Comments on: New Surveillance Program Listens For Gunshots, Get Police There in Minutes

By: Dave

Dave — Sun, 03 Jun 2012 17:16:50 +0000

We should routinely surveille the ubiquitous dirty politicians in Washington and report them to the people of America.

By: Jim

Jim — Thu, 31 May 2012 22:30:07 +0000

I have heard of these being around for a long time in Chicago. I can’t tell specifically from the article what is new about this. I have heard that fireworks do in fact trigger the system in Chicago and the police can get a relatively accurate location as to where the gunshot (and/or fireworks) occurred.

By: Kaviani

Kaviani — Thu, 31 May 2012 19:47:25 +0000

The NRA is going to be all over this. I won’t expect it to stick. Besides, it’s a law enforcement priority to serve and protect LOW crime neighborhoods first, then worry about the riffraff. 911 is still a joke.

By: James

James — Thu, 31 May 2012 15:28:13 +0000

I’ve heard anecdotally of this type of system being in place in Chicago for quite a while now. If true, what is ‘new’ about the particular program mentioned in this article?

By: Doina

Doina — Thu, 31 May 2012 14:04:55 +0000

Yah, this is the next step, like it or not. The end of freedom fox

By: floodmouse

floodmouse — Thu, 31 May 2012 13:21:46 +0000

Do fireworks register as gunshots? Fireworks are very popular in my neighborhood. I can imagine some unpleasant scenarios where kids setting off fireworks get confronted by an armed response by police officers. I can also imagine that after responding to fireworks several times, conscientious officers might feel this was a case of “crying wolf” and fail to respond to a real gunshot.

It’s even more easy for me to imagine that unconscientious officers would prefer not to respond in the first place. I’ve reported a couple things to the police (not gunshots), and their attitude was basically that without videotape or a witness, they weren’t going to be bothered with taking any action or filing a report. The first officer was merely patronizing, and the second was insulting.

The problem with the audio surveillance is that voices picked up on the recording might not belong to a person who fired a gun. What if someone setting off fireworks talks about some marijuana they want to buy or sell? Is that evidence admissible? What if someone fired a registered gun for target practice in their back yard, and the next door neighbor happened to be chatting about how he owes a lot of child support, but the court can’t garnish his wages because they don’t know where he lives? Is that evidence admissible too? Selling marijuana and not being able to afford to make child support payments may be against the law, but they are not transgressions on the same level of magnitude as shooting someone. Even if the recordings are found to be legally inadmissible, how could you prevent police officers or court officers from acting on the knowledge they got from the illegal recording? For example, they could set up a surveillance of the kids wanting to sell or buy marijuana so they could arrest them at another time. The officers might regard them as “fair game” since they are breaking the law, but other people would be breaking laws at the same time and the particular individuals inadvertently captured on the audio recording would be prejudicially targeted.

By: James

James — Wed, 30 May 2012 23:01:55 +0000

James from ShotSpotter here: Bill, Redwood City never removed its ShotSpotter system. We’re still installed there, 15 years later, and we are still under a maintenance contract.

By: Bill

Bill — Wed, 30 May 2012 21:01:41 +0000

They’re hardly new – Redwood City (a few towns up from the company’s office) had one a decade or so ago, and later took it out.

And the voice privacy problems aren’t just for the people talking near an active shooting – they potentially include anybody talking any time close enough for any of the mikes to pick up their voices. (That’s probably not everywhere in the city, since gunshots carry farther than voices, and they probably don’t store all the sounds the mikes pick up. But they could, pretty easily.)

By: Ken

Ken — Wed, 30 May 2012 20:41:21 +0000

I probably read too many DC Comics, but my first thought was that crooks could use the technology to decoy the police away from where the real crime was being committed.

By: Zack

Zack — Wed, 30 May 2012 19:30:02 +0000

@JDoors: U.S. law generally allows unlimited public video surveillance but places strict limits on interception of audio. While your actions in public are presumed to be public, there is still a reasonable expectation of privacy. Thus, even actions you intend to conceal may be recorded and used as evidence, whereas if you make an effort to keep a conversation private, the law examines whether you have a “reasonable expectation of privacy.” So video drones: ok. Audio drones: not so much.