GPS Tracking and Darwin
GPS bracelet puts teen at the scene of the crime
Tampa, Florida - A Hillsborough County teen may have a hard time denying he was one of three people who broke into a house in Valrico. Deputies say his GPS tracking bracelet puts him at the scene of the crime.
Anthony Hunter, 17, David Harrell, 19, and Curtis Walsh, 22, all face numerous charges related to a break-in last week.
Deputies say a neighbor saw the men breaking into the Springville Drive home and called deputies.
Investigators say the suspects first crashed their getaway car and then took off running.
Deputies finally rounded up the suspects and noticed Hunter was wearing a GPS tracking monitor.
They say a check of the system proved Hunter was one of the burglars. Source:
Featured today is one Anthony Hunter. A nice young lad of 17, although apparently not all that nice because he was required by authorities to wear a GPS tracking bracelet. Well, lot’s of teens get in trouble at that age point, and a brush with the law often gives the opportunity to get their head on straight and clean up their act.
Anthony, however, has a head a little harder than most. Knowing he had the bracelet on and was already a subject of law enforcement interest, Anthony decides to “hang out” with a couple other clever young men, where, perhaps because Hillsborough County didn’t provide him enough recreation activities, or a teacher looked at him crosswise in the 6th grade or his mom didn’t love him enough … got to be someone else’s fault, not Anthony’s … he heads off with his role-model buddies to burglarize a house.
Notice it didn’t mealy-mouth that statement and say “allegedly” burglarized the house? Why? Because the dumb-ass was still wearing his GPS bracelet which clearly showed he was at the scene on the date and time of the burglary.
Way to go, Anthony. And way to go Hillsborough County, when you invested in the GPS program I bet you didn’t know it would catch criminals quite that effectively. GPS tracking doesn’t cost, it pays.
How To Defeat GPS Tracking — And Is There An ROI In Doing So? Part 2
Clandestine GPS Tracking …that’s the generally accepted legal`term for tracking someone’s position without their knowledge. This can be particularly hard to defeat, and purposefully so, because it is often used by law enforcement, private investigators or even suspicious spouses to learn where people go and what times they do so.
Devices have become so much smaller and cheaper over the past few years that cost or convenience hardly enters into the mix any longer.
Units like the one above, or even smaller versions such as this:
are readily available for a few hundred dollars.
Now from a technical standpoint, the ability to conceal these devices varies depending on the access one has, physically and legally to the vehicle or some object in the subject person’s possession. Units such as these must have a view of the sky. They will easily work through non-metallic surfaces, such as a car’s dashboard, but to place them there you have to have physical access … and you almost certainly need a court order to place them … unless you are the owner of the vehicle.
A good background on the legal issues of attaching and tracking devices is this article. It’s more than a year old, but very, very little has changed legally today. About as clear as mud, isn’t it? The police either can or can’t track without orders … take your pick … and the law a sit applies to [private citizens is even more obscure.
OK, what is you don’t have or don’t choose to obtain physical access? How about this little puppy:
Costs about 5 times as much, but the capabilities are outstanding. Notice the little round circles on the unit and the battery pack? Magnets. Just reach underneath and “click” it’s attached to any metal part. Battery lasts several days and additional packs can be chained together for more battery life. The unit reports back to the owner over both older analog cell phone systems on the newer digital GSM/GPRS services. Monthly cost is about $60 bucks … 2 bucks a day to track nearly anything or anybody.
Am I in favor of this sort of use for my favorite technology? yes, I am, if it’s not used improperly. Now, how do I define “improperly” and how do you define the same word? As Shakespeare (or someone using his name) once wrote, “Ah, there’s the rub.” My only purpose in writing these scribbling’s for the world to see is to inform and awaken thought.
Who did you vote for in November’s election? What’s your candidate’s position on use of these devices by, say, an employer to track employees? By a jealous husband to track his wife? By parent to track a child? Did your candidate even have a position?
Probably not. Most haven’t thought GPS and other, more insidious forms of surveillance through very thoroughly … and if they have, they likely have fallen into the trap of ‘If it might catch a terrorist then we have to live with it’. Sorry, but my own view is that enslaving the innocent majority to possible catch the guilty minority is not right. What’s your opinion?
A Company Who Has The Flick
With annual cargo thefts over $25 billion, your company cannot afford to leave freight unprotected. FreightWatch Group is expert in identifying threats and vulnerabilities to high-value supply and distribution chains. Using compliance monitoring and continuous process improvement methods, plus the latest covert tracking technology, FreightWatch stops cargo theft in its tracks. Read More Here:
One of the newest bloggers on the ‘Net is an online friend of mine, Don Brown. He just launched a new blog called “Get The Flick” and very little of his writings are about GPS. So why am I giving him blog love? because his title is one of the best I’ve ever seen. Don’s along-time Air Traffic Controller and in that profession, to “have the flick” is a frequent controller term, but it’s no less applicable to business. In Don’s words controllers typically refer to folks in being in one of three categories:
- Those that have the flick – aware, in charge or on the ball….
