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90 Cities Install A Covert Technology That Listens For Gunshots (businessinsider.com)
An anonymous reader quotes Business Insider:
In more than 90 cities across the US, including New York, microphones placed strategically around high-crime areas pick up the sounds of gunfire and alert police to the shooting's location via dots on a city map... ShotSpotter also sends alerts to apps on cops' phones. "We've gone to the dot and found the casings 11 feet from where the dot was, according to the GPS coordinates," Capt. David Salazar of the Milwaukee Police Dept. told Business Insider. "So it's incredibly helpful. We've saved a lot of people's lives."
When three microphones pick up a gunshot, ShotSpotter figures out where the sound comes from. Human analysts in the Newark, California, headquarters confirm the noise came from a gun (not a firecracker or some other source). The police can then locate the gunshot on a map and investigate the scene. The whole process happens "much faster" than dialing 911, Salazar said, though he wouldn't disclose the exact time.
The company's CEO argues their technology deters crime by demonstrating to bad neighborhoods that police will respond quickly to gunshots. (Although last year Forbes discovered that in 30% to 70% of cases, "police found no evidence of a gunshot when they arrived.") And in a neighborhood where ShotSpotter is installed, one 60-year-old man is already complaining, "I don't like Big Brother being in all my business."
When three microphones pick up a gunshot, ShotSpotter figures out where the sound comes from. Human analysts in the Newark, California, headquarters confirm the noise came from a gun (not a firecracker or some other source). The police can then locate the gunshot on a map and investigate the scene. The whole process happens "much faster" than dialing 911, Salazar said, though he wouldn't disclose the exact time.
The company's CEO argues their technology deters crime by demonstrating to bad neighborhoods that police will respond quickly to gunshots. (Although last year Forbes discovered that in 30% to 70% of cases, "police found no evidence of a gunshot when they arrived.") And in a neighborhood where ShotSpotter is installed, one 60-year-old man is already complaining, "I don't like Big Brother being in all my business."
If you know which areas are high crime areas, why not locate the police precinct there?
I'm not sure fan of big brother, but it's illegal to fire guns within most city limits and anyone doing so I doing something that needs police attention. This is one form of surveillance that seems unobtrusive and doesn't violate any form of privacy. That said, if they start listening with better microphones and storing data, that's a whole other ballgame.
Take a brown paper bag, the tall ones you get at liquor stores, blow em up as much as you can, then pop - in the right conditions, in a city, sounds like a fucking gunshot going off.
Says someone with no clue what a real gunshot sounds like.
From what I understand, nail guns are typically just .22 caliber and would have different sound from the pressure wave. The question then would be, can we detect the difference and is the difference still detectable at a distance or after echoes/reflections?
Is it really a covert technology when it's publicized? I've heard about these installations for years. Even the Summary talks about an article last year in Forbes.
This isn't secret surveillance, it's highly targeted mass surveillance--it only triggers on a very particular thing that involves a high degree of risk to the public. Save your big brother complaints for things like actual internet surveillance, overreaching electronic searches, or better yet for things like reform around the existing big-brother-esque things that cause massive damage to the economy every day. (E.g. bad uses of criminal records or credit reports)
Real lawyers write in C++
is making sure the crime doesn't spill over from the poor neighborhoods to the rich ones. Crime 'fighting' is about containment. If you're old enough to remember the Rodney King riots you might also remember people asking why they just destroyed their own neighborhoods. The reason was the neighborhoods were surrounded by swat teams. The teams didn't move in and quell the riots, they just kept 'em in.
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As a gun lover, and privacy lover I can't see how this is a bad thing. Cities have gun regulations making it illegal to fire a firearm. If it is a justified self-defence act the person being attacked would like the police to come anyway. If it's an illegal firing then we want the police to respond.
Make it so it's not possible to be used for any other use than dispatching armed officers/first responders even with a warrant or national security issue though without being put forward as vote by all of the voters. It's reasonable to allow surveillance uses of automated technology as long as the public interest and their privacy is protected.
And in a neighborhood where ShotSpotter is installed, one 60-year-old man is already complaining, "I don't like Big Brother being in all my business."
What do you think the chances are this 60 year old man would be first in line to complain that big brother didn't "get in all his business" after he calls 911 to report someone breaking into his home, or stealing his car, or robbing him at gunpoint?
Perhaps not, but enforcement gives dignity to the law. People begin to respect the law when it is consistently and quickly enforced.
Smart criminals do, at least insofar as it doesn't curtail their criminal enterprise. If you're an intelligent criminal and making good money, you'll avoid drawing police attention to yourself as much as possible. Stupid criminals won't, which just makes them easier to catch.
When you don't have a legitimate argument, the key is to raise your hackles, stomp your feet, and scream at the top of your lungs.
That's their modus operandi. This is also why they can be flying a Confederate Flag and shouting their love for country. In Minnesota and Iowa.
Protip: If you don't break the law, you don't have to worry about being """overpoliced""" (That is, you don't have to worry about being a criminal if you are not a criminal). It's that simple.
No it is not that simple. Every single black man I know has had the lovely experience of being harassed by police for driving while black. EVERY. SINGLE. ONE. They were not breaking any laws or causing any problems when it happened. Just because you haven't broken any law does not even begin to mean that you do not have to worry about being over policed.
Just because you have nothing to hide doesn't mean you have nothing to fear.
Name the city.
Starships were meant to fly, Hands up and touch the sky - Nicky Minaj
and calling someone a racist aren't even remotely the same thing. If we're going to tackle a problem we have to acknowledge it's existence. You can't really believe Philando Castile was shot just because the cop thought he was reaching for his gun. Hell, the worst thing was the cop probably really thought he was. The cop was more likely to believe a black man would shoot him than hand over his driver's license.
That's institutionalized racism in a nutshell. When you don't even realize you're doing it. When you can say with a straight face "my black friends are fine but..." and mean it. Are law enforcement practices are a huge part of that.
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Sure man, and that's why the legislature of Tennessee had a fit over a Muslim foot bath, oh wait, no, it was a mop sink.
It's just a bogeyman, another of the things that riles up the base in Texas, Kansas, Oklahoma, North Carolina, Alabama, and the like, fears of the dreaded "Sharia" law while simultaneously lamenting how they can't do things the "Christian" way, as the Constitution intended.
when we took action during the civil rights movement. The point is to get folks to take action, particularly at the polls, by making sure the narrative is steered away from "Everything's fine now and there's no racism or oppression" when nothing could be further from the truth.
So yeah, it's helps.
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Yeah, I've never understood the "laws are useless because criminals break laws" approach. You hear it a lot in the Second Amendment community.
If you are referring to "when guns are outlawed only outlaws will have guns." Well, that is one of those word games that proves itself. What it is really going after is that by outlawing guns, law abiding citizens are not allowed to have guns. If you wade past the extremist (AKA the absolutely no gun regulations crowd) you will find that most people agree to background check as long as it is reasonable. When I took my Concealed Weapons class, even my instructor called "constitutional carry" asinine.
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