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NEW POLICE TECHNOLOGY:
BRINGING THE TOYS HOME FROM VIETNAM
By Robert Barkan*
*Mr. Barkan was a member of
the Technical Staff at Bell
Telephone Laboratories, and a
Senior Engineer at the
Electronic Defense Laboratories
of Sylvania Electronic Systems.
Currently, he is a member of
Pacific Studies Center in East
Palo Alto, California.
Residents of San Jose,
California and Hoboken, New
Jersey are the season's newest
TV stars. They will be appearing
on live, 24-hour, closed circuit
programs, broadcast to the local
police departments from
downtown business areas. The
sponsors of the new programs
are the same government and
industries that brought the
$3.25 billion "electronic
battlefield" to Vietnam. While
the war over there
"Vietnamizes," the Nixon
Administration is quietly
"Americanizing" the war's
technology, and the war on the
Homophile Society
phenomena. Massive statistics
from numerous sex studies could
be used in support of this, but
suffice it here to say that it is
ordinary and usual (even
advantageous) to masturbate;
and • transvertism is not
necessarily a derivative of
homosexuality—one needs not be
a homosexual to be a
transvestite (although it is
co mmo n) , e.g. Christine
Jorgenson, now a transexualist.
The archaic laws with varying
lengths of incarceration are
abominable and need immediate
abrogation. Do you consider
yourself detrimental to society
and deserving of life
imprisonment (in two states) for
oral-genital relations between
two consenting adults--especially
your wife or husband—in the
privacy of your own apartment?
The U.S. Naval Academy at
Annapolis considers evidence of
masturbation sufficient grounds
for refusing admission to a
candidate. I think the need for
modernization of sex laws is
ostensible. And to say that it is
not illegal to be a homosexual
but it is to practice
homosexuality is absurd. Yet,
this is where the law stands and
now it is legal in two states,
Illinois and Connecticut, to be a
homosexual, but in defacto it
has no efficacy.
My main purpose is to bring
to Capitol Campus, as is at all
major campuses, the
opportunity for homosexuals
and those interested in related
problems to come together in an
atmosphere of congeniality and
Staff of the
capitolist.
CONTRIBUTORS:
Samantha Bower
Gregg Crescenzo
Jane McDonald
Steve Wesley
COPY EDITOR: Cheryl Boyes
Tom Hagan Don Lewis
MANAGING EDITOR: Tom Black
Lee Nell Steve Rosenzweig
Michael Collins
Associate Editors:
Bob Bonaker
Mike Welliver PHOTOGRAPHERS:
Cliff Belson
Business Manager: Charlie titter
John Wolford
home front escalates. The result:
Americans, from marijuana
smugglers to political dissidents
to shopping housewives, are
looking -- though they may not
know it -- into the wrong end of
surveillance devices that
formerly spied on the
Vietnamese.
Smugglers on the
U.S./Mexican border face a new
obstacle to their trade. The U.S.
Border Patrol is now flying Air
Force "Pave Eagle" airplanes --
unmanned, remote-controlled
drones formerly used in the
billion dollar Igloo White
anti-infiltration program in Laos.
Flying over remote stretches of
the border, the planes relay
signals from hundreds of ground
sensors to an "Infiltration
Surveillance Center," where
Beeping madly if someone
comes near them, they surround
prisons, vital utilities, and
industrial and governmental
facilities. Outside of Washington,
(Continued from page 1)
understanding. There is no need
for the homosexual to sit alone,
unhappy because he is unable to
relate, express himself to others
the way he wishes. I think it's
possible to think of some social
functions where one can really
feel uninhibited and be himself.
This is open to both males and
females. There is such a group at
main campus in State College
called Homophile of Penn State
(HOPS) who has dances
frequently. Their activities are
sponsored by another
organization of the university
since the school revoked their
charter last year. HOPS is taking
the university to court to regain
their charter. In broader scope,
the coffee houses in Harrisburg
and the YMCA might be brought
into this to extend this to local
residents, including the younger,
underaged, who have limited
social outlets. One would meet
friends to travel with for
weekends or just the evening
(there is much to do in
Baltimore, Washington,
Philadelphia and New York).
