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FBI to Put Criminals Up in Lights

Posted by samzenpus on from the billboard-busted dept.

coondoggie writes "The FBI today said it wants to install 150 digital billboards in 20 major U.S. cities in the next few weeks to show fugitive mug shots, missing people and high-priority security messages from the big bureau. The billboards will let the FBI highlight those people it is looking for the most: violent criminals, kidnap victims, missing kids, bank robbers, even terrorists, the FBI said in a release. And the billboards will be able to be updated largely in real-time — right after a crime is committed, a child is taken, or an attack is launched. Chicago, Las Vegas, Los Angeles and Miami will be among those cities provided with the new billboards."

31 of 315 comments (clear)

  1. Free publicity? by five18pm · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Now how many want to bet that some idiot will commit a crime just to get on the billboard?

    1. Re:Free publicity? by Kierthos · · Score: 5, Insightful

      That would, I think, require even more stupidity then normal, considering the number of ways one could achieve a similar level of publicity without the risk of going to jail for a great many years.

      Now, how long before someone hacks a billboard to show the President's face... that should be the question asked.

      --
      Mr. Hu is not a ninja.
  2. please, no new billboards by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Funny

    I really don't mind this idea as long as they use existing billboard space.

  3. Cool! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Can we do a daily minute of hate as well?

    1. Re:Cool! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Remember how we scoffed that politicians just don't "get" computers? I think they understand now. We'll soon wish they had remained ignorant.

    2. Re:Cool! by Sigma+7 · · Score: 3, Insightful

      Remember how we scoffed that politicians just don't "get" computers? I think they understand now. We'll soon wish they had remained ignorant. Remaining ignorant means:
      - Jack Thompson can disable a primary use of computers - video games. While technically useless, these were able to make computers as powerful as they were today. Furthermore, they give access to a wider variety of games should they be in a position of not liking this one.
      - People such as Kevin Mitnick get treated much more severely for computer crime than they should be. Granted, there's a lot of work for ensuring that your systems are secure once again, but some damages were inflated and inconsistently reported (i.e. damages ranging in the millions were allegedly reported to the FBI but not shareholders.)
      - Various politicians can do fear mongering, such as claiming a kid interested in computers is going to be a future basement hacker that could launch nuclear missiles. Even if they can't directly act against those children, they could easily turn their peers against them with this propaganda.
      - And finally, you'd have civilians driving loudspeaker vans saying things similar to "It looks like you're writing a letter". This would usually appear before elections (and IIRC, there were a few personal accounts of this still occurring in Japan.)

      Since computers are now more mainstream, people can more easily recognize BS - at least that's the theory anyway. The average person won't easily believe that computers can easily explode (but remain gullible enough to believe pressing ALT-F4 activates an IRC exploit), and computer experts will more easily lock onto incorrect statements that they've seen before.
    3. Re:Cool! by kalirion · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Is this a gutshot reaction or something? Seriously, I don't see what the problem with this is. They're not planning to put up pictures of recently released criminals. They're not planning to put up pictures of sex offenders in your neighborhood. They're not planning to put up pictures telling you to vote Republican. This is to be used same way as America's Most Wanted and backs of milk cartons. At least for now. If that changes, then start complaining.

      They just have to make sure they display a context label with each photo. Wouldn't want a kidnap victim to be confused for a terrorist.

    4. Re:Cool! by sm62704 · · Score: 3, Interesting

      As I have, er, ahem, met some interesting people here in Springfield (although I haven't met Alderman Simpson), there's something I know about these "wanted" lists most people dont.

      Many of these criminals are low level petty thugs, thieves, and especially dopers. I've mentioned my friend Tami in my slashdot journals, here's a true (AFAIK, I have no reason to doubt her) and I think hilarious story she told me.

      Tami's been in jail before, but she's not what anyone would think of as a "hardened criminal" and in fact comes from a well to do family with political connections that has (sucks to be me) pretty much given up on her.

      One time she'd had some sort of run-in with the law; "failure to appear" for a speeding ticket or pot or some such nonsense and didn't even know she was wanted. She got tickets to some shindig some friend of her father's was throwing and showed up. The affair had to do with these "top twenty wanted in Sangamon County" lists.

