Mac Phone Home Software

There have been a recent series of theft allegations against TSA employees.

One such case involves Agent Clayton Keith Dovel who was arrested last week on suspicion of stealing numerous iPads from passenger’s luggage at DFW’s airport.

It appears Dovel was stealing the iPads from his position where he screened passenger’s checked luggage by hand.

Due to the smarts of one victim, Dovel was caught because the victim had downloaded the “Find My iPhone” app onto her iPad. She was able to track her stolen iPad directly to Dovel’s house where police found at least seven iPads at Dovel’s home.

Dovel has been placed on leave until officials can further investigate the situation.

I think video surveillance cameras should be installed in the area where luggage is checked. This would catch those who are stealing, although I am sure most TSA employees are honest, hard working individuals.

Video surveillance in the screening area at John F. Kennedy International Airport recently helped catch a TSA agent who stole $5,000 from a passenger’s jacket. The surveillance video showed TSA agent Alexandra Schmid taking the money from a jacket pocket, wrapping the cash in a plastic glove and taking it to a bathroom.

The money hasn’t been recovered and police are investigating whether Schmid gave it to another person in the bathroom.

Schmid, age 31, was arrested on a charge of grand larceny and suspended pending an investigation.

It is best to never check items of value in your luggage and to check for your valuables after they have gone through the passenger screening area. If you must check your computers, there are software programs for Macs and PCs that will track your computer should it be lost or stolen.

On January 23, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled unanimously that law enforcement authorities do not generally have a right to affix a GPS tracking device to a suspect’s car without first obtaining a valid warrant. This case, United States v. Jones, is being referred to as one of the most important Fourth Amendment tests in a decade. However, the court’s decision only begins to address how the privacy rights of citizens will be protected in our technological world.

There are many more ways today to perform surveillance without physically trespassing on private property, a point recognized by Justice Samuel Alito in a concurrence joined by three other justices. Justice Sonia Sotomayor wrote in another concurring opinion, “the Fourth Amendment is not concerned only with trespassory intrusions on property.”

Justice Alito said the court should address how expectations of privacy affect whether warrants are required for remote surveillance using electronic methods that do not require the police to install equipment, such as GPS tracking of mobile telephones.

In his opinion, Justice Antonin Scalia wrote: 

“It is important to be clear about what occurred in this case: The Government physically occupied private property for the purpose of obtaining information. We have no doubt that such a physical intrusion would have been considered a ‘search’ within the meaning of the Fourth Amendment when it was adopted.”

Let’s consider our mobile phones. Mobile phone service providers log the list of cell sites to which our cell phones connect throughout the day. Mobile apps gather data on the usage patterns of our wireless devices and often track device location to the accuracy of a specific residence or office building, undermining the oft-cited claim that the data gathered is not “personal.” Much of this data is collected and then sold with our consent, in accordance with privacy policies that few of us read before accepting, to a complex ecosystem of mobile application providers and advertisers.

When we walk into a store, restaurant, office building, or sit in a taxi, images of us are recorded and date-stamped.

In the past, it would have been impractical to archive all of this information, but this is no longer the case. Retail hard drive costs are over one million times cheaper today than they were two decades ago. About $50 worth of storage can hold the information identifying the location of each of one million people to 4.5-meter accuracy at five-minute intervals, 24 hours a day for a full year.

What about data collected from video surveillance cameras or license plate cameras? It is becoming less expensive to archive data from video surveillance cameras. License plate cameras record our automobile trips. In addition, I wrote a story yesterday about the new “intellistreets” street lamps soon to be installed on Chicago streets and other cities. These “street lamps” can monitor conversations and take pictures among many other capabilities.

The days when being tracked is the exception rather than the rule are coming to an end. Inevitably, we are building an infrastructure that enables location surveillance decisions to be made retroactively, reducing the need to determine in advance who should be surveilled.

In the future, the issue of before-the-fact location-tracking warrants will be largely irrelevant. All of the necessary data will be collected automatically. The important privacy questions will instead concern the protections that apply to that data: Who can see it and under what circumstances?

In our post-911 world, most would agree that the government needs the ability to access archived information about the movements of a person credibly believed to be planning, for example, a terrorist attack. But what about juveniles suspected of petty crimes? What types of location data should be available to parents engaged in a child custody battle? Or former business partners embroiled in a legal dispute?

