On Q Professional Investigations

The 2013 edition of the Guinness Book of World Records is set to be released, which got us wondering about record-breaking law enforcers. Here is a collection of 10 Guinness World Records related to police.

1. Smallest working dog

The smallest rescue dog is Momo, a 7-year-old Chihuahua who weighs just 6.6 lb. She competed against golden retrievers and German shepherds to win a place on a Japanese police force to enter spaces larger dogs cannot.

2. Longest police standoff with a videogame controller

In 2009, a man in Brazil’s Distrito Federal carried out a 10-hour stand-off with local police, holding a 60-year-old woman hostage with a SEGA Light Phaser, a light gun used to play various shooting video games. The incident ended with no harm to the woman.

3. Largest curve in a sword swallowed

Dai Andrews swallowed a sword curved at 120 degrees during Blue Thunder, a festival put on by Baltimore City Police in 2009 to raise money for officers in need. The blade was measured on site at the Pimlico Racetrack in Maryland, and before the event via computer.

4. Longest career as a police officer

Detective Lieutenant Andrew F. Anewenter worked continuously as a Milwaukee police officer for 61 years, from 1942 until his retirement in May 2003. He died in August 2003.

5. Greatest distance between same offense, arresting officer and offender

In 2010, a British man received a ticket for speeding from Police Constable Andy Flitton in South Island, New Zealand. The offender recognized the constable as the same officer who had given him a ticket for speeding north of London two years previously. Both had emigrated to New Zealand.

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The Homeland Security Department maintains fingerprints of every foreigner who enters the country to help prevent fraud, but 825,000 of those records appear to be associated with multiple individuals, according to internal investigators. The sheer number of discrepancies raises questions about how many immigrants intentionally are faking their identities to evade authorities versus falling victim to poor typing.

Frank Deffer, a DHS assistant inspector general, noted some of the mismatches in the department’s fingerprint database were tied to individuals with rap sheets. The identification tool is the responsibility of the US-VISIT immigration program.

“Although most of the inconsistencies can be attributable to data input issues, US-VISIT is unable to quantify the extent to which the same individuals provided different biographical data to circumvent controls and enter the United States improperly,” he wrote in a report released this week. “Without this information, US-VISIT may be hindered in its ability to share information that could help border enforcement agencies prevent improper entries into the United States.”

Investigators discovered hundreds of thousands of situations where one set of prints corresponded to multiple names and birth dates. The database holds hundreds of millions of fingerprint records; the irregularities represent only 0.2 percent of individuals logged.

“Although this is a very small percentage of the total records, the volume of records makes it significant,” Deffer wrote. “In some cases, we found that individuals used different biographic identities at a port of entry after they had applied for a visa under a different name, or been identified as a recidivist alien.”

Instances of offenders trying to game the system include a women who illegally entered the United States in 2006 and then tried to get in again — using variations of the same name — in 2009, 2010 and 2011. In another incident, a man used two different identities to apply for visas, and after being denied entry, he used yet a third name and birth date to try again later the same year.

Other individuals, with no criminal records, also endeavored multiple times to get into the country using different names and birth dates over several years. “In one example, the same set of fingerprints was associated with nine different names and nine different birthdates in 10 different attempts to enter the United States,” Deffer stated.

Many of the situations involved women who legally altered their names. “We found that nearly 400,000 records for women have different last names for the same first name, date of birth and [fingerprint identification number],” he wrote. “These instances are likely women who changed their names after a marriage.”

During the study, auditors examined records covering 1998 through 2011.

Most of the time, US-VISIT personnel try to resolve cases in which people who appear to be one and the same have different information listed in records, the auditors found. The researchers are not specifically targeting scams, Deffer explained. Accidental typos, the fact that various immigration-related agencies use incompatible data formats and other keying mistakes are factors they look for when probing mismatches. During the course of typical procedures, US-VISIT has picked up on only two instances of fraud, agency officials reported to the IG.

The enormity of the conflicting data, however, may obscure actual fraud. “These inconsistencies can make it difficult to distinguish between data entry errors and individuals potentially committing identity fraud,” he wrote.

In a written response to a draft report, Rand Beers, undersecretary of DHS’ National Protection and Programs Directorate, which oversees US-VISIT, said the program has “initiated a proactive review” of ID data to spot fraud and alert the proper authorities. As of May 8, US-VISIT had researched 1,200 official alien registration numbers filed for immigrants trying to enter or obtain benefits, and added 192 of those individuals’ prints to a watch list of known or suspected criminals.