      She showed up for the free food and alcohol (Tami's no beanpole and likes to drink) and of course most of the people there were from law enforcement. There was one of the top-20 wanted posters prominently displayed, and she was on it!

      "Boy, I got the hell out of there real quick!" she told me.

      Living in the future is so cool!

      Then this might interest you.

      -mcgrew

      --
      mcgrew's razor: Never attribute to stupidity that which can be explained by greedy self-interest
    5. Re:Cool! by eck011219 · · Score: 4, Insightful

      The only potential problem I see is that if they can put something up moments after a crime is committed, sooner or later you're going to end up with surveillance video of some poor slob who walked in or out of Wal-Mart right before or after an actual child molester did. Whether this will happen more or less than other forms of false accusation, we won't know until they do it.

      That's really the problem with speed and ease of use -- it's much easier to accidentally put the wrong face on a digital billboard than it is to put the wrong face on the back of a milk carton or on a poster or flier. The latter takes time and has several stages at which errors can be caught. Whether this problem is worth foregoing the advantages of it, I don't know. Probably not.

      Around here (Chicago area) we've had message boards over the highways for years -- they give traffic times, alternate routes, and occasionally are used for Amber Alerts (descriptions of cars or people suspected of child abduction). So the same concept, albeit in a non-graphic form, has been used with great success for some time. They got a kid back from a bad guy just recently using this technique. But I will say that I idly worry that I (big hairy stranger-danger-lookin' guy) in our very common (Honda Accord) car with my daughter in the back will someday experience the harsh hand of the law of averages. I guess I'd still rather have to deal with straightening out that type of confusion once in my life if it means that more actual bad guys get caught.

      Oh, and another problem is aesthetic -- the world will rapidly become a lit-up, post-apocalyptic place full of advertising and scrolling messages from the authorities. But that's kind of a matter of taste -- I think they amount of visual noise we live with is already numbing. Add more and it further reduces the impact of any given piece of it.

      --
      It is pitch black. You are likely to be eaten by a grue.
    6. Re:Cool! by that+this+is+not+und · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Much as it might disturb some to acknowledge it, Mitnick was found guilty of outright fraud. That he happened to use computers to steal people's credit card money is somewhat incidental. He was caught and convicted and is in no way a hero figure. Ethical hackers will keep him at arms length, because... well, he was just another swindler.

      And now he's just a has-been trying to cash in on his name. Oh well.

    7. Re:Cool! by Red+Flayer · · Score: 3, Insightful

      Seriously, I don't see what the problem with this is. They're not planning to put up pictures of recently released criminals.
      Yet.

      They're not planning to put up pictures of sex offenders in your neighborhood.
      Yet.

      They're not planning to put up pictures telling you to vote Republican.
      No, it's more subtle than that. Just as "terror alert" levels were used politically, so will these billboards. Make the people scared, and they'll vote for the party of perceived protection.

      If that changes, then start complaining
      Incremental change is hard to object to. Slippery slope and all that.

      I think the OP makes a humorous, but very valid, point. Our world more and more resembles the dystopias written about several decades ago, and pointing that out might help more people consider whether they really want to support that kind of society.
      --
      "Trolls they were, but filled with the evil will of their master: a fell race..." -- J.R.R. Tolkien on Olog-hai
    8. Re:Cool! by Original+Replica · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Seriously, I don't see what the problem with this is.

      The problem is fear mongering. It immediately puts the populace in a state of mind that is submissive to the leadership. People drop into a us vs.them mindset. Criminals (or anyone accused of being a criminal) stop being thought of as real people, they simply become them. Anyone questioning the leadership must be siding with the rapists and murderers. There is already a growing divide between the common people and the government's agents (Homeland security and the police). No one feels safer when a cop is looking at them, regardless of if you have done anything wrong. The police are more and more inclined to treat citizens as "the enemy" The only way that the mass population will put up with these conditions is when they believe that it is necessary because they government is protecting us for a much greater evil.

      This is a game already played with the terrorists, but that's getting really expensive, and the military is stretched too thin. The government needs to bring the boogeyman home.

      --
      We are all just people.
  4. A NEW LIFE AWAITS YOU IN THE OFF-WORLD COLONIES! by wolfpaws · · Score: 5, Funny

    The chance to begin again in a golden land of opportunity and adventure!

