UK Is Ready for Its Closeup

(NEWSER) - Surveillance cameras are nearly worthless in the fight against crime, a London police report concluded, with fewer than one crime solved annually for every 1,000 cameras.The UK is one of the world's most monitored countries, with one camera for every 14 people and 1 million cameras in London alone. Yet the internal report, obtained by the Telegraph, says that untrained officers used images ineffectively when they bothered to look at all. More»

'1984 is here at last,' says dissenting judge

(NEWSER) - Police can secretly track your movements with a GPS device attached to your car, and come into your driveway in the middle of the night to install it—all without a warrant, a federal court has ruled. The Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals has twice let stand the conviction of Juan Pineda-Moreno, a man suspected of growing marijuana whose movements were tracked on GPS by the police, Time reports. That means that warrantless vehicular surveillance is now the law of the land in the nine western states, including California, under the Ninth Circuit's jurisdiction. More»

Say stigmatizing community fosters far-right violence

(USER SUBMITTED) - British anti-terrorism strategy is wrong to focus on Muslims when far-right extremists actually pose a far greater threat to national security, says a Muslim police officers' association previously backed by PM Gordon Brown. The group warned that anti-terrorism strategies that stigmatize Muslim communities are racist and could increase far-right violence against ethnic minorities, the Daily Telegraph reports. More»

No bombs found; Senator describes action as 'preventative'

(NEWSER) - Federal agents and New York police raided homes in Queens today as part of an investigation of a possible terrorist attack, the AP reports. Officials said the searches revealed no bombs or other weapons they would describe as “ready for use,” but said the action was based surveillance of a group of individuals who were believed to be planning some sort of attack. More»

OptaSense can identify footsteps, vehicles from miles away

(NEWSER) - Major oil companies are relying on a new fiber-optic technology to keep an underground ear on intruders, the Independent reports. Devised by a British defense firm, the OptaSense system consists of microphones placed along sensitive fiber-optic cables already laid underground. The cables sense vibrations, the mics pick it up, and OptaSense compares the signals with other sound samples to identify what's afoot. More»