“Subjects suspected of fraud may be or have already attempted to commit passport fraud, U.S. citizen-lawful permanent resident fraud and fraud involving possible alien smuggling,” Beers wrote in the letter.

Deffer, however, said this review stops short of examining possible fraud committed by travelers such as visitors from visa waiver countries who do not have alien registration numbers, or do not need visas for entry.

US-VISIT is in the midst of expanding its database to potentially verify IDs using iris and facial recognition. Program spokeswoman Kimberly Weissman recently said, “while US-VISIT is testing new tools, technologies and approaches to integrate US-VISIT’s biometric and biographic applications into a comprehensive set of automated services, the goal remains the same: to ensure that U.S. government decision-makers have access to the information they need to determine someone’s identity, when they need it.”

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Just as the U.S. Department of Agriculture mandates Radio Frequency Identification Device chips to monitor livestock, a Texas school district just begun implanting the devices on student identification cards to monitor pupils’ movements on campus, and to track them as they come and go from school.

Tagging school children with RFID chips is uncommon, but not new. A federally funded preschool in Richmond, California, began embedding RFID chips in students’ clothing in 2010. And an elementary school outside of Sacramento, California, scrubbed a plan in 2005 amid a parental uproar. And a Houston, Texas, school district began using the chips to monitor students on 13 campuses in 2004.

It was only a matter of time. Radio frequency identification devices are a daily part of the electronic age, and are fast becoming a part of passports, libraries and payment cards, and are widely expected to replace bar-code labels on consumer goods.

And it appears that the educational move to Big Brother-style monitoring is motivated mainly by money, despite privacy and health concerns.

Two schools at the Northside Independent School District in San Antonio began issuing the RFID-chip-laden student-body cards when classes began last Monday. Like most state-financed schools, their budgets are tied to average daily attendance. If a student is not in his seat during morning roll call, the district doesn’t receive daily funding for that pupil, because the school has no way of knowing for sure if the student is there.

But with the RFID tracking, students not at their desk but tracked on campus are counted as being in school that day, and the district receives its daily allotment for that student.

“What we have found, they are there, they’re in the building and not in their chairs. They are in the cafeteria, with counselors, in stairwells or a variety of places, some legitimately and some not,” district spokesman Pascual Gonzalez said in a telephone interview. “If they are on campus, we can legally count them present.”

The Spring Independent School District in Houston echoed the same theory when it announced results of its program in 2010. “RFID readers situated throughout each campus are used to identify where students are located in the building, which can be used to verify the student’s attendance for ADA funding and course credit purposes,” the district said.

But privacy groups are wary.

“We don’t think kids in schools should be treated like cattle,” Marc Rotenberg, the executive director of the Electronic Privacy Information Center, said in a telephone interview. “We generally don’t like it. My take on RFID is it’s fine for products, but not so much for people. That’s one of the places where the lines need to be drawn. ”

But there appears to be dozens of companies who see no need to draw such a line and offer their RFID wares to monitor students in what is still a tiny but growing market. Among the biggest companies in the market: AT&T.

“One day soon, home room teachers in your local middle and high schools may stop scanning rows of desks and making each student yell out ‘Here!’ during a morning roll call. Instead, small cards, or tags, carried by each student will transmit a unique serial number via radio signal to an electronic reader near the school door,” AT&T says in its RFID-student advertising materials.

Gonzalez said there has been minimal parental and student opposition to the program at John Jay High School and Anson Jones Middle School. The pilot project could expand to the Northside Independent School District’s 110 other schools, he said.
As for privacy, the system only monitors a student’s movements on campus. Once a student leaves campus, the chips no longer communicate with the district’s sensors.
He said the chips, which are not encrypted and chronicle students only by a serial number, also assist school officials to pinpoint where kids are at any given time, which he says is good for safety reasons. “With this RFID, we know exactly where the kid is within the school,” he said noting students are required to wear the ID on a lanyard at all times on campus.

The lack of encryption makes it not technically difficult to clone a card to impersonate a fellow student or to create a substitute card to play hooky, and makes the cards readable by anyone who wanted to install their own RFID reader, though all they would get is a serial number that’s correlated with the student’s ID number in a school database.

