Thursday, December 07, 2006

paranoid cops and the law above the law (worried yet?)

milwaukee police officers have been disabling the gps units in their squad cars.

trying to hide from the panopticon?

there have been a number of recent cases where police agencies have located individuals using the gps transponders in the target's mobile phone. now government agencies have begun to activate cellphone microphones by remote for surveillance purposes, and have demonstrated the ability to access the computer systems installed in many automobiles. combined with automated voice recognition and automated summary-generation technologies, these tactics represent a significant advance in the potential for mass surveillance of citizens.

the party line's conventional wisdom states, "if you're not a terrorist, then you have nothing to worry about." what, then, are the police worried about?