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Messages - G M

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1001
Martial Arts Topics / Re: Question from a friend in Iraq
« on: December 12, 2008, 10:54:08 AM »
no experience in this department,

But my initial thought process would lead me to a taser.

wouldnt a taser stop the process that would allow him/her from pushing the button?

**Probably not.**

Problems

1. would the taser its self set off the bomb?

**Maybe. As SB said, it depends on the device and explosives used. Tasers aren't "phasers, set on stun".**




1002
Martial Arts Topics / Re: Question from a friend in Iraq
« on: December 10, 2008, 07:51:33 PM »
http://www.michaelyon-online.com/the-hands-of-god.htm

"The closer a counterfeit comes to the genuine article, the more obvious the deceit. As the murderer dressed in women’s clothes walked purposefully toward his target, there was a village man ahead. But under the guise of a simple villager was a true Martyr, and he, too, had his target in sight. The Martyr had seen through the disguise, but he had no gun. No bomb. No rocket. No stone. No time.

The Martyr walked up to the murderer and lunged into a bear hug, on the spot where we were now standing.



The blast ripped the Martyr to pieces which fell along with pieces of the enemy. Ball-bearings shot through the alley and wounded two children, but the people in the mosque were saved. The man lay in pieces on the ground, his own children having seen how his last embrace saved the people of the village."

1003
Martial Arts Topics / Re: Question from a friend in Iraq
« on: December 10, 2008, 07:01:32 PM »
There are key factors to keep in mind when developing methods/techniques to address this threat:

1. This is a deadly force scenario. Using distance and cover to prone out suspected homicide bombers at riflepoint is the best practice. Non-compliance should be met with precision marksmanship to destroy the brain stem. The greater the distance and better the cover, the better the odds for the police to avoid injury or death should the IED detonate deliberately or accidentally. Enaging the HB-IED carrier outside rather than inside a structure and in an isolated area is the best, if possible.

2. I do not know the most commonly used explosives for human-borne IEDs in Iraq, but in Israel and other locations, Tri-Acetone-Tri-Peroxide and other peroxide based explosives are commonly used. This greatly increases the threat to law enforcement and innocents in the scenario given the dangerous instability inherent in TATP and it's sensitivity to kinetic energy.

3. Immobilizing the arms of the HB-IED carrier does not mean that the threat from the IED is negated. Aside from the threat of the IED detonating in the struggle, it is a common practice for the HB-IED to be remotely detonated by a second, distant observer. If the scenario is so desperate that a single officer is forced to engage a HB-IED H2H, then taking the bomber to the ground immediately while trying to negate the bomber's ability to detonate the IED is best as if the bomber is on the ground with the officer covering him when the IED detonates, this reduces the lethality of the blast and shrapnel to innocents in the area.

4. Usually the IED detonator is connected to the main charge in the bomb vest by wires that run down the arm to where the detonator is concealed in the hand of the HB-IED carrier. Trying to resolve this H2H is the last, worst option taken knowing that you will most likely die along with the bomber. So take this option keeping that in mind.

1004
Martial Arts Topics / Re: Question from a friend in Iraq
« on: December 10, 2008, 04:56:40 PM »
H2H, pin the haji to the ground and break the neck, severing the spinal cord. Theoretically, you can jam a knife blade into the base of the skull to sever the brain stem, but in the position where I had the haji face down, I'd go for the neck break myself.

1005
Martial Arts Topics / Re: Question from a friend in Iraq
« on: December 10, 2008, 01:17:37 PM »
A gunshot wound to the brain stem.

1006
Martial Arts Topics / Re: What would you like to see from DBMA?
« on: November 08, 2008, 06:51:44 AM »
A 2 day "Die less often" seminar aimed towards the average, non-martial artist citizens concerned about self defense.

1007
Martial Arts Topics / Re: Survey on bare knuckle punching
« on: October 22, 2008, 07:49:33 AM »
The Fist Reflex

An involuntary discharge experiment conducted by International Defensive Tactics and Research Foundation (I.D.T.) between December 1991 and September 1993 showed that being trained to use your fists may lead to having an involuntary discharge.
Phil Messina, President of Modern Warrior® Defensive Tactics Institute states, "The fist reflex is a response which occurs when an individual psychologically associates making a fist with high stress confrontational situations".
All experiment participants were police officers, male and female with an average time in service of three and one half years. No Modern Warrior® students were permitted to participate. One group struck heavy bags at a minimum of 800 strikes with their fists, the second group struck heavy bags at a minimum of 800 strikes with open hands and the third group just did the final stress simulation. The final simulation consisted of having an officer enter a smoke filled room, where the smoke has an odor and taste, strobe lights are on, the terrain is obstructed and wind is created by the use of high speed fans. All senses are overloaded. Suddenly gunshots go off (on tape) and a figure comes running at the officer waving hands and screaming. The figure runs into the officer unless the officer moves away. This scenarios purpose is to stress out the officer enough to cause an involuntary discharge of the officer´s firearm.
Each group had 50 participants. From the fist group there were 18 involuntary discharges. Nine of those officers had their finger off trigger prior to discharge. From the non-fist group there were 3 involuntary discharges, with 2 finger off trigger prior to discharge. From the control group 1 finger off trigger prior to discharge.
"Post Experiment interviews strongly indicated that a high percentage of participants who had involuntary discharges had studied martial arts emphasizing fisted strikes. Boxers were foremost in this category," said Messina.
Based partially on these experiments Modern Warrior® DT Institute has taken all fisted strikes out of their Police Defensive Tactics curriculum and replaced them with palm strikes and other open handed alternatives when counter striking becomes necessary.

Conclusion

Using fisted strikes as the primary hand technique of police defensive tactics training is a perfect example of how sport martial arts influence police training. Many DT Instructors have a boxing or karate background, they teach what they like to do. Defensive tactics has to be based on what law enforcement officers will encounter in the field, not what an instructor encountered in the ring. The primary strike should make sense for police work. The primary hand technique for law enforcement should be the palm strike. - GD

1008
Martial Arts Topics / Re: Survey on bare knuckle punching
« on: October 22, 2008, 07:46:17 AM »
Modern Warrior® Articles
________________________________________
To Punch or Not to Punch, That is the Question!
by George Demetriou

It´s not uncommon. Police officer attempts to arrest suspect, suspect violently resists, officer delivers punch to suspect´s head. Officer injures hand. Many officers have broken their hands, and most will say injuries are a reality of the job. Maybe, but what if there was an alternative to punching that was safer and more effective?
Actually there is. The palm strike. It´s the heel of the palm you make contact with, but it´s referred to as a palm strike. To execute a palm strike, its important to have the right hand position. The hand is pulled back as far as possible, locking the wrist and the fingers should be allowed to curl slightly forward. The palm and finger tips should face the target. Contact is made with the very bottom of the palm just before the wrist.

Officer Safety - Palm Strike vs. Fisted Strikes

When knuckles meet skull during a confrontation, the skull will always win. I don´t think anyone will argue that former heavyweight Champ Mike Tyson is an accomplished puncher. When Mr. Tyson punched former Heavyweight contender Mitch Green on the head, Tyson´s hand broke. Neither man wore gloves for the bout. The fight took place on a Harlem street corner. You can see why boxers pay someone good money to tape their hands.
My question to those in law enforcement is: If men who get paid lots of money to punch people, who train constantly to develop their punches, break their hands in street fights what makes you think it won´t happen to you?
Strong hand injuries are the number one arrest-related injury in police work. This will continue as long as defensive tactics are strongly influenced by martial arts (this includes boxing) that emphasize fisted strikes.
"The most common injury occurs when you strike with the last two knuckles. The 5th metacarpal breaks (between the knuckles of the middle finger and pinkie), commonly referred to as a boxer´s fracture," states James Prattas, MD of Metropolitan Hospital in NYC. Dr. Prattas, also a martial artist stated, "I can´t think of any reason to strike with a fist over using a palm strike."
"A fracture will take 6-8 weeks to heal, while a sprain (tear in ligament) could take up to 6 months to heal. Rehabilitation could take 3-4 months, according to Faye Grant, a Registered Occupational Therapist, from the Hand Therapy Center, in Floral Park, NY.
Police officers who seriously injured their hands during a violent confrontation were asked if they thought they could get a solid grip on their firearms after the injury. The answer was sometimes, "I don´t know," but most often just, "No."
"Grip strength comes from the ulnar side (pinky side) of the hand. A boxer´s fracture would significantly affect your grip. Try to hold anything with a handle without using your fourth finger," says Stuart Kandel, Orthopedic Surgeon from Bay Shore, NY. "It would be much easier to disarm an officer who received this fracture."
The Medical Doctors, Physical Therapists and Occupational Therapists the author interviewed all agreed that with the palm strike done correctly the chances of injuring the hand are slim. "The position of Maximum Boney stability in the hand is the close-pack position which is full extension of the hand. Full extension of the hand is the palm strike position," according to Bill Partridge, Physical Therapist of Nassau/Suffolk Physical Therapy in Syosset, NY.
Taking shooting and/or firearm retention into consideration, the palm strike seems to be the logical choice of strikes.
Another serious health related problem we have to consider is cutting the knuckles on the perpetrator´s teeth. Punches are usually directed to the head area including the face. The mouth is something you definitely want to avoid. However the teeth may be struck inadvertently. "Everyone you encounter violently has AIDS, until proven otherwise, humans have the most infectious mouths, once you break skin you are introducing all those germs to your body", says Dr. Prattas. "The heel of the palm making impact with the mouth distributes contact area equally making it difficult to break skin if the teeth are struck. With a punch, one knuckle may hit the teeth, breaking skin easily." "The skin on the Dorsal side (top of the hand) is easily cut because it is very thin. The opposite is true of the skin on the palm," says O.T.R. Faye Grant.
According to Dr. Kandel, "When you open your hand from a fist tendons pull back. If the knuckles are cut when a full taut fist strikes teeth the act of opening the hand pulls bacteria in. Serious infection can set in 24-48 hours later".
Germs do not fester as easily in the fleshy palm of the hand as they do in the knuckles. There have been cases where cuts caused by human teeth on knuckles resulted in the hand being surgically removed to stop the spread of Gangrene.

