Police in the United Kingdom have had to apologize for a big mistake — releasing camera surveillance images of innocent people to the public and labeling them suspects in a crime. Why was the mistake made? Because the date and time function on the surveillance cameras were wrong. 

“Norfolk Constabulary would like to apologise for supplying inaccurate information,” said a police spokesman.

“Police were attempting to trace offenders responsible for theft from a motor vehicle from CCTV images.

“Unfortunately due to an error in the date and time mechanism the wrong images were used.

“We wish to make it clear that the images published of three individuals were not the offenders and are not linked to the crime in any way. We sincerely apologise to all involved.”

Innocent individuals were deemed criminal suspects and had their photos released to the general public because of a technological problem. I’ve written extensively about surveillance cameras.

USA Today has an interesting story on new technology being developed by the Department of Homeland Security. It seeks to divine an individual’s criminal or benign intent from a bio scan.

The futuristic machinery works on the same theory as a polygraph, looking for sharp swings in body temperature, pulse and breathing that signal the kind of anxiety exuded by a would-be terrorist or criminal. Unlike a lie-detector test that wires subjects to sensors as they answer questions, the “Future Attribute Screening Technology” (FAST) scans people as they walk by a set of cameras.

USA Today notes that this isn’t the first time DHS has attempted to use so-called “behavior detection” programs.

The five-year project, in its second year, is the department’s latest effort to thwart terrorism by spotting suspicious people. The Transportation Security Administration (TSA) has trained more than 2,000 screeners to observe passengers as they walk through airports, questioning those who seem oddly agitated or nervous. Read more »

Slate’s William Saletan has an interesting story on emerging technology. Titled, “Nowhere To Hide: Killer drones that can see through walls,” Saletan looks at aerial drones (also known as “Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs)”) and STTW, “sense-through-the-wall” technology. Saletan states:

What seems to be happening is that these two projects—STTW and UAVs—are converging. In other words, unmanned vehicles that can see through walls. In some planning documents, the merger is explicit. A 2006 “Operational Needs Statement” from the military’s Joint Urban Operations Office calls for a “STTW sensor mountable on both manned and unmanned vehicles,” including “UAV platforms.” A Navy bulletin calls for the same thing.

Saletan looked into the backstory of both technologies.

“Through-the-wall sensing is currently a topic of great interest to defense agencies both in the U.S. and abroad,” says the April [2008 Army research] report. “The U.S. Army Research Laboratory (ARL) has been active in all these fields of investigation, approaching these issues both through hardware design and radar measurements and through computer simulation of various STTW scenarios.” Read more »

On Wednesday, September 24, 2008 at 10 am, the Subcommittee on Intelligence, Information Sharing and Terrorism Risk Assessment of the House Committee on Homeland Security will hold a hearing: “A Report Card on Homeland Security Information Sharing”

Witnesses:

Charles E. Allen, Under Secretary for Intelligence and Analysis, Department of Homeland Security

Michael E. Leiter, Director, National Counterterrorism Center (NCTC)

Leroy D. Baca, Sheriff, Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department

Russell Porter, Director, Iowa Intelligence Fusion Center and Intelligence Bureau, Department of Public Safety

John McKay, Professor from Practice, Seattle University School of Law

There will be a webcast of this hearing.

Date: September 24, 2008 at 10am
Location: 311 Cannon House Office Building; Washington, DC
For more information: http://homeland.house.gov/about/schedule.asp

The Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit has affirmed a lower court ruling (pdf) that an investigative stop of a vehicle (also called a Terry stop after the Terry v. Ohio case), did not permit a police officer to open the driver’s mobile phone and find the subscriber number associated with the phone. The Terry case held that police officers can stop an individual if the officer has a “reasonable suspicion” that the person has, is or will soon commit a crime. The officer may conduct a quick “frisk” of the individual — a pat-down protects the officer and ensures that there are no weapons.

Terry concerned a pedestrian, but this ruling was later expanded to traffic stops, allowing a “temporary detention” of a individual if a police officer has a “reasonable suspicion” that the person has, is or will soon commit a crime. In Zavala, the government argued that the check of the mobile phone “was admissible because it was obtained incident to arrest [... and] the search of the cell phone was equivalent to a licence [sic] check.” An individual can be arrested based on “probable cause,” which is a higher standard than “reasonable suspicion,” and a “search incident to an arrest” is more intrusive and complete than a Terry stop and frisk.

The Fifth Circuit rejected this argument. Judge DeMoss wrote:

We agree with the district court’s legal conclusion that the initial stop of Zavala’s vehicle was an investigative stop based on a reasonable suspicion of drug trafficking activity, not probable cause. The search of Zavala’s cell phone was not the equivalent of a license check. Because [the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) agent] did not have consent or probable cause to arrest Zavala at the time of the search, the search was unconstitutional. Read more »

Found via PogoWasRight.org.

France has backed down on plans to expand the collection, retention and sharing of private data on citizens after a huge backlash from the public. The Associated Press said ”Critics have collected some 130,000 signatures against the database — known by the acronym Edvige — which they contend is better suited for a police state than a modern European democracy.”

Reuters reports:

The French government will scrap a decree that would have allowed the police to store private information on politicians and unionists, the prime minister’s office said Thursday after the text caused an outcry.

The Edvige electronic database will still go ahead, but the government will come up with a new decree that significantly tightens the rules so that only people considered a security threat can be included.

“The decree will explicitly rule out the collection of any data on people’s sexual orientation or health,” the prime minister’s office said in a statement. The first decree had made it possible to store such data, drawing widespread criticism.

The statement also noted that the new decree will no longer allow the police to collect data on politicians, union activists or religious figures simply because of their activities.

The criteria for being included will now be related to perceived security threats.