I've heard something on the news about Ray Kelly and something called "Operation Sentry"

Does anybody have any additional data?


Blackbird

I am wolling to bet that I am not the first one to ask you this .... can you spell search?

Or indeed Google?

Cheers

Get out the tinfoil hats...

I believe that is includes a number of measures that some find objectionable on privacy grounds. Most important, it would photograph the license plate of every vehicle entering Manhattan and scan it for potential terrorists. This also includes a very heavy presence at the WTC site and other areas of lower Manhattan, with substantial limits on vehicles, including total bans on streets bordering or near the WTC site. It could also include checkpoints even for pedestrians into the WTC area.

Quoting LTBEWR (Reply 3): It could also include checkpoints even for pedestrians into the WTC area.

"The right of the people to be secure in their persons ... against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized. "

Seems like that would have to walk a very fine line -- the whole thing makes me a tad uneasy, but this in particular seems more likely than not to have constitutional implications.

Lincoln

"Those who would give up essential Liberty, to purchase a little temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety" Benjamin Franklin

9/11 is a pathetic excuse to destroy freedoms and civil liberties . Those who pine over 9/11 really should get some counseling and get on with life.

It's a new plan to ban people asking about government things on the internet. Unfortunately it tracks threads instantly so you will already be being tracked after starting this one.

If I were you, I'd go to a friend's, immediately, and hide.

Quoting Blackbird (Thread starter): I've heard something on the news about Ray Kelly and something called "Operation Sentry" Does anybody have any additional data?

I don't, but a Google search does:
http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&r...US286US286&q=operation+sentry+nypd

Hope this helps.

SASD209

LTBEWR,

Quote: I believe that is includes a number of measures that some find objectionable on privacy grounds. Most important, it would photograph the license plate of every vehicle entering Manhattan and scan it for potential terrorists. This also includes a very heavy presence at the WTC site and other areas of lower Manhattan, with substantial limits on vehicles, including total bans on streets bordering or near the WTC site. It could also include checkpoints even for pedestrians into the WTC area.

I'd have to agree with you on this one. Especially the extreme use of cameras and surveillance. Ray Kelly has proposed an idea in the future of using loads of camera laden unmanned blimp like drones to essentially perform surveillance on the whole city.

Considering the NYPD already has a camera-laden chopper that can spot faces from miles away, and peer into windows, this is a disturbing trend.


Lincoln,

Quote: "The right of the people to be secure in their persons ... against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized. "

It really does disturb me that the 4th amendment is being either ignored or circumvented, with 9/11 being used as a liscence to justify it.

Quote: Seems like that would have to walk a very fine line -- the whole thing makes me a tad uneasy, but this in particular seems more likely than not to have constitutional implications.

I wouldn't expect the Supreme Court to intervene though -- almost all of them are right-wing.


Yfbflyer,

Quote: "Those who would give up essential Liberty, to purchase a little temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety" Benjamin Franklin

That's correct. Unfortunately people don't seem to realize this lately. I think people have become too short-sighted when it comes to these matters.

The sad part is that if the government is allowed to monitor every aspects of it's people's lives, it could potentially become more dangerous, on average, to it's own people than even the terrorists and enemies it's supposed to protect it's country from.

Quote: 9/11 is a pathetic excuse to destroy freedoms and civil liberties .

It is despicable that a tragedy of this magnitude was used as an excuse to wage war on even the most basic of personal freedoms, taking advantage of our fears to do it.

Quote: Those who pine over 9/11 really should get some counseling and get on with life.

9/11 *was* a very traumatic event and just saying "get over it" is kind of harsh... although counseling would benefit many.

In any case, other than that particular statement (the "get over it" statement), I largely agree with what you wrote


Blackbird

Quoting Yfbflyer (Reply 5):

Your concerns over civil liberties are misplaced because;
> This is not your country
> Vastly more espionage is being done by corporations than by government
> Having your license plate held secret is not some sacred human right.

Your comments on 9/11 are as scurrilous and rude as they are uninformed.

Quoting LTBEWR (Reply 3): I believe that is includes a number of measures that some find objectionable on privacy grounds. Most important, it would photograph the license plate of every vehicle entering Manhattan and scan it for potential terrorists. This also includes a very heavy presence at the WTC site and other areas of lower Manhattan, with substantial limits on vehicles, including total bans on streets bordering or near the WTC site. It could also include checkpoints even for pedestrians into the WTC area.