Effectiveness of Palm Strikes

The palm strike is safe for the officer to use, but it´s also quite effective. A palm strike done on a slightly upward angle has a tremendous amount of leverage. One need only to strike a heavy bag suspended from a stand or ceiling to see this. Compare the reactions of the bag when you punch or palm strike. There´s a more violent jump in the bag when you palm strike.
Punches have a primary effect on the target struck. A punch to the head will usually affect the area the knuckles made contact with. Palm strikes have a secondary effect. A palm strike to the head won´t cause much damage to the contact point, but will have an effect on the neck and usually jars the body. A palm strike done under the chin will often produce a one shot knock-out due to the whip lash effect. A palm strike anywhere to the head area will almost always affect balance, because the strike will take the assailant´s ears out of line with his hips. This opens up other parts of the body for combinations or a takedown. The palm strike can be used effectively to the head, body, hip socket and knees. Punches are best used against muscular parts of the body to avoid injury to the puncher. Palm strikes are good to grab off of and make it easier to strike someone with an object in your hand. You never know when you´ll get caught having to strike while you are holding your radio and firearm.
Another nice bonus of palm strikes is they don´t seem as violent as clenching your fist and striking someone. Having your hands open will make the strike to appear a push to the untrained eye. Palm strikes will go over better than punches on the evening news.

1010
Martial Arts Topics / Re: Cooties in Training
« on: October 05, 2008, 06:44:55 PM »
Blood poisoning - An officer's worst nightmare



   In our continued effort to bring you the most comprehensive coverage in the field of law enforcement and law enforcement issues, PoliceOne is working with Police Magazine to publish many of their news and feature content on PoliceOne.com.
Visit the Police Magazine web site here, subscribe to the print version of the magazine, click here.

by Lois Pilant

For many officers the greatest fear is not some punk's bullet, it's the business end of a junkie's dirty needle.

You might think that getting stuck by a needle in the course of a shift would be the least of an officer's worries, especially when there are so many other things to worry about: like how fast a traffic stop can go bad; the irrational behavior of the players in a domestic violence call; the stupidity of the guy who flees the police and the risks inherent in a chase.

But talk to Officer Don Gause, an eight-year veteran of the Myrtle Beach, S.C. Police Department, and he'll tell you that a needle stick or accidental exposure to HIV, hepatitis, or any other bloodborne pathogen is absolutely his greatest fear.

"On a traffic stop, you know the potential is there to be shot. On a domestic violence call, you know how fast a complainant can become a defendant. But to be stuck by a needle on a pat down, that's something else. If you get shot, you know right away if you're going to be all right or not. With a needle stick, you won''t know for six months. That's scary."


How scary? Just ask Cpl. Darryl Bolke, a 14-year veteran of the Ontario, Calif. Police Department. He says getting stuck by a needle "ranks right up there with the worst thing I''ve had to go through in my life."

Bolke was stuck on the index finger while searching a man he''d arrested for solicitation of a prostitute. Although he asked if the man had any sharp objects in his pocket, and although he noticed an object on the initial pat down, the object didn''t feel like a syringe. It felt, he said, like a crack pipe. Bolke put his hand in the man''s pocket and was immediately jabbed by a needle sticking out of a small, 2-inch piece of plastic that had been fashioned into a homemade syringe. What made Bolke''s situation worse was that it happened 10 years ago, when there was less information about HIV and other bloodborne diseases, when there were no prophylactic drugs given post exposure, and when getting a blood sample from the source meant fighting your way through a battery of privacy laws, the courts, and the medical community.

"I had no intimate contact with anyone in my family for three months following the first blood test. The crook was treated like the victim by the courts and the medical community, and I had no rights at all. I felt like I'd been victimized twice," Bolke says.

Times have changed. Today''s officers are offered immunization with drugs like GlaxoSmithKline''s Twinrix for Hepatitis A and B; education in the prevention of and protection from exposure to bloodborne pathogens and tuberculosis; personal protective equipment; training in search techniques that use a baton or the blade of the hand; and post-exposure counseling and medical care. In addition, there are now laws that require the source to provide a blood sample on request or through a court order. Finally, today''s officers have available an abundance of reassuring statistics that detail exposure rates and the rarity of exposure converting to a disease.

High Frequency, High Risk

Such precautions have not dispelled many officers' continuing fears of exposure to HIV, hepatitis, or tuberculosis. One reason is that in the context of risk management, exposure comes from job duties that are considered high frequency: arrests and physical searches; vehicle searches; blood and body fluids at accidents and crime scenes, just to name a few. Because exposure and subsequent conversion can be fatal, these activities are also considered high risk.

Added to this deadly mix is the fact that an officer probably will, during the course of a shift, come into contact with an infected person.

In 1996, an estimated 98,000 to 145,000 HIV-positive inmates were released from prisons and jails. Also in 1996, between 1.3 million and 1.4 million inmates released from prison or jail were infected with hepatitis C. That same year, approximately 155,000 released prisoners had current or chronic hepatitis B, while 566,000 were released with latent TB infection. In addition, between 12 and 35 percent of the total number of people in the United States with some sort of communicable diseases passed through a correctional facility.

And the one thing many of these disease carriers have in common is further contact with police. According to a report from the Bureau of Justice Statistics, 67 percent of the nearly 300,000 people released (from 15 test states) in 1994 were rearrested for a new offense, almost exclusively a felony or serious misdemeanor. They had accumulated 4.1 million arrest charges prior to their most recent imprisonment and another 744,000 charges within three years of their release (an average of four new crimes each).

Given these figures, it doesn''t take a rocket scientist to calculate that the inordinate number of infected releasees and the high rate of recidivism almost guarantees contact between an infected person and a police officer. Those numbers do not include contact with illegal aliens and the homeless, who often spend time in crowded, unventilated shelters that can be breeding grounds for diseases like tuberculosis and bacterial meningitis. It also doesn't include the drug addicted, a group that typically has little concern for health care or personal cleanliness, and even less concern for those who arrest them.

Lying in Wait

For years, the scariest of infectious diseases was HIV. Today's nemesis, however, is hepatitis C (hep C), a virus that is spread by contact with the blood of an infected person and eventually causes liver disease. While health officials estimate that about 1 million people in the United States are HIV infected, about 3 million to 4 million Americans are infected with hep C.

At least 75 percent of the people infected with hep C don''t even know it, according to Debbie Borst, a registered nurse who does in-service health care training for South Carolina police agencies. Those numbers held true in a recent statewide study that required a hep C test for tattoo artists renewing their licenses. The study revealed that more than 60 percent of those tested were infected with hep C and completely unaware.

"I call it the stealth virus," Borst says. "It can lie dormant for five to 20 years, and while it''s doing that it''s eating the liver cells. You may have some flu-like symptoms in the beginning, but when those go away, you are generally symptom free. Then one day you wake up with jaundiced skin, orange urine, and yellow eyeballs, or you may have liver cancer."

Hepatitis C was a stealth virus for health care professionals as well. The disease has been around for 50 years, since its first transmission was documented through blood transfusions during World War II. But the virus was only clinically identified in the late ''80s when technology finally caught up with it.

Several factors make hep C a deadlier adversary than HIV. For example, HIV cannot live outside the body, whereas the hep C virus can live outside the body for up to seven days. One drop of HIV-positive blood contains about eight live viral particles, while one drop of hep C-infected blood contains about 100, making transmission of the virus that much more likely.

Hepatitis A and B are equally virulent, but less likely to be transmitted. Although both can live for longer periods outside the body, public safety and health care employers are now required to offer immunization against hepatitis B. Hepatitis A, the oldest form of the virus, is spread by ingesting contaminated food or water. Although police officers are certainly not immune, their chances of exposure to hep A or hep B are smaller than those with hep C and HIV.

Tuberculosis and bacterial meningitis also have been pinpointed as problems for law enforcement officers. These are airborne diseases that are transmitted by breathing or coughing on someone. Among law enforcement officers, the most susceptible to these diseases are those who work in prisons and jails, since transmission generally requires that the bacterial count build to a certain level before infection.

According to Laura Herring, the occupational infectious disease nurse for the city of Portland, it would take longer than a ride to the stationhouse for someone to become infected with TB or bacterial meningitis. "The people who might be vulnerable would be those who have to have face-to-face interaction with an infected individual over a period of several hours," she says.

Fear vs. Reality

Which brings us to the real question: Exactly how vulnerable are you as police officers to contracting disease from a needle stick, a blood splash, or convict spit?

"The most important thing is to keep it in perspective," Herring says. "The way to do that is to be sure you have all the information about the diseases, how they are transmitted, and the rate of conversion or the likelihood of actually contracting the disease after exposure."

Conversion rates are actually strikingly low. According to the Centers for Disease Control, those exposed to HIV have a 0.3 percent chance (1 in 300) of becoming HIV positive. The risk after exposure from contact to the eye, nose, or mouth is approximately 0.1 percent, or 1 in 1,000. The risk after exposure of the skin to HIV-infected blood is estimated to be less than 0.1 percent. And a small amount of blood on intact skin probably poses no risk at all. In fact, there has been no documented case of HIV transmission due to an exposure involving a small amount of blood on intact skin. The risk may be higher if the skin is damaged-for example, by a recent cut-or if the contact involves a large area of skin or is prolonged (for example, being covered in blood for hours).

The risk of conversion to hepatitis is slightly higher. Those who received hepatitis B vaccine and developed immunity to the virus are at virtually no risk for infection. For the unvaccinated person, the risk from a single needle stick or a cut exposure to hep B-infected blood ranges from 6 to 30 percent, and depends on the level of the virus and its antigens in the source''s blood. Of those exposed to hep C from a needle stick or cut, the risk of infection is approximately 1.8 percent. The risk following a blood splash is unknown, but is believed to be very small.

But just because the conversion rates are low does not mean you shouldn''t be cautious. Diseases like HIV, AIDS, and hepatitis are deadly and therefore should engender a certain amount of fear. "Fear is good. It keeps you alive," one officer said. "Panic is bad because you''ll blow it."

