 years old, will be updated and a 13th will be added, said Alan Bills, a Lockheed Martin manager for the project. Unlike the current radar, where operators might have trouble distinguishing a rubber raft or a group of small ships near a large one, said Sandra Jean Borden, a Washington-based Coast Guard manager for the program, the new radar's resolution is so high that it "can even see ice floes." But the crown jewel in the surveillance program is the Automatic Identification System, under which devices installed in tankers, ferries and cruise ships will automatically transmit their identifying information directly into the Coast Guard's computer system. That, officials said, will help them more quickly identify ships and determine a host of information about them, including name, cargo, course and speed. Because the system is connected to a Global Positioning System, operators will be able to better manage water traffic. By looking at a computer screen, for example, Coast Guard officials will be able to see the speed at which any given vessel is traveling, as well as when it will reach a given destination, and to send a message to speed up, slow down or change course. At the same time, having so much more information more quickly will allow officials to make decisions more efficiently about which vessels warrant further surveillance or interception. "If you're managing 1,000 vessels moving though a port," Captain Bone said, "you need to know as much information about the risks or the threat that you're introducing to the port, so you can plan ahead." Ideally, he said, the system will eventually be integrated with those of the other agencies that will fall under the Department of Homeland Security umbrella, like the United States Customs Service. Still, officials emphasized that the upgrade is not a panacea against terrorism. "This system was not built to be a security system; however, we have utilized it in a large way to enhance security in the port," Captain Bone said. "There's no one silver bullet thing that's going to solve the safety and solve the security issue." http://www.nytimes.com/2003/02/26/nyregion/26VIDE.html X-From_: info@notbored.org Sun Mar 2 19:42:56 2003 X-Original-To: info@notbored.org X-Sender: notbored@popserver.panix.com Date: Sun, 2 Mar 2003 19:35:34 -0500 To: me<info@notbored.org>From: NOT BORED!<info@notbored.org>Subject: clipping service: focus on the UK Status: RO X-Status: This is a service of the Surveillance Camera Players. https://notbored.org/the-scp.html To unsubscribe, reply with the words "unsubscribe clipping." ************************************************ 1. Classroom CCTV alarms teachers 2. Congestion charge cameras to help combat terrorism 3. Nine new CCTV cameras installed 4. CCTV crackdown targets Edgware Road drivers ************************************************ 1. Classroom CCTV alarms teachers Staff and agencies Monday February 24, 2003 The Guardian Teacher leaders warned today that plans to introduce CCTV into the classroom could hinder rather than help teachers. Manchester City council has applied for a government grant to install "simple CCTV" cameras in five schools as part of a discipline crackdown. They say they want to use the footage as evidence for parents who refuse to believe their children behave badly. Chief education officer Mick Waters stressed the council was not trying to catch out teachers who struggled to control their classes. But one union leader voiced fears that the idea smacked of a "Big Brother mentality" that would make teachers feel uneasy, despite the insistence that they were not the ones being spied on. Mr Waters said 99% of children were well behaved but the others showed no respect for their teachers or fellow pupils. "They don't listen, they may talk out of turn. They hinder other people, they are noisy and they don't work when they are asked, disturbing other people's learning. "Parents who don't usually see their children in school can find it difficult to believe some examples of their children's behaviour. Children will do best in school if they behave well and we are trying to work with these parents to make their children behave better," he said. A Manchester City council spokeswoman described the scheme as "low key", saying that the funding was in the "low thousands". No school had been selected to take part, and wouldn't be until the funding was confirmed, she added. Eamonn O'Kane, general secretary of the National Association of Schoolmasters Union of Women Teachers, said it was a "brutal reality" that some parents refused to accept their children behaved badly and needed convincing. But he questioned whether cameras in the classroom was the best way to do it, saying the idea was a "slightly gimmicky touch that makes me uneasy". Mr O'Kane said it would be better to invest more in facilities such as pupil referral units, to which children expelled from mainstream schools are sent. "I'm slightly worried about the 'Big Brother' mentality. I can't quite see why one has to go to such lengths to prove to parents that youngsters misbehave this way. I wonder if the money couldn't be spent in a much more productive way. "But, with the presence of CCTV everywhere, I suppose this is an inevitable step in modern culture." EducationGuardian.co.uk Guardian Newspapers Limited 2003 http://education.guardian.co.uk/schools/story/0,5500,902114,00.html?