Outrageous! That almost sounds like London   

Quoting StealthZ (Reply 1): I am wolling to bet that I am not the first one to ask you this .... can you spell search?

Well, can you spell willing?  

Quoting LTBEWR (Reply 3): I believe that is includes a number of measures that some find objectionable on privacy grounds. Most important, it would photograph the license plate of every vehicle entering Manhattan and scan it for potential terrorists. This also includes a very heavy presence at the WTC site and other areas of lower Manhattan, with substantial limits on vehicles, including total bans on streets bordering or near the WTC site. It could also include checkpoints even for pedestrians into the WTC area.

How would this stop a terrorist from stealing or copying the number plates of a car of a similar make and colour just before the attack, on such a short notice that the owner would not have noticed yet that his plates are gone and thus not yet reported the theft to the police?

Jan

Quoting MD11Engineer (Reply 13): How would this stop a terrorist from stealing or copying the number plates of a car of a similar make and colour just before the attack, on such a short notice that the owner would not have noticed yet that his plates are gone and thus not yet reported the theft to the police?

Not to mention the 1993 attack on the WTC was with a rented vechicle. Or is Hertz on the watch list?

Quoting USAIRWAYS321 (Reply 12): Well, can you spell willing?

Fair call, I could try a whole lot of excuses why I screwed that up.. but I won't!

Cheers

DfwRevolution,

Exactly, we're turning into London (possibly worse)


MD-11,

Quote: How would this stop a terrorist from stealing or copying the number plates of a car of a similar make and colour just before the attack, on such a short notice that the owner would not have noticed yet that his plates are gone and thus not yet reported the theft to the police?

It wouldn't... basically this system will violate the privacy rights of every single person.

Of course this will probably prompt the government to develop an even more invasive means of surveillance...

In either case, these surveillance methods (current, and god knows what our gov't will do next) could cause the the government to become more dangerous to it's own people than the terrorists it's meant to stop.


Slam Click,

No, it's not my country, but I'm a citizen of this country and the constitution as intended by the founding fathers of this country entitled me to a number of rights, one of which included the right to be secure in my persons from unreasonable search and seizures.

I know that corporations also spy on people at least as much as the government, and I disapprove of them spying on me as well (especially since often a lot of the data they gather, ends up going to the government)

My liscence plate is not held sacred. However I do wonder why the government needs to be able to track me wherever I go when I have not committed any crime.


Blackbird

Quoting SlamClick (Reply 14): Quoting MD11Engineer (Reply 13): How would this stop a terrorist from stealing or copying the number plates of a car of a similar make and colour just before the attack, on such a short notice that the owner would not have noticed yet that his plates are gone and thus not yet reported the theft to the police? Not to mention the 1993 attack on the WTC was with a rented vechicle. Or is Hertz on the watch list?

Wasn't the Oklahoma City bombing carried out with a rented U-haul van as well?

Also, if the terrorists are first-timers and have no record, there is no way to stop them. The 9-11 terrorists were all acting very normally and secular during their stay in Hamburg, which includes partying, drinking alcohol and having affairs with women. They intentonally never did anything which would attract the attention of the police and intelligence services. Only after the attacks, when their identities were known and a deeper investigation was carried out, did the pieces of the mosaic fall together (like a stay in Afghanistan or in some radical madrassa in Pakistan years before).
They got through last time and similar guys willing to hide their true conviction and to deny themselves for several years will be able to get through again.
Remember Richard Sorge, Stalin's spy in Japan in WW2? He was a committed communist, but joined the Nazi party and the diplomatic service of Nazi Germany and worked for yaers for the Nazis until he was in a position where he could provide information for the Soviets (in his case the news that the Japanese were not going to attack the Russians in Siberia in 1941, what Hitler liked them to do. This allowed Stalin to move several divisions of troops from the border to Japanese occupied China to stop the Germans outside Moscow).
The same applied to Kim Philby and the other Soviet spies in the UK of the 1940s-1950s, as well as Richard Fuchs, who spied for the Soviets in Los Alamos.