  5. Its bound to work by Instine · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Because fame is such a big deterrent. Especially in the States

    --
    Because you can - or because you should?
  6. What If ...? by Aaron_Pike · · Score: 3, Insightful

    I saw a spot about this on some news TV program. Every single alleged criminal they showed on a billboard was either black or Hispanic. Now I'm not saying this isn't a good idea, and I'm not saying that it's a deliberate white-supremacist plot. But what are the consequences if this sampling is representative of the wanted postings in general? What happens when people see minorities on wanted postings over and over?

    1. Re:What If ...? by Elemenope · · Score: 3, Insightful

      What happens when people see minorities on wanted postings over and over?

      I imagine the consequences will be about the same as those for minorities being oversampled as criminal suspects on the nightly TV news...people will unreasonably fear black and Hispanic males, and racial stereotypes will be carried forward in the national subconscious. COPS made the young black man the national face of crime; it needs no "white supremacist plot" to reinforce in the minds of people that different is bad and scary.

      --
      All the techniques ever used to make men moral have been themselves thoroughly immoral... (Nietzsche)
    2. Re:What If ...? by DavidShor · · Score: 3, Interesting
      "COPS made the young black man the national face of crime; it needs no "white supremacist plot" to reinforce in the minds of people that different is bad and scary."

      I don't dispute that COPS was heavily distorted, but is there any evidence that the show really had any effect on racial perception? As a result of structural historical and economic reasons, black people make up the overwhelming majority of criminals in certain urban areas.

      I would imagine the perception was already there because of this.

    3. Re:What If ...? by Henry+V+.009 · · Score: 3, Interesting

      It might help if young black men stopped committing crime at 10x the national average. I'm just saying. (Don't worry, most of it is black on black, which is also why blacks are so much more likely to get murdered themselves. Unless that's "oversampling" too?)

      I am somewhat curious as to what part of the country you live in to believe that minorities are "oversampled as criminal suspects on the nightly TV news." I take it that you've never come across the results of the FBI victim surveys?

      Good god, but some people really let the rose tint fog up their glasses.

  7. Slander by dotancohen · · Score: 3, Insightful

    This is slander of the highest degree. These are people _accused_ of crimes, not guilty criminals. The damage to one's reputation will be near-irrepairable. I cannot believe that they are seriously considering this system.

    --
    It is dangerous to be right when the government is wrong.
    1. Re:Slander by alen · · Score: 5, Informative

      no, these are people who are wanted for a crime so they can face trial who refuse to turn themselves in and be tried in front of a jury. same thing as the wanted posters in the post office

    2. Re:Slander by dotancohen · · Score: 3, Interesting

      Key word: accused. In 2004, I had a rifle pointed at me and complained to the police. Result: The offender claimed that _I_ threatened _him_ with my weapon. I was accused for a crime I did not commit. After a year-long trial, I was aquitted. In January 2007, I was attacked in my own car. I beat the living shit out of the attacker and he thus claimed that _I_ attacked him. I had no physical damage worth reporting, so now _I_ face charges. There is a big difference between being accused of a crime, and actually committing one.

      --
      It is dangerous to be right when the government is wrong.
    3. Re:Slander by TubeSteak · · Score: 4, Interesting

      no, these are people who are wanted for a crime so they can face trial who refuse to turn themselves in and be tried in front of a jury. same thing as the wanted posters in the post office Just wait for the first amber alert put out with the description of a generic black/hispanic male because (as an example) some white woman killed her kid(s) but enjoys the attention from claiming they were kidnapped instead.

      The fallout from that should be a riot.
      --
      [Fuck Beta]
      o0t!
  8. No Boston? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

    I'm glad they're not setting them up in Boston, otherwise idiots might yet-again confuse LED's for bombs.

  9. Website Advertisements by Mishra100 · · Score: 3, Interesting

    Maybe they should spend some money on advertisement space on the internet. That way the notices could be on just about every web page that is ad supported. They could get more efficient advertisement due to the web being more detailed that billboards.

    I think I could spot my brother in a website ad if he were posted on it.

    Another good thing about this is that the wanted photos would be displayed when any store employee is surfing the internet. They would see the photo and maybe spot someone in the store at that time. Those people aren't going to remember the picture of the billboard they drove by on the way to work.

