Privacy, Where For Art Thou....

Off Topic
21

[quote]Professor X wrote:
Jetric9 wrote:
In regards to the privacy issue, there was a shooting about an year ago next to my house. That house is for rent, but there was a time when some people lived there that always caused trouble. There was also suspicious activity going on such as different cars going in and out at different hours of the day.

One night all of the sudden, you hear bottles breaking and windows being broken. Then shots were being fired. I called 911 and reported the incident, but I also told the operator not to send police officers to my house so the neighbors wouldn’t know it was my house who called the police.

Well about 10 minutes later, an officer rang my door bell and asked us if we were the house that called to report the shots being fired. Everyone that lived next door where the incident occurred heard and I was pissed that maybe they would do something in retaliation. Good thing that nothing happened afterwards. The neighbors eventually left about two weeks later.

For me, unless someone’s live is in danger or I see something that is really wrong, like you X, I really don’t want to get pulled into some sort of investigation.

I honestly think the people who can’t understand that have never lived in a dangerous part of town before. They can’t comprehend any sense of danger from putting your name out there randomly when it comes to witnessing much of anything involving criminal activity.

The fact that this involved two cars set on fire in a parking lot, means it was more than likely not a simple accident.

Either way, telling them you don’t want to give your name SHOULD end the conversation, especially since they apparently have it anyway.

Why did they even bother to ask?[/quote]

I’m also curios as to why they would still ask. Some things that come to mind: standard procedures, they’re used to asking the caller’s name, in case they need to call you back for more details. I know someone that works as a dispatcher, I’m going to ask him since this got me thinking.

22

The problem is that the dispatcher, instead connecting him to the Fire Dept, was trying to get info out of him first(prolonging the time it takes for the FD to actually hear him out). That’s a really dumb thing to do in an emergency.

What happened later was that she must’ve realized that she fucked up and attempted, haphazardly, to remedy the situation by forwarding the number.

So it seems this was just plain stupidity in this case. But what scares me most about situations like this is that the actual employees who work with this stuff seem to be completely unaware or oblivious of the fading restraints on domestic surveillance/reconnaissance.

23

Big Brother IS out there…

and He IS watching

24

I gotta wonder if someone with the correct knowledge/technology could use your own cell-phone to track you down at any given moment , providing you did nothing to thwart such an attempt.

25

Sure they can, that’s nothing new.

26

[quote]marlboroman wrote:
I gotta wonder if someone with the correct knowledge/technology could use your own cell-phone to track you down at any given moment , providing you did nothing to thwart such an attempt.

[/quote]

The FBI can remotely activate cell phone mics even when they’re turned off. The only way to stop it would be to remove the battery.

27

If a person wishs privacy today they must make a daily effort to remain private.

Use cash for small purchases

Block your calls

Give your SIN number only to your employer and the tax man.

There are other things one can do, but it starts taking away from the fast convenient life style.

Personally I don’t use credit cards or subscribe to any mail products. Still there is a lot of information out there on me. Pisses me right the fuck off!

28

I called in a (seriously) drunk driver last night, They didn’t even ask my name, number or where I was at all.

29

Because you all seem to be missing a major point.

If you call 911 some serious shit might have happened.

You might have slid off the road, turned your car over three times and hit a tree, a moose and 23 boy scouts.

All you can do is press 911, then you pass out.

Fortunately, they can still find you, using your cell phone.

30

[quote]zephead4747 wrote:
I called in a (seriously) drunk driver last night, They didn’t even ask my name, number or where I was at all.[/quote]

There are only about 5 million people in the entire state of Wisconsin (where your profile says you are from). There are over 2 million people just in Houston, Tx alone (the 4th largest city in America). That may have something to do with it.

31

[quote]orion wrote:
Because you all seem to be missing a major point.

If you call 911 some serious shit might have happened.

You might have slid off the road, turned your car over three times and hit a tree, a moose and 23 boy scouts.

All you can do is press 911, then you pass out.

Fortunately, they can still find you, using your cell phone.

[/quote]

They can also find you if none of that shit happens and you have already given them all of the information you are aware of.

32

[quote]Professor X wrote:
orion wrote:
Because you all seem to be missing a major point.

If you call 911 some serious shit might have happened.

You might have slid off the road, turned your car over three times and hit a tree, a moose and 23 boy scouts.

All you can do is press 911, then you pass out.

Fortunately, they can still find you, using your cell phone.

They can also find you if none of that shit happens and you have already given them all of the information you are aware of.[/quote]

Sure, but is that abuse of a legitimate possibility they have or does the possibility to track you down not make sense in the first place?

Meaning, if you are only monitored calling 911, is it that much of an issue?

33

When you choose to block your number, the “blocking” is done not through your phone, itself, but through your service provider (obviously).

As such, it makes sense that the coppers would have it that such numbers are disclosed to them whenever an emergency call is placed, for reasons already explained.

As for tracking you using your cell phone: it is now required for GPS devices to be installed on all new cell phones so that certain information can automatically be relayed following a 911 call (the e911 function, I think).

Of course, they have always been able to triangulate your position fairly well based on overlapping signals from various cell phone towers.