"I know I have to be careful," adds Officer Skip Chatford, a patrol officer with the Corona (Calif.) Police Department. "But I don't worry about it every day. When I do a search, I don''t stick my hands in people''s pockets if I can help it. I pull at the top of the pocket and roll the liner out. I just keep rolling until the stuff inside comes out. If I know I''m going to a stabbing or a shooting, I stop and put on gloves before I get there. I stop and think before I do anything. I try to stay aware of what is happening and not rush in without thinking. I feel like I have the education and the equipment I need to protect myself. That''s what has dispelled any initial fear I may have."

Lois Pilant is the former editor of a law enforcement magazine, a writer for the National Institute of Justice, and a frequent contributor to POLICE.

1011
Martial Arts Topics / Re: Citizens defend themselves/others.
« on: October 04, 2008, 07:35:57 PM »
Nice. But it's not worth getting crippled or killed to try to save the bank's federally insured money.

1012
Martial Arts Topics / Re: Count Dante?
« on: October 02, 2008, 08:28:34 PM »
Frank Dux is a real person, the stuff from "Bloodsport" and other things are not true, as I understand. Anyone know more?

1013
Martial Arts Topics / Re: Count Dante?
« on: October 02, 2008, 07:20:28 PM »
Wasn't Dux shown to be an outright fraud ?

1014
Martial Arts Topics / Re: Street Weapons
« on: October 02, 2008, 03:34:01 PM »
I know of one incident where a handcuffed arrestee used a razor to severely injure a transporting officer, using the above technique.

1015
Martial Arts Topics / Re: Street Weapons
« on: October 02, 2008, 12:16:00 PM »
One common street weapon is the razor blade concealed in the mouth. This is more of an east coast gang thing for now. The practitioners of this are extremely skilled at manipulating the blade in their mouth without injuring themselves. A common method of attack is to grapple with the opponent, then hold the razor with their teeth and slash at whatever soft tissue is within reach.

1016
Martial Arts Topics / Re: Count Dante?
« on: October 02, 2008, 12:01:26 PM »
Crafty can adopt "Count Dog-te" as his new nom de guerre.  :-D

1017
Martial Arts Topics / Re: Street Weapons
« on: October 01, 2008, 06:29:22 AM »
My state's DOC had to remove "Jolly Rancher" candy from the inmate commissaries because they had figured out how to soften them, mashing them together, to make "shanks" out of them. From what was related to me, it's possible to put a razor edge on one of these candy blades.

The majority of stabbings I've seen when working "inside" was with pens/pencils. I've seen "golf pencils" used by psych patients to engage in serious self mutilation, including one incident where a female patient shoved one into her arm, through roughly 3-4 inches of muscle so that only the base and tip of the pencil were visible in the wound.

One of my biggest worries working as a C.O. was unsecured padlocks. We had lazy staff that would fail to lock the padlock. All it takes is a metal padlock to be placed in a sock and you've got a nasty bludgeon.

Anything that can be given a sharp point or edge can be a stabbing/cutting weapon. Anything that has weight/mass and a way to deliver it with kinetic energy can be a bludgeon. Bodily fluids, cleaning chemicals, flammable chemicals can all be used as offensive weapons as well.

As responsible citizens, you probably won't be throwing a "correctional cocktail" in anyone's face, but it's something to keep in mind. The thugs know that the whole world is a weapons factory. Learn to see it that way too, and you'll never be unarmed.

1018
Martial Arts Topics / Re: Street Weapons
« on: September 30, 2008, 10:32:40 PM »
There is very little new under the sun in the way of weapons, excluding firearms and high tech. Anyone that has done time knows more about improvising weapons than anything we'll discuss here.

1019
Martial Arts Topics / Re: Rules of Engagement
« on: September 13, 2008, 06:05:40 PM »
Don't go to stupid places and do stupid things with stupid people. Barroom brawling would be all three.

1020
Martial Arts Topics / Re: Military Life, The Return and Crafty Dog??
« on: August 24, 2008, 05:29:26 PM »
Outstanding Maxx! Thanks for your service.

1021
Martial Arts Topics / Re: Law Enforcement issues
« on: August 22, 2008, 12:33:26 PM »
Hmmmmm. That kind of sounds like making a brief statement to the police.....    :evil:

1022
Martial Arts Topics / Re: Law Enforcement issues
« on: August 22, 2008, 07:08:18 AM »
Ok, say it's you vs. Johnny Ratzo. Now you're standing over Johnny but no passer-by has dialed 911. Are you going to call 911? What do you say to the dispatcher on the recorded line? Do you have an attorney on retainer? Will your attorney call 911 for you ?

1023
Martial Arts Topics / Re: Citizens defend themselves/others.
« on: August 21, 2008, 06:33:02 PM »
More kids die from drowning in swimming pools every year than are killed by firearms. I'm saying it's long past time we ban the possession of swimming pools.  :evil:

1024
Martial Arts Topics / Re: Law Enforcement issues
« on: August 21, 2008, 06:30:05 PM »
Let's get this straight; Miquel Goodguy killed one (Johnny Ratzo) and wounded two others forcing them to flee.  And Miguel is covered in blood.  No witnesses to how it started, just one witnesses report, "fight in progress".  Seems to me that the Det. has PC to arrest Mr. Goodguy regardless of how he tells the story and/or the previous arrest record of the "victims".

**He does have PC, however depending on state law and department policy, the Det or ranking officer on scene may well have the discretion to not arrest Miguel on the scene while the investigation takes place. Self defense is an absolute defense against a criminal charge, not a mitigating factor. It very well could be forwarded to the DA's office to determine if charges should be pursued. The DA might bring charges or convene a grand jury to examine the case to decide if there are charges to be pursued.** 

Talking to police MAY get him exonerated OR arrested. 

**Without saying a word, there is PC to arrest Miguel. In choosing to do so, he risks losing evidence that could be collected that would corroborate his claim of self defense. Lots of jurors expect that a rightious person would indeed make some sort of statement to law enforcement, especially a statement asserting self defense.**

And his own words might bury him later.  The "disparity of force and violence of the assault" needs to be proven and evaluated by the DA. 

**If there were three assailants, that's all you need for disparity of force that would justify Miguel using deadly force. There are plenty of use of force expert witnesses that can testify how three unarmed attacks can quickly overwhelm a single person and cause him/her serious bodily injury/death. Most everyone in law enforcement understands this concept**

And hanging overhead is the potential civil action of the "sweet and innocent" bride of dear but dead Johnny Ratzo. 

**Civil liability hangs over the head of everyone at all times. In self defense, the 1st problem is surviving the confrontation, the 2nd is the criminal justice system, the civil side is the least of your worries. If Miguel ends up doing time in the CDC, a civil suit from Johnny Ratzo's survivors is really the least of his problems. If Miguel were cleared on the criminal side, then it would be tougher to pursue something on the civil side. Still, that's the least of the concerns in this scenario.**

What was Mr. Goodguy's state of mind?  Could lethal force have been avoided?  Did he try to retreat, or did he take the attack to them?  We (the police) don't know the "facts", just Mr. Goodguy's opinion. 

**Once Miguel makes the assertion that he acted in self defense, then he has a due process right to that assertion being investigated as the caselaw I posted above says. The investigation pieces together facts, and with a degree of cooperation from Miguel then there is opportunity for evidence that corroborates his claim that there were multiple attackers to be found and documented.**

I still would think Basic Rule # is to keep your mouth shut.  "I am so shook up, I just can't talk right now..." and wait until your attorney arrives is good advice.  Wait for an attorney; his job is to defend you.

**Big boy rules apply. You do what you think is in your best interest. Unless you have a prior professional relationship with an attorney and a LARGE retainer, it's very unlikely he/she will be rolling to represent you minutes after a self defense incident.**

As an example, most Officer Involved Shooting Protocols ask for the officer involved to give a voluntary statement immediately after the shooting. 

**OIS policies vary from dept. to dept. Law enforcement officers have issues related to Garrity that allows the agency to compel a statement/written report that citizens don't face. My dept. requires a written report for any use of force to be completed before the end of the shift. Were I to have a similar encounter with a Johnny Ratzo while off duty, i'd make an initial statement to the responding officers to ensure that they had the evidence that would corroborate my assertion of a lawful use of force. Yes, i'd get legal representation, but i'd make an initial statement as well**

 Yet in nearly every case BEFORE giving a voluntary statement to his own police department the officer involved will "speak with their attorney PRIOR to giving a voluntary statement."  Now, if a police officer thinks an attorney is necessary BEFORE he gives a voluntary statement, I sure do!

**The point were are debating is not to have an attorney or not, but if it's good policy to never talk to the police, no matter what.**

1025
Martial Arts Topics / Re: Citizens defend themselves/others.
« on: August 20, 2008, 04:19:38 PM »
Some criminals are incredibly sharp witted and can lie with incredible ability.

The police arrive and based on what she saw on the net, grandma refuses to speak to the police. Meanwhile, the little dirtbag tells the police that he was walking down the sidewalk when the old lady confronted him at gunpoint and abducted him into her home. He then says he was trying to call 911 for help when she caught him and told him to tell the dispatcher he broke in, all while at gunpoint.

I wish I could ask the prof to answer that one.  :evil:

1026
Martial Arts Topics / Re: Citizens defend themselves/others.
« on: August 20, 2008, 03:14:28 PM »
In reference to the other thread, would the law prof suggest that she make no statement when the police arrive?

1027
Martial Arts Topics / Re: Law Enforcement issues
« on: August 20, 2008, 03:11:33 PM »
In the US criminal justice system, there are different ethical standards for the different players.

The defense attorney has an obligation to advocate in the best interest of his client. Guilty or innocent, right or wrong, the defense is only interested in the best possible outcome for those he/she represents. Not society, not justice, the client alone is the person to be served.

The prosecutor is supposed to be interested in justice and act in furtherance of justice and the public good. Win/loss ratios, political gain are not supposed to be part of their consideration in choosing to prosecute or not.