=rss 2. Congestion charge cameras to help combat terrorism By Cathy Newman and Jimmy Burns Published: February 27 2003 4:00 | Last Updated: February 27 2003 4:00 Ken Livingstone's conges-tion charging cameras are to be used by the Metropolitan Police to keep tabs on suspected terrorists. Sir John Stevens, the Metropolitan Police commissioner, said in an interview with the Financial Times that the cameras were "part of the equation" in the fight against crime. "We hope to get those benefits in terms of cars going in and out, and we're looking to do that. It's early days yet as you know but I think potential benefits must be there." Civil liberties campaigners expressed concern last night. John Wadham, director of Liberty, said: "We are very concerned about what we would call function creep. Whatever system of surveillance is created and whatever justification there is for creating it it's always inevitably used for other purposes. In the absence of robust privacy protection our personal data is used for a wide variety of sometimes unjustified reasons." But the decision to use the cameras shows the lengths to which police are prepared to go to fight terrorism. The risk of an attack on London remains high. The commissioner said he had been "working flat out" to ensure the Met was prepared. The demands on him and his colleagues were "unprecedented". And the strain shows. Like the prime minister, who has lost weight and gained wrinkles since September 11, Sir John looks and sounds tired from long days and sleepless nights punctuated by the ringing of his mobile phone, bringing news of developments in the war on terror. "I think we've gone through every single sce nario that's needed: biochemical attack to bomb attack to other types of attack. We've worked on this for the past three or four months in a very major way, even more than we did post September 11th." The threat appeared to intensify this month, when intelligence suggested terrorists could be plotting to bring down aircraft. Tanks and troops were sent in as a deterrent. Sir John said he had "good reason" to think a terrorist strike was "probably" averted. But although there have been more than 330 arrests under the Terrorism Act 2000, the commissioner was wary of claiming a breakthrough in the war on terrorism. "What we know is we've done what would appear to be very well so far but you can never be totally sure . . . That's why we are still working flat out on it." The government has been criticised for its emergency planning, following the disclosure that the long-awaited civil contingencies bill has been delayed once again. The "UK Resilience" website, set up by Whitehall to provide information to the public, displays leaflets sent out by the US and Australian governments to tell people what to do in a terrorist emergency. But although the Home Office said it was "considering" doing its own leaflet, nothing has yet been published. Sir John believes "very simple" advice would be useful, but added: "There is a balance to alarming people." He pointed out that Londoners have lived with the threat of terrorism for decades. And in recent years that threat has become a reality, with the grenade attack on the MI6 building on the south of the Thames, and the explosion outside the BBC. Nevertheless he accepted that the London Underground is one of a number of "vulnerable points" in the capital. Police have privately warned the government that a war in Iraq could harm the fight against crime and terrorism on the home front. There is speculation a conflict in the Gulf could trigger reprisals in the form of suicide attacks in Britain. Sir John was unwilling to be drawn on the impact a strike on Baghdad would have. But he raised concerns, as David Blunkett, home secretary, has, that a war risked inflaming tensions in communities with a high proportion of ethnic minorities. He fears extremists such as the British National party could "take advantage" of a war to exacerbate racial tensions. http://news.ft.com/servlet/ContentServer?pagename=FT.com/StoryFT/FullStory&c=StoryFT&cid=1045511175653 3. Nine new CCTV cameras installed By Leigh Collins Nine CCTV cameras are to be installed along the Edgware Road by the summer to monitor bus lanes and anti-social behaviour. Transport for