From the New York Times:

An overlapping array of justices were divided on the rationale for the decision, with the majority saying the problem was the placement of the device on private property.

But five justices also discussed their discomfort with the government’s use of or access to various modern technologies, including video surveillance in public places, automatic toll collection systems on highways, devices that allow motorists to signal for roadside assistance, location data from cellphone towers and records kept by online merchants.

You can read the opinion at the supreme court [pdf] .

Janke knew the gunmen could be anywhere on the 3,000-acre spread in eastern North Dakota. Fearful of an armed standoff, he called in reinforcements from the state Highway Patrol, a regional SWAT team, a bomb squad, ambulances and deputy sheriffs from three other counties.

He also called in a Predator B drone.

As the unmanned aircraft circled 2 miles overhead the next morning, sophisticated sensors under the nose helped pinpoint the three suspects and showed they were unarmed. Police rushed in and made the first known arrests of U.S. citizens with help from a Predator, the spy drone that has helped revolutionize modern warfare.

This wasn’t the first time the police have used drones in the area either.

Local police say they have used two unarmed Predators based at Grand Forks Air Force Base to fly at least two dozen surveillance flights since June. The FBI and Drug Enforcement Administration have used Predators for other domestic investigations, officials said.

These drones are setting a dangerous precedent in allowing military drones to cross the lines into civilian use.

The previously unreported use of its drones to assist local, state and federal law enforcement has occurred without any public acknowledgment or debate.

Officials in charge of the fleet cite broad authority to work with police from budget requests to Congress that cite “interior law enforcement support” as part of their mission.

Though it hasn’t been widely publicized, the increased use of spy drones on US citizens should be a concern. There was no public debate on the use of drones and no one quite knows what legal authority they operate under.

In 2008 and 2010, Harman helped beat back efforts by Homeland Security officials to use imagery from military satellites to help domestic terrorism investigations. Congress blocked the proposal on grounds it would violate the Posse Comitatus Act, which bars the military from taking a police role on U.S. soil.

Given the fact that a spy drone could watch a single individual for up to twenty hours at a time should concern citizens.

“Any time you have a tool like that in the hands of law enforcement that makes it easier to do surveillance, they will do more of it,” said Ryan Calo, director for privacy and robotics at the Stanford Law School’s Center for Internet and Society.

Because law enforcement is keen to use spy drones without any public input or discussion, it is almost a given that it will be misused and overused.

The story of Sheriff Janke on the Brossart farm is a prime example of misuse.

The six adult Brossarts allegedly belonged to the Sovereign Citizen Movement, an anti-government group that the FBI considers extremist and violent. The family had repeated run-ins with local police, including the arrest of two family members earlier that day arising from their clash with a deputy over the cattle.

So, the sheriff automatically jumped the gun and said an armed standoff was currently occurring, which it was not. The drone then watched the Brossarts for four hours before the sheriff withdrew until daybreak. They returned the next morning.

Around 10 a.m., the video showed the three Brossart brothers riding all-terrain vehicles toward a decommissioned Minuteman ballistic missile site at the edge of their property. The sensor operator in Grand Forks switched to thermal mode, and the image indicated the three men were unarmed.

A SWAT team then moved in and arrested the unarmed men.

A search of the property turned up four rifles, two shotguns, assorted bows and arrows and a samurai sword, according to court records. Police also found the six missing cows, valued at $6,000.

Rodney Brossart, his daughter Abby and his three sons face a total of 11 felony charges, including bail jumping and terrorizing a sheriff, as well as a misdemeanor count against Rodney involving the stray cattle. All have been released on bail. Calls to Rodney Brossart were not returned Saturday. The family is believed to be living on the farm.

If one looks at this case objectively, many questions remain. Why did the sheriff not explain that someone else’s cows had strayed onto the Brossart property? It is likely that, given that it is rumored the Brossarts belong to Sovereign Citizens Movement, they’ve had run-ins with the law before. This probably makes them automatically hostile to the sheriff.

What does it matter that the family owns a few hunting weapons. They live in rural North Dakota and probably hunt as well as use their guns for protection from wild animals. Consider that six people live on the farm, are roughly ten to twelve weapons and unreasonable find?