The law enforcement officer is supposed to be a witness for the truth. Not a cat's paw of the prosecution or an enemy of the defense but a fair and impartial finder of fact. Conducting an investigation is like doing a complex math problem, not only do you need to get the right answer, you have to show your work. Through the entire legal process, you need to be able to demonstrate how you went from the start of the investigation and arrived at probable cause, and hopefully beyond a reasonable doubt.

If a woman gets murdered, and the husband tells you about a one armed man that did it, you'd better make a good faith effort to investigate that claim. Based on actuarial tables, the husband is the best suspect, but although statistics and patterns of crime are something to be aware of, you need to pursue every lead and follow the evidence where it leads you. You don't assume the husband did it, then try to assemble a case against him, you make a good faith effort to reconstruct what did happen and pursue every lead. What the law professor leaves out, is that every bit of evidence will be examined and every aspect of the investigation will be deconstructed and scrutinized on the stand.

As the caselaw I posted above states, as an investigator, you are obligated to turn over potentially exculpatory evidence to the prosecutor for discovery purposes. Failing to do so not only compromises the case, it places you in legal jeopardy if you fail to act in good faith.

Let me address the prof's core claim. If you are guilty of a crime, don't speak to the police. Agreed. However, if you did something that is potentially illegal, or potentially legal depending on certain elements you'd better make sure the cops know those elements that will vindicate you.

Let's say Miguel is walking down the street in Santa Barbara, minding his own business. Suddenly he is attacked by three thugs. Given the disparity of force and the violence of the assault on his person, Miguel uses an edged weapon against the attackers. One falls to the ground, mortally wounded, the two others flee to tend to their wounds. While the battle was engaged, a passerby calls 911 to report a "fight in progress". As patrol units roll up, the find Miguel standing over the fallen perp, weapon in hand. Miguel gets taken down at gunpoint, cuffed and stuffed in the back of the patrol car.

Quickly, the initial investigation shows that Miguel is a solid citizen with a clean record. The decedent is one Johnny Ratzo, a freshly paroled felon with a violent criminal hx that goes back to his teens. CDC has validated him as a member of the Aryan Brotherhood and his corpse is littered with prison tats.

Heeding the advice he saw on the net from a law professor, Miguel immediately "lawyers up" and says nothing but a request for an attorney. The SBPD det. that catches the case arrives on scene and examines what he has:

1. Dead Johnny Ratzo, apparently killed by edged weapon wounds.

2. Live Miguel Goodguy, in possession of a knife covered in blood who refuses to make any statement explaining how he came to be disheveled and covered in blood.

There is a minimal crime scene to be documented. Pretty much photos of the decedent and any visible blood spatter. The crime scene tech mistakenly bags Miguel's knife in a biohazard bag fearing bloodborne pathogens after seeing the badly infected track marks where Johnny Ratzo had been skin popping meth since leaving Pelican Bay.

So, the det has P.C. to arrest Miguel and because Miguel has followed the advice from the professor, the opportunity to preserve the serological/DNA evidence that would demonstrated that Miguel acted in self defense against multiple attackers is lost. Because the case appears to be so straight forward, no other investigation is needed to pursue the case.

Because of Miguel's silence, the det. never queries any database to check for known criminal associates of Johnny Ratzo. Because of that, when those two known associates drive to Bakersfield for medical treatment, and BPD gets called by the hospital to investigate two subjects with knife wounds, the is no "be on the lookout" flag attached their their names when BPD officers "run" them for wants and warrants at the hospital. Because Miguel made no statement, no one seizes the convenience store camera footage that puts Johnny Ratzo and his two associates two blocks away from the assault, 10 minutes before as they buy malt liquor and Philly blunts before the footage gets erased.

By the time Miguel gets his first face to face with his attorney, he's in county in an orange jumpsuit and all the evidence that would corroborate his self defense claim is gone. Meanwhile, the local press is abuzz with "local man charged with murder" coverage.

Sound good?

Here is the problem with defense attorneys, very few ever defend innocent people. Their bread and butter is defending Johnny Ratzo and his ilk. If Johnny Ratzo gets arrested, then nothing he says will help him, so from that perspective the advice is good. However, if you are a Miguel Goodguy, then it may well do more harm than good in a scenario like the one I illustrated above.





1028
Ok, I'll post more later, but to get to the main points, I liked the Det. although he didn't go into enough detail to clarify his point, but the prof is a bonehead. Confirming my opinion about many defense attorneys, the prof appears to have stopped doing legal research after getting his J.D.

Read the caselaw below and note how it undercuts most of the prof's assertions:


http://iacp.org/documents/index.cfm?document_id=25&document_type_id=16&fuseaction=document

Officer Liability for Failure to Disclose Exculpatory Evidence

Mark Newbold, Deputy City Attorney, Charlotte-Mecklenburg Police Department, Charlotte, NC

Police chiefs should be aware that their officers could be subject to liability in federal court for failing to disclose to a prosecutor any evidence that may be favorable to a defendant. Although the federal courts are divided as to the source of this obligation, it appears that officers acting in bad faith could be found to have committed an "affirmative abuse of power." Such allegations against police officers are rare; nevertheless, they are often difficult to rebut. This column reviews the important court decisions on the issue and makes recommendations to police departments to reduce the risk of litigation.

Brief History of Prosecutor's Duty

The landmark case of Brady v. Maryland1 places on a prosecutor an affirmative constitutional duty to disclose exculpatory evidence to a defendant. This constitutional duty is triggered by the impact that the favorable evidence has on the outcome of the criminal proceeding. It requires the prosecutor to evaluate a case in its entirety and look at the cumulative effect that withholding the information has on the outcome of the trial.

Brady arose out of a line of cases going back to the early 1900s that addressed circumstances where prosecutors knowingly presented perjured or false evidence.2 Not too long ago discovery was virtually nonexistent in criminal proceedings. At times, fundamental fairness took a backseat to the adversarial process and the pressure to win. The result is the need for some prosecutors to be reined in and reminded that fundamental fairness is always more important than obtaining a guilty verdict.

The next chapter unfolded in Brady. The prosecutor in that case did not affirmatively present false or misleading information to the court. Rather, the prosecutor suppressed a statement favorable to the defendant after the defendant made a request for such statements. In response to the prosecutor's decision to withhold evidence, the court in Brady stated, "We now hold that the suppression of evidence by the prosecution of evidence favorable to an accused upon request violates due process where the evidence is material either to guilt or to punishment, irrespective of the good faith or bad faith of the prosecution."3 The court explicitly reasoned that fundamental fairness outweighed adversarial posturing and required that the accused be afforded a review of information that is favorable to his defense.4

Prosecutor's Duty in Brady Expanded

In Giglio v. United States, 405 U.S. 150 (1972), the U.S. Supreme Court expanded the prosecutor's duty to disclose evidence relative to the credibility of a governmental witness.5 Later, in United States v. Agurs, 427 U.S. 97 (1976), the Court made it clear that the defendant need not request exculpatory information from the prosecutor. Rather the duty to disclose attached regardless of whether the defense requested the evidence.

In Kyles v. Whitley, 514 U.S. 419 (1995), the Supreme Court reviewed the Brady doctrine and found three circumstances where the duty attaches: first, where "previously undisclosed evidence revealed that the prosecution introduced trial testimony that it knew or should have known was perjured." Id.; second, "where the Government failed to accede to a defense request for disclosure of some specific kind of exculpatory evidence." Id.; and third, where the defense failed to request information or made a general request for exculpatory evidence. Id.

The effect of the above is that prosecutors can no longer feel comfortable holding back some evidence that might be exculpatory. In order to avoid a breach of their duty, cautious prosecutors must now continuously review their files and constantly evaluate their cases with an eye towards identifying exculpatory evidence.6

Favorable Evidence Must Be "Material"

The constitutional duty is not triggered simply because the evidence might be favorable to the defendant. Rather, the touchstone of materiality is whether the failure to disclose the information undermines the confidence in the outcome of the trial. The failure to disclose strikes at the very purpose of the trial itself, which is to ensure the accused is afforded a process that is fundamentally fair before the accused is deprived of his or her freedom or property.

"The question is not whether the defendant would more likely than not have received a different verdict with the evidence," the Court wrote in Kyles, "but whether in its absence he received a fair trial, understood as a trial worthy of a confidence. A 'reasonable probability' of a different result is accordingly shown when the government's evidentiary suppression 'undermines confidence in the trial.'"7

An Officer's Duty to Disclose Evidence to the Prosecutor

Inevitably, some defendants sought to extend the reasoning in Brady to police officers. Rather than correcting alleged disclosure violations by police by remanding or reversing criminal proceedings, several courts in the late 1980s allowed defendants to file civil actions for damages in federal court against officers. Unlike prosecutors who are generally immune from civil actions for their prosecutorial acts, officers are accorded only qualified immunity. Essentially, officers were being held to the same standard as prosecutors but were treated differently when it came to the remedy available to the plaintiff.

One such example is McMillian v. Johnson, 88 F.3d 1554 (11th Cir. 1996), where a former prison inmate sued several law enforcement officials for damages after a murder charge was dismissed against him. McMillian alleged, among other claims, that police officers violated his due process rights by withholding exculpatory and impeachment evidence from the prosecutor. Specifically, officers were accused of withholding three statements from the prosecutor that would have contradicted evidence that was admitted at trial.

In McMillian the court discussed the relationship of Brady to an officer's duty to disclose. "The Constitution imposes the duty to disclose exculpatory evidence to the defense to the prosecutor," the court wrote. "Investigators satisfy their obligation under Brady when they turn exculpatory and impeachment evidence over to the prosecutor." Id. at 1567. "Our case law clearly established that an accused's due process rights are violated when the police conceal exculpatory or impeachment evidence." Id. at 1569.

The court in McMillian relied on the approach adopted by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit, which reasoned that "police are also part of the prosecution, and the taint on the trial is no less if they, rather than the state's attorney, were guilty of the nondisclosure."8 The court wrote that "the duty to disclosure [sic] is that of the state, which ordinarily acts through the prosecuting attorney; but if he too is the victim of police suppression of the material information, the state's failure is not on that account excused." Id.9

In Jean v. Collins, 221 F.3d 656 (4th Cir. 2000), Jean was convicted of rape and first-degree sexual offenses. The court held that the government's failure to disclose audio recordings and accompanying hypnosis reports were Brady violations. The court noted that a police officer who withholds exculpatory information from a prosecutor can be liable under Section 1983 but only where the officer's failure to disclose the exculpatory information deprived the Section 1983 plaintiffs of their right to a fair trial. Id.