London (TfL) will monitor the cameras in Burnt Oak, West Hendon and Cricklewood from 7am to 10am and 4pm to 7pm to catch motorists driving and parking illegally in the bus lanes. Outside these hours, Barnet Council officers will be able to use the cameras for general public safety surveillance. Cabinet member for environment Councillor Brian Coleman said: "We are determined to tackle street crime and these additional cameras will help us to do just that. They will be used to target vandalism, drunkenness and graffiti at key times. The cameras will deter crime, identify suspects and provide evidence for the police." TfL is contributing almost 300,000 to the 400,000 costs, with Barnet Council committing only 20,000. Councillor Kathy McGuirk, Labour's spokeswoman for environment, said: "These cameras are not covering areas where there are particular [crime] problems. "There's an identified problem in other parts of Burnt Oak and Cricklewood that needs to be addressed. I think it's their way [the Tories] to avoid investment in areas that need it. They're trying to duck the issue." She added the council would be making a profit from the scheme as it would collect motoring fines from the surveillance. Wednesday 26th February 2003 http://www.edgwaretimes.co.uk/news/display.var.701220.index.nine_new_cctv_cameras_installed.html 4. CCTV crackdown targets Edgware Road drivers By Leigh Collins Nine CCTV cameras are to be installed along the Edgware Road to monitor bus lanes and anti-social behaviour this summer. Transport for London (TfL) will monitor the cameras in Burnt Oak, West Hendon and Cricklewood from 7am-10am and 4am-7pm to catch motorists driving and parking illegally in the bus lanes. Outside these hours, Barnet Council officers will be able to use these cameras for 'general public safety surveillance'. Cabinet member for environment Councillor Brian Coleman said: "We are determined to tackle street crime and these additional cameras will help us to do just that. They will be used to target vandalism, drunkenness and graffiti at key times. The cameras will deter crime, identify suspects and provide evidence for the police." TfL is contributing almost 300,000 to the 400,000 costs, with the council committing only 20,000. Councillor Kathy McGuirk, Labour's spokeswoman for environment, said: "These cameras are not covering the areas where there are particular [crime] problems. There's an identified problem in other parts of Burnt Oak and Cricklewood that needs to be addressed. I think it's their way to avoid investment in areas that need it. They're trying to duck the issue." She added that the council would be making a profit from the scheme as it would collect motoring fines. Wednesday 26th February 2003 http://www.edgwaretimes.co.uk/news/display.html?nwid=701209&PAGE=index X-From_: info@notbored.org Sun Mar 2 20:23:24 2003 X-Original-To: info@notbored.org X-Sender: notbored@popserver.panix.com Date: Sun, 2 Mar 2003 20:19:13 -0500 To: me<info@notbored.org>From: NOT BORED!<info@notbored.org>Subject: clipping service: surveillance cameras Status: RO X-Status: This is a service of the Surveillance Camera Players https://notbored.org/the-scp.html **************************************************** 1. More workplaces keep eye, and ear, on employees (USA) 2. EU consultation on video-surveillance and privacy (Europe) 3. S. Florida spy plane now on U.S. radar (USA) 4. Local Ports Won't Get Cameras, Will Get Drones (USA) 5. Tenant's Sex-cam Nightmare (USA) 6. Jail strip-searches recorded on video (USA) ******************************************** 1. More workplaces keep eye, and ear, on employees By Stephanie Armour, USA TODAY As the job market tightens and companies ramp up productivity, more firms are spying on employees. Monitoring is at an all-time high. More than three-quarters of major companies record and review employee communications and on-the-job activities, according to an American Management Association survey. That figure has doubled since 1997. "We've been a public company for 30 years, and we've never seen this increase in monitoring employees," says Richard Soloway, CEO of Napco Security Systems, a manufacturer of security products based in Amityville, N.Y. "Companies are looking for more efficiency, and they want to keep track of who's producing," he says. Employers are using a host of monitoring tactics: Companies are hiring third parties to keep an eye on employee activity. In Boca Raton, Fla., Humint Employment Services advertises itself as a provider of actors as undercover agents. Companies bring in the actors introduced as the newest hires to monitor employee behavior. Employers also are hiring investigators to catch workers' compensation fraud or other abuses. "Demand is increasing," says Niall Cronnolly, president of Eagle Investigative Services in Atlanta. The