That being said, I don’t really care about the police (or any emergency service, for that matter) having automatic access to my number - as stated, a private number is usually simply masked by the service provider, so any such organization can obtain it easily enough should they feel the need to. I happen to agree with a few other posters who say the dispatcher was merely incompetent or fumbling around as opposed to actively attempting to investigate you (but what do I know, really).

While the “tactics” employed by the dispatcher were a little odd (though, for the record, I have never placed an emergency call), I would chalk it up more to the rush to gather as much information as possible in the heat of the emergency (relaying your information raised more questions, a different dispatcher was put on the line to get in touch with you to not waste any time, most likely there was poor coordination between the dispatchers, themselves, and their relaying of information to on-site personnel, etc…).

The whole “cameras at every intersection” thing worries me, though, as does the Google Street idea (or whatever the hell it is called. It all goes to show that we are no longer anonymous “faces in the crowd” as we once were (or think we are).

34

[quote]Majin wrote:
The problem is that the dispatcher, instead connecting him to the Fire Dept, was trying to get info out of him first(prolonging the time it takes for the FD to actually hear him out). That’s a really dumb thing to do in an emergency.

What happened later was that she must’ve realized that she fucked up and attempted, haphazardly, to remedy the situation by forwarding the number.[/quote]

He wrote that he was connected immediately (the very next line) after requesting the fire department.

35

I think you are overreacting. There is no “investigation” into anything of yours or of you. They could probably care less about you, and I don’t mean that in a derogatory way.

I have called in a few things before and they always asked for my name, even before 9/11, so I don’t see the invasion of privacy issue - first, I don’t see an issue at all - as pertaining to a “post-9/11 era” that people like to get giddy talking about.

Yes, there are invasions of privacy happening, but this was probably a case of a dispatcher going through protocol, collecting as much info for a report as possible.

I don’t see where they got your name but your posts read like they did. Sounds like they have a special *69 for calling back even restricted numbers. I don’t know if that necessarily means they have all your info.

36

[quote]Rebel Shuttle wrote:
marlboroman wrote:
I gotta wonder if someone with the correct knowledge/technology could use your own cell-phone to track you down at any given moment , providing you did nothing to thwart such an attempt.

The FBI can remotely activate cell phone mics even when they’re turned off. The only way to stop it would be to remove the battery.[/quote]

I was going to say the same thing. Kind of scary, actually. My phone’s been accessing this data backup that I subscribed to - and stopped the service a long time ago - at RANDOM, like it’s transferring data. It does this 10x a day, but I’m not sure if this has anything to do with some of the malfunctioning I’m experiencing after having dropped the phone in water.

37

Pyromaniacs like to set fires and watch them go up, sometimes participating in the investigation or even being volunteer firemen themselves.

They were probably trying to match up your info from the phone with who you say you are.

I can understand why they would do that kind of stuff, but I don’t necessarrily agree that they do it. I don’t know if it is a regional thing or if it happens all over the place, but it seems like a lot of pyros around here like to start the fire and then call it in, or are on the fire department and are always “first on the scene”. This is also how they eventualy get caught.

You can only call one in or be first on scene so many times before investigators catch on.

38

I think what happened was either Uncle Gabby/Anonym said about the initial chaos of finding out more info.

I’m also a volunteer EMT so maybe I can help clarify a couple things.

I’m not sure why the FD would ask your name, but maybe that’s the policy in the Houston area. I think the FD guy who called back was trying to get more info since there’s often some confusion on an initial scene and the more info one can get the better so they can figure what they’re dealing with. We’ve had calls where someone said a building was on fire, turns out it’s a dumpster.

Every call to 911 is logged and the dispatcher can call the original caller back (Not sure about blocked numbers. I’ll have to check with someone I know at the 911 call center for details).

The only time we’ve used it on a call is to get more info for clarification, and we (the unit) don’t contact the original caller, the dispatch center does that.

39

It’s standard procedure, that’s all. Sometimes it’s to ID the caller if several people use a line (like a bunch of you in a household) for reasons of abuse/false calls/arson/blah blah blah or if you are calling for something routine that turns out later to go to court.

Usually though it’s just procedure for more info. Case in point, a good Samaritan calls 911 to report a fire on an inaccessible mountain close to our station a while back. With the drought we ride out and look around, find nothing. E911 calls her back for more specific location on mountain, radios back to us, we look some more given her directions.

Finally we just ride over to her house and have her point at the “fire” she is looking at with her binoculars. Turns out it was the rising sun glinting off something in the brush, but to her 60+ eyes it was a fire.

40

Firstly … I think Prof-X lives near the thunderdome. It’s all Mad Max style and …stuff.

Secondly, I hate giving information to the cops. The other day they knocked on my door because someone had reported that things were stolen out of their garage in my complex. So they went door to door asking if anybody had seen anything ‘untoward’. They didn’t use that word but I just did.

I said I had not seen anything, but the garage in question was just outside my balcony…I mentioned that my license plate had been stolen …TWICE in this complex. Next you know the officer is asking my first and last name, ya know… for…reasons?
Writing it down in his little notebook of doom.

My first instinct was to give them a fake name, but…I didn’t. Anyway, it always goes against my gut instinct to get involved. Unless I hear a woman being stabbed to death outside my window … In which case I would not assume that other people were calling the cops and I would not sit and do nothing causing vigilantes to fight the devil of apathy. Not like that.