The Increasing Use Of Technology By Police

Antoine Jones was accused of running a drug ring in Washington, D.C. Jones was involved in one of the largest cocaine busts in the history of Washington, D.C. But, just how did they catch Jones?

Get this. FBI agents secretly placed a GPS device on the Jeep Cherokee owned by Antoine Jones. Now of course FBI agents should file a search warrant before trespassing on anyone’s property. But in this case, the FBI assumed that they would get by with this behavior. They almost did.

In August of 2010, the federal courts firmly rejected the idea that the FBI could track a suspect using a global positioning system device. According to The Register, the agents tracked Jones for a month using the GPS device.

Officials claim that this procedure was illegal, thus a violation of the Fourth Amendment. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the DC Circuit threw out the conviction of Antoine Jones.

So in this case the George Orwell (1984) way of doing business did not prevail. Big Brother did not win the case. But some actually thought that the FBI should be allowed to have the authority to spy on citizens. This debate will linger no doubt.

Another intriguing thought… Back in 2006, the L.A. Police Dept. was talking about the use of a GPS-enabled dart.  A small transmitter could be shot using glue compound as an adhesive. The LAPD displayed great enthusiasm for the StarChase during a press conference.

Here’s an excerpt from the L.A. Times (Feb. 2006):

(LAPD Chief William J.) Bratton hailed the dart as “the big new idea” and said that if the pilot program was successful, Los Angeles’ seemingly daily TV fix of police chases could be a thing of the past.

“Instead of us pushing them doing 70 or 80 miles an hour … this device allows us not to have to pursue after the car,” Bratton said. “It allows us to start vectoring where the car is. Even if they bail out of the car, we’ll have pretty much instantaneously information where they are.”

U.S. Department of Justice officials, Bratton said, suggested that the StarChase system, the brainchild of a Virginia company, be tested in Los Angeles. A small number of patrol cars will be equipped with the compressed air launchers, which fire the miniature GPS receiver in a sticky compound resembling a golf ball, for four to six months as a trial.

With such things as license-plate reading SMART police cars and facial-recognition cameras, the LAPD is trying to become a testing ground for innovative police technology, Bratton said.

The LAPD may even consider using technology that would disable a vehicle’s electronics.