Why is Rodney Brossart facing a misdemeanor charge concerning the stray cattle? Exactly what is the charge? Why is anyone being charged with anything concerning the stray cattle?

What are the eleven felony charges? They story doesn’t list them or explain what the charges are. Why is Rodney also being charged with terrorizing a sheriff? Did he do more than tell the sheriff to get off his land? We don’t know. We simply know that the Brossarts are bad guys because the police and the newspapers are telling us that they are.

There are still too many questions not reported in the news to determine why the Brossarts were arrested at all. What is abundantly clear is that civilian police departments are far too willing to encroach on civil liberties and private spaces to do their jobs properly. Spy drones are now normal on America’s northern and southern borders and they’re quickly moving into everyday life with alarming frequency. North Dakota seems to think this is okay. Do you?

CJIS is responsible for information repositories–such as the National Crime Information Center, the Interstate Identification Index, and the National Instant Criminal Background Check System–that provide law-enforcement officers with real-time data on people’s criminal history, stolen property, missing persons, and other information.

The additional biometric information will be added to the system that can already track fingerprints.

CJIS processes about 140,000 requests a day through the system, double the number it could handle on a good day a few years ago, he said. Moreover, the algorithm is allowing the FBI to match fingerprints at 99% accuracy versus 92%, which was the previous norm.

The FBI also added facial-recognition and iris-scan systems to its biometrics matching system–which is gradually replacing its predecessor, the Integrated Automated Fingerprint Identification System–and next year will be able to match palm prints for the first time, he said.

To further its work in biometrics, the FBI is teaming with the Department of Defense to build a Biometrics Technology Center on its FBI campus in Clarksburg, West Virginia, Cutherbertson said. The center, which will focus on research to advance biometrics technology, is due to be completed in spring of 2014. “It will be a tremendous resource to carry us into the future,” Cutherbertson said.

With the inclusion of multiple points of biometric data, the FBI hopes to improve security at home. The research conducted at the new Biometrics Technology Center will also allow the FBI to accomplish one of its other goals, biometrically identifying individuals on the internet.

It analyzes customer movements to provide traffic flow analysis and heat maps indicating which shelves are attracting shoppers and which products they touch or take. This can be tied to conversion data by product SKU to help merchants optimize where products are placed within their stores.

To attain similar market research, merchants typically have to pay observers or use equipment and surveys that are expensive, inaccurate, and influence the behavior of the people they’re studying. With Shopper Tracker, multiple shoppers can be simultaneously tracked around the clock. As it doesn’t cost much more to conduct longer studies, merchants can get more confident results and do A/B testing.

The data can then be used by the store to determine which items are more popular and why customers go to a particular item, but never purchase it. The system is also capable of tracking multiple people simultaneously.

Shopper Tracker: tracking real world conversions like web analytics from Administrator Agile Route on Vimeo.

All the following metrics and reports can be filtered for any date/time range.

Visitors: people that are detected in the tracking zone. Associated metrics:
Visits and Visit duration

Zones: places where Visitors may physically be (e.g.: right in front of a particular part of the shelf). Associated metrics:
% Visitors through Zone and Average time in Zone

Area: a 3 dimensional space containing products the Visitor may touch (e.g.: an imaginary box right in front of one particular SKU in the shelf)
Event: an Event occurs when a Visitor touches an Area in the shelf. Associated metrics:
Total Events and Events per Area
Average Event time
Visits with Event and Events / Visit Ratio

Conversion: grabbing a product from an Area (requires image captures post-processing). Associated metrics:
Conversions and Conversions per Area
Average Conversion time
Conversions / Events
Visits with Conversion and Conversion / Visit

Goals: grabbing a SKU of interest (e.g.: own product SKU). Associated metrics:
Goal Funnels
Product traction

Other type of reports: Heat Maps
Available reports:
- Visitor transit paths
- Visitor touch location in the shelf
- Conversion locations in the shelf

If you want to block facebook, you’ll have to edit your hosts files with this information. You can also use Adblock Plus, Ghostery, Collusion, BetterPrivacy, disconnect, and/or NoScript.

These addons are mostly for Firefox. If you want the Chrome version, go to the Chrome Web Store and do a search for their names and install whichever ones you want. If you already use Adblock Plus, you can add this link to your blocklist.