Associations of this kind are
called Homophile Societies and
can be found on such campuses
as Temple University, University
of Minnesota and the University
of Maryland, just to mention a
few. Our own is in a lame state.
If anyone is interested in
"being himself" or "herself" just
call the HOT LINE, 944-1033 in
reference to this article. You'll
feel much better and happier to
be among friends with interests
in common.
THE CAPITOLIST
electronic sensors are hidden in
shubbery inside a fence
enclosing a "maximum security
subdivision" of 67 homes, each
costing over $200,000.
Westinghouse sensors ("you can
be sure if it's Westinghouse")
help the Secret Service guard the
White House.
Another technological
Vietnam veteran now coming
home is a black box that sees
through walls. Engineers at the
Army's Land Warfare
Laboratory at Aberdeen,
Maryland are modifying the
PPS-14 "foliage-penetration"
surveillance radar originally
developed for spotting the
"enemy" in the thick jungles of
Vietnam. (Initially set up to
"meet high-priority material
requirements in Southeast Asia,"
the Land Warfare Laboratory --
with the Army's blessing -- is
now turning its attention to the
needs of the police.) Priced at
$6,500 each in quantities of
300, the radar is about the size
of a cigar box and weighs less
than ten pounds. Prototypes of
the "Americanized" version of
the radar, which will be capable
of seeing through brick and
cinderblock walls, will be
available by the spring of 1972
huge computers diagnose the
data. But as in Vietnam, the
sophisticated electronic systems
cannot quite distinguish
"friend" from "foe." A
wandering burro can send the
border patrolmen scambling for
their jeeps.
The ground sensors are
adaptations of the devices used
to detect the sounds and
vibrations of the movements of
troops and supply trucks on the
Ho Chi Minh Trail. Their use on
the Mexican border is reportedly
a result of Attorney General
John Mitchell's "interest in
surveillance discoveries and__
techniques." The sensors were
deployed in the summer of
1970, when the Border Patrol,
an arm of the Justice
Department, received a proposal
for a sensor surveillance system
from Sylvania Electronic
Systems of Mountain View,
California, which had produced
sensors for use in Indochina.
"The political implications of
using surveillance equipment
along a friendly border," noted
Sylvania, "have been considered
by selecting equipment that can
be deployed without attracting
attention and easily concealed."
Thank You,
Teach-In
This is a letter from the
editors to the Human Awareness
Committee. We want to thank
the committee for all their work
in bringing the Teach-In to
Capitol.
We must thank the
committee, too, for the insights,
ideas and alternatives brought to
us by the week of discussion. Of
course the efforts in organizing
and presenting the week deserve
credit, but it is the concept and
spirit of the Teach-In for which
we are most grateful.
We can only hope that the
week has proven that free and
alternative methods of learning
can be quite valuable. And we
hope that we can now better
work for the swift end of war
and all types of oppression.
Thank you, Human
Awareness Committee.
THE CAPITOLIST
Other surveillance sensors are
quietly sprouting up all over.
for use in combatting "civil
disturbances."
The police can already see
through the dark, thanks to the
"night vision" devices developed
for Vietnam. From New York
City to Kissimmee, Florida,
police departments are using
their new toys to perform covert
night surveillance while on
routine patrol. The devices,
capable of amplifying light levels
40,000 times, were developed by
American industry during the
1960's to meet the urgent needs
of the military for detecting the
night-fighting Vietnamese
guerrillas. The equipment was
declassified, presumably at the
r e quest of the Justice
Department, in 1969.
Such military suppliers as
RCA, Raytheon, and Aerojet
General now sell police versions
at prices ranging from $2,000 to
$B,OOO each, and the Justice
Department's Law Enforcement
Assistance Administration
(LEAA) hopes to make available
to the police a "snooperscope"
priced under $6OO. The
enthusiasm of the police for
night vision equipment is
surpassed only by that of the
electronics industry, where one
executive has predicted that by
the end of 1972, virtually all of
the 40,000 police departments
in the United States will be using
night vision equipment.