EPIC’s Rotenberg was among about two dozen health and privacy advocates who signed an August position paper blasting the use of RFID chips in schools.

The paper, which included signatures from the American Civil Liberties Union, Electronic Frontier Foundation and, among others, Big Brother Watch, said the RFID systems may have “potential” (.pdf) health risks, too.

“RFID systems emit electromagnetic radiation, and there are lingering questions about whether human health might be affected in environments where the reading devices are pervasive,” the paper said. “This concern and the dehumanizing effects of ubiquitous surveillance may place additional stress on students, parents, and teachers.”

Gonzalez said John Jay High has 200 surveillance cameras and Anson Jones Middle School, about 90.

“The kids,” he said, “are used to being monitored.”

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Casselberry newlyweds spent their honeymoon at the Seminole County Jail after police said they left their three younger children alone while they got married.

Kymberely Frederick, 30, and Daniel Richards, 34, were arrested Tuesday on felony child-neglect charges.

The couple left home about 2:30 p.m. to go to the Seminole County Courthouse, according to an arrest report. They left their children, ages 1, 2 and 3, home alone, the report states.

Frederick left a note for two older children, who were at school, telling them to call their parents if Frederick and Richards weren’t home when they got there.

Richards and Frederick told officers that the couple called a neighbor shortly after leaving home to ask her to watch the children, the report states.

The neighbor, who had lent her car to Frederick and Richards about 2 p.m. to go to the courthouse, called police when she realized the children were alone. Two were in cribs when an officer arrived about 3:10 p.m., and one was in her bed, according to the report.

The couple made their first court appearance on Wednesday.

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U.S. consumers lost $20.7 billion to cybercrime over the past 12 months, with 71 million Americans falling victim to online perps, according to new research.

Meanwhile, worldwide losses resulting from cybercrime including malware attacks and phishing hit $110 billion between July 2011 and the end of July 2012, a report by security company Symantec (PDF) has found.

On average, each victim experienced $197 in direct financial loss. In the United States, the average loss was $290.

According to the report, an estimated 556 million adults across the world had first-hand experience of cybercrime over the period — more than the entire population of the European Union. The figure equates to nearly half of all adults online (46 percent), and is up from 45 percent a year ago.

There has been an increase in cybercrime that takes advantage of social networks and mobile technology, according to the report, with 21 percent of online adults reporting having fallen prey to social or mobile crime. The study also found that 15 percent of Web users have had their social-networking account infiltrated, and 1 in 10 have been victims of fake links or scams through a social network.

Seventy-five percent of those who participated in the study believed that cybercriminals are gearing more towardssocial networks.

Over 13,000 participants across 24 countries were interviewed for the report.

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The U.S. Secret Service is looking into claims that someone stole presidential nominee Mitt Romney’s income tax returns and is threatening to release them if he doesn’t pay up.

Secret Service spokesman George Ogilvie told CNET today that the agency is investigating, but had no further comment.

The claim was made in a post on the Pastebin site on Sunday that alleged that Romney’s federal tax returns were taken from the offices of PriceWaterhouse Coopers in Frankin, Tenn., on August 25 by someone who snuck into the building and made copies of the document. The message author threatened to release the files publicly on September 28 and said copies of the files had been given to Democratic and Republican leaders in that county. Democrats have made Romney’s refusal to release his tax returns a key point in their criticism that he is not in touch with working class voters.

Part of the message, which was not signed, reads:

Romney’s 1040 tax returns were taken from the PWC office 8/25/2012 by gaining access to the third floor via a gentleman working on the 3rd floor of the building. Once on the 3rd floor, the team moved down the stairs to the 2nd floor and setup shop in an empty office room. During the night, suite 260 was entered, and all available 1040 tax forms for Romney were copied. A package was sent to the PWC on suite 260 with a flash drive containing a copy of the 1040 files, plus copies were sent to the Democratic office in the county and copies were sent to the GOP office in the county at the beginning of the week also containing flash drives with copies of Romney’s tax returns before 2010. A scanned signature image for Mitt Romney from the 1040 forms were scanned and included with the packages, taken from earlier 1040 tax forms gathered and stored on the flash drives.

A follow up message posted yesterday said the files were accessed from the PWC network file servers and would be released in encrypted form to major news media outlets. The encrypted key to open the files would be released publicly unless Romney paid the hackers $1 million by transferring that amount — in the virtual currency called Bitcoins — to a specific account. However, if someone else wants the information to be released publicly sooner than that, they would need to transfer the same amount to a different Bitcoin account, the message said.