With the drawdown of troops overseas, the Pentagon will have excess equipment and extra personnel to offer the nation, just as DHS Customs and Border Protection takes another stab at building a virtual fence across the southwest border. This turn of events prompted a House subcommittee Wednesday to invite Defense and Homeland Security department officials to share their plans on adapting military systems for domestic use. Curbing illegal immigration, drug smuggling and other criminal activity along U.S. boundaries is a key campaign issue.

The idea behind the plan is that these soldiers already know how to use this equipment, which would save thousands, if not millions in training.

Paul Stockton, assistant secretary of Defense for homeland defense and Americas’ security affairs, told the panel, “We have a historic opportunity with the drawdown operations outside the United States to continue to press forward to find ways of supporting the Department of Homeland Security — so the military technology that the taxpayer has already paid to develop, that we find ways of transferring that technology.”

If there isn’t a need to support the Department of Homeland Security, why not disband it and save the country billions of dollars in the process? Looking for ways to legitimize its existence is only going to further the waste of taxpayer dollars.

While some disagree with military personnel being deployed on US borders, it appears that the only feasible recourse at this point in time is to employ honorably discharged soldiers who already know how to use this equipment. The United States is determined to create their virtual fence along its northern and southern borders. If this policy continues, then, not only is it financially feasible, but common sense to hire men and women who are already equipped with the knowledge of handling such machines.

The techniques described in the trove of 200-plus marketing documents, spanning 36 companies, include hacking tools that enable governments to break into people’s computers and cellphones, and “massive intercept” gear that can gather all Internet communications in a country. The papers were obtained from attendees of a secretive surveillance conference held near Washington, D.C., last month.

The catalog is absolutely incredible and searchable at the Wall Street Journal.

Levenson said some Alabama police departments have refrained from installing dashboard cameras because officers feared the video footage would get them in trouble, but roughly 80 percent of the time an officer’s behavior is questioned and the incident is caught on tape, “it exonerates the officer from wrongdoing. Officers have found it to be their friend. If nobody is doing anything wrong, nobody should be worried.”

If officers are worried about dashboard cameras getting them into trouble, then maybe they should rethink their behavior while on duty. Police departments should also consider the fact that they still have 20% of cases where an officer is found guilty of some type of wrong doing.

Baldwin County criminal defense attorney John Beck said video evidence helps him decide how to proceed with a client.

“In every case where there is a possibility that a dash cam or any other camera can shed light on the facts, I’m asking for it,” Beck said. “This is all a search for the truth. And I don’t think either law enforcement or defense attorneys should be afraid to seek preservation of the truth, and having a video and audio record is absolutely the best method to preserve the truth.”

A video and/or audio recording only helps to clarify what occurred during incidents and altercations. Still, there are some concerns that remain.

But Ken Nixon, a Mobile attorney whose clients’ driving under the influence cases comprise about half his criminal defense, said the small size of the clip-on camera also creates the potential for abuse and possibly illegal recordings.

In Alabama, the law requires knowledge of a recording by at least one person in a conversation, unless a warrant is issued. That means an officer would not have to tell a suspect he’s being recorded.

But Nixon said the shirt-pocket cameras are so small they could be left inside a patrol car while an officer stepped outside.

If two suspects inside the car started talking, without knowing a camera was on, any recording of the conversation would be illegal.

While these concerns are legitimate in homes, there are arguments about the expectations of privacy when out in public. The main goal, however, should be that, if the public can be filmed by the police, then the police should be filmed by the public. This notion, however, is still very controversial and many legal questions still need to be resolved before proceeding further.

“They’re good when they’re used properly,” Nixon said. “But I think they’re invasive, if not illegal, when used improperly.”

This is one of the biggest problems that have arisen from wearable cameras. Police have been caught tampering with dash cameras whenever they are shown to have been wrong. This has ranged from cameras malfunctioning or being shut off completely during altercations and confrontations with citizens.

In order to provide the integrity of video and audio evidence, all data needs to be store off-site, with an independent third party. Anything less will leave accusations of unfairness. If the police could abide by this, then an equitable solution may be possible.