Jan

Quoting Lincoln (Reply 4): "The right of the people to be secure in their persons ... against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized. "

The 4th Amendment is gone, another part of the Bill of Rights that has been trampled by the Bush Administration in the name of "security." Right up there with the right to trial by jury.

Quoting DocLightning (Reply 18): The 4th Amendment is gone, another part of the Bill of Rights that has been trampled by the Bush Administration in the name of "security." Right up there with the right to trial by jury.

So in theory, if the next US president is a democrat all will be well, all rights returned, natural order restored. Then in another 4 years hence, if a republican is elected all is reversed and hell breaks out again?

As an outsider looking in I do not think that the US congress and the court system are so easily manipulated by whoever is in the White House, if that were the case, the "gridlock" on the "hill" would just be a figment of someone's imagination.

Quoting MD11Engineer (Reply 17): Wasn't the Oklahoma City bombing carried out with a rented U-haul van as well?

Yes it was a Ryder truck. I think about the best we could hope for watching license plates is if terrorists are stupid or careless enough to "case" the scene repeatedly in a traceable car. Historically they have left fairly easily followed trails. We are just hampered by the presence of so many trails to follow and limits on our assets and their use. Historically it has always been easier to surprise someone than it has been to stave off surprises.

Quoting SlamClick (Reply 20): Quoting MD11Engineer (Reply 17): Wasn't the Oklahoma City bombing carried out with a rented U-haul van as well? Yes it was a Ryder truck. I think about the best we could hope for watching license plates is if terrorists are stupid or careless enough to "case" the scene repeatedly in a traceable car. Historically they have left fairly easily followed trails. We are just hampered by the presence of so many trails to follow and limits on our assets and their use. Historically it has always been easier to surprise someone than it has been to stave off surprises.

The young men in Germany, who got caught with several hundred kgs of bomb making material two years ago attracted first attention by hanging around US military installations in Germany. The US MP alerted the German police, who checked their identities. Since a few of them were already known to the German internal security service (Verfassungsschutz) for having attended training camps in Pakistan or attending mosques run by radical imams, police put them under observation to get more information about their background and connection. Their telephones were bugged as well. The police also noted when they bought several hundred kgs of highly concentrated hydrogen peroxide and acetone (basic materials for making the explosive used by the London underground bombers). The GSG 9 (federal police SWAT unit) secretly entered the garage, where the material was kept, and switched the highly concentrated H2O2 for normal, lowly concentrated one, which is useless for making bombs.
This way the observation was kept on until some of the group members got stopped by traffic police totally unconnected to the observation for some minor traffic violation. This caused the would-be to panic and to try to prepare their truck bomb to blow up some US Army barracks or some civilian installation where many GIs would be present in Germany. Since they would have noticed that the chemicals did not work, the GSG 9 stormed their places and arrested all of them.
All of them were born in Germany, some of Turkish or Arab background with German citizenship, but also a few German converts.

Jan

DocLightning,

I know that the 4th amendment is virtually gone... It doesn't make it right. What our government is doing is wrong...


Blackbird

Quoting SlamClick (Reply 10): Having your license plate held secret is not some sacred human right.

Considering its not very secret considering its attached to the front and back of my car...

Quoting SlamClick (Reply 14): Or is Hertz on the watch list

And anyone who rents a ryder truck in Oklahoma...

Quoting Blackbird (Reply 9): Especially the extreme use of cameras and surveillance.

I think you'll find a show on cable where the parking meter attendants use a scanner of all parked cars license plates to find the most egregious violators to be especially disturbing then.   

Quoting Blackbird (Reply 9): Considering the NYPD already has a camera-laden chopper that can spot faces from miles away, and peer into windows, this is a disturbing trend.

We've been down this road before. Buy some heavy drapes and your problem is solved.

Quoting Blackbird (Reply 9): It really does disturb me that the 4th amendment is being either ignored or circumvented, with 9/11 being used as a liscence to justify it.

It's a shame you have yet to show where that has or is happening where the law already does not cover the situation.

I really find it interesting that people feel they deserve total anonymity when in public.

I fully support whether its cameras, vehicle license scanner, facial recognition al technology etc that might be deployed that ultimately aids society in crime solving.

If you are to paranoid that the government will know that your car was parked on a certain corner, and you walked circles around some park, I suggest you get over it.

