---
title: "Wireless cams for police at Detroit Dream Cruise"
date: 2003-08-13T13:12:19-04:00
url: https://blog.lmorchard.com/2003/08/13/dream-cruise-spy-cams/
author: Les Orchard
---

# Wireless cams for police at Detroit Dream Cruise

<blockquote cite="http://www.freep.com/news/metro/dreamcruise/2003/mwend13_20030813.htm"><i>Six remote-controlled surveillance cameras have been set up to transmit live video images of crowd and traffic conditions to handheld and laptop computers carried by cops. </i></blockquote><div class="credit" align="right"><small>Source: <cite><a href="http://www.freep.com/news/metro/dreamcruise/2003/mwend13_20030813.htm">freep.com: Police try spy cameras for better cruise control </a></cite></small></div>	<p>This has privacy advocates around here worried.  I&#8217;m thinking it&#8217;s a tempest in a teacup, but reading a quote like this is a bit unfortunate:</p>

	<blockquote>&#8220;We can zoom in tight enough to read someone&#8217;s watch,&#8221; said Jonathan Hollander, chief technology officer for GigaTrans, which designed the system for the use of the Oakland County Sheriff&#8217;s Department and local police departments along the route.</blockquote>

	<p>It also doesn&#8217;t help that a <a href="http://www.freep.com/news/locway/probe12_20030612.htm">Federal investigation into the Detroit Police</a> found that they were &#8220;the most troubled force they have seen in 10 years of scrutinizing police nationwide&#8220;.  But, as a futurist geek, what I really want to know, having read David Brin&#8217;s <a href="http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0738201448/0xdecafbad-20">The Transparent Society</a> , is when I get to look for traffic jams up ahead using my <strong>own</strong> wireless communicator.</p>
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