Police tech roundup

Here are several items related to policing tech that caught my eye today:

Speeding and Tweeting
Cops in Keller, TX are posting on Twitter and Facebook where and when they'll be doing traffic enforcement in hopes that people who know they'll be there will avoid speeding in the first place. Seems like a sensible plan.

Police body cams and privacy
Grits is generally a fan of police wearing body cams because it generates better evidence in criminal cases and provides a prophylactic against wrongdoing. But there are a handful of legitimate privacy issues cameras bring with them - toilet time, talking to confidential informants, etc. - that are discussed in this article and especially, in much more detail, in the comments. Not insurmountable, but the issues need to be discussed as this tech become more widespread.

Utah Lege: Require warrants for location data, content
Utah this month passed several notable pieces of electronic privacy legislation, including a bill "to obtain the location, transmitted data, or stored data of an electronic device such as a mobile phone or laptop. The bill requires law enforcement to delete any data they collect that doesn’t pertain to the suspect named in the warrant. It also requires notification to the individual that the location or data was obtained, much like a person is served a copy of a traditional warrant when physical property is searched or seized."

The FBI and signals intelligence
Don't just worry about the NSA invading your privacy, worry about the FBI. This article from Foreign Policy delves into the FBI's growing domestic signals intelligence capacity aimed at foreign embassies, but the same tech could be and is used in domestic criminal investigations.

The 'spy in your pocket'
 Dave Lieber at the Dallas Morning News had a column last month about the nexus between government and commercial cell phone tracking. See also recent columns at Wired touting the benefits, or at least relevant benevolence, of the 21st century consumer surveillance society.

I spy with my little surveillance camera
Check out examples of concealed surveillance devices from the Middle East and Guantanamo Bay, the latter of which was used to listen in on conversations between prisoners and their defense counsel.