CDT Guide to VPNs

Trust is a critical component to a thriving digital ecosystems. We trust banks to keep financial information secure; we trust search engines to get us the information we want and map apps to show us the most efficient route. Ironically, virtual private networks, or VPNs, are often a tool for users who lack trust in the practices of other online entities. However, providers of commercial VPN services must still foster trust that they adequately obscure their users’ digital footprints and safeguard their data.

CDT has provided an excellent guide to VPNs.

Operating in Hostile and Non-Permissive Environments:
A Survival and Resource Guide for Those Who Go in Harm’s Way

 

PlusPrivacy

PlusPrivacy provides you with a unified dashboard for protecting yourself from a variety of threats to your privacy. It will enable you to control the privacy settings in your social network accounts, hide your email identity, block ads, trackers and malware and prevent unwanted apps and browser extensions from tracking you and collecting your private data. PlusPrivacy is open source and you can use it anonymously.

In the future PlusPrivacy will also help you to tightly control who has access to your data and ensure that your privacy is protected to the full extent of General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR).

* An interesting app, worth further investigation.

Operating in Hostile and Non-Permissive Environments:
A Survival and Resource Guide for Those Who Go in Harm’s Way

Sgt. Ron Helus Fatally Shot in the Heart by a California Highway Patrolman

THOUSAND OAKS, Calif. (AP) — A sheriff's deputy who died in a mass shooting at a California bar was shot five times by a gunman who massacred 11 others, but the officer was killed by friendly fire, authorities said Friday.

Sgt. Ron Helus was fatally shot in the heart by a California Highway Patrolman who had joined him in the chaotic gun battle at the Borderline Bar & Grill in Thousand Oaks on Nov. 7, Ventura County Sheriff Bill Ayub said. (KOMO 4 News, December 7, 2018)
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In trying to save others from an active shooter, Sgt. Helus was killed by a fellow officer. This tragic loss underlines the chaos of that gun fight and the risks that police officers take on a daily basis.

R.I.P. Sgt, Helus.

DNA Technology Can Create Unbelievable Suspect Sketches

Here’s why this should scare you.

Unique technology can now take a DNA sample left at a crime scene and turn it into a composite sketch.

Law enforcement agencies say it's helped them make major breakthroughs in cases old and new. But critics claim the technology is based on thin science and could end up ensnaring innocent people.

DNA sketches are the result of something called phenotyping, essentially painting a picture of what people look like based on a DNA sample obtained by police. Genes determine how we look, so sequencing developed from DNA samples can be used to try to predict someone’s eye, hair and skin color in a sketch. Facial features and face shape are also included, but they’re much harder to forecast.

For many law enforcement agencies, the pictures they're using come from a Virginia company called Parabon Nanolabs. Its team is creating sketches using a system called "Snapshot." A video featured on Parabon's website details the process, saying, "As the program sifts through billions of pieces of genetic information, it slowly begins to build a suspect’s appearance. We run it through the Snapshot algorithms and produce predictions about that person."

Records show that since 2011, the Department of Defense has poured more than $1 million into Parabon to develop Snapshot. Now, agencies across the country are paying as much as $4,000 for sketches the company says can generate leads and narrow suspect lists. It's widely used with police departments large and small from across the country requesting and then raving about the DNA sketches obtained for their cases.

The wide use of this technology concerns Jay Stanley, a senior policy analyst with the American Civil Liberties Union who first wrote about DNA phenotype sketching back in 2016, before it really took off.

Stanley fears the sketches could detour or harm investigations, reinforce racial bias, or be used to establish probable cause against innocent people, ensnaring them in criminal investigations. And while he says he understands the desire of law enforcement and the families of victims to close cases, he says this type of sketching shouldn't be used for any serious purpose. Stanley called it science fiction.  (Circa, November 29, 2018)
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Using this undeveloped and non-reviewed technology in law enforcement investigations is a serious concern. It is likely to lead to mis-identification and can be used to establish probable cause where none exists. Mistakes happen; we have just see how a Woman Spent Months in Jail Because Cops Thought Cotton Candy Was Meth. How long will a person spend in jail when they are mis-identified because of a DNA sketch?

Operating in Hostile and Non-Permissive Environments:
A Survival and Resource Guide for Those Who Go in Harm’s Way

 

 

Who wants to be a police officer?

Across the country, interest in becoming a police officer is down dramatically. In Nashville, Tennessee, job applications dropped from 4,700 in 2010 to 1,900 last year. In Seattle, Washington, applications have declined by nearly 50 percent, in a department where the starting salary is $79,000. Even the FBI saw a sharp drop, from 21,000 applications per year to 13,000 last year, before a new marketing campaign brought an upswing.

And retaining officers once they've joined is getting harder too. In a Police Executive Research Forum (PERF) survey of nearly 400 police departments about voluntary resignations, 29 percent of those who left their police job voluntarily had been on the force less than a year, and another 40 percent had been on the job less than five years.

"There's an increased potential for officers to be criminally liable for making a good faith mistake," said Terry Sult, the Hampton, Virginia, police chief. "We're seeing a lot more media coverage of officers being prosecuted, and that weighs heavily on a lot of officers' hearts. ... That's a stressor on whether I want to stay in this position or not."