I really see no difference in what the technology does then the olden days with a beat cop on the corner, it simply does it much more effectively and multiplies the effect of that beat cop.

And for those that feel such technology has no use, remember it was cameras that helped UK police track down the subway bombers and more recently just this July Turkish police made use of their new Cisco 9,000 camera network in Istanbul to identify and track the assailants in dual bombing that killed 17 innocent folks.

Quoting LAXintl (Reply 25): I fully support whether its cameras, vehicle license scanner, facial recognition al technology etc that might be deployed that ultimately aids society in crime solving

I don't have a problem with that aspect of it -- it is essentially no different than casual observation a police officer, or indeed any person, could make. Someone can snap a picture of my car, my license plate, etc. at any time.

I'm on the fence about the "radiation detectors", and my hair is more than a bit raised about random warrantless vehicle searches on public roads.

I am extremely concerned about the possibility of citizens being randomly searched without a warrant or probable cause simply because they choose to be in a particular area of public property/public right of way.

The difference, in my mind at least is "plainly visible" -- my license plate is plainly visible, my face is plainly visible, and any person can see these. What is in my pockets or under my jacket, on the other hand is not plainly visible.

Well I certainly agree a system or information derived from it could be abused, however I also see a much larger benefit for society which to me far out the dangers or concerns about my privacy being invaded or government gone mad.


For example recently I was reading about facial recognition technology being deployed and tested in Japan (Kobe I believe it was). The system has the regions convicted criminals in its database and through a wide network of street cameras passively develops matrix of their movements. Such information can then be pulled up and compared to reported crimes and see whom was seen in the area around the time of the incident. The system is also expected to assist law enforcement to aid in locating newly wanted people if they happen to be in the area, or assist with finding lost or abducted children even.
Could much of this be done already? Sure I suppose a cop could be assigned to follow every know criminal, but can you imagine how labor intensive this is?

Another new technology which I have seen in action at a demo here in Los Angeles is the police new digital license plate readers being installed in squad cars. The camera system can processes up to 240 plates a minute as the police drives around and flags the officers of expired licenses, stolen vehicles, or outstanding warrants. Its success it truly amazing, with each officers using the system now averaging recovery of 17 stolen cars, resulting in six arrests per week, while prior they were lucky to have 6 stolen vehicle arrest per year!


The bottom line is these new technologies are really no different then what law enforcement did before, it simply does it much more efficiently on a larger scale. Technology brings speed, scalability, and the intelligence to add 1+1 which often eluded humans directly.

RJDxer,

I did hear you loud and clear -- I just simply disagree with your opinions. That does not mean I did not hear you.

I actually do believe in the first-amendment and realize it's importance, and I should not have told you to shut up.


LAXIntl,

I disagree, I think it offers a great benefit in reduction of crime, but it's invasiveness of privacy is so great that it would be better to not use it.


Blackbird

Quoting Blackbird (Reply 28): but it's invasiveness of privacy is so great

Well there is the difference in our opinions.

I simply dont feel one is entitled to such anonymity(privacy) when in public. So whether one is being watched by the old school beat cop standing on the corner, or its modern technological replacement its one in the same to me. And as a tax payer, I rather get as much bang for my buck and if technology can act as a force multiplier to aid or replace the limited physical presence law enforcement can provide, all the better.

Now if we want to talk about monitoring people in their homes, or even internet or telcom mining that is a different subject, however for this conversation being out in public is public after all.

Quoting LAXintl (Reply 27): For example recently I was reading about facial recognition technology being deployed and tested in Japan (Kobe I believe it was). The system has the regions convicted criminals in its database and through a wide network of street cameras passively develops matrix of their movements. Such information can then be pulled up and compared to reported crimes and see whom was seen in the area around the time of the incident. The system is also expected to assist law enforcement to aid in locating newly wanted people if they happen to be in the area, or assist with finding lost or abducted children even. Could much of this be done already? Sure I suppose a cop could be assigned to follow every know criminal, but can you imagine how labor intensive this is? Another new technology which I have seen in action at a demo here in Los Angeles is the police new digital license plate readers being installed in squad cars. The camera system can processes up to 240 plates a minute as the police drives around and flags the officers of expired licenses, stolen vehicles, or outstanding warrants. Its success it truly amazing, with each officers using the system now averaging recovery of 17 stolen cars, resulting in six arrests per week, while prior they were lucky to have 6 stolen vehicle arrest per year! The bottom line is these new technologies are really no different then what law enforcement did before, it simply does it much more efficiently on a larger scale. Technology brings speed, scalability, and the intelligence to add 1+1 which often eluded humans directly.