One Size Does Not Fit All

The role of the police is not the same as that of the prosecutor. Hence, it is inconsistent to hold the police to the same standard.10 Moreover, there are several good common-sense reasons for not holding officers to the same standard. The terms "exculpatory," "material," and "impeachment" are so steeped with technical legalistic meaning that even a trained prosecutor has difficulty determining when a piece of evidence falls within his or her duty to disclose.

Furthermore, evidence that is favorable to the defendant may not, in many circumstances, be identified as such until the entire case is ready for trial. In some investigations the accumulation of evidence occurs over a period of years. What may have been a seemingly meaningless statement made by a person early in the investigation may not actually be favorable to the defendant until it is compared to other pieces of evidence that are collected years later in the investigation. In other investigations the identification of the evidence as exculpatory does not occur until the defendant decides to produce his or her evidence. This in effect allows the defendant to control the timing of the when evidence will be identified as favorable&3151;a questionable tactic if officers are to be exposed to damages.

Reducing Liability Risks

Although the federal courts are divided as to the source of the obligation of officers to turn exculpatory evidence over to the prosecutor, it is clear that officers may be subject to liability in federal court for failing to do so. The dust has not settled sufficiently for us to determine just what minimal level of culpability must be involved before officers will be held liable for failing to disclose exculpatory evidence. Nevertheless, it is clear that officers acting in "bad faith" could be found to have committed an "affirmative abuse of power." If an officer commits an affirmative abuse of power then he or she has deprived a defendant of due process under the Fourteenth Amendment.11 An example of bad faith would be where officers knew the information was exculpatory but deliberately removed the information from the file so the prosecutor could not review the information.

Obviously this does not happen frequently. Nevertheless, it is difficult for officers to rebut allegations of bad faith. The fact that information did not make it over to the prosecutor opens the door to the assertion that it was done in bad faith. Essentially, it is better not to answer allegations of missing documents in the first place. The following are some common-sense suggestions that police departments may want to consider for reducing the risk of litigation on this issue.


Consider installing a tracking system that identifies when the entire file is transmitted to the prosecutor. There should be a way to verify that the prosecutor has acknowledged receipt of the investigative file. This way, the department can verify that the contents of the materials were in fact transferred to the prosecutor.

Discourage investigators from keeping a separate personal file of the investigation. Maintain the integrity of the official file. This prevents investigators from inadvertently forgetting to place material in the official file. The discovery of a statement anywhere other than the official file opens the door to allegations of deliberate nondisclosure. It is much easier to keep track of the investigation than to have to counter the allegation of intentionally mishandling a case.

Make sure the prosecutor is aware of "street" files that contain information on governmental witnesses. Always run government witnesses' names through these files. If you get a hit, the prosecutor needs to determine whether the information is exculpatory or effects the witness's credibility.

Come to a consistent understanding on the disposition of handwritten notes. Some investigators choose to discard the notes after they complete their reports. In this circumstance, investigators will have the burden of showing that as a matter of routine and habit they always recorded the entire contents of notes onto the report and therefore had no need to retain the notes. However, if your investigators discard their notes is because they don't want the defense to know about them, they are opening themselves up to allegations of deliberately destroying potential exculpatory statements.

Don't hesitate to document the precise dates and times you discuss the case with the prosecutor. The documentation will come in handy in the event there is a dispute as to whether you provided them with exculpatory evidence. Remember they have prosecutorial immunity, you don't.


Make sure recruit and in-service training includes training on an officer's duty to disclose exculpatory evidence. Do not rely solely on local and federal prosecutor's presentations. They tend to focus only on their duties under Brady and Giglio, rather than addressing the officer's duty to disclose.

Endnotes


Brady v. State of Maryland, 373 U.S. 89 (1968).

In Mooney v. Holohan, 294 U.S. 103, 112 (1935), the Supreme Court made clear that deliberate deception of a court and jurors by the presentation of known false evidence is incompatible with "rudimentary demands of justice." This was reaffirmed in Pyle v. Kansas, 317 U.S. 213 (1942). In Napue v. Illinois, 360 U.S. 264 (1959), the Court continued with this line of reasoning and said, "The same result obtains when the State, although not soliciting false evidence, allows it to go uncorrected when it appears." Id. at 269.

Brady, 83 S.Ct. 1194, 1197.

"The principle [supporting the holding] is not punishment of society for misdeeds of a prosecutor but avoidance of an unfair trial to the accused. Society wins not only when the guilty are convicted but when criminal trials are fair; our system of justice suffers when any accused is treated unfairly." Id.

"When the reliability of a given witness may well be determinative of guilt or innocence nondisclosure of evidence affecting credibility falls within this general rule." Giglio v. United States, 405 U.S. 150, 153 (1972).

"Nevertheless, there is a significant practical difference between the pretrial decision of the prosecutor and the post-trial decision for the judge. Because we are dealing with an inevitably imprecise standard and because the significance of an item of evidence can seldom be predicted accurately until the entire record is complete, the prosecutor will resolve doubtful questions in favor of disclosure." United States v. Agurs, 98 S.Ct. 2392, 2400 (1976).

Kyles v. Whitley, 514 U.S. 419, 432 (1995), citing United States v. Bagley, 473 U.S. 667, 678 (1985).

Freeman v. Georgia, 599 F.2d 65, 69 (5th Cir. 1979), and Geter v. Fortenberry, 849 F.2d 1550 (5th Cir. 1988).

However, it is submitted that the precedent cited does not directly support the theory that officers should be held personally liable for failure to disclose exculpatory evidence to the prosecutor. At best, McMillian relies on authority that stands for the proposition that the officer's actions will be imputed to the state—not to him personally.

"The Brady duty is framed by the dictates of the adversary system and the prosecution's legal role therein. Legal terms of art define its bounds and questions as whether an item of evidence has exculpatory or 'impeachment' value and whether such evidence is 'material.' It would be inappropriate to charge police with answering these same questions, for their job of gathering evidence is quite different from the prosecution's task of evaluating it. This is especially true because the prosecutor can view the evidence from the perspective of the case as a whole while police officers, who are often involved in only one portion of the case, may lack necessary context. To hold that the contours of the due process duty applicable to the police must be identical to those of the prosecutor's Brady duty would thus improperly mandate a one-size-fits all regime." Jean v. Collins, 221 F3d 656 (4th Cir 2000).

In Jean, the court concludes the standard applicable to officers is analogous to the circumstances in Arizona v. Youngblood where the court refused to find officers violated the due process clause in the absence of evidence of bad faith on the part of the officers. (Officers failed to refrigerate evidence connected to a rape).


This column is prepared monthly by members of IACP's Legal Officers Section. Interested section members should coordinate their contributions with Elliot Spector at 860-233-8251.                       

For more information, please contact:
Gene Voegtlin
(703)836-6767, ext. 211

1029
Martial Arts Topics / Re: Law Enforcement issues
« on: August 17, 2008, 06:17:10 PM »
I think it's entirely reasonable to UA people in "safety sensitive" positions. An impaired person shows up for work at a fast food joint, maybe you get the wrong order at the drive thru. A railroad employee goes to work impaired and as a result a chlorine tanker breaches in the midst of a densely populated urban area at o'dark 30 in the A.M. and you know better than I how nightmarish that would be.

My jurisdiction borders a rail line and I see all sorts of interesting placards on the tank cars passing by at all hours. My PPE consists of a dark blue polyester uniform and reminds me of the old hazmat joke:

"How do firefighters know there is a hazmat spill?"

"All the dead cops laying around"

1030
Martial Arts Topics / Re: Law Enforcement issues
« on: August 17, 2008, 05:18:18 PM »
I can think of at least 343 reasons that a firefighter would want the NSA to employ their capabilities to intercept and analyze communications in al qaeda infested areas.

1031
Martial Arts Topics / Re: Law Enforcement issues
« on: August 17, 2008, 04:42:00 PM »
Tom,

I think the reforms in the PATRIOT act were needed and neccesary. There is a lot of hype surrounding it by people who really can't define why it's bad or can suggest better options.

G M (civ. police Lt.)

1032
Martial Arts Topics / Re: Law Enforcement issues
« on: August 17, 2008, 01:46:05 PM »
Lt MedTB:
The "Founding Fathers" seemed to have an appreciation of the weaknesses inherent in systems of power, building in the separation of powers and a system of checks and balances.
All words are open to interpretation, so it seems that it is the constant responsibility of any citizenry to stay engaged in this process of critical thinking; observing, evaluating, voting, dissenting - whatever is necessary.
Fear is a tried and true tactic to erode this independent thinking process, and I think it is worth stepping back and evaluating any large policy changes based on fear to see if they are rational or not, and to see if they are worth the cost.
e.g. "The bad people are a out there and a threat to you and your family. Unless we get the power to "X", we cannot guarantee your safety". True? Not true?


So, are there threats to the US, or is it just fearmongering?

1033
Martial Arts Topics / Re: Law Enforcement issues
« on: August 17, 2008, 12:10:36 PM »
LtMedTB,

You are active duty .mil, right?

1034
Martial Arts Topics / Re: Law Enforcement issues
« on: August 17, 2008, 04:09:31 AM »
A line from an instructor in my police academy class years ago went something like "The public gets the law enforcement it deserves" obviously referencing Jefferson's statement on gov't.

The public elects the officials, that pass the laws, that law enforcement enforces. If you don't like the "war on drugs" as an example, then get the laws changed.

1035
Martial Arts Topics / Re: Law Enforcement issues
« on: August 17, 2008, 04:02:11 AM »
I think we can all agree the frog metaphor has been beaten, or maybe boiled to death. :evil:

All I know about the NSA is what is open source information. To the best of my knowledge, the NSA has an army of mathematicians and linguists only, aside from their "NSA police" and other support personnel. It's all about SigInt collection and analysis OCONUS. To my knowledge, they do not have any direct action capabilities.

