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Open-source searches help solve cold cases
Two detectives receive the LexisNexis One Step Closer award for effectively using searches of open or third-party information sources to solve cold cases
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Record high police fatalities, second year in a row
For the second year in a row, a record number of law enforcement officers were killed in the line of duty; the chairman of the National Law Enforcement Officers Memorial Fund blamed the recent spate of law enforcement deaths on budget cuts
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LA sheriff department upgrading its 1980-era terminals
The Los Angeles Sheriff Department is upgrading its 1980s-era terminals, for which it had become difficult for the largest sheriff’s agency in the United States to find parts; the upgrade – Raytheon’s Mobile Digital Computer System (MDCS); the MDCS project and major technology upgrade represents the largest-ever deployment of mobile digital computers to a sheriff’s department in the country
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Chicago's new bio-attack response facility
Chicago is preparing itself for a biological attack with the recent unveiling of a new 40,000 square-foot, fourteen story state-of the-art medical decontamination facility; the new facility is fully equipped to handle a sudden influx of patients from a biological attack or other mass casualty incident
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Protests spur sonic blaster sales boom
With the spate of protests from the Occupy Wall Street movement sweeping across the country, there has been a surge of interest in non-lethal crowd control systems; in particular U.S. police and first responders have taken a keen interest in Long-Range Acoustic Devices (LRAD)
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Half of U.S. jails not in national vaccination campaign
A new study by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) found that more than half of U.S. jails are not included in the national flu vaccine campaign, despite the fact that jail and prison inmates are at increased risk of catching infectious diseases
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On-demand emergency responder training
New service allows fire, police, EMS, and military to provide their training video library through an on-demand delivery to any television; the service allows responders to select a video through a graphical menu on the television screen and then play, pause, restart, rewind or fast forward the video
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Web-based interactive solution for first responders
DGI is adding a Web-based, interactive map drawing feature to its CoBRA WEB Mapping; the solution will initially target fire departments, EMS organizations, bomb squads, HAZMAT teams, and police departments as a situational awareness tool to assist in the collaboration of first responders and emergency operation centers
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New cloud computing based disaster management system
Natural and man-made disasters require an effective and efficient management of massive amounts of data and coordination of wide varieties of people and organizations; researchers develop an elaborate cloud computing-based disaster management system
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Smartphones to save lives in natural disasters
Smartphones could help save hundreds of thousands of lives in the aftermath of a disaster or humanitarian crisis; software developed by computer scientists could help quickly and accurately to locate missing people, rapidly identify those suffering from malnutrition and effectively point people towards safe zones simply by checking their phones
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LAPD abandons plans to move to Google cloud server
The Los Angeles Police Department (LAPD) recently announced that it had scrapped its plans to move its email servers to a Google-based cloud system citing the technology’s inability to meet certain FBI security requirements
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Simulations help firefighters in risky operations
Firefighters often put their lives at risk during operations, so it would be very helpful if they had reliable tools to help them do their job safely and effectively; now, a modular simulation kit is set to help develop new information and communication technologies — and ensure they are tailored to firefighters’ needs from the outset.
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The reasons for NYC’s dramatic crime decline
New York City saw more than 80 percent drop in crime from 1990 to 2009; a new says that changes in police tactics, rather than imprisoning more people are trying to win the war on drugs, explain why NYC has become a much safer city
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Mentalix wins contract to convert Texas fingerprint archive
Mentalix Inc. was recently awarded a contract by Texas’ Department of Public Safety’s Crime Records Service to scan more than 1.4 million fingerprint cards from its oldest archive
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Law enforcement fatalities rise sharply for second year in a row
For the second straight year, law enforcement fatalities in the United States rose with 173 federal, state, and local officers killed in the line of duty during 2011; this represents a 13 percent increase over the 153 officers killed in 2010 and a 42 percent spike when compared to the 122 officers who lost their lives in the line of duty in 2009
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More headlines
The long view
Tantalizing Method to Study Cyberdeterrence
Tantalus is unlike most war games because it is experimental instead of experiential — the immersive game differs by overlapping scientific rigor and quantitative assessment methods with the experimental sciences, and experimental war gaming provides insightful data for real-world cyberattacks.
Using Drone Swarms to Fight Forest Fires
Forest fires are becoming increasingly catastrophic across the world, accelerated by climate change. Researchers are using multiple swarms of drones to tackle natural disasters like forest fires.
Testing Cutting-Edge Counter-Drone Technology
Drones have many positive applications, bad actors can use them for nefarious purposes. Two recent field demonstrations brought government, academia, and industry together to evaluate innovative counter-unmanned aircraft systems.
European Arms Imports Nearly Double, U.S. and French Exports Rise, and Russian Exports Fall Sharply
States in Europe almost doubled their imports of major arms (+94 per cent) between 2014–18 and 2019–23. The United States increased its arms exports by 17 per cent between 2014–18 and 2019–23, while Russia’s arms exports halved. Russia was for the first time the third largest arms exporter, falling just behind France.
How Climate Change Will Affect Conflict and U.S. Military Operations
“People talk about climate change as a threat multiplier,” said Karen Sudkamp, an associate director of the Infrastructure, Immigration, and Security Operations Program within the RAND Homeland Security Research Division. “But at what point do we need to start talking about the threat multiplier actually becoming a significant threat all its own?”
The Tech Apocalypse Panic is Driven by AI Boosters, Military Tacticians, and Movies
From popular films like a War Games or The Terminator to a U.S. State Department-commissioned report on the security risk of weaponized AI, there has been a tremendous amount of hand wringing and nervousness about how so-called artificial intelligence might end up destroying the world. There is one easy way to avoid a lot of this and prevent a self-inflicted doomsday: don’t give computers the capability to launch devastating weapons.