
Boston policemen complain about new plan to watch their movements - shawndumas
http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2013/11/boston-police-set-to-track-its-own-patrol-cars-via-gps-to-improve-dispatching/
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tokenadult
This makes me really wary of ever gaining the attention of a police officer in
Boston. Police car GPS tracking technology is surely coming to my state (after
all, the city buses already have it), and it will be welcome here. Minnesota
peace officer vehicle dashboard camera videos are often used in
investigations, including investigations of officer misconduct, and everyone
expects the video to be available any time a police vehicle is involved in an
interaction with the public. It has been mandatory in my state since the 1980s
for all custodial interrogations by police to be videotaped from beginning to
end, and the videotapes can become part of the court record any time police
conduct in a case is in dispute.

Law enforcement is better when law enforcement officers are subject to the
law. It's really that simple. If we know what police officers are doing, we
know whether or not they are doing their taxpayer-funded jobs and whether
accusations against them are true or false. Every law-abiding police officer
should be glad to be on record about what happened while on patrol.

~~~
lostlogin
>>If you have something that you don't want anyone to know, maybe you
shouldn't be doing it in the first place.<< I don't agree with this statement,
however I do feel that someone who is being paid to do a job slips into a
slightly different category. It's not that I feel an employer should be able
to watch those on the clock, but the relationship with privacy changes. And
when the employee is in a job which includes monitoring of, let alone policing
of behaviour - absolutely monitoring is appropriate. How else do you resolve
the he said, she said situation?

~~~
InclinedPlane
Indeed, that statement only makes sense in a world that is maximally
accepting, tolerant, forgiving, and fair-minded.

That is not our world, not by a long shot.

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dsr_
Resident of a town near Boston here: I'm fully in favor of a _Halting State_-
style mandatory lifecam on every on-duty police officer.

It won't solve police abuses, but it will do more to help than anything else I
can think of that doesn't involve the much harder problem of changing police
culture.

~~~
yoshokatana
I agree wholeheartedly. Pilot programs, while not definitive, have shown
drastic reductions in complaints against officers, as well as use of force:

[http://www.nytimes.com/2013/04/07/business/wearable-video-
ca...](http://www.nytimes.com/2013/04/07/business/wearable-video-cameras-for-
police-officers.html?pagewanted=all)

~~~
AnIrishDuck
Honestly, it seems like a really positive thing for the "good cops" out there
too. No more "he said, she said" complaints.

Of course, if these tapes get conveniently "lost" that presents another set of
problems.

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buckbova
"What’s the logic to putting in such a tracking system? It lets dispatchers
know where officers are in real time rather than having them wait for a
response via radio. Unsurprisingly, some cops don’t like the new change."

I'm baffled that this doesn't exist already. This article feels like it's 20
years old.

~~~
eksith
I was thinking the same thing. Kinda shocked this isn't standard practice
since GPS came to public use in the first place.

Now, of course, we'll have to wait and see whether GPS data would also develop
a habit of disappearing along with dash-cam footage.

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pmiller2
I'm confused why the ACLU is objecting to this. It seems like having police be
trackable by their own departments _while on duty_ should present absolutely
no privacy concern. And, for what it's worth, I think it's a good idea. At the
very least, it will give police departments more data about what their
officers are actually doing, and maybe it will prevent a few abuses of power.

I'd agree with the ACLU that this would be totally unconscionable if we were
talking about tracking them 24/7, but that's clearly not the intent here.

~~~
koenigdavidmj
The argument that I have heard so far is that up until this point, when police
enter a house and make an arrest, the jury doesn't see the accused until his
lawyer gets to clean him up, put him in a suit, and get him to shut up. With
ubiquitous cameras, the jury will now see the accused and his residence and
will have _that_ as their first impression of him.

~~~
AnIrishDuck
I imagine that, if necessary, the accused's lawyer could argue that showing
such footage would be unduly prejudicial. This would preclude the jury from
ever seeing it (unless its probative value outweighed its prejudicial impact).

~~~
nknighthb
Such a video would be utterly irrelevant in most cases anyway. If you're in
and out to arrest someone on a warrant, the actual events of that arrest have
nothing to do with the reason they're being arrested, and would almost never
come up in a trial to begin with.