The Electronics Industries
Association has estimated the
annual market in law
enforcement electronics at $4OO
million, most of which comes
from LEAA grants. The police
can spend their money on
"command & control" systems,
"voiceprint" equipment, mobile
digital teleprinters, and laser
fingerprint analyzers: a Dick
Tracy bonanza. At such annual
gatherings as the National
Symposium on Law
Enforcement, Science and
Technology, in Chicago, and the
Carnahan Conference on
Electronic Crime
Countermeasures, at the
University of Kentucky,
engineers and governmental
officials discuss the latest
advances in police gadgetry.
During the latest Carnahan
Conference, for example,
engineers from Sylvania's
Socio Systems Laboratory
reported on "The World's First
Police Operated Low-Light-Level
Television System." The
equipment, which they claim is
capable of discerning a
man-sized object in extreme
darkness from more than a
half-mile away, has been
installed high above the streets
of Mt. Vernon, New York. The
Justice Department, which
financed the project with a
$47,000 grant from its Law
Enforcement Assistance
Administration, hopes to assess
the public reaction to 24-hour
covert surveillance. "Only time
will tell," concluded the
Sylvania engineers, "if citizens
will object to a 'Big Brother'
type atmosphere."
But the Nixon Administration
is not waiting for time to tell if
citizens will object. Earlier this
year, a study funded by the
Justice Department
recommended 24hour television,
surveillance of city streets. The
recommendation was made by a
committee of the National
Academy of Engineering, an
elite group of corporate
engineering executives that
advises the federal government
Thursday, Febivarry 17, 1972
on technological matters.
(Interestingly, the committee
members were executives of
industries that would profit it
their recommendations were
accepted.)
To test the effectiveness of
24hour TV surveillance, the
committee urged the Nixon
Administration to implement a
pilot program involving the use
of 140 low-light level television
cameras deployed at every other
intersection throughout an
urban neighborhood covering
two square miles. Of the
estimated $1.5 million yearly
cost, over $600,000 would go
for the salaries of 175 "viewers."
These men in addition to
receiving two dollars an hour for
watching the tube would have
the opportunity to zoom in on
exciting street scenes, such as a
game of handball or a goodnight
kiss after a teenage date.
The current sensor and TV
surveillance projects are
small-scale, but the combined
interests of engineers, industry
and government are pushing for
rapid escalation, unempeded by
legal regulation.
"There is a great unrestricted
area of electronic surveillance
and electronic counter-crime
measures in which there needs to
be expansion and further
innovation," a government
official told engineers at the
1969 Carnahan Conference.
Generally no legal limitations on
electronic surveillance of large
public areas exist, he added, and
"the challenge is wide open."
Paul Baran, an engineer with
the Rand Corporation, warned
in 1967 that by permitting the
unrestricted adoption of
sophisticated technology by the
police "we could easily end up
with the most effective,
oppressive police state ever
created."
Baran observed that "There is
an unmistaken amorality which
infects some of my engineering
colleagues. That is, whatever we
are paid to work on we
automatically rationalize to be a
blessing to mankind . . .'Too
many of my brethern think that
merely because something can
be built and sold, it should be."
With unemployment among
their colleagues at an all-time
high, engineers are further
motivated to work on anything
they can get paid for.
Their corporate employers,
faced with dwindling federal
funds for aerospace and defense,
are eagerly looking for new
markets. Surveillance equipment
for the home front is a
particularly easy transfer of
Vietnam technology.
Moreover, the hundreds of
millions of federal dollars
earmarked for law-and-order
technology dwarf the few
million available for such needs
as environmental pollution
control. To industry the choice
is clear. The extent of its
concern for the way technology
can best serve humanity was
succinctly expressed a few years
ago by a vice-president of the
giant Avco Corporation: "We
have a modest amount of
altruism and a lot of interest in
profits."
During the 1960's Yankee
ingenuity, fueled by federal
funding, transformed Jules
Verne's fantasy -- a man on the
moon - into reality. Indications
are that during the 1970's the
same thing will happen to
George Orwell's fantasy, Big
Brother.