The 9-1-1 Carnage Continues...

To read the article as posted at the Kennebec Journal online, click on the link below:


WATERVILLE
Posted: August 20

Updated: Today at 8:13 PM


Another 911 address mix-up makes need to change obvious
By Scott Monroe mailto:smonroe@mainetoday.com
Staff Writer


Comment: I'm not counting, but there have been at least 10 high profile incidents in the past year where application of  9-1-1 technology has failed our nation (typically, with fatal results).  Dispatchers typing in the wrong address, callers giving the wrong address, Computer Aided Dispatch (CAD) systems unable to find an address, CAD systems auto-filling the wrong address, and so on.  And the incidents have not been isolated - indeed they have been spread across the country: Atlanta, Maine, St Louis, Denver, Ohio, Florida, California, Tucson, and Pennsylvania - to name a few.  The irony of the situation is that units of government will spend MILLIONS of dollars to install the latest and greatest CAD system in hopes of shaving seconds off response times, yet the "new" system will inherently have the same basic flaw as the old system - something that can cause errors in minutes - reliance on an ADDRESS driven exchange of information.  There is a better way to communicate location for emergency response situations.  One that is free and endorsed  by FEMA, the National Search and Rescue Committee, and the Federal Geographic Data Committee - the U.S. National Grid (USNG).  Sadly, within the emergency services sector, very few have embraced the approach.  For example, a recent Needs Assessment by the National Fire Protection Association found that less than 2% of the nation's fire departments were using USNG in their operations. 


Hopefully, the light bulb will finally come on for the 9-1-1/emergency services sector before the carnage goes much further.  In that regard, Minnesota has made significant progress but still has a long way to go.


In Minnesota:
• the USNG is an approved state cartographic standard,


• USNG maps are available for the entire state,


• numerous USNG outreach materials have been developed, and


• at least one government services organization has been working to provide a variety of USNG based services.

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The 9-1-1 Carnage Continues...

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GIS Used to Predict Crime

Click on the link below to read the article from the New York Times:

U.S.   | August 16, 2011
Sending the Police Before There's a Crime
By ERICA GOODE
In California, "predictive policing" deploys officers in places where crimes are likely to occur in the future.

Comment: On its face, this article is a little thin on providing technical details that relate what they are talking about is a geospatial system based by algorithmns.  To get to that meat, click on the "unusual experiment" link in the article for a quick loading nine-slide Power Point. 

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GIS Used to Predict Crime

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Police Struggle to Keep Tabs on 'Flash Mobs'

From:
Officer.com
By ERIC TUCKER and THOMAS WATKINS
Associated Press
August 9, 2011


Rioters in London and elsewhere have been turning to Twitter, Facebook and other social media tools to stay one step ahead of the police.  Read more.


Comment: Twitter and Facebook are just the latest version of large groups using modern mobile technologies to do evil - something that started with the basic cellphone (example: Mankato State riot of 2006).  And unless response forces have at their disposal real time situational awareness tools like a Common Operating Picture (COP) (geospatial visualization) or a Blue Force Tracker system, they are at a distinct disadvantage when dealing with these types of situations because of the dynamic, fast moving nature of the events.  In addition, the inherent need to quickly introduce additional forces from outside the jurisdiction means many of the responders are without geographic knowledge of the place they are being brought in to protect.  Verbal communication via radios is simply not powerful enough to manage a situation like this - instead, highly mobile geospatial visualization systems are needed.
 

Taken to the extreme, when an incident like the rioting in London gets out of hand due to the lack of situational awareness on the part of law enforcement, taxpayers can be left with a hefty bill.  Indications from the London riots point toward 10's of millions of dollars in damage.  On the flip side, the city of Los Angeles, CA was forced to pay out over $13.0 million dollars to protesters over excessive use of force after police officers lost situational awareness (and control) of a gathering in MacArthur Park on May 1st, 2007.  The geospatial "ounce of prevention" for these types of losses, would have cost a whole lot less.

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ACLU Files In 34 States Over Cell Phone Tracking - Police Targeted

Read the news release from the ACLU.

Comment: As I have been saying, you could smell this coming.  Look for impacts in the law enforcement and NG 9-1-1 communities for starters.  In addition, "to protect location privacy" the ACLU is pushing the Geolocation Privacy and Surveillance Act that has been introduced in the Senate and House by Senator Ron Wyden and Representative Jason Chaffetz.  Hang on to your hats, where this goes from here is anyone's guess. 

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ACLU Files In 34 States Over Cell Phone Tracking - Police Targeted

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Big Brother Is Watching You: The Town Where EVERY Car Is Tracked By Police Cameras

From the U.K's Daily Mail

31 July 2011
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/

Big Brother is watching you: The town where EVERY car is tracked by police cameras
The small town of Royston, which has a population of around 15,000, will have seven police cameras recording the numberplate of every vehicle that passes them.  Read more.

Comment: For many years the Brits have used remote camera systems to record the license plates of individuals who run stop lights or are speeding.  However, this approach which includes data base scanning takes the technology to a whole new level.

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Senators Ask Intelligence Agencies About Location Tracking of Americans

From the Wall Street Journal
July 14, 2011, 2:45 PM ET
Jennifer Valentino-DeVries

Are U.S. intelligence agencies tracking American citizens’ location through cellphones and GPS devices?  Some Senators want answers.  Read more.

Comment: Much like what occurred in the medical community some 30 years ago and continues to this day, technology developments in the geospatial community have started to surge ahead of the legal community's ability to keep up.  Nowhere has this started to become more apparent than the emergency services sector, particularly the law enforcement community.  Look for more of these complex issues to emerge as the years go forward.

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Resource Guide for the Criminal Intelligence Community Just Released

For those geospatial professionals working in the Law Enforcement community, here's a just released document that is packed with great information:

Source: U.S. Department of Justice

A draft of the Criminal Intelligence Resources Guide (PDF, 2.1 Mb) was released in late June by the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ). The unclassified document is a collection of intelligence information sharing products and resources, which aims to capture a valuable representation of the intelligence-related sources available to the intelligence community.
  
The Criminal Intelligence Coordinating Council believes the guide is a significant asset to law enforcement agencies by providing a single document of well-organized intelligence products and resources. The guide contains a listing of available open-source products and a brief summary of what each product entails.

According to the DOJ, the document should be considered a “living document,” and “persistent effort will be employed to continually update it as new resources are identified.”

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Judge Rules Use of GPS to Track a Cheating Spouse is Not an Invasion of Privacy

MaryAnn Spoto/The Star-Ledger
Friday, July 08, 2011, 6:44 AM

GLOUCESTER COUNTY — Beware, all you cheating husbands and wives.
The use of a GPS device to track your whereabouts is not an invasion of privacy in New Jersey, a state appellate court panel ruled today.  Read more.

Comment: This case has implications for the Law Enforcement community.

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