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JumpCrisscross
> _Departments are going to have to confront the chilling effect this
> surveillance might have on police behavior._

Honest question - what _bona fide_ police activity could be chilled by GPS
tracking their cruisers?

~~~
logn
How about your boss tells you to patrol a stop sign all day and count the
number of rolling stops vs. full stops. Since you know your cruiser is GPS
tracked, you're concerned being seen not moving for 8 hours.

~~~
nknighthb
First of all, no one would be assigned on such a contrived detail. Even if
they were, they would not likely be there for 8 hours as there are mandatory
breaks. And even if they were there for 8 hours, dispatch would know they
would be out on a detail at that intersection all day, and would be
periodically status checked to make sure they were still alive. And finally,
what in the hell would be the problem with being tracked as being _exactly
where they are supposed to be_?!

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DigitalSea
I am absolutely shocked. Postal vans, delivery trucks and armoured vehicles
that deliver money to banks and stores all have GPS trackers fitted to them,
heck even most taxi companies have fitted GPS trackers to their vehicles. What
is the big deal? It means that a dispatcher can accurately see how far away a
police officer is from a call for help. This could save lives and all the
while keep some police honest.

Imagine you call 911, the dispatcher immediately sees your location based on
your phone number and then based on what service you need, dispatches the
nearest police car to you if there is one nearby as opposed to putting out a
call over outdated radio technology.

Sounds like a case of police being misguided as to what the motivation is
behind such a move. If delivery companies and mail services use the same
technology for efficiency and estimates on arrivals, why shouldn't the police?

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jacalata
_“If I take my cruiser and I meet [reluctant witnesses] to talk, eventually
they can follow me and say, 'Why were you in a back dark street for 45
minutes?'_

What's this guy mean? Does he currently spend time meeting witnesses that his
department doesn't know about and wouldn't approve of if they did, or that he
somehow needs to keep secret from the rest of the department?

~~~
munin
what if there are corrupt cops in your department and they review your cars
GPS logs?

~~~
jacalata
Then when you anonymously speak to a newspaper you might as well say that,
right? Unless he assumes everyone already knows that police officers can't
trust each other.

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bruceb
I am with others, I am surprised it took this long. This actually is safer for
officers out by themselves.

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rdtsc
Anecdote from back in the day (well late 90's). A friend I had at school
invited me to hang out with one of his "hacker" friends. This guy was into
carding and other crap. Anyway, he lived in a small town. So somehow he
managed to build small transmitters and attached them to bottom of a few local
police cruisers. When those would get closer he got a blinking light on his
receiver. Don't know how true it was, I was pretty young, but thought it an
interesting idea.

Courts in many instances agreed that one doesn't need an warrant since the
movement of one's car is public. Can the same logic be applied to police cars
then?

Some countries don't let you advertise the location of speed traps. So radio
stations there would for example warn drivers of cars with flashing lights and
people in uniform blasting beams of microwave energy at oncoming cars.

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rrhyne
Watch the watchers.

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mullingitover
This is a good first step, but people authorized by the government to kill
citizens at their discretion should be monitored intensively every second that
they're on duty. Something as light-handed as GPS tracking on their vehicles,
and they're complaining about it? That's something that would worry me if I
was deeply corrupt, so it's telling that the Boston PD is complaining.

~~~
SolarNet
Police officers are NOT authorized to kill people. They have a right to self
defence just like you or I. The state does give them special powers, but they
are only justified to kill someone when it is in defence of themselves or
others, however their job often puts them in such situations.

