• Documents reveal drug cartels' secret weapons, techniques

    The recent attack on Arizona’s Department of Public Safety by LulzSec has revealed that law enforcement officials in the Southwest are battling drug cartels that use a variety of sleek gadgets and hidden weapons; the sensitive documents published by LulzSec show that smugglers have become increasingly clever using a variety of methods to sneak drugs past border officials; the cartels have hollowed out cell phones to plant 180,000 volt stun guns or a .22 caliber pistol

  • New radar gun spots tailgaters

    Tailgating has long been a dangerous practice causing many fatal highway accidents, yet law enforcement agencies have struggled to effectively enforce the law as they lacked the proper equipment to document and prosecute violators;without definitive proof, cases involving tailgating were difficult to win in court, but a Colorado based company may have sold this problem; Laser Technology Inc. (LTI) has developed a device it calls Distance Between Cars (DBC)

  • Supreme Court to hear GPS tracking case

    The 220-year old Fourth Amendment to the Constitution offers protection against unreasonable searches; the Supreme Court agreed to hear a case involving the police secretly attaching a GPS device to a suspect’s car to monitor his movement; the question before the Court: does the secret placement of a GPS device on a suspect’s car in order to keep tabs on him for an extended period of time require a search warrant

  • Battle over gun microstamping bill heats up in New York

    New York is locked in a fierce political battle over proposed legislation that would require all guns sold and manufactured in the state to use “microstamping” technology; law enforcement officials favor the bill as it would provide investigators with valuable leads; Pro-gun advocates have staunchly opposed microstamping stating that the technology is flawed, threatens the rights of gun owners, and is expensive

  • Arizona police network latest LulzSec cyber victim

    In the latest string of attacks on government computer networks by LulzSec, an international hacker network, the Arizona Department of Public Safety’s computer network was broken into and the group is publicly releasing hundreds of law enforcement documents

  • Marine reservist arrested outside Pentagon, suspicious vehicle found

    Authorities apprehended Lance Corporal Yonathan Melaku early Friday morning after he was found at Arlington National Cemetery while it was still closed; authorities discovered that the suspect was carrying a notebook that contained the phrases “al Qaeda,” “Taliban rules,” and “Mujahid defeated croatian forces”; law enforcement officials say that despite the evidence found, Melaku is not believed to be involved in a terrorist plot

  • 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

  • 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

  • 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

  • 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

  • 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

  • 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

  • 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

  • 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

  • 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