I'm unsure why the NSA's existence would be objected to.

1036
Martial Arts Topics / Re: Law Enforcement issues
« on: August 16, 2008, 06:54:06 AM »
To paraphrase an infamous leader of a real police state, "How many divisions does the NSA have?"

1037
Martial Arts Topics / Re: Law Enforcement issues
« on: August 16, 2008, 06:42:22 AM »
What about it?

1038
Martial Arts Topics / Re: Law Enforcement issues
« on: August 15, 2008, 05:43:24 PM »
As it stands, the US doesn't have the infrastructure for a police state. A rough estimate is that there are about 800,000 law enforcement officers nationwide. The vast majority of those are uniformed officers engaged in general law enforcement duties, and employed by small towns with less than 10 officers.

We don't have a "national police force". The US is the only nation in the world (to my knowledge) that has elected law enforcement officials. The vast majority of officers work at the local level under the direction of locally elected officials that shape the policy and character of the agencies.

Of those officers tasked to investigations, the vast majority work crimes with direct impact on their communities. Most work under immense caseloads trying to "clear" cases with very limited resources. I am not aware of any law enforcement agencies with too many officers and not enough crime.

1039
Martial Arts Topics / Re: Law Enforcement issues
« on: August 15, 2008, 02:53:05 PM »
Crafty,

I think it's pretty clear that the courts have established that no matter what technology brings forth, it cannot be used by law enforcement without due regard for constitutional protections. If I had "x-ray goggles" and was using them to view inside your house, this has to meet the same standards as an old fashioned physical entry/search of your home. Better have a warrant or fall under the warrantless exemptions before doing so.

1040
Martial Arts Topics / Re: Law Enforcement issues
« on: August 15, 2008, 02:42:10 PM »
http://www.ichrdd.ca/english/commdoc/publications/globalization/goldenShieldEng.html



Crafty Dog here, using the Moderator's Perogative:

GM, would you please be so kind as to summarize the rather lengthy contents of your URL?  :-)


Executive Summary

China today faces a very modern paradox. On one side, the government understands that information technologies are the engine driving the global economy, and that Chinese economic growth will depend in large measure on the extent to which the country is integrated with the global information infrastructure. At the same time, however, China is an authoritarian, single-party state. Continued social stability relies on the suppression of anti-government activities. To state the problem simply, political control is dependent on economic growth and economic growth requires the modernization of information technologies, which in turn, have the potential to undermine political control.

The "Great Firewall of China" is failing, largely due to the increased volume of Internet traffic in China. The government knows that it can no longer hope to filter out all "objectionable" material before it enters China’s networks; and so, faced with these contradictory forces of openness and control, China is seeking to strike a balance between the information-related needs of economic modernization and the security requirements of internal stability. In seeking to reach this balance, the Chinese state has found an extraordinary ally in private telecommunications firms located primarily in Western countries. Many companies, including notably Nortel Networks, until recently Canada’s largest firm, are playing key roles in meeting the security needs of the Chinese government. Nortel Networks and other international firms are in effect helping China to displace the firewall it constructed at the international gateway with a more sophisticated system of content filtration at the individual level.

Old style censorship is being replaced with a massive, ubiquitous architecture of surveillance: the Golden Shield. Ultimately the aim is to integrate a gigantic online database with an all-encompassing surveillance network – incorporating speech and face recognition, closed-circuit television, smart cards, credit records, and Internet surveillance technologies. This has been facilitated by the standardization of telecommunications equipment to facilitate electronic surveillance, an ambitious project led by the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) in the US, and now adopted as an international standard.

Many people in China have been arrested for Internet-related "crimes," ranging from supplying e-mail addresses to Internet publications to circulating pro-democratic information or articles that are critical of the Chinese government, in blatant contradiction of international human rights law guaranteeing freedom of speech. Charges are typically "subversion" or "threatening to overthrow the government" as the line between criminal activity and the exercise of freedom of speech is non-existent in China. The development of this new all-encompassing architecture of electronic surveillance will make the lives of such courageous activists even more difficult.

In November 2000, 300 companies from over 16 countries attended a trade show in Beijing called Security China 2000. Among the organizers was the "Chinese Communist Party Central Committee Commission for the Comprehensive Management of Social Security." A central feature of the show was the Golden Shield project, launched to promote "the adoption of advanced information and communication technology to strengthen central police control, responsiveness, and crime combating capacity, so as to improve the efficiency and effectiveness of police work." China’s security apparatus announced an ambitious plan: to build a nationwide digital surveillance network, linking national, regional and local security agencies with a panoptic web of surveillance. Beijing envisions the Golden Shield as a database-driven remote surveillance system – offering immediate access to records on every citizen in China, while linking to vast networks of cameras designed to increase police efficiency.

In order to make the Golden Shield a reality, the Chinese government is dependent upon the technological expertise and investment of Western companies. Canada’s Nortel Networks is playing a key role in these developments as witnessed by:

-- its joint research with Tsinghua University on specific forms of speech recognition technology, for the purpose of automated surveillance of telephone conversations;

-- its strong and early support for FBI plans to develop a common standard to intercept telephone communications, known as CALEA, in conjunction with technology transfer through its joint venture, Guangdong Nortel (GDNT);

-- its close relationship with Datang Telecom, a Chinese firm with substantial interests in the state security market in China;

-- the promotion of JungleMUX which allows video surveillance data to be transported from remote cameras back to a centralized surveillance point to the Chinese Ministry of Public Security (MPS);

-- the deployment of its "Personal Internet" suite in Shanghai, greatly enhancing the ability of Internet service providers to track the communications of individual users;

-- a US$10 million project to build a citywide fibre-optic broadband network in Shanghai (OPTera) enabling central authorities to monitor the interests of subscribers at the "edge" of the network, principally through the Shasta 5000 firewall, in direct conflict with the right to privacy. This technology will also make it more difficult for dissidents to have clandestine communications and facilitate police monitoring of Internet users attempting to access URLs not judged appropriate by the Chinese government;

-- the integration of face recognition and voice recognition technology in collaboration with AcSys Biometrics, a subsidiary of Burlington, Ontario-based NEXUS. (2)

Many other Western firms have been involved in the development of a repressive state security apparatus through the following developments:

-- a nationwide database containing information on all adult Chinese citizens;

-- smart cards for all citizens which can be scanned without the owner’s knowledge at a distance of a few metres;

-- closed-circuit television to monitor public spaces;

-- technology which allows the Public Security Bureau to make instant comparisons of fingerprints;

-- development of firewalls in China.

The self-interested high-tech discourse promises that new information and telecommunication technologies are inherently democratic and will foster openness wherever they are used. China’s Golden Shield: Corporations and the Development of Surveillance Technology in the People’s Republic of China debunks this myth. Technology is embedded in a social context and, in this report, it has been shown to bolster repression in a one-party state in the name of expanding markets and exponential profits.

Introduction

China has long suffered from inadequate telecommunications. Economic growth has demanded modernization of an infrastructure characterized by outdated technology and limited access to the resources necessary to develop it. To overcome these deficits, the government has embarked on a well-financed effort to modernize its information infrastructure. China has therefore quickly become one of the world’s largest consumers of telecommunications equipment.

An important goal of this modernization has been the acquisition of advanced telecommunications equipment from industrialized nations, on the premise that the technologies of the information revolution provide China with the opportunity to "leapfrog" and vastly improve capabilities in areas related to telecommunications. The transfer of these technologies to China has been facilitated by two mutually supporting trends.

First, there is enormous competition among telecommunications firms to get a share of the relatively undeveloped but rapidly expanding Chinese telecommunications market – the largest market in the world. Naturally, the lure of potential billions has attracted every major telecommunications corporation, including US-based Lucent and Cisco, European wireless giants Nokia and Ericsson, and Canada’s Nortel Networks – not to mention countless others. From these companies, China is buying more than US$20 billion worth of telecom equipment a year.

China is reported to account for about 25% of the world’s market for telecommunications equipment and is expanding exponentially. Much of this growth is achieved through sales by foreign telecommunications companies and by joint ventures with Chinese partners, which brings us to the second important trend.

The installation of an advanced telecommunications infrastructure to facilitate economic reform greatly complicates the state’s internal security goals. As the amount of information traveling over China’s networks increases exponentially, the government’s ability to control that information declines.

The exponential growth of the Internet in China has led some to argue that as new technologies are adopted they will inevitably create a more open, democratic society. The premise of much research is that the Internet is an inherently democratizing medium, promoting pluralism, strengthening civil society, and pressuring governments to become more accountable to their people. In the post-Cold War world, the power of information and communication technology to transform repressive societies is often held to be self-evident.

Recent events in China present a rather different story. It is well documented that the Chinese government is committed to controlling online content and to restricting the access citizens have to information published outside the country. (3) They also aim to prevent the emergence of "virtual organizing" that has become an important feature of the Internet in other countries. In this regard, the Internet presents a number of unique challenges to the regime. Recent data from a Chinese Academy of Social Sciences (CASS) survey shows that 10% of users admit to regularly using proxy servers to defeat censorship, that most users trust foreign news sources almost as much as government sources, and that the majority believe that the Internet will have significant social and political effects. (4)

In light of this rapid transformation, Chinese authorities are keen to acquire new technologies that will serve to increase their surveillance capabilities. While the Internet may empower ordinary people, it may also provide the government with a new range of repressive tools to monitor private speech and censor public opinion.

From the first linking of China to the global Internet in 1994, central authorities have consistently sought to control China’s Internet connections. Heavily restricting international connectivity was a key principle in China’s nascent Internet security strategy. Now, seven years later, international connections for all five of China’s major networks (5) still pass through proxy servers at official international "gateways." (6) Filtering and monitoring of network traffic is still focused at this level. Derisively termed "The Great Firewall" (7) by hackers and journalists worldwide, this strategy has enjoyed varying degrees of success. Continued economic modernization, however, has led to exponential growth in the demand for international bandwidth, and the sheer volume of Internet traffic today poses a serious challenge to the strategy of State control at the gateway level.

