Dallas Police Falsely Credit TrapWire System For Arrests

In April, the Texas Department of Public Safety told a reporter for the Dallas Morning News, inspired by information leaked by Wikileaks to ask about ways that the agency might be compromising citizen's privacy and other rights, that the TrapWire behavioral analysis system employed in combination with surveillance equipment posted at various high-profile locations around the state had resulted in 44 arrests. However, after numerous public records requests for more information about those claimed arrests, the agency admitted that the true figure is somewhat lower: namely, zero. The story naturally involves "millions" of dollars (though an exact figure for the zero-arrest system isn't named), and Austin-based Stratfor, a company that's been named a few times here on Slashdot.

Comments

Even if it was true, terrible value for money

[Dr_Barnowl]

Even if it was true... millions of dollars for ... 44 arrests?

Wonder what the arrest rate of 20 extra pairs of feet on the street is?

Re:Even if it was true, terrible value for money

[rmdingler]

Even if it was true... millions of dollars for ... 44 arrests?

Wonder what the arrest rate of 20 extra pairs of feet on the street is?

Yep, everything's bigger in Texas: the State Police and the police state.

Even if it was true... millions of breaches into the innocent communications of private citizens for... 44 arrests.

Re:Even if it was true, terrible value for money

[akpoff]

None of the stories I've seen put the figure at "dozens of millions of pounds". This article from The Telegraph puts the figure at £11.1 million. The article notes that £6.5m of that figure are "police officer pay costs that would be incurred in normal duties" and mentions overtime costs and "indirect" costs, tallying together to an additional £3.8m. Also, if the picture in the article shows a typical guard detail we see at least 4 uniformed officers, not 2.

We should also take into account those 4 officers are not engaged in regular beat policing but the very specific task of waiting for a very specific person to exit a specific location. There's also the very real possibility this is a politically-motivated policing detail with all the visibility and CYA costs that come with it.

The point may yet be valid but to a lesser degree and perhaps not at all just based on numbers. And with the other factors the Assange case may be so unusual that no meaningful comparison can be made.

Data collection for other purposes?

[Mostly a lurker]

Apart from the obvious stench of corrupt commercial dealings, we should not forget that data collection by law enforcement has not always been for crime fighting purposes. Recall, for instance, J Edgar Hoover's uses for such data.