PricewaterhouseCoopers released a statement saying it had not found evidence of a system breach.

“We are aware of the allegations that have been made regarding improper access to our systems,” statement said. “We are working closely with the United States Secret Service, and at this time there is no evidence that our systems have been compromised or that there was any unauthorized access to the data in question.”

Romney’s campaign headquarters in Fairfax, Va., did not respond to a CNET request for comment. The news was first reported in The City Paper in Nashville.

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Social media sites are beneficial in connecting with friends and relatives residing in different parts of the world. Social media also plays a deadly role in divorce and many American couple are breaking their marriage relationship and getting divorced due to social media networks. It is reported that 81% of lawyers from the American academy of matrimonial lawyers has pulled information from different social networking sites to fight for their clients regarding the divorce issue. 66% of lawyers use face book,15% use My Space and 5% information is taken is from twitter.

Mostly social media sites are used for cheating and flirting strangers on the other side and it is discovered that 1 out of 5 adults use face book site for flirting. It is reported that 235 of men usually tend to cheat the women and 19% of women who are not sexually satisfied use social media for cheating.

It is suggested to say no to face book and delete the account if it becomes burden and effects your marriage life.

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Getting through airport security can be one of the most frustrating aspects of the travel experience. Slow lines, grouchy TSA agents and borderline violations of privacy are just some of the joys you can hope to experience on your next trip to the airport. However, there are some ways to make this process less painful, so here are are picks on the top 10 ways to get through airport security faster.

1. Elite Status: One of the best ways to get through airport security faster is by having elite status. Most airlines allow at least their mid-tier and high-tier elites to access the priority security lines. This benefit is usually extended to any companions traveling with the elite member, so it can’t hurt to try and bring them along with you. Passengers having any one of the following elite status are eligible for this benefit:

Delta: Gold Medallion, Platinum Medallion and Diamond Medallion members
United: Premier Silver, Premier Gold, Premier Platinum, Premier 1K members
American: AAdvantage Gold, AAdvantage Platinum, and AAdvantage Executive Platinum members
US Airways: Silver Preferred, Gold Preferred, Platinum Preferred, and Chairman’s Preferred members
Southwest: A-List and A-List Preferred members
Alaska: MVP, MVP Gold, and MVP Gold 75 members
Jetblue: TrueBlue Mosaic members and those seated in Even More Space seats
Virigin America: Elevate Silver and Elevate Gold members

2. Fly Premium Class: In addition to allowing those with elite status to enter the priority security lanes, those flying in First or Business class are also allowed to use these lanes. Some airports, such as Honolulu, will put a stamp on your boarding pass when you check-in that will allow those seated in a premium class to use the faster security lines. Some airports even have their own terminal for first class or business class passengers. Delta has this at Terminal 2 at JFK for their Sky Priority customers, and of course Lufthansa has their First Class Terminal in Frankfurt where the security screening process is almost instantaneous.

3. TSA Pre-Check: The TSA risk-based screening initiative, TSA Pre-Check, started in October 2011. The goal of this initiative is to test modified screening procedures for selected passengers traveling through certain security checkpoints within the U.S. Customers with certain elite status levels as well as members of Customs and Border Protection’s (CBP) Global Entry, SENTRI, and NEXUS Trusted Traveler programs who are U.S. citizens may be eligible to participate in this pilot program. Eligible members must opt-in to be considered for Pre-Check. Members may opt in by updating and saving their Secure Flight Passenger Data, or by adding their Trusted Traveler / Membership Number / PassID (for Global Entry, SENTRI, and NEXUS members) in the Known Traveler field in the Secure Flight section on airlines’ sites. The great thing if you are selected is you don’t have to take your shoes, belt, or jacket off and you can leave laptop computers in the bag. This can be a big time saver, but since it’s random, there is no guarantee passengers will get it, even if you are enrolled. Depending on the check point, this is only available for passengers flying on Delta, United, American, U.S. Airways and Alaska Airlines. This is currently available at over 20 of the nation’s busiest airports and new locations are continuing to be added each month.