- Those that lost the flick — they’re distracted or overwhelmed…
- The 7UPs — Never had it and never will.
Read more of Don here:
I’ve been active in the GPS and GIS business arena for more then 10 years now. I’ve seen good companies and bad come and go. One thing, sadly, that has been true in almost every cases is that the companies are “7UPs”, when it comes to actually providing a business service rather than trying to outdo themselves “impressing” each other with their cool technology, the great majority of them “never had it, never will”.
GPS technology and, in particular, GPS tracking systems can be fascinating. They can provide a business with so much information and potential expense avoidance or increased profits that it’s mind boggling. And that, dear reader, is the crux of the problem.
Just successfully running a business can be mind boggling. In a highly competitive cut-throat business like logistics it can be even more difficult. No one needs any new technology unless it directly translates to the bottom line … hands off and without a long learning curve.
Well FreightWatch really seems to have thought this through and has it covered. Put a tracer in each of your high-value shipments and _they_ will watch out for theft or mis-direction.
I’m not voting for or against FreightWatch’s technology, I haven’t learned enough yet to give an informed opinion, but I’m already a strong supporter because they, unlike so many, “have the flick”.
What Were They Thinking? GPS Is A Tool, Not A Panacea
is dwelling at night, etc. Mother’s Murder Raises GPS Tracking Questions
By Kristin Smith
First Coast News
BAKER COUNTY, FL — Family and friends of Cindy Below say they’re angry at the justuce (sic) system tonight.
This comes after the shooting death of a young mother - a murder family members say they saw coming.
Police arrested the baby’s father, Bobbie Dean Dressel, Monday night in Georgia.
He’s accused of shooting Cynthia Lynn Below and her step-father Malcom Johns.
The shootings happened in Macclenny, in Baker County.
At the time, Dressel was wearing a court-ordered ankle bracelet put in place to help protect Below.
But now, there are now (sic) a lot of questions about these monitoring bracelets.
This story of course makes me very sad. It also makes me more than a little mad as well. This is a case where the law enforcement officials were at least trying to do their duty using technology to aid them, but they set up conditions of use that virtually made failure a certainty.
The suspect, know to be violent and known to be stalking his former companion was fitted with a GPS tracking bracelet and permit to roam at will provided he didn’t come within 1,000 feet of his intended victim. Well he apparently came up to the 1001 foot point, disabled the bracelet and then charged in and killed the woman and her step-dad. The monitoring company apparently alerted the sheriff with seconds and deputies responded … but folks, 1,000 feet is not that great a distance. Any reasonably athletic man can cross that span of distance in a minute or two, an athlete or a man crazed with adrenaline in even less time.
It’s ludicrous to expect the system to respond at random in less than a minute. GPS tracking is an excellent tool for the monitoring of felons who are not known to be gunning for someone. A perpetrator, for example, who needs to be placed on house arrest to confine him to his dwelling at night, for example.
It’s just irrational and bordering on insanity to put a bracelet on the leg of a violent man and allow him to come with in a thousand feet of his target, at night, with police who knows how many minutes away. I love technology, but please, can we apply at least third-grade logic to the equation?
Is Law Enforcement Stupidity Nature Or Nurture?
Parolee Convicted of Murdering Actress
By ANEMONA HARTOCOLLIS and COLIN MOYNIHAN
Published: October 12, 2006
A 20-year-old parolee was convicted today of murdering Nicole duFresne, a young actress who moved to New York from Minnesota, by shooting her point-blank in the chest on a darkened Lower East Side street after she stood up to him during a mugging, shouting, “What are you going to do, shoot us?â€
The jury convicted Rudy Fleming, who was on parole for pointing a semi-automatic gun at a truancy officer, of all nine counts against him, including intentional murder, robbery and criminal possession of a weapon…. Full Story Here
OK, yep, you guessed it … Dave’s pissed again. How long will we have to keep living with this kind of nonsense when the technology to stop it dead is not only readily at hand, but will actually save us money.
Here’s a 20 year old freak who is on parole for threatening a parole officer with a gun. So at three o’clock in the morning he’s roaming the sidewalks accosting people on their way home from clubs. He points his gun at a girl apparently suffering from an overload of testosterone, she mouth’s off, he pulls the trigger. Blam!
Her life is wasted, her family’s life scarred forever. And you know even though this guy was a little punk his life is over too … and his family hurts no less than any other to lose their child for life as a felon.
A couple days ago I wrote about an incident up in British Columbia where the police tried to excuse the fact they had let a rapist back out on the street unsupervised to rape again with the lame statement that even with a GPS we wouldn’t be able to know, necessarily that he was committing a crime.
