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Pinellas County, Florida simulates anthrax attack
Last Wednesday a local health department in Florida staged an elaborate disaster exercise replete with angry mobs, fainting citizens, and shouting matches; the exercise, dubbed Operation MedStock, gave officials from the Pinellas County Health Department an opportunity to respond to a simulated anthrax attack
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ShotSpotter raises $10.5 million
On Thursday, ShotSpotter, Inc., the manufacturers of gunshot location and detection technology, announced that it had raised $7 million in equity and expanded its credit facility by $3.5 million; with the additional funds, ShotSpotter will expand its flagship product the ShotSpotter GunSpotter Location System in international markets
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Hattiesburg, Mississippi receives $13,000 DHS grant
Hattiesburg, Mississippi recently received a DHS grant for $13,789 to purchase search and rescue equipment; the grant was awarded by the Mississippi Office of Homeland Security and comes as part of a $200 million DHS grant program designed to bolster emergency management and preparedness capabilities at the state, local, and community level
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Sector Report for Tuesday, 14 June 2011: Law Enforcement Technology
This report contains the following stories.
Plus 1 additional story.
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New smartphone app reduces information overload
Researchers have developed a new smartphone application to avoid information overload by processing large quantities of data in real time and presenting it in user friendly clusters; the software is the first to allow a user to make real time adjustments to how information is displayed on a phone as it is acutely “aware” of how cluttered the screen is; the new application can be used in a wide array of instances including natural disasters, monitoring multiple hospital patient’s heart levels, and mapping the locations of first responders deployed during an emergency
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N.Y. Dems push for gun microstamping legislation
New York legislators are pushing for new gun technology that could help law enforcement officials fight crime; microstamping is a new technique that stamps a code on shell casings ejected when a gun is fired; the code can provide valuable information like the dealer who sold it and the buyer who purchased it; this week marks the end New York’s current legislative session and Democratic lawmakers are pushing to get the Republican controlled Senate to take up a bill that would require guns in New York to be microstamped
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Technology helps law enforcement predict threats -- and prepare for them
3i-MIND is the LEIM 2011 event to show its technology — a family of configurable solutions which help law enforcement agencies gather and analyze open-source and other intelligence in order to predict and prepare for threats; the technology uses deep-Web tools to access leads found only in social networks, chat rooms, and online forums
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New powertrain improves fuel economy, adds hp Chevrolet Impala Police
GM says that a new 3.6L V-6 engine and a 6-speed automatic transmission achieves 302 hp and an estimated fuel economy of 17 mpg city and 27 mpg highway — a 3 mpg advantage over previous Impala models and 28 percent better than the Ford Crown Victoria; the 2012 Impala can accelerate from 0-60 mph in 6.6 seconds, based on GM engineering tests
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Apple cracks down on drunk driving evasion apps
At the urging of several U.S. senators, Apple recently announced that it would no longer sell apps that were designed to inform users about police checkpoints for drunk drivers; the senators lauded the move, but said that the company should also remove existing apps from its stores rather than just preventing new ones from going on sale; the senators were targeting apps like PhantomALERT which taps into a phone’s GPS device and alerts the driver of any active law enforcement zone including checkpoints, speed cameras, and speed traps
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Massachusetts firefighters purchase chemical fire equipment
Local firefighters in Massachusetts recently received a new foam trailer capable of pumping out 500 gallons per minute; to control chemical fires and other difficult blazes, firefighters often use foam to coat the fuel to deprive the fire of oxygen; the new foam trailer is particularly useful as Ayer is home to several chemical and electrical facilities
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Three arrested in PlayStation cyberattacks
On Friday, Spanish law enforcement officials arrested three men suspected of hacking into Sony’s PlayStation Network in addition to other major government and corporate websites around the world; the three men are suspected of being the local leaders of a secretive group of international hackers that call themselves Anonymous; the group has claimed responsibility for several high profile attacks on major sites like YouTube, Amazon, the Australian Parliament’s House website, and PayPal
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Firefighters struggling with Arizona's second largest wildfire in history
Firefighters in eastern Arizona are struggling to contain the second largest wildfire in the state’s history; as the blaze burns toward New Mexico, Arizona officials have been forced to evacuate mountain resort communities and close national forests and parks; the wildfire has been burning steadily since 29 May; the conflagration now covers more than 311,000 acres in the White Mountains of eastern Arizona, and is threatening to damage power lines carrying electricity to Tucson; the fire is growing at a rate of four to five miles a day and protracted drought and dry, high winds have hampered efforts to control the blaze
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DHS reduces monitoring of non-Islamic domestic terrorism
In May 2009, DHS issues a report saying that the recession and Obama’s election could lead to a “violent radicalization” of extremist groups in the United States; conservative politicians and commentators charged that the report was an attack on conservative ideology and groups opposing abortion and immigration; in response, DHS has eviscerated the analytical unit which issued the report, cut the number of personnel studying domestic terrorism unrelated to Islam, canceled state and local law enforcement briefings, held up dissemination of nearly a dozen reports on extremist groups, and has blocked the dissemination of a digest of domestic terror incidents and the distribution of definitions for terms such as “white supremacist” and “Christian Identity”; state and local law enforcement and security experts are worried
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Emergency responders could have jetpacks by year's end
Emergency responders in New Zealand could soon be zipping around on personal jetpack; last month, Glenn Martin, an inventor based in New Zealand, successfully flew his jetpack up to a height of nearly 5,000 feet; Martin has been hard at work on the jetpack for the last thirty years and hopes to have his “jetski for the skies” commercially available within eighteen months; the jetpack is essentially two two-liter V4 engines strapped to a carbon fiber frame; the device is wingless and is controlled by two joysticks and can be flown with little pilot training; Martin says that the first people to use the device will be emergency responders conducting search and rescue missions
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Sheriffs in Pasco County, Florida to stop crimes before they happen
Local law enforcement officials in Florida are taking a new more proactive approach to fighting crime; last week Pasco County Sheriff Chris Nocco announced that the department would begin implementing what he calls “intelligence-led policing”; under his plan, officers will focus on gathering intelligence and sharing that information with local, state, and federal agencies to stop crimes before they occur; according to Sheriff Nocco 6 percent of offenders commit 60 percent of crimes, and so his department will begin more closely monitoring these individuals; Nocco has requested additional staff to help map crime patterns and share intelligence; critics of the approach are concerned about the notion that police officers are closely monitoring people who have not committed any crimes
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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.