4. Ask Nicely: This can actually go a lot further than you might think. Most often, the agents manning the priority security lines are independent airport contract workers and sometimes even TSA agents. Rarely is it the actual airlines’ employees since their time can be spent better at the check-in areas or the gates. Whether it is because you are cutting your time too short and your flight is starting to board or if you are traveling with small children, they just might send you through the priority line. It can’t hurt to ask!

5. CLEAR: This is an innovative program that helps travelers zip through airport security using the biometric CLEARcard. The standard unlimited annual pricing plan is $179 (not worth it unless you are based in one of their cities and fly a lot). The current locations of CLEAR are at Denver International Airport (DEN), Orlando International Airport (MCO), San Francisco International Airport (SFO), and Dallas/Ft Worth (DFW). With the limited number of locations, and since it really is just a front of the line benefit, I couldn’t justify the annual fee – I think TSA PreCheck is much better.

6. American Airlines Flagship Check-In: Another good way to speed up your time at airport security is with American’s flagship service. In addition to the customer service representatives who personally assist with your individual check-in and travel requirements including baggage check, seating, itinerary changes, there is a designated premium security line with expedited access. To take advantage of Flagship Check-in service you must fall into one of the following groups: Five Star Service passengers, ConciergeKey members (those who pay $125+ for VIP services), those traveling first class onboard an international American or British Airways, Cathay Pacific, Japan Airlines and Qantas flight anywhere in your outbound itinerary, and first class passengers on an American three-class transcontinental aircraft between MIA and LAX, and from LAX to JFK. The two current locations of this are at Los Angeles and now at Miami, though American says it will be rolling out to future locations this year. At Miami especially, this can save a ton of time since there are so many AA elites based here, and even the elite line can take 20+ minutes.

7. Selectively choose your security line: Many airports have multiple entries into the airport. If you see a huge line at one checkpoint, try another. Educate yourself on the options at your home airport. Many airports have connected terminals once through security, so you can sometimes save time by entering a further security checkpoint and then transiting once in the terminal.

8. Dress appropriately and know what, how and when to take certain items off and put them back on: Have your ID ready when approaching the TSA agent right before going through screening. Remove shoes (try to leave your thigh-high lace-up boots at home!), belts and everything in your pockets before entering the screening technology and put your shoes directly on the belt to go through the X-ray machine instead of in a bin with other items. Tip: I like to put my wallet, phone and any other loose items in a coat or jacket pocket so I can throw it on once through security. Another tip: you don’t need to take off most jewelry. I always see people taking off watches, but I never have and they haven’t set off metal detectors. Take your laptop out and put it in a bin (there are some laptop-friendly cases in which your computer doesn’t even have to come out). iPads, cameras and other devices can stay in your bag. Take your liquids out of your bag and place them in a clear plastic bag (seriously, double check to make sure your water bottle isn’t in your bag- it delays the whole line when they have to re-run your bag). The TSA recommends the 3-1-1 approach. Once through the screener, take your belongings and either move them down the lane or try to reassemble yourself at a nearby bench. Trying to do everything at the belt slows everything down, so do your best to keep the movement going even though it can be stressful trying to reclaim your items and put your shoes and belt back on.

9. Adjust approach for children and seniors: Infants and children need to be taken out of baby carriers and strollers before they can go through the metal detector. Strollers and baby carriers can go through the X-ray machine with your bags. If possible, collapse the stroller before arriving at the metal detector. Children 12 and under can leave their shoes on during screening. For seniors, modified screening measures allow passengers 75 and older to leave on shoes and light jackets through security checkpoints. Seniors can also undergo an additional pass through Advanced Imaging Technology to clear any anomalies detected during screening. Check out our earlier post about Tips for Traveling with a Mobility-Challenged Person for even more advice.

10. Don’t be an idiot: While you may disagree with TSA procedures, snarky responses and rude behavior to front-line employees are not going to make a change in policy. Like it or not, TSA agents actually have a decent amount of power, so if you try to make stupid jokes or give them a hard time, you won’t only hold up the process for yourself, but for everyone behind you as well.

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It’s a little black box perched on a police car, and it’s always watching.

When 87-year-old Katherine “Kit” Grazioli’s body turned up along a dirt road in the foothills west of Colorado Springs last November, the little black box spied her stolen car within hours.

On the car door, police say, were the fingerprints of her killer.