The videos of police misconduct, or fatal shootings, have damaged the perception of American police officers, but not irrevocably, said Antoinette Archer, director of human relations for the Richmond, Virginia, police. For many people, "they're taken aback by the brutality, not by the profession," Archer said. "If we can be inclusive" of women and people of color, "those individuals who can see a part of their fabric in the department will come forward. ... If the environment is not inclusive, you're going to lose them."

But whatever the reason for officers leaving, the process of replacing them has gotten tougher. Nearly 66 percent of the nearly 400 police departments surveyed said their number of applicants had decreased. Hiring in a healthy economy is one problem, police officials said, because private industry can offer better salaries.

Still, pay isn't the main reason many pass policing by, Deputy Seattle Chief Marc Garth Green said. "Number one is validation," Green said. "The validation that they're putting their life on the line. There's no respect for that," and he blamed the news media for undermining respect for police authority.  (Stars & Stripes, December 4, 2018)
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In July 2018 we saw that Seattle Cops Flee the Force in 'Mass Exodus' Because of Politics. And in August 2018, Lacey, WA Police Department is a ‘Mess,’ Union Says.

When officers can't expect and don't receive support from department leadership you cannot expect them to stay with their departments. And when officers are unsatisfied with their work environments - ranging for internal politics to outright hostile workplaces - this attitude will be reflected in the community, greatly limiting applications to work within those departments.

Most men and women in law enforcement are no-doubt decent people who really care about their communities, but if we are going to keep good men and women in law enforcement we need to ensure that they are supported by their departments and by their communities as a whole.

 

Operating in Hostile and Non-Permissive Environments:
A Survival and Resource Guide for Those Who Go in Harm’s Way

 

Dallas Police Officer Indicted for Murder for Shooting Man in His Own Home

A white former Dallas police officer was indicted on murder charges Friday, nearly three months after she fatally shot an unarmed black neighbor whose apartment she said she entered by mistake, believing it to be her own.

Amber Guyger told fellow officers that she opened fire when Botham Jean appeared in the darkness.
After finishing her shift, Guyger told investigators , she returned home in uniform and parked on the fourth floor of her apartment complex's garage, rather than the third floor, where her unit was located, according to an affidavit prepared by the Texas Rangers.

She said she got to what she thought was her apartment — Jean's was directly above hers — and found the door ajar. She opened it to find a figure standing in the darkness. She said she pulled her gun and fired twice after the person ignored her commands. (The Olympian, November 30, 2018)
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It's important to realize that, in Texas, you can't use force on others for a simple act of trespassing. To shoot in Texas, you must fear for your safety when someone is breaking in or attempting to break in to your home, occupied vehicle, or workplace.

 

Operating in Hostile and Non-Permissive Environments:

A Survival and Resource Guide for Those Who Go in Harm’s Way

 

Military personnel deployed to a combat area, their supporting contractors overseas, government civilian employees overseas, non-government organizations (NGOs), journalists working on international stories, businesses attempting to establish a foothold in developing countries, and individual travelers to remote areas of the world can all find themselves in hostile and non-permissive environments. This guide covers a broad range of subjects that are intended to aid individuals, living and working in dangerous areas, in being safer in their daily lives and in being better able to protect themselves and survive in case of an emergency, disaster, or hostile action.

Tacoma Has An Unusually Low Number of Hate-Crime Reports

Statistics say Tacoma has a relatively small number of hate crimes. In 2017, the record shows only eight crimes were motivated by bias against a race or ethnicity, religion, disability, sexual orientation, gender or gender identity, according to newly released FBI figures.

That makes five straight years in single digits. This year Tacoma is on pace to have even fewer incidents, according to Results253, the city’s online database.

While these offenses seem to have plateaued in Tacoma, they zoomed to new heights in Washington’s two other largest cities. Seattle reported 232 incidents in 2017, up from 118 a year earlier. Spokane logged 28 incidents last year, more than triple the 8 it saw in 2016.

Hate crimes are historically underreported, often because victims grow accustomed to abusive treatment, fear a backlash or don’t trust authorities. You can bet Tacoma is no exception.

Nor are its suburban neighbors, though statistically they appear to be hate-free utopias. Over the last three years, a total of zero hate crimes were reported to the FBI by Bonney Lake, Buckley, Eatonville, Edgewood, Fircrest, Gig Harbor, Sumner and University Place. Eight communities, with a combined population topping 100,000.

FBI statistics don’t tell the whole story. Hate crimes are not devouring Seattle, and they’re not detouring around Tacoma. But in 2018, this much should be clear: None of us lives in Pleasantville. (Tacoma News Tribune, November 27, 2018)
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So, is Tacoma reporting only single digit hate crimes for five straight years because of fear of backlash, or lack of trust in local authorities? That doesn't seem to be a good answer, since Seattle and Spokane are seeing significant increases in hate crime reporting.

Sure, there may be some hate crimes in Tacoma that go unreported, but when a statistic is consistent over five years it is likely that the statistic is accurate (or Tacoma has a completely different way of defining hate crimes than does Seattle and Spokane). But then we have to account for the complete lack of hate crimes reported in cities around Tacoma (i.e. Bonney Lake, Buckley, Eatonville, Edgewood, Fircrest, Gig Harbor, Sumner and University Place).

Might it be that the anomaly in data is not Tacoma and the surrounding area with its low hate crime reporting, but Seattle with its exceptionally high number of hate crimes