~~~
mullingitover
This[1] was considered to be a valid use of deadly force. Calling it self
defense is a huge stretch, it was basically execution for failing to follow
police orders. [1] [http://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/oct/24/california-
poli...](http://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/oct/24/california-police-kill-
boy-rifle)

~~~
SolarNet
It's the difference between ethics (codified laws) and morals (societies
implicit laws). Society (in aggregate through our elected officials) accepts
that as self defence for a police officer. Our laws could likely be used to
prosecute him for murder (if the society that elected the prosecutor believed
he should be).

* I am giving a perspective from how these systems _do_ work, not how they _should_ work in my opinion.

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xacaxulu
SWEET IRONY! OH IT TASTES SO SWEEEEEEET!!!!!!

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hnriot
The very fact that the policemen complain should make it mandatory. Anything
they oppose, they oppose for a reason, and there's really only one conclusion
- that the cops would rather hide their movements from those paying them.
Google glass will likely make this moot since the other side of public contact
will be recorded. People that carry guns and with alarming regularity kill
people for the worst reasons should be subject to way more scrutiny than other
employes and practically everyone is on camera all day these days. Cops should
wear Google Glass and the video streamed to a vault inaccessible to the cops,
to be pulled when needed for court (by a third party)

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frank_boyd
Why, do they have something to hide?

Also, if they're doing things they don't want other people to know, maybe they
shouldn't be doing those things in the first place.

Or something.

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Zigurd
This should not be controversial. Delivery and freight trucks and numerous
other kinds of commercial vehicles get GPS monitored.

Police in cruisers are equipped with rifles, shotguns, one or more pistols,
ammunition for all these firearms, plus a Taser, mace, etc. and it's NOT
tracked?

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tnuc
Why do they only want to track the policemen and not the policewomen?

~~~
walrus
The article doesn't mention gender.

~~~
tnuc
Try reading the title of the article.

~~~
coldtea
Policemen has meant "a member of a police force", regardless if that person is
a man or woman, for ages immemorial.

Policeperson, OTOH, is a BS politically correct neologism.

(And who says it stops there? One can conceive of cops --men, women, LGBT
etc--, not appreciating being identified as "persons" thus protesting the
"policeperson" name too).

The whole discussion is completely infantile, pedantic and not worthy of HN
time.

~~~
tnuc
In the UK the correct term is "police officer". Using the term policeman is
gender specific.

~~~
coldtea
The internet is not located in the UK.

------
wheaties
I hate to say this but:

"first they came for the communists, I didn't ck.plain because I wasn't a
communist..."

I don't want them to come for me. Cameras are one thing, it cuts both ways.
This is different. (quote:
[http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/First_they_came_...](http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/First_they_came_...))

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chris_mahan
Perhaps all Boston residents should carry GPS? For public safety of course.

Of course, to disallow people from removing such device and defeating the
public safety effectiveness of this measure, the device would be implanted
surgically.

And to allow for the identification of bodies, there should be several, just
in case a limb gets lost, or a bullet destroy one...

The procedure should be painless (relatively) and should be covered by the
Affordable Care Act (we think, we haven't really read the law), so residents
that resist such measures could be deemed troublemakers and put into a
government database such as the no-fly list, and other such lists, for
possible rounding up at the first sign of trouble.

All in the name of public safety, of course.

Of course.

~~~
bruceb
I as an individual don't have the power to stop, detain, and imprison someone.
I don't have a "license to kill".

Putting GPS on cars that are paid for by the taxpayer and are used by people
with more power than a regular citizen is hardly some far reaching nanny
state, it is just good practice.

~~~
function_seven
> Putting GPS on cars that are paid for by the taxpayer and are used by people
> with more power than a regular citizen is hardly some far reaching nanny
> state, it is just good practice.

I'd go further and say that it's quite the opposite of a nanny state (or
really, a surveillance state). I don't understand where chris_mahan is coming
from, as this policy seems to allow the citizenry oversight over the
government, instead of the other way around.

~~~
chris_mahan
My argument is that first the police, then firefighters. Then teachers, then
schoolchildren, then all government vehicles, then all government
administrators, then all government workers, then a few major corporations,
then all major corporations, then small businesses, then all businesses, then
students in college, then library patrons, buss-pass holders, then ex-
convicts, then children, then people collecting unemployment, then people who
are receiving disability payments, then retirees, then... Did I miss anyone?

The slippery slope is called slippery _because_ it is slippery...

~~~
HCIdivision17
My confusion is that you think there's a slope here to slip down. As mentioned
in another comment, the police really are exceptional in both power and
responsibility. As stated in a (far) above comment, this actually is a
protection for the officer as well. Remember that they are first responders
for evidence, and if they do their job well the video evidence will only
bolster their credibility. And if not, it will only empower victims of abuse.

None of the other groups have so much responsibility and power where trust is
so critical to their functioning.

I've is slippery, too, and it can take you in any direction you fall: how far
are you willing to compromise a lack of oversight?

~~~
HCIdivision17
Where "I've" is an example of the sloppiness led from excessive trust in auto-
correct. Should be "Ice", a word I clearly slipped up on.