Over the past two years, roof-mounted license-plate readers — a kind of high-tech surveillance camera — have quietly led authorities in the Pikes Peak Region to scores of stolen vehicles. They also have helped capture fugitives and kept tabs on paroled sex offenders — all by automatically scanning roads and parking lots with lightning-fast optics capable of photographing a license plate in the blink of an eye, or hundreds of license plates during a single patrol.

But according to documents obtained by The Gazette under the Colorado Open Records Act, the devices are watching more than just law breakers.

Colorado Springs police reports show that use of license-plate readers has allowed the city’s police department to construct a searchable databank containing hundreds of thousands of license plates belonging to ordinary drivers, with each entry disclosing when, and where, police last spied a certain vehicle.

The information — which potentially gives investigators a view into where people travel and how they spend their time — is characterized in internal police documents as a “massive intelligence database.”

Privacy advocates complain the databanks fail to exclude law-abiding drivers, who they say are likely unaware of the scope of monitoring.

“You’re talking about a record of movements over time of hundreds of thousands of innocent persons,” said Mark Silverstein, legal director of Colorado’s branch of the ACLU, which is mounting a nationwide effort to learn more about how license plate data is used. “It certainly is extremely powerful technology.”

Colorado Springs police defend their use of the devices as a lawful and effective crime-fighting tool.

Police received three license plate readers as part of a 2009 state grant that supplied eight devices to five local agencies.

The city’s Police Department serves as a central repository for data collected by the El Paso County Sheriff’s Office, the Pueblo County Sheriff’s Office and police in Monument, Fountain, Manitou Springs and Woodland Park.

In the past year, the database has grown to include more than 1.1 million vehicles, according to a Colorado Springs police tally for the 2011-2012 fiscal year ending in June.

And police, who haven’t publicly announced the database, may be looking to expand their data-sharing capabilities.

In April, police sent a representative to the Littleton Police Department, where “multiple agencies” discussed the possibility of pooling their information, or “hosting all of our data in one place,” as Lt. Jane Anderson wrote in an annual report that disclosed few details about the meeting.

Lance Clem, of the Colorado Department of Public Safety, said he was unaware of any plans to create a formal, centralized database of license plates at the state level. The Colorado Bureau of Investigation is the agency that maintains the state’s criminal information databases.

Colorado Auto Theft Prevention Authority grants have purchased about 30 license plate readers for agencies across Colorado in the past several years, Clem said. The department doesn’t track license-plate readers purchased independently, he said.

Local and regional law enforcement groups say the device does little more than snap pictures on public roads, where drivers have diminished expectations of privacy.

“It’s similar to you writing down the license plates that you see on the roadway,” said Capt. Dave Santos of the Colorado State Highway Patrol, who added that the department’s license-plate readers are dedicated to the purpose of recovering stolen vehicles and nabbing auto thieves.

“I don’t see the violation of privacy. I just don’t.”

Santos added that in Colorado, driving is a privilege rather than a right, and he drew a legal distinction between tracking license plates and individuals.

Privacy advocates counter that widespread license-plate tracking could have a chilling effect on private business conducted in public — such as parking outside counseling meetings, doctors’ offices or political protests.

“Our movements — especially if they’re tracked with the precision of GPS locations — could reveal things that some people want to keep private,” Silverstein said.

The International Association of Chiefs of Police, a nonprofit that supports use of the devices, warned members in a recent policy paper they could be courting controversy by storing information on the vehicles of law-abiding drivers.

To mitigate fears of a “Big Brother” surveillance program, some law enforcement agencies limit the scope of their database, purging information every 60 or 90 days, according to media reports.

Police in Colorado Springs keep information for a year at a time, Anderson said in an interview.

Anderson said Colorado Springs police are prohibited from using the data for personal reasons, and they train reader-car operators to take steps to confirm information returned by its license plate database.

Philip Dubois, a Colorado Springs defense attorney, called storing information on law-abiding drivers a “ham-fisted” approach to policing in the digital age — and one likely to draw scrutiny by the courts.

Dubois argued that a police officer snapping photos on a public street probably wouldn’t violate expectations of privacy, but a network of cameras taking thousands of snapshots a month may change the equation, especially when combined with searchable database technology.

“The government tries to stay ahead of technology, and almost always oversteps its bounds when it does,” he said. Before the courts weighed in, Dubois said, law enforcement groups used similar arguments to defend warrantless eavesdropping on telephone calls and secretly planting GPS units on cars.

