Science and Technology: Valuable safety tools in Law Enforcement

During my tenure as an FBI Special Agent, my career was equally split between conducting R&D in the Science and Technology Branch and field operations involving numerous violations of federal law. Of utmost importance to me in both of these roles was the safety of law enforcement officers, bystanders, and also the subjects of our investigations.

The use of science and technology in law enforcement and national security matters allows investigators to deploy technical sources of information that do not put at risk human sources of information in the collection of evidence. These include telephone and data intercepts, audio and video surveillance, geospatial tracking, and unmanned aerial surveillance platforms.

In addition to these technical tools, it is also vitally important to have legislative tools which not only provide the laws required to issue warrants for the use of these techniques but also provide laws requiring service providers to assist law enforcement when warranted investigations require connections to communication networks utilized in the commission of a crime. Science and technology applications have enhanced safety for officers and others in ways that we never imagined. One only needs to look at the success of the Chula Vista Police Department’s Unmanned Aerial Surveillance (UAS) program in California. This program deploys drones to potentially dangerous law enforcement encounters and provides the officers on the ground with a birds-eye view of the situation they are about to address, providing information such as location layout, number of suspects, presence of weapons, and ingress and egress routes. The emergency response time of this system averages 120 seconds. The program has also proven useful in locating evidence hidden or discarded by fleeing subjects, and in crime scene documentation. Additionally, this technology eliminates the need for dangerous, high-speed pursuits on public roads and highways. Through the first 1000 UAS deployments, drones assisted in 130 arrests. In one example of the program’s success, during a UAS deployment in response to a 911 call about a man waving a gun in front of a taco shop, the UAS operator was able to determine the suspect had a cigarette lighter and not a gun. This allowed responding officers to approach the man calmly and avoided a potential deadly force situation. In another case, officers were executing a search warrant for weapons, when the UAS recorded the suspect throwing rifles over the fence in his backyard.

Another currently employed technology that has enhanced officer safety is the use of body-worn cameras. Although it was initially intended to provide accountability and transparency for officer interactions with suspects and the general public, it has also proven to be valuable as an evidence collection tool and as a training tool. Captain Gustavo Duarte was the Body-Worn Camera (BWC) Program Manager for the Miami-Dade Police Department (MDPD) and was responsible for the research and implementation of the BWC system in Miami, Florida. In an interview with Captain Duarte, he described noticeable changes in two areas of police interactions. First, the MPDP saw a reduction in violent interactions between police and suspects, second, the MDPD also observed less aggressive behavior on the part of suspects once they realized the officers are wearing body cameras A report published by Weston Research Associates, LLC on August 15, 2018, titled Body-Worn Camera Project Evaluation: Final Report, showed a 34% decrease in citizen complaints, a 19% reduction in the physical response of police officers to citizen resistance, and a 74% drop in civil cases litigated against the MDPD. This data was compiled during the first six months of 2018.

The Arizona State University published the results of a study titled Evaluating the Impact of Officer Worn Body Cameras in the Phoenix Police Department in December of 2014. It also found results similar to the MDPD study. The study revealed a reduction in complaints against officers, a decrease in the number of founded complaints against them, and improved effectiveness in the processing of criminal cases in the courts.

Another safety-enhancing technology is the use of geospatial tracking which allows a suspect’s movements to be tracked from a remote location without labor-intensive physical surveillance. It can require as little as one person per shift to remotely surveil the movements of a tracking device as opposed to multiple people per shift when conducting proper physical surveillance. Additionally, in some cases, real-time monitoring of movements is not required since the tracker data is stored either in the unit, a remote PC, or both. Furthermore, it is much safer to have the person monitoring from the safety of a desk in a secure building than to expose personnel to potentially dangerous encounters with the suspect/s not to mention the risks involved with navigating through traffic.

The law and electronic surveillance

Current US federal statutes require communication service providers to offer unencumbered access and connectivity to their networks in compliance with court-ordered search and intercept warrants. The Communications Assistance for Law Enforcement Act (CALEA) provides a tool needed for law enforcement agencies to successfully conduct electronic surveillance and to execute search warrants involving the use of electronic communications. CALEA requires telecommunication service providers and manufacturers of telecommunications equipment to provide procedural and technical capabilities to comply with legal requests.

It is important to note with the rapid speed of evolving encryption technology and applications for communication devices, law enforcement agencies need to dedicate resources to conduct periodic reviews of available legal tools to keep up and/or stay ahead of these technological advancements. This would help avoid what the FBI refers to as “Going Dark”.


Future possibilities

Autonomous Vehicle (AV) technology is an area that will require extensive legislative attention as it offers exploitation opportunities for both bad actors as well as for the government. AVs will require connectivity to other surrounding AVs, as well as connectivity to traffic signaling infrastructure in what is known as V2V and V2X, respectively. Vehicles connected to communications networks will be exposed to the risk of cyber-attacks, in which case ransomware will take on a more literal meaning. Just imagine receiving a call advising that your AV is currently under the control of a hacker with your family in it and you have only minutes to provide a credit card number on an electronic funds transfer.  In an editorial published in RoboticsBiz in September of 2020, nine possible AV cyberattack vectors were listed. These include Global Positioning System, Inertial Measurement Unit, Light Detection and Ranging, V2X Network Attacks. V2V Network Attacks, Onboard diagnostics (OBD) port-based attacks, Engine Control Unit (ECU) firmware tampering attacks, and rogue updates. In July 2020, two cybersecurity researchers were able to hack into the electrical systems of a Jeep Cherokee. The researchers were able to transmit commands to vehicle control systems including, steering, brakes, and transmission from a distance of about 10 miles.

On the other hand, connected AVs will also provide law enforcement personnel with safety-enhancing possibilities. If we imagine the same current legislative requirements levied on service providers via an amended CALEA, V2V and V2X service providers would be required to provide plug and play network access and network intercept solutions per lawful court orders. A subject traveling in an AV could be safely apprehended by immobilizing his/her vehicle in an area that would minimize risk to officers and the public. We could even take that scenario one step further and have suspect vehicles intercepted and redirected to deliver their occupants to the nearest police station or holding facility.

Traditionally, geospatial vehicle tracking required law enforcement officers to physically install a tracking device on a subject’s vehicle requiring surreptitious access to the vehicle on one or more occasions depending on the court order time allowance. The same V2V and V2X technology already installed on AVs could again allow court-ordered access to vehicle movement and location data. Finally, I envision the role of body-worn cameras expanding to integrate thermal imaging technology which will detect concealed weapons during officer interactions, without requiring intrusive physical body searches and at a safer distance.

Numerous unfortunate police interaction incidents have resulted in both unnecessary deaths and in some citizens losing faith and trust in the law enforcement agencies tasked with serving and protecting them. As an engineer and avid technology devotee, I believe both of these casualties can be addressed by continuing to find ways to minimize the possibility of violent interactions through science and technology. When considering funding and budgets, governments need to invest more in policing technologies that improve safety, transparency, and accountability.

Image source: Pixabay
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