Subject: [NEXTEL-1] Monitoring local law enforcement

From: [email-masked]
Date: Mon, 07 Jul 2003 02:49:49 -0400

Monitoring local law enforcement
By:KEITH PHUCAS , Times Herald Staff
07/06/2003

PLYMOUTH - Plymouth Township Police Chief Carmen Pettine can sit down at his
office computer in the morning with a cup of coffee and find out exactly where
township police patrols have been the night before.

About two years ago, Plymouth Township installed a few of global positioning
system (GPS) receivers in police vehicles, enabling police supervisors to locate
any GPS-equipped police vehicle on patrol in real-time.  Once Pettine launches the
@Road software, which utilizes the satellite-based GPS, he's just a few mouse
clicks away from pulling up a log of overnight police activity.

Plymouth was the first Montgomery County police department to install GPS. More
recently, West Conshohocken and Pottstown's police departments have begun using
the technology.

As more police vehicles and stations have gotten wired with the latest electronic
technology, police officers have gotten spooked by the specter of "Big Brother"
watching, and wonder if a fundamental trust has been lost.  "At first it was a
little unnerving," said Lt. Michael Haig, a 14-year veteran of the Plymouth
Township Police Department.

"Why aren't we trusted?" he recalled asking himself when GPS was first introduced.
"We felt like we were guinea pigs."
Eventually, Haig learned to accept the new technology.  Police chiefs are quick to
justify the use of tracking technology for its potential to locate a seriously
injured or wounded officer unable to communicate by radio. In reality, however,
the chiefs have come to value the technology thus far as an excellent management
tool that keeps their cops accountable.  Since Pettine is typically sleeping while
his police are working the overnight shift, the GPS data enables him to review the
night's activity during his waking hours.  "I'm home asleep," Pettine said. "I
want to know what you [police officers] did last night."

If the chief wishes to pinpoint the location of township police cars currently
patrolling township streets, he can pull up the program's map and quickly find
out.  Every 15 minutes, an audible ping indicates that satellites have just
determined the current position of Plymouth's on-duty vehicles and how fast
they're travelling.  And by using a wireless Nextel phone, the chief can call up a
vehicle's position at any time between 15-minute intervals.

Called on the carpet West Conshohocken Police Department's Ford Expedition
sport-utility vehicles have been outfitted with GPS for nearly a year. Chief
Joseph Clayborne admitted obtaining the tracking system to better manage his
police force.  "I received different complaints from residents that they didn't
see the patrol officers (drive by)," Clayborne said. "Or, they'd see a (West
Conshohocken) car in Conshohocken (borough), and wonder why it was there." In
2001, three Clinton Township, N.J., police officers were suspended from their
jobs, and charged with falsifying records, after a disparity was discovered
between the officers' written logs and GPS data.

Recently, a borough resident complained to Clayborne that a West Conshohocken
police vehicle was parked at a local Wawa store for about 40 minutes.  When
Clayborne confronted officers with the information, the police explained that
they'd made a routine traffic stop lasting about 16 minutes. Following the stop,
they took a half-hour meal break and remained parked in the store lot. The chief
was satisfied with their account. "Nobody was reprimanded," he said.
Since installing the GPS devices, Clayborne has received fewer patrol complaints.
In fact, street patrols have increased so dramatically, he said, some residents
wondered if there was trouble brewing on their block because of the increased
police presence in their neighborhoods.

"The taxpayers pay everybody's salaries," he said. "So I'm accountable to them."
Pettine and other Plymouth police supervisors routinely review the department's
GPS logs and write reports. The chief admitted questioning officers about their
whereabouts after reviewing GPS data.

"Since (GPS) has been installed, the patrol mileage has increased," he said.
Developed by the U.S. Defense Department for navigation, global positioning is
made possible by a constellation of 27 space satellites orbiting the earth.  The
orbits are arranged so that wherever an individual equipped with a GPS receiver is
on earth, there are at least four satellites within "line of sight" of the device.
The GPS receiver locates these four satellites, calculates the distance from the
device to each satellite using high-frequency radio signals, and figures out its
own global position.

The price of the @Road GPS service is about $500 per receiver, plus a $50 monthly
service charge, which includes wireless phone service.  When GPS was first
introduced, police officers from Plymouth Township, and later West Conshohocken,
conferred with the Fraternal Order of Police about privacy issues.

In Plymouth Township, the chief, police supervisors and the township's police
dispatchers all have access to @Road and are capable of locating cars. In West
Conshohocken, however, only Clayborne has access to the service.  Officer Tom
Momme, president of Fraternal Order of Police's Lodge No. 14, discounts police
officials' claims that GPS was implemented mainly to protect police.

"That's nonsense," Momme said. "It's not a police officers' safety thing." Momme
is all for police accountability, but he worries about the potential for misuse of
GPS information.

"My main concern is that we don't have (police administrators) going after
individuals," he said.
After FOP met with local police officials, the GPS issue was resolved, and police
officers have grudgingly accepted the way the technology is being used.  "(GPS)
does say 'we don't trust you,' but we can live with it," Momme said. "The chiefs
and I have been working together on it."

The FOP president believes money could be better spent to upgrade or replace
equipment critical to police work, such as improved firearms, holsters or
protective vests.

"Why are you spending money on this equipment when you need other equipment?" he
asked.
No expectation of privacy Last year, about the time West Conshohocken put GPS
units in its SUVs, surveillance cameras were being installed at the police station
as it was undergoing major renovations.

In the station, dark hemispherical domes hide lenses that peer down from the
ceiling of nearly every room in the building, including the three jail cells.
While many police departments have had cameras in their stations for years,
particularly in areas where police handle individuals in custody, their
introduction in West Conshohocken was new and made officers uneasy.  But police
were really rattled last fall after learning the cameras were connected to a
monitor in West Conshohocken Mayor Joseph Pignoli's private residence.  In
response, the officers drafted a letter of protest in December that was eventually
signed by eight borough officers and a detective, about half the borough's police
force.

In the letter, the men complained about being under the watchful eye of the
cameras, and claimed that the surveillance raised liability, civil rights and
privacy issues, not only for police, but also for suspects held in custody.
"These cameras appear to have been installed in locations to 'watch' the officers
while they are inside the station," the letter said. "The fact that there is a
camera located in the lunch/break room pointed directly at the lunch table where
officers take their breaks is proof of this."
Clayborne defended the lunchroom camera and said it was there to monitor an exit
door connected to the room, not watch the police. "No one was spying on them," he
said.

The officer's complaint also raised questions of a prisoner's right to privacy if
under the "watchful eye" of a camera, especially when using the toilet. Also, they
argued, cameras could compromise a confidential informant or reveal the identity
of a juvenile detained by police.

"As long as you're in a police facility, you don't have a right to privacy," Momme
said.
Rumors circulated that the officers would be suspended, however this was
unfounded.
"There were no suspensions handed out," Momme said.  Soon after the controversy
last fall, Mayor Pignoli pulled the plug on the camera system at his home. The
mayor, who had undergone heart bypass surgery last year, recently resigned, citing
health reasons.

Repeated attempts were made by The Times Herald to reach the mayor, but voice
messages were not returned. Also, West Conshohocken police officers declined to be
interviewed for this story.

http://www.timesherald.com/site/news.cfm?newsid=9350834&BRD=1672&PAG=461&dept_id=33380&rfi=6

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