The Supreme Court has not yet addressed these questions but inevitably it will. The answers/decisions, far more than the ruling in United States v. Jones, will help define the meaning of privacy in 21st-century America.

Source: yimg

A would-be thief tangled with the wrong man. 25-year-old Mostafa Hendi walked into the the We Buy Gold shop in North Carolina yesterday and demanded money from the clerk. The clerk, Derek Mothershead, wasn’t taking any gruff.

After reaching to give the armed robber the cash, Mr Mothershead gave him something else - an unexpected punch, knocking him to the floor. Surveillance camera footage caught the moment.

“When he came through the door, he told me had a gun and he even flashed it,” Mr. Mothershead said. I stood up and threw my hands up and said, “Take the money.”

The thief came behind the counter and Mothershead went to pass him cash from a drawer.

“When he reached out, I took a step in, I cocked back and preloaded and I hit him hard,” Mothershead said.

When the thief came to, the clerk forced him to mop up his own blood from the shop floor with paper towels and cleaner.

Mothershead also grabbed the man’s weapon, but said he laughed when he realized it was just a pellet gun.

Paramedics took the man away on a stretcher and Mr. Mothershead’s handywork can be seen in Hendi’s police mugshot, where his face looks bruised and swollen.

He remains behind bars on a charge of attempted robbery with a dangerous weapon.

Store manager Juaz Cruz added: “Merry Christmas Mostafa Hendi.”

View video, pictures and surveillance camera shots@ dailymail

A missing 9-year-old Indiana girl, Aliahna Lemmon, was found dead on Monday night. She had been reported missing on Friday evening. The details of her death are incredibly gruesome.

The neighbor who had been watching Aliahna, 39-year-old Mike Plumadore, was interviewed by police and taken into custody at 9 p.m. and charged with murder on Monday night. Plumadore had been watching Aliahna and her sisters before she was reported missing. Plumadore told investigators on Monday where the girl’s body could be found.

Police say Plumadore bludgeoned Aliahna with a brick, then dismembered her with a hacksaw.

After beating Aliahna Lemmon to death last Thursday, Michael Plumadore told police he stuffed her body into trash bags and hid her in his freezer, according to an affidavit filed by the Allen County sheriff’s department. Plumadore said he later chopped up her body, stuffed her remains into freezer bags and hid some at his trailer and some at a nearby business.

No active search was done Sunday for Aliahna, though more than 100 emergency workers searched for her Saturday around the mobile home park where she and Plumadore lived. Allen County sheriff’s spokesman Cpl. Jeremy Tinkel said the same size search could not be sustained because of the Christmas holiday.

Although it was later learned that Aliahna was already dead by Sunday, it is still surprising that a massive search for a child did not continue despite the holiday.

Aliahna and her sisters were staying with Plumadore because their mother had been sick with the flu and Aliahna’s stepfather works at night and sleeps during the day. Plumadore told authorities that he left the three girls in his mobile home about 6 a.m. Friday and went to a gas station about a mile away to buy a cigar. Authorities have said the store’s surveillance video shows him there about that time. “I had dead-bolted the door,” he said. “When I got back, all the girls was here.”

He said he smoked his cigar and went back to sleep, then woke up about 10 a.m. when Aliahna’s mother called. After that call, he realized the door to the home was unlocked and that Aliahna was gone. He said Aliahna’s 6-year-old sisters told him Aliahna had left with her mother. Plumadore said it wasn’t until he talked with Aliahna’s mother about 8:30 p.m. that they realized she was missing and police were notified.

Allen County Sheriff Ken Fries said Plumadore was arrested after being interviewed by detectives for several hours Monday — and was also questioned Friday and Saturday.

On Monday, FBI agents descended on the rundown mobile home park where Aliahna lived and was last seen.

The mobile home park in Fort Wayne is a known haven for registered sex offenders. According to a state website, 15 registered sex offenders live at the mobile home park. That’s an alarming number given that the park only has about two dozen homes on its land. Plumadore is not on Indiana’s registered sex offenders list; however, he has a criminal record in Florida and North Carolina that includes convictions for trespassing and assault.

Given the nature of this gruesome crime, it makes you wonder what other crimes he has committed, but was never caught. It seems like a giant leap from trespassing and assault to murder.

Sources: MSNBC and The Chicago Tribune