firm provides investigators who pose as employees. "Last weekend, a shift company brought us in, and we got a video of guys drinking beer on the job." New technology has fueled camera and audio monitoring. Westec InterActive in Irvine, Calif., offers audio and visual monitoring. Instead of just watching what employees are up to, it's possible to hear what's going on. Costs for the systems range from $7,000 to $30,000. Electronic surveillance is also escalating. Current technology allows managers to record keystrokes, e-mail, online chats, instant messages and more. To some, such surveillance is a troublesome invasion. "They all raise concerns from the privacy point of view," says Barry Steinhardt of the American Civil Liberties Union in New York. "Our every action and utterance is being watched." Employers say the monitoring can pay off. Westec's monitoring cameras with audio have been set up in 11 Howdy's Food Marts, which are owned by Transmountain Oil in El Paso. "When you dial into the store, they have no idea you're there. It's made a huge difference," says Terry Calhoun, marketing vice president at Transmountain. "It's like having an extra pair of eyes." http://www.usatoday.com/money/workplace/2003-02-26-spy_x.htm 2. EU consultation on video-surveillance and privacy 27/02/2003 A working document examining the application of EU data protection legislation in the area of video surveillance has been issued by the European Unions Working Party on data protection. The group, comprising EU Data Protection Commissioners, has launched a public consultation to collect the opinions of all interested parties on the subject. The group, also known as the Article 29 Working Party because it was established by Art. 29 of Directive 95/46 EC on Data Protection, is concerned that the proliferation of image acquisition systems such as CCTV cameras in public and private areas may result in placing unjustified restrictions on citizens rights and fundamental freedoms. In its Working Document on the Processing of Personal Data by means of Video Surveillance, the group claims: "Whereas video surveillance appears to be somehow justified under certain circumstances, there are also cases in which protection is sought impulsively by means of video cameras without adequately considering the relevant prerequisites and arrangements. This is sometimes due to the economic benefits granted on a large scale by public bodies as well as to the offer of better insurance terms in connection with the use of video surveillance equipment." According to the Working Party, the current diversities in Member States national laws regulating video surveillance require a more systematic and harmonised approach. The Working Document is concerned with surveillance aimed at the distance monitoring of events, situations and occurrences. The document examines the definition of surveillance under the Directive, and details Member States relevant national provisions. It also outlines areas where the Directive is wholly or partly inapplicable (such as the processing of sound and image data for purposes concerning national security). The document considers the way the data protection principles should be applied in video surveillance, focusing on criteria to make the processing of data collected through CCTV cameras legitimate, and on the rights of data subjects and the obligations of data controllers. Finally, the Working Document draws attention to video surveillance in the employment context, an issue that has already been considered in a separate Working Document issued in May 2002. Building on the considerations made in that document, the new Working Document provides that video surveillance systems aimed directly at controlling, from a remote location, quality and amount of working activities, therefore entailing the processing of personal data in this context, should not be permitted as a rule. The Working Party is inviting all interested parties to submit their opinions on the issue before 31 May, 2003. The Working Document on the Processing of Personal Data by means of Video Surveillance and details on how comments or position papers should be submitted are available here. Masons 2000 - 2003 http://www.out-law.com/php/page.php?page_id=euconsultationonv1046347318&area=news 3. S. Florida spy plane now on U.S. radar By Joseph Mann Business Writer Posted February 27 2003 An aeronautical engineer in Palm Beach Gardens is offering the U.S. military an unmanned,disposable spy plane called Archangel that costs less than $40,000 each, compared with other unmanned aircraft now in use that carry multimillion-dollar price tags. "We're putting something out for operational units at a reasonable cost," said Roy Wubker, 41, vice president and chief operating officer of Systems Research and Development Corp., a defense contracting