Well here’s a thought you Einstein’s of the criminal justice system … a GPS wouldn’t have told a supervising officer that this freak was going to pull a trigger … but it damn sure would have told you that he was out prowling the streets at 0300 while you were safe at home dreaming the dreams of the just. A couple hundred bucks. Not only would lives have been saved, what do you think the costs to the city for the criminal investigation, the trial, any liability the city may wind up for in this tragic affair … boggles the mind.
Can’t anyone in the parole side of the justice system do the most simple ROI math? GPS tracking of parolees does NOT cost, it would PAY
I Know These Guys Weren’t Born Dumb — Could GPS Make Them A Bit Smarter?
Kamloops Mounties nab newly released sex offender
Violent criminal spotted in Ashcroft after allegedly breaking curfew
Ethan Baron, The Province
Published: Thursday, August 31, 2006
A high-risk sex offender led police on a long, high-speed chase after he allegedly broke his curfew in Cache Creek and was then spotted in Kamloops.
Police issued a warning last weekend about Jeffrey Michael Gates, 48, after he was released from jail.
Gates, who has a history of sex offences against women and girls going back to 1987, had served six months for stealing booze from a beer-and-wine store in Cache Creek.
On Tuesday, an Ashcroft Mountie made a 9 p.m. spot check on the Cache Creek house where Gates was living under a 6 p.m. to 6 a.m. curfew and found him absent. Read full article here:
As you know I’ve posted about the value of GPS tracking devices for sex offenders many time here. And when I talk about value, I don’t only mean the prevention of future crimes … although that’s a big consideration. I’m talking about the actual dollars and cents of savings to law enforcement in keeping track of these creepy guys.
Now you’ll have to read this story for yourself to figure out why a guy so violent and convicted of so many previous sex crimes was released after serving time on some sort of minor liquor purchase offence. I don’t know Canadian law that well and maybe there were circumstances that made it impossible for the prosecutor to nail this weasel on a charge that would have kept him in the pen for the time he deserved.
But he was released, with authorities knowing full-well how dangerous and uncooperative he was with nothing more to hold him than a parole ruling that he had to be at his home from 6 pm to 6 am. frankly, if his crimes weren’t so serious I’d give a hearty laugh at that … if I want to commit rape you think I’m not going to be in the mood at 7 am watching young girls going off to school or at 3 pm when I know they’re home alone? But again, I can’t vouch for the logic here.
I can vouch, however, for the fact that sending officer’s to a parolee’s home to monitor his curfew is mighty cost and time intensive. And when they get to his home (”Hey, would you guys maybe bring me a pizza and some beer since you’re on your way here anyway”?) and find he’s not there all hell breaks loose.
After a dangerous and expensive pursuit they captured this clown … thank God no one was hurt and he didn’t get to molest some other woman before the police got him …. but what law enforcement agency can afford this kind of service.
A simple GPS bracelet would have automatically “told” on him when he left home and it would have let the police find him and apprehend him without any high speed chase. So much simpler, so much more e3ffectibve and so much CHEAPER than the goat rope they went through.
This guy Bruce Bannerman of the B.C. Corrections Branch really takes the cake with me as someone who absolutely misses the whole picture. Telling rightfully concerned women that GPS technology is over-rated because it could only tell officers where the guy is, and not if he was committing an offence. Earth to Bruce … his offence was roaming the province while he was supposed to be home under curfew. D’oh?
Educators Can’t Win With GPS, They Get It From All Sides
Big Brother GPS tracks pupils to satellite campus
SCHOOL pupils could soon be tracked by satellite while they are being educated.
Councillors are considering giving every secondary student a personal computer which would incorporate a GPS (global positioning system)… full article here:
Geez, it’s as if they read my blog, eh? In an unsigned article (dingbats often hide behind anonymity) the Tameside Advertiser makes fun of intelligent effort by the school authorities to protect pupils by publishing an article under the “link bait” headline of “Big Brother”.
The Advertiser, by the way, is located in the United Kingdom. You know, that land that harbors subway and bus bombers and was stopped only days from launching a lip stick oops, liquid explosives attack on the US. No reason to protect their children there, is there? Nah, everyone respects the Queen and sits around playing dominos when they aren’t drinking warm beer.
You know to write for most newspapers, even small ones, journalists usually need at least a modicum of education. I have no degree in journalism. But I do know that a couple of the primary precepts of responsible reporting are to represent the facts, and to not interject personal opinion (unless writing on the OpEd page, or on a blog, clearly labeled as opinion, as is this one).
“Big Brother” is a fictional character from George Orwell’s novel, 1984. “He” earns his well-deserved reputation of evil by spying and controlling even the thoughts of “his” subjects.
The school councillors in this article are not only planning to use GPS to help insure their students’ safety, but to equip their students with laptops and other advantages to better their education … but the news media can’t resist the chance to slap them with a completely unfair and oblique reference to a notorious villain.
Way to go, Tameside Advertiser, wonder if any of the folks in your office learned to read, write and publish newspapers with the assistance of these local ner-do-wells?