  10. How do I know? by tsotha · · Score: 4, Interesting

    This kinds of schemes always remind me of the old Ahnold movie The Running Man. I understand there are lots of bad people out there... but, thing is, it takes a certain amount of trust for me to believe the guy on the billboard really is a murderer/child molester. Somebody I don't know is trying to enlist me in the search for someone else I don't know. It makes me a little uncomfortable.

  11. Old Topic but whatever by DeeQ · · Score: 3, Insightful

    This was on CNN a good time ago. They were all happy because they caught some guy that turned himself in after seeing one of those build boards. There are many problems with these things. How long till people start acting in vigilantly ways? You couldn't put what they are wanted for without getting someone angry or violent. However if you didn't put up what they were wanted for people (especially in USA) would over act. Sure its neat but how long till someone who is actually not wanted for something ends up on one? If I wanted to see who was wanted for crimes I would go to the post office. However, If these things were only used for missing people I don't see the harm in them and welcome them fully.

  12. What a GREAT idea by puppetluva · · Score: 4, Insightful

    This is a really good idea!

    I think it will be useful for:

    • Getting sensationalism out of the newsroom and into advertising where it belongs. (and eliminating any sense of personal or editorial responsibility when smearing someone's reputation).
    • Helping the government to use private billboard companies to irresponsibly violate the privacy of private citizens. Shifting the power once and for all away from non-profit-generating people.
    • Hyping crimes out of proportion to their real risk to society and keeping the people quaking in their boots (and consuming).
    • Finally getting rid of that pesky "innocent until proven guilty clause"
    • Punishing people who didn't give enough in campaign contributions to the party in power
    • Allowing us to effectively bundle advertising, racism, and fear (maybe even in one billboard!). Imagine how many security systems, bank accounts, insurance policies, guns and KKK memberships we could sell in bundled ad campaigns!
    • Making us look really modern. . .pushing us from the 21st centry to 1984

    I can't wait until these images can be broadcast directly into the skies above our houses. I have long thought that we don't mistrust and/or hate our fellow citizens enough in the USA. I was worried that we might drop our murder rates and/or school shootings to the levels of other countries, but it looks like we are well on our way to whipping our citizenry to new heights of paranoia and aggressiveness.

  13. You call that dystopic? by sam_handelman · · Score: 4, Funny

    This is a much-belated step in the right direction - it would have been an excellent policy move 20 or 30 *years* ago, when giant billboards to facilitiate the 3 minutes hate, or to flash "OBEY" in subliminal letters, were state of the art.

      But this is the 21st century - we can implant chips in people's brains now! We can contract out the manufacture of wireless control collars to the lowest bidder!

      The government deiberately squelches these technologies to pander to the minority of religious nuts who have disproportional influence over our government.

      That's why I support Ron Paul and the transumanist dystopian party - deregulation and the ability to sell advertizers direct access to our subconscious will enable us to achieve the economic benefits of a nihilistic hellscape.

    --
    The good and new comes from no quarter where it is looked for, and is always something different from what is expected.
  14. Future target of sweet, sweet hax by Rob+T+Firefly · · Score: 3, Funny

    I can hardly wait for these to be subverted into showing Future Conan or old "Get Smart" episodes or something.

    --
    Slashdot Burying Stories About Slashdot Media Owned
  15. Can't... by spleen_blender · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Can't the money be spent on finding reasons WHY the crimes are caused in the first place?

    Oh I'm sorry, apparently asking "why" somehow rationalizes their actions, just like why we can't talk about the reasons WHY terrorists want to kill us.

    The question "why" is so dangerous to people in this country for one single reason: religion. Yeah, mod me down offtopic or troll, or something else... but you know it is true. When people seriously start asking "why" about everything around them they will inevitably realize that religion is a joke. I guess people have too much pride to be able to look at their past selves and laugh at their stupid beliefs. Yes I just called your beliefs stupid, now ask yourself "why does he say that" instead of accusing me of persecuting you.

  16. Big Brother, Fahrenheit 451, and Minority Report by karlwilson · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Something about billboards with wanted criminal pictures that update in real time reminds me of 1984, Fahrenheit 451, and Minority Report all rolled into one...