firm he set up in 1989. "I decided to invest my own money and give the war-fighter something he needs that doesn't have to go through a three-to-five-year development program and cost billions." Wubker and a small team of co-workers (the company now has 22 employees) used off-the-shelf technology to develop the Archangel and Super Archangel in a matter of months. Both Archangel models can fly autonomously, carrying cameras, ordnance, chemical, biological and radiation sensors or pamphlets, he said. They can be used for surveillance, delivery of small payloads, and can immediately tell military commanders anywhere in the world the results of an air strike or other battlefield assessments by sending back pictures. SRDC has already sold some units to the U.S. Navy's Special Warfare division and has orders for nearly 100 more from U.S. "special forces operators," Wubker said. The Archangel, with a 10-foot wingspan, is powered by a two-stroke motor and weighs 90 to 100 pounds, depending on the payload. Made principally from fiberglass and Styrofoam, the small propeller craft can fly for 30 hours and has a range of 2,000 nautical miles. The Super Archangel has a 14-foot wingspan and can carry heavier payloads. The planes are sold in boxes of two, with the Archangel priced at two for $78,000 and the Super Archangel at two for $86,000. "If you buy 10, we'll give you a toaster oven," Wubker quipped. If he can get more orders from the government, Wubker estimated he could sell each plane for about $10,000. Each packing box can be used as a launching ramp. Although the planes may be recovered (they can be ordered to fly to a certain point, cut the engine and deploy a parachute), Wubker said they were designed to be disposable since they're so cheap. "We analyzed what was wrong with the UAV (unmanned aerial vehicle) business and we realized it has to be something cheap, so that someone doesn't lose a [military] rank explaining why it crashed," he said. "We're very impressed with the capabilities of SRDC's Archangel UAV," Pentagon spokeswoman Cheryl Irwin told Bloomberg News. "It offers a favorable combination" at a relatively low cost. In contrast to Archangel, Northrop Grumman Corp. sells the Global Hawk unmanned spy plane to the government at about $50 million each. Wubker pointed out, that the Archangel doesn't compete directly with high-cost UAVs like the Hawk or the Predator, which have specific missions. It will, however, compete with two smaller planes being developed by Boeing Co. that will be much more expensive than the Archangel. "The difference is that mine is available now. Theirs will be in three to five years," he said. The planes can be launched from land or from the deck of a ship or a submarine on the surface, and controlled by "someone sitting at a computer with a satellite phone," Wubker said. Each aircraft has an onboard computer, global positioning satellite system and receives its navigational instructions from the computer operator. Bloomberg News contributed to this report. http://www.sun-sentinel.com/business/local/sfl-zangel27feb27,0,7398834.story?coll=sfla-business-front 4. Local Ports Won't Get Cameras, Will Get Drones Posted: 6:53 a.m. EST February 27, 2003 MIAMI -- Some states use high-tech surveillance cameras to protect their ports, but it seems South Florida won't follow their lead. While the cameras seem to be an effective form of surveillance, South Florida does not have any. The U.S. Coast Guard says South Florida won't be getting any either because the layout of local ports is different from New York's. But the ports won't go unwatched though. The Coast Guard will use unmanned drones (pictured) in the next three to four years to monitor the comings and goings of ships and other activity around the ports. The drones will be launched from ships already at sea then controlled remotely. http://www.click10.com/mia/news/stories/news-200761520030227-050241.html 5. TENANT'S SEX-CAM NIGHTMARE February 27, 2003 -- A Long Island woman who said she suffered a "visual rape" by her peeping Tom landlord and his hidden camcorder lashed out yesterday after he got off with a slap on the wrist. Stephanie Fuller blasted the sentence as "a joke" after watching William Schultz - who set up a camera to catch her naked or in sex acts - receive a sentence of probation, community service and a mere $1,468 in restitution. The problem was the limitations of state law. New York state doesn't have a law making it illegal for a person to film others in his home. Schultz, 54, was charged with trespassing. The most he could have gotten was 60 days in jail. "I have been violated twice already, mainly by Mr. Schultz, but also by our lawmakers," Fuller said before Schultz was sentenced yesterday for the Nov. 11, 2001, crime. "And I do not want to be violated a third time by finding