I can give you a small example how somebody got into trouble with the law through no fault of his own:
A friend of mine in Northern Germany has a small private museum dedicated to British Army of WW2 (his father is British and met his wife while serving with the RAF in Germany. After the closure of the base, he opted to stay here. The grandfather of my friend was a British Army soldier in the hard fighting (Rhineland campaign of Spring 1945) in WW2).
Since he has no gun permit, he only collects demilled (deactivated) weapons as per law.
Now, one day at dawn he got a visit by the state police SWAT team, who confiscated all the guns and other weapons from his collection.
He later found out that a dealer, from whom he bought several deactivated guns, was moonlighting by selling illegal live guns to criminals. The police was observing the criminal dealer and had his telephone bugged, with a warrant of a judge.
Now my frirnd first had a lot of worry about his job, he was at this time an apprentice aircraft mechanic and as such is depending on a criminal records and security background check for access to work. One thing about the German aviation security act is that if e.g. the police or internal intelligence service have information about you from a confidential source, they don't have to tell you where they got it from, which makes it very hard to disprove.

Then he had a lot of hassle getting his collection back. The guns, grenades and mortar shells were sent to head offices of the German equivalent of the FBI (BKA) for inspection by some "expert". "Expert", because they damaged a rare mortar shell, because they didn't realise that the fuze was screwd in with a lefthand thread and badly damaged the brass fuze while trying to unscrew it with a pipe wrench.
They also used pliers to pull out the bullets from the small arms ammo to check if they were still live, instead of using a ballistic hammer.
He eventually, after having to use a lawyer at his own expense, got his collection back, with the only good point about this affair: He has now an official letter from the BKA that his collection is legal.

Jan

LAXIntl,

I don't believe in public people deserve absolute anonymity... I just think tracking every single thing that moves with an unblinking, computerized eye.

And there is technology like this: Google "Combat Zones that See" (It's a DARPA design which has been tested). Some of the Technology that the NYPD wants to use (including unmanned blimp-drones with cameras to cover the whole city) includes exactly that technology.

This is their aim -- track, and ID every single thing that moves 24/7 in a city. Some people have even thought of ideas to actually (by tracking each and every person) "chronical" the life of everybody.

And since the current SCOTUS rulings effictively state that if a high-resolution computerized camera peered inside a person's window, anything visually seen does not require a warrant (even if a faint reflection was seen that no human eye could, and that image was enhanced and such, and indicated a criminal activity going on, hypothetically) -- this blurrs the lines between inside and outside -- which does cross into monitoring people in their homes, which you objected to.

After awhile, people would become accustomed to this technology (people become accustomed to all sorts of things) and if people get accustomed to the government being able to peer through their windows and see everything inside their house without warrant (even though granted they could put up drapes) they'd probably eventually allow the government to use infrared scanning and other technology that allows one to see through the walls of people's houses -- after all it would be "a small step" since the can see everything inside anyway right (except if you have drapes...)?

Especially when you consider when people are under a state of fear they'll give up all their rights to feel safe (in this case, let's say the fear-stimulus was terrorists, hypothetically -- which always work underground -- well the government could say that being able to see inside everyone's house without warrants, drapes or not, could help sift these guys out, people would probably cave -- even though after the terrorist threat abated, the government would continue to keep spying on people like this without warrant resulting in a complete lack of privacy -- and at this stage if the government could really track every single person's actions like this -- a warrant would *NEVER* be needed, which totally circumvents the 4th Amendment, effectively putting the nail in it's coffin) -- even though giving up liberty for temporary safety almost always ends up in the loss of both.


Blackbird
"If our government achieves the power to monitor the lives of every citizen with an unblinking eye, and chronicle their every movement, and every interaction, search their house without warrant and so on, it will effectively become more dangerous than the terrorists it is meant to protect us from -- especially when you consider that our current sureveillance abilities exceed that of every totalitarian dictatorship in the past and present."