Slashdot Mirror

← Back to Stories (view on slashdot.org)

Largo Loving Linux

Posted by michael on from the not-megatokyo's-largo dept.

A little over a year ago, dot.kde.org and Newsforge did stories on the Linux-based systems being used in Largo, FL to run the city government. Roblimo went down there, drank their coffee, and wrote a follow-up piece which might be, but wasn't, entitled "How to be a sysadmin whose pager doesn't go off". (Newsforge is part of OSDN.)

1 of 351 comments (clear)

  1. Re:Interesting quotes by Mastos · · Score: 5, Interesting

    I thought we were against digitized cops with access to all our private data.

    I worked as the sysadmin/programmer/everything it for a police department for a few years, including working on a project to put laptops in the police cars. Putting laptops in cars is a great idea, but unchecked, could have cause for concern.

    Allowing officers to lookup their own plates and see information about the possible drivers, including photos if available, is nothing but a great idea. Its simply a matter of putting information they already access at the right time in the right place. Most of the software also allows them to write and access all their police reports from the car. Not only does this allow them to spend less time working on the interminable paperwork, but be in the field doing it making themselves more valuable to the public.

    Now, there also are some major problems with unchecked use of computer systems in the police departments, specifically squad car use. Every incident is logged into huge logbooks, traditionally by the dispatcher. More and more, those logbooks are being moved to computer systems. This allows them to look up any past incidents with a subject much easier.

    On one hand, it would be very useful to know that John Doe has a history of violence to police officers, but on the other hand, they are able to build up huge files on people without allowing the subjects to have a trial to defend themselves. Once departments start sharing their incident databases, it would be possible for an officer to lookup any time any police had contact with you, whether you were actually charged with something or not.

    It will be interesting to see how this one turns out.