myself on the Internet - because the police did not look for more tapes," said Fuller, 29. Fuller says Suffolk cops failed to complete a search of Schultz's house for more tapes. She called Schultz's camcorder trespassing "visual rape" and said she has been forced to undergo psychiatric counseling to deal with sleepless nights, panic attacks and anxiety. "I felt as if I had been raped," the tearful victim said in court - as Schultz refused to look up. "You need help because you are a sexual predator," she told the impassive Schultz. Fuller and her boyfriend Joseph Ferland discovered the crime only after a rat of the four-legged variety made noises in the ceiling. Further inspection revealed a tiny camera hidden in a smoke detector. Ferland followed a video cable from the attic all the way to the man Fuller called a "two-legged rat" - Schultz. Police found the landlord in possession of one tape of Fuller in private moments. But Fuller believes there were other tapes made during the three months she rented from Schultz. As a result of the invasion of privacy, Fuller says she now checks the smoke detectors compulsively, jumps at sudden sounds and will not try on clothes in store dressing rooms because she fears they may contain hidden cameras. Judge Kahn expressed regret that she could only "uphold the laws of the state" and noted there was a drive to close the technological loophole in the criminal statutes. But that didn't satisfy Fuller, who called the sentence "a joke" after the hearing. "He should be in jail with psychiatric help. He knows that he's guilty." Then, watching Schultz duck cameras outside the courtroom, she quipped, "I don't see why he should be camera-shy." Schultz did not comment. His lawyer Eric Naiburg, who also represented Long Island Lolita Amy Fisher, said he was satisfied with the sentence. In addition to the three years of probation, 280 hours of community service and the restitution to Fuller, Schultz will also have to undergo psychiatric counseling. Fuller said women in apartments can easily make sure they are not under surveillance. "Check your smoke detector frequently," she said. "If there's a camera inside, you'll see it. If you don't see a reflection of your fingertip in the mirror - it's a two-way mirror." Fuller's lawyer, Justin Lite, said the state Senate has passed a bill against such peeping Tom video crimes, "but the bill gets bogged down in the Assembly. They can't get it out of committee." By KIERAN CROWLEY http://www.nypost.com/news/regionalnews/69593.htm 6. Jail strip-searches recorded on video The taping of minor offenders will play into a privacy suit. By Denny Walsh -- Bee Staff Writer - (Published March 1, 2003) Strip searches of minor offenders in the Sacramento jail are filmed by video cameras, and the tapes are retained for more than a year. The Sheriff's Department began filming strip searches April 12, 2001, to preserve an irrefutable record of the searches, officials said. If there is an accusation of impropriety, the tapes would be evidence that officials say they hope would resolve the matter. Unlike other security cameras in the jail, these are not hooked to the system's monitors, and the film is only viewed to resolve disputes about what happened, the officials said. But, they insist, the searches themselves are necessary to ensure the safety of everyone in the jail. While on a tour of the jail in December, Mark Merin, an attorney who is pursuing a class-action lawsuit on behalf of minor offenders who were strip-searched, noticed cameras trained on those areas where the searches take place. He said the videotapes will figure in his argument for punitive damages against Sacramento County Sheriff Lou Blanas at an upcoming trial. "He doesn't seem to care what the law is, or even about basic human dignity," Merin said of Blanas. "This shows a total disregard for privacy rights." Terrence Cassidy, the attorney who heads the county's defense team, disputed Merin's view. "They are simply a reasonable means of protecting staff and detainees in the event a question ever arises as to what transpired," Cassidy said. "This is not a joy ride. Nobody sits around monitoring these searches for entertainment," he added. Sheriff's Capt. David Lind, who is an attorney, said, "It's like changing clothes in front of a blind person." Cassidy defended Blanas as "one of the most sensitive persons I know when it comes to people's rights. Lou was a line officer and worked his way up. He's seen it all, and he looks at these issues from every point of view." Merin filed suit March 13, 2001, on behalf of seven people arrested a year earlier on suspicion of failing to disperse while protesting at the state Department of Forestry and Fire Protection. It was later certified as a class-action suit, and Superior Court Judge Thomas Cecil ruled last month