Security Week in Review, Friday March 16th

It’s been a fairly quiet week, but that doesn’t mean the world has been standing still. It probably never will. So, here are a few things that we noticed these last few days, and found to be mildly interesting. As usual, feel free to leave us a comment, send us tips or questions for our FAQ-pages – we try to get to all of it as quickly as possible.

Denver PD is doing pretty good, report says.
Which is good. According to an annual report, complaints against the department is down 21%. That’s 2011 vs. 2010, mind you. The Denver Post has more on that, since it’s right up their alley, literally speaking.

The top three reasons that citizens complained were discourtesy, improper procedure and inappropriate or unnecessary force. White said discourtesy is a major concern that he plans to address with officers and their chain of command. He said community members won’t trust police officers they feel are not respectful to them.

Don’t you worry – the chief says they’re going to conduct “extensive training”, apparently to teach the cops how to be a little more mindful of their language. As if there aren’t bigger things to worry about when training police officers. In any case, congratulations to the Denver PD.

Northern Ireland animal rights protected by UAVs.
The people of Northern Ireland are used to seeing military style ops in their country, but this is a new one. “Badger crime” is apparently crimes against badgers, and the animal rights activists in the country have apparently had enough of that kind of thing. The solution? Unmanned Aerial Vehicles, or drones, with high-tech surveillance equipment (using low-tech gear on a UAV makes no sense, after all). From the BBC:

Operatives working for the USPCA used a range of hi-tech equipment, including an aerial drone with a camera on board to film the gang attacking active badger setts – one of the first times such activity has been caught on camera anywhere in the UK or Ireland.

Ian Hutchinson, one of the UK’s leading experts on badger crime, later confirmed that the setts were active.

The USPCA now have “operatives”. We should probably be worried about their sleeper cells as well.

In the US, terrorist “watch list” suspects stopped in Laurel.
And then released:

Two people on the federal terrorist watch list were stopped in Laurel, Maryland in 2011, but allowed to leave based on instructions from the Department of Homeland Security. “Laurel has been linked to al-Qaeda cells in the United States before, and the city made national headlines following the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, when it was reported that some of the hijackers involved in the attacks had stayed in motels in the city and used computers at the Laurel library,” the Baltimore Sun reports.

Yeah… that makes sense.

Australia battles child abuse on a new level.
Streaming child abuse over the internet is all the rage amongst the sick, sick individuals who enjoy that sort of thing, but Australian Police forces are catching up.

FEDERAL police have detected an increase in paedophiles using online video streaming to watch child abuse as it occurs.

Most of the children being exploited live overseas, but Australian children have also been victims of this new method for distributing sexual abuse images.

One word: disgusting.

That’s all folks. Keep an eye on this space, however – we just got some new gear, and we’re testing it out for you. What’s in it for you, you say? We’ll get you some good deals on new fun stuff to use on or off the job this summer. First review is due this weekend!