Originally, there were many reasons for constructing the Chinese network along the lines of this "Great Firewall" model. The gateways would modulate the pace of China’s opening up to the world through electronic interaction. The government would decide at what rate to expand the connections and could theoretically shut them down in a social emergency.

The gateways were to serve as the first line of defence against anti-government network intrusions. They would serve as a firewall, restricting the amount of information about internal networks available to foreign intruders. The gateways were designed to prevent Chinese citizens from using the Internet to access forbidden sites and anti-government information from abroad. In theory, State control of the routing tables at the gateway level offered authorities the hope that they could prevent their own people from accessing foreign sites like the Cable News Network (CNN), the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC), the Tibet Information Network or Human Rights Watch/Asia.

China’s Internet regulations and legislation are guided by the principle of "guarded openness" – seeking to preserve the economic benefits of openness to global information, while guarding against foreign economic domination and the use of the Internet by domestic or foreign groups to coordinate anti-regime activity.

The stakes are high – for the government, as China integrates into the global economy, and for the would-be "cyber-dissident," who ultimately faces the death penalty for illegal use of the Internet.

1041
Martial Arts Topics / Re: Law Enforcement issues
« on: August 15, 2008, 02:04:14 PM »
Ahhhh that is my concern; protection/erosion of Civil Liberties.

**It's easy to proclaim noble sounding statements about civil liberties while having only a superficial grasp of the complexities of the issues. Worrying about gov't oppression in the US is like worrying about Ebola while you smoke and are 100 pounds overweight. Is it theoretically a threat? Sure. What do the statistics say?**

1042
Martial Arts Topics / Re: Law Enforcement issues
« on: August 15, 2008, 01:54:38 PM »
As usual, GM is logical.

Where I still am left with doubt is that the reasonableness of the existing standard was developed in the context AND LIMITATIONS of the then existant technology.  As technological capabilities evolve ever more rapidly, are we headed towards a situation where everyone can be monitored all the time?

**The technology already exists to theoretically monitor everyone to a degree all the time. China tries. The US is nowhere near that.**

1043
Martial Arts Topics / Re: Law Enforcement issues
« on: August 15, 2008, 01:49:23 PM »
**It's easy to get excited about technology, but as cited below it's not the technology that matters. It's about what the courts see as the "reasonable expectation of privacy".**

SUPREME COURT OF THE UNITED STATES

KYLLO v. UNITED STATES

CERTIORARI TO THE UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS FOR THE NINTH CIRCUIT

No. 99—8508. Argued February 20, 2001–Decided June 11, 2001
Suspicious that marijuana was being grown in petitioner Kyllo’s home in a triplex, agents used a thermal imaging device to scan the triplex to determine if the amount of heat emanating from it was consistent with the high-intensity lamps typically used for indoor marijuana growth. The scan showed that Kyllo’s garage roof and a side wall were relatively hot compared to the rest of his home and substantially warmer than the neighboring units. Based in part on the thermal imaging, a Federal Magistrate Judge issued a warrant to search Kyllo’s home, where the agents found marijuana growing. After Kyllo was indicted on a federal drug charge, he unsuccessfully moved to suppress the evidence seized from his home and then entered a conditional guilty plea. The Ninth Circuit ultimately affirmed, upholding the thermal imaging on the ground that Kyllo had shown no subjective expectation of privacy because he had made no attempt to conceal the heat escaping from his home. Even if he had, ruled the court, there was no objectively reasonable expectation of privacy because the thermal imager did not expose any intimate details of Kyllo’s life, only amorphous hot spots on his home’s exterior.

Held: Where, as here, the Government uses a device that is not in general public use, to explore details of a private home that would previously have been unknowable without physical intrusion, the surveillance is a Fourth Amendment “search,” and is presumptively unreasonable without a warrant. Pp. 3—13.

    (a) The question whether a warrantless search of a home is reasonable and hence constitutional must be answered no in most instances, but the antecedent question whether a Fourth Amendment “search” has occurred is not so simple. This Court has approved warrantless visual surveillance of a home, see California v. Ciraolo, 476 U.S. 207, 213, ruling that visual observation is no “search” at all, see Dow Chemical Co. v. United States, 476 U.S. 227, 234—235, 239. In assessing when a search is not a search, the Court has adapted a principle first enunciated in Katz v. United States, 389 U.S. 347, 361: A “search” does not occur–even when its object is a house explicitly protected by the Fourth Amendment–unless the individual manifested a subjective expectation of privacy in the searched object, and society is willing to recognize that expectation as reasonable, see, e.g., California v. Ciraolo, supra, at 211. Pp. 3—5.

    (b) While it may be difficult to refine the Katz test in some instances, in the case of the search of a home’s interior–the prototypical and hence most commonly litigated area of protected privacy–there is a ready criterion, with roots deep in the common law, of the minimal expectation of privacy that exists, and that is acknowledged to be reasonable. To withdraw protection of this minimum expectation would be to permit police technology to erode the privacy guaranteed by the Fourth Amendment. Thus, obtaining by sense-enhancing technology any information regarding the home’s interior that could not otherwise have been obtained without physical “intrusion into a constitutionally protected area,” Silverman v. United States, 365 U.S. 505, 512, constitutes a search–at least where (as here) the technology in question is not in general public use. This assures preservation of that degree of privacy against government that existed when the Fourth Amendment was adopted. Pp. 6—7.

    (c) Based on this criterion, the information obtained by the thermal imager in this case was the product of a search. The Court rejects the Government’s argument that the thermal imaging must be upheld because it detected only heat radiating from the home’s external surface. Such a mechanical interpretation of the Fourth Amendment was rejected in Katz, where the eavesdropping device in question picked up only sound waves that reached the exterior of the phone booth to which it was attached. Reversing that approach would leave the homeowner at the mercy of advancing technology–including imaging technology that could discern all human activity in the home. Also rejected is the Government’s contention that the thermal imaging was constitutional because it did not detect “intimate details.” Such an approach would be wrong in principle because, in the sanctity of the home, all details are intimate details. See e.g., United States v. Karo, 468 U.S. 705; Dow Chemical, supra, at 238, distinguished. It would also be impractical in application, failing to provide a workable accommodation between law enforcement needs and Fourth Amendment interests. See Oliver v. United States, 466 U.S. 170, 181. Pp. 7—12.

    (d) Since the imaging in this case was an unlawful search, it will remain for the District Court to determine whether, without the evidence it provided, the search warrant was supported by probable cause–and if not, whether there is any other basis for supporting admission of that evidence. Pp. 12—13.

190 F.3d 1041, reversed and remanded.

    Scalia, J., delivered the opinion of the Court, in which Souter, Thomas, Ginsburg, and Breyer, JJ., joined. Stevens, J., filed a dissenting opinion, in which Rehnquist, C. J., and O’Connor and Kennedy, JJ., joined.




1044
Martial Arts Topics / Re: Law Enforcement issues
« on: August 13, 2008, 03:20:41 PM »
Every state requires that you display a state issued identifier on your vehicle for the use of government, including law enforcement purposes. You do not have a reasonable expectation of privacy for that vehicle information including registered owner/s, payment of fees/taxes and insurance status. This identifier can and has been used for surveillance purposes since cops have been chasing bad guys in cars.

1045
Martial Arts Topics / Re: Law Enforcement issues
« on: August 13, 2008, 02:37:41 PM »
The lines for the most part have been drawn by legislation and caselaw. The technology changes, but the lines haven't, for the most part.

1046
Martial Arts Topics / Re: Law Enforcement issues
« on: August 13, 2008, 01:25:32 PM »
Good.


1047
Martial Arts Topics / Re: Law Enforcement issues
« on: August 13, 2008, 08:10:46 AM »
No. Reasonable. Expectation. of. Privacy.

1048
Martial Arts Topics / Re: Dealing with stalkers/creeps...
« on: August 12, 2008, 01:24:05 PM »
Sorry to hear that Dan.

Still she is in jeopardy, and you well may still be in jeopardy. Make reports to law enforcement.

1049
Martial Arts Topics / Re: Dealing with stalkers/creeps...
« on: August 11, 2008, 09:18:22 PM »
Dan,

Based on the information you've given, there are multiple points to consider:

1. This individual is not acting in a rational manner.

2. His obsession has not dissipated in time, instead he seems to have escalated.

3. The escalation appears to have moved from an attempt to win back your girlfriend to anger.

4. His anger appears to now be focused on you.

5. As a result, he has now made a serious attempt to cause your physical injury or death.

With the above information, I give a high probability of his anger and frustration increasing, and with that the potential for him to escalate towards lethal violence towards you, your girlfriend and others.

Immediate investigative avenues for law enforcement:

1. Toolmark evidence from your truck. (I hope you still have the original clamps and any other parts that were tampered with)

2. An audit of his access to federal and state law enforcement databases to "run" you, your girlfriend and her parents. (For anyone to access state and federal databases, such as NCIC for personal reasons is a FELONY).

My suggestions for you:

1. You need to ensure that every place where you and your girlfriend are normally spending your time are "hardened targets". Let everyone at those locations know you are having problems with a stalker and ask for them to be aware of anything suspicious.

2. Go to a "big box" retailer and make a cash purchase of pre-paid cell phones for you and your GF to carry. Give the numbers to those that absolutely need them only, with the advisal not to release them to anyone else. Leave the old cells at home on silent. You check them for messages of an evidentiary nature to be turned over to law enforcement.

3. As much as possible, you and your GF need to start varying your patterns of movement and using countersurveillance techniques.
What are countersurveillance techniques? Stratfor has a nice primer:

The Secrets of Countersurveillance
June 6, 2007 | 1725 GMT
By Fred Burton

Almost any criminal act, from a purse-snatching to a terrorist bombing, involves some degree of pre-operational surveillance. In fact, one common denominator of all the different potential threats -- whether from lone wolves, militant groups, common criminals or the mentally disturbed -- is that those planning an operation all monitor their target in advance. However, while pickpockets or purse-snatchers case their victims for perhaps only a few seconds or minutes, a militant organization might conduct detailed surveillance of a target for several weeks or even months.

