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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.
There's an old Turkish saying, I'll be that guy and translate it. "A barking dog won't bite." It basically means that anyone who is serious about a crime (terror category or the normal category, not sure how it falls into which one, but I suspect one has more beards) is not going to advertise it online or otherwise. Take a look at 9/11, there weren't a lot of tweets about it before hand. Yes indeed sacrificing your privacy only buys paranoia on a large scale, bloated budgets, broken citizens, and smug authorities.