that the county and Blanas are liable for damages. A trial to assess damages is set for March 24. Merin estimates that the number of plaintiffs will eventually be in the thousands and damages will run into the millions. Sheriff's officials say those are gross exaggerations. Merin said this week that he is just beginning the daunting task of reviewing booking reports for the three years covered by the suit. Merin contends that Capt. Jim Cooper, the jail commander, told him during his December tour that the cameras trained on the strip-search areas were inoperative. On Feb. 18, in response to written questions from Merin, defense lawyers said the cameras have filmed uninterrupted from "April 12, 2001, to present." The written answers say the tapes are maintained in the jail's surveillance video library for 13 months, in accordance with county and department policy. If the tape is not needed as evidence within that period, it goes back into the jail security system and new images are recorded over the old ones. Merin said he believes Cooper lied to him. "He's full of it," Cooper said. "I told him that those cameras record but they can't be monitored." "No good deed goes unpunished," Lind said. "We try to cooperate with this attorney, and he wants to use it against us." Cooper's boss, Chief Deputy Dan Drummond, said, "I've never seen a tape from those areas. It's very rare that anybody sees one. The benefit is they hold both parties accountable. "It seems Mr. Merin is looking for some more publicity in the belief that it will put extra pressure on the department." Drummond also agreed with others that publicity may bring potential clients to Merin's door. Monitored or not, Merin insists the filming exacerbates an already illegal act -- the search of minor offenders without a reasonable suspicion that contraband will be found. California law prohibits the involvement of anyone in a strip search who is not carrying out an official duty, Merin pointed out. "By filming the searches, you lose control over the privacy of the detainees." Cassidy said Merin is engaging in "reverse logic." "He wants to make this very private material a very public issue," Cassidy said. "We, on the other hand, would never access it, barring legal necessity. So, who is more interested in the privacy rights of Mark's clients?" Judge Cecil found that the policy of the Sheriff's Department to strip search everyone arrested on a lesser offense and placed in the jail's general population violates the California Constitution's privacy guarantee and the state Penal Code's strict limitations on such searches. Cecil cited a 1989 state attorney general's opinion that makes only three exceptions to the Penal Code's prohibition on strip and visual body-cavity searches: * A search done after an inmate's arraignment. * A search done with written authorization from a supervising officer that includes a statement of reasonable suspicion that contraband will be found. * A search conducted after a warrant has been obtained. Negotiations between Cassidy and Merin have resulted in this class definition: All those arrested and jailed since March 12, 2000, on non-violent, non-drug-related misdemeanors and minor infractions, and subjected to strip or visual body-cavity searches. Each person who qualifies under the definition will be entitled to a minimum damage award of $1,000. Punitive damages assessed against Blanas, if any, will be in addition to those sums and divided among the class members. Top Sheriff's Department officials see Cecil's ruling as a security threat to the jail's staff, inmates and the public at large. "We simply cannot take a chance that weapons, drugs and other contraband will find their way into the jail," Undersheriff John McGinness said. "There are a lot of dangerous people in there, and a chain is only as strong as its weakest link." Policies on strip searches vary widely throughout the nation and within California. However, Merin's position is generally supported by a line of federal appellate opinions similar to one in 1984 by the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, the highest court in nine Western states, including California. It ruled that people who are locked up for minor offenses may be strip-searched only if jailers have a reasonable suspicion of concealed contraband or the person arrested is suffering from a communicable disease. In striving to comply with Cecil's ruling, top sheriff's officials have undertaken a review of booking procedures. "They are trying to be mindful of the nature of an arrest and the potential for contraband," Cassidy said. "They are also working to facilitate, to the extent possible, the quick release of misdemeanor arrestees," so they don't have to go into the general jail population. http://www.sacbee.com/content/news/story/6196806p-7151563c.html