Regardless of the length of time surveillance is performed, however, the criminal or militant conducting it is exposed, and therefore vulnerable to detection. Because of this, countersurveillance (CS) -- the process of detecting and mitigating hostile surveillance -- is an important, though often overlooked, element of counterterrorism and security operations. CS is especially important because it is one of the few security measures that allows for threats to be dealt with before they can develop into active attacks.

An effective CS program depends on knowing two "secrets": first, hostile surveillance is vulnerable to detection because those performing it are not always as sophisticated in their tradecraft as commonly perceived; and second, hostile surveillance can be manipulated and the operatives forced into making errors that will reveal their presence.

The First Secret

Various potential assailants use different attack cycles, which vary depending on the nature and objectives of the plotter. For example, the typical six-step terrorist attack cycle does not always apply to a suicide bomber (who is not concerned about escape) or a mentally disturbed stalker (who is not concerned about escape or media exploitation). It is during the early phases of the attack cycle -- the target selection and the planning phases -- that the plotters conduct their surveillance, though they even can use a surveillance team during the actual attack to signal that the target is approaching the attack zone.

The purpose of pre-operational surveillance is to determine the target's vulnerabilities. Surveillance helps to quantify the target, note possible weaknesses and even to begin to identify potential attack methods. When the target is a person, perhaps targeted for assassination or kidnapping, surveillants will look for patterns of behavior such as the time the target leaves for work, the transportation method and the route taken. They also will take note of the type of security, if any, the target uses. For fixed targets such as buildings, the surveillance will be used to determine physical security measures as well as patterns of behavior within the guard force, if guards are employed. For example, the plotters will look for fences, gates, locks and alarms, but also will look for times when fewer guards are present or when the guards are about to come on or off their shifts. All of this information will then be used to select the best time and location for the attack, the type of attack and the resources needed to execute it.

Since an important objective of pre-operational surveillance is establishing patterns, the operatives will conduct their surveillance several times, often at different times of the day. Additionally, they will follow a mobile target to different environments and in diverse locations. This is when it is important to know the first "secret" of CS: surveillants are vulnerable to detection. In fact, the more surveillance they conduct, the greater the chances are of them being observed. Once that happens, security personnel can be alerted and the entire plan compromised. Additionally, surveillants who themselves are being watched can unwittingly lead intelligence and law enforcement agencies to other members of their organization.

Surveillance

A large and professional surveillance team can use a variety of fixed and mobile assets, including electronic listening devices and operatives on foot, in vehicles and even in aircraft. Such a large team can be extremely difficult for anyone to spot. A massive surveillance operation, however, requires an organization with vast assets and a large number of well-trained operatives. This level of surveillance, therefore, is usually only found at the governmental level, as most militant organizations lack the assets and the number of trained personnel required to mount such an operation. Indeed, most criminal and militant surveillance is conducted by one person, or by a small group of operatives. This means they must place themselves in a position to see the target -- and thus be seen -- with far more frequency than would be required in a huge surveillance operation. And the more they show their faces, the more vulnerable they are to detection. This vulnerability is amplified if the operatives are not highly trained.

The al Qaeda manual "Military Studies in the Jihad against the Tyrants" and its online training magazines not only instruct operatives planning an attack to conduct surveillance, they also point out the type of information that should be gathered. These documents, however, do not teach jihadist operatives how to go about gathering the required information. In the United States, the Ruckus Society's Scouting Manual provides detailed instructions for conducting surveillance, or "scouting," as the society calls it, on "direct action" targets. Following written instructions, however, does not automatically translate into having skilled surveillance operatives on the street. This is because, while some basic skills and concepts can be learned by reading, applying that information to a real-world situation, particularly in a hostile environment, can be exceedingly difficult. This is especially true when the application requires subtle and complex skills that are difficult to master.

The behaviors necessary to master surveillance tradecraft are not intuitive, and in fact frequently run counter to human nature. Because of this, intelligence and security professionals who work surveillance operations receive in-depth training that includes many hours of heavily critiqued practical exercises, often followed by field training with experienced surveillance operatives.

Most militant groups do not provide this level of training, and as a result, poor tradecraft has long proven to be an Achilles' heel for militants, who typically use a small number of poorly trained operatives to conduct their surveillance operations.

What does "bad" surveillance look like? The U.S. government uses the acronym TEDD to illustrate the principles one can use to identify surveillance. So, a person who sees someone repeatedly over Time, in different Environments and over Distance, or one who displays poor Demeanor can assume he or she is under surveillance. Surveillants who exhibit poor demeanor, meaning they act unnaturally, can look blatantly suspicious, though they also can be lurkers -- those who have no reason for being where they are or for doing what they are doing. Sometimes they exhibit almost imperceptible behaviors that the target senses more than observes. Other giveaways include moving when the target moves, communicating when the target moves, avoiding eye contact with the target, making sudden turns or stops, or even using hand signals to communicate with other members of a surveillance team.

The mistakes made while conducting surveillance can be quite easy to catch -- as long as someone is looking for them. If no one is looking, however, hostile surveillance is remarkably easy. This is why militant groups have been able to get away with conducting surveillance for so long using bumbling operatives who practice poor tradecraft.

The Second Secret

At the most basic level, CS can be performed by a person who is aware of his or her surroundings and who is watching for people who violate the principles of TEDD. At a more advanced level, the single person can use surveillance detection routes (SDRs) to draw out surveillance. This leads to the second "secret": due to the nature of surveillance, those conducting it can be manipulated and forced to tip their hand.

It is far more difficult to surveil a mobile target than a stationary one, and an SDR is a tool that takes advantage of this difficulty and uses a carefully designed route to flush out surveillance. The SDR is intended to look innocuous from the outside, but is cleverly calculated to evoke certain behaviors from the surveillant.

When members of a highly trained surveillance team recognize that the person they are following is executing an SDR -- and therefore is trying to manipulate them -- they will frequently take countermeasures suitable to the situation and their mission. This can include dropping off the target and picking up surveillance another day, bypassing the channel, stair-step or other trap the target is using and picking him or her up at another location along their projected route. It can even include "bumper locking" the target or switching to a very overt mode of surveillance to let the target know that his SDR was detected -- and not appreciated. Untrained surveillants who have never encountered an SDR, however, frequently can be sucked blindly into such traps.

Though intelligence officers performing an SDR need to look normal from the outside -- in effect appear as if they are not running an SDR -- people who are acting protectively on their own behalf have no need to be concerned about being perceived as being "provocative" in their surveillance detection efforts. They can use very aggressive elements of the SDR to rapidly determine whether the surveillance they suspect does in fact exist -- and if it does, move rapidly to a pre-selected safe-haven.

At a more advanced level is the dedicated CS team, which can be deployed to determine whether a person or facility is under surveillance. This team can use mobile assets, fixed assets or a combination of both. The CS team is essentially tasked to watch for watchers. To do this, team members identify places -- "perches" in surveillance jargon -- that an operative would need to occupy in order to surveil a potential target. They then watch those perches for signs of hostile surveillance.

CS teams can manipulate surveillance by "heating up" particular perches with static guards or roving patrols, thus forcing the surveillants away from those areas and toward another perch or perches where the CS team can then focus its detection efforts. They also can use overt, uniformed police or guards to stop, question and identify any suspicious person they observe. This can be a particularly effective tactic, as it can cause militants to conclude that the facility they are monitoring is too difficult to attack. Even if the security forces never realized the person was actually conducting surveillance, such an encounter normally will lead the surveillant to assume that he or she has been identified and that the people who stopped him knew exactly what he was doing.

Confrontational techniques can stop a hostile operation dead in its tracks and cause the operatives to focus their hostile efforts elsewhere. These techniques include overt field interviews, overt photography of suspected hostiles, and the highly under-utilized Terry stop, in which a law enforcement officer in the United States can legally stop, interview and frisk a person for weapons if the officer has a reasonable suspicion that criminal activity is afoot, even if the officer's suspicions do not rise to the level of making an arrest.

Also, by denying surveillants perches that are close to the target's point of origin or destination (home or work, for example) a CS team can effectively push hostile surveillance farther and farther away. This injects a great deal ambiguity into the situation and complicates the hostile information-collection effort. For instance, if surveillants do not know what car the target drives, they can easily obtain that information by sitting outside of the person's home and watching what comes out of the garage or driveway. By contrast, surveillants forced to use a perch a mile down the road might have dozens of cars to choose from. CS teams also can conduct more sophisticated SDRs than the lone individual.

In addition, the CS team will keep detailed logs of the people and vehicles it encounters and will database this information along with photos of possible hostiles. This database allows the team to determine whether it has encountered the same person or vehicle repeatedly on different shifts or at different sites. This analytical component of the CS team is essential to the success of the team's efforts, especially when there are multiple shifts working the CS operation or multiple sites are being covered. People also have perishable memories, and databasing ensures that critical information is retained and readily retrievable. CS teams also can conduct more sophisticated SDRs than the lone individual.

Although professional CS teams normally operate in a low-key fashion in order to collect information without changing the behaviors of suspected hostiles, there are exceptions to this rule. When the team believes an attack is imminent or when the risk of allowing a hostile operation to continue undisturbed is unacceptable, for example, team members are likely to break cover and confront hostile surveillants. In cases like these, CS teams have the advantage of surprise. Indeed, materializing out of nowhere to confront the suspected surveillant can be more effective than the arrival of overt security assets.

Well-trained CS teams have an entire arsenal of tricks at their disposal to manipulate and expose hostile surveillance. In this way, they can proactively identify threats early on in the attack cycle -- and possibly prevent attacks.



1050
Martial Arts Topics / Re: Dealing with creeps...
« on: August 09, 2008, 06:48:12 PM »
I'm pressed for time, i'll get into more detail later, but my key point is you need to take this guy seriously.

SB had good advice, but you need to start making a paper trail with your local law enforcement agency. If this guy is an employee of an agency, then you can file an IA complaint as well. Start ASAP. Don't wait for "something big". California has lead the way in the US for anti-stalking legislation and law enforcement training on the topic. Take advantage of that.

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