The reach of the program is made possible by the incredible capabilities of license-plate readers, which have been in automated toll booths for years and became staples of airport parking lots after Sept. 11, 2001.

When a reader car is on patrol, multiple infrared cameras snap pictures of every vehicle in its midst, including cars behind it, traveling in the oncoming lanes, or parked on the side of the road, according to police.

The device’s text-recognition software can “read” license plates from all 50 states, regardless of light conditions.

“The system is limited only by the number of plates that are able to pass in front of the camera,” according to an internal policy document signed by Colorado Springs Police Commander Mark Smith.

Much of the investigative work is done automatically, with the software comparing license plate numbers against any number of law enforcement databases compiling arrest warrants, unpaid speeding tickets and other violations.

When such a car is located in real time, the device alerts its operator.

Alternatively, police can turn to the database of license plates for a list of results showing when and where a vehicle was last spotted.

After major crimes outside Colorado Springs, El Paso County sheriff’s deputies use one of two reader cars to document license plates in the vicinity — looking for witnesses and suspects alike.

A license-plate reader was recently installed at the El Paso County jail, and will soon begin sweeping the parking lot to vet jail visitors, said Sheriff Terry Maketa, adding that jailers used to run visitors for open warrants as a matter or routine. He said the practice became unsustainable within the past 15 years because the jail gets too many visitors to personally check.

Maketa said the camera in question — with a price tag of $15,000 — was purchased with money from an auto theft prevention grant.

The use of reader cars has been consistent with the laws, and aimed at balancing public safety with privacy, he said.

He characterized his office’s three license-plate readers as one more tool to stretch thin resources. Maketa said he recently purchased $85,000 facial-recognition software that will allow deputies to snap a picture with their cell phones and determine if someone is wanted for any crimes.

Within a year, it could be possible to automatically search commercial surveillance footage for wanted persons, Maketa said, adding that license-plate recognition software is also rapidly advancing.

“The courts are going to struggle with these questions as technology evolves,” he said.

What the courts decide will largely determine how law enforcement groups use readers, Maketa said, adding that cameras could one day be placed in enough locations to capture most drivers entering the city.

While police say the devices are principally used to combat car theft, figures show they produce more results when it comes to combing through license plates and comparing plates against a “hot list” of wanted vehicles maintained by the Colorado Bureau of Investigation.

During the 2011-2012 fiscal year, license plate readers led a regional auto theft task force to recover 76 stolen vehicles — about 6 percent of the 1,264 cars that were reported stolen in Colorado Springs alone.

During the same period, the readers automatically identified 14,745 other crimes and led to 129 felony arrests — among them Marcus Allen Smith, the 22-year-old accused in Grazioli’s Nov. 23 strangulation and abduction.

In that case, an officer equipped with a license-plate reader car found Grazioli’s stolen car in an apartment complex parking lot near her home, and fingerprints on the door matched those found in Grazioli’s house.

The devices are routinely deployed to large community events, documents show.

Figures from police show that hundreds of license plates are scanned, and stored, for every “hit” that is returned.

During a two-day enforcement sweep split between the Balloon Classic in Colorado Springs and the Colorado State Fair in Pueblo last September, Colorado Springs police and their partner agencies “read” 217,000 license plates.

Out of those, the agencies recovered one stolen car and made one felony arrest, on suspicion of felony possession of drugs, police figures show.

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Call it Invasion of the iPhone Snatchers: a new FinFisher-based spyware is built to infect iPhones and iPads (and Android, BlackBerry and Windows Phone gadgets too) in order to take over the device completely – all unbeknownst to the user.

The smartphones and tablets will innocently appear to be themselves, but in reality the mobile malware is working in the background to track the device’s location, monitor activity and intercept communications including emails, voice calls and text messages.

Ironically, the malware was likely developed with the intention of aiding law enforcement. Citizen’s Lab at the University of Toronto has found that the functionality and mechanisms dovetail with Gamma Group UK’s product for tracking mobile devices.

“When FinSpy Mobile is installed on a mobile phone it can be remotely controlled and monitored no matter where in the world the target is located,” reads the product information. However, officials at the company have confirmed that a demonstration copy of its software has been stolen. Citizen’s Lab suspects that it is now spreading, in slightly altered form, at the hands of more nefarious elements.

The virus propagates itself via text message and email, prompting a user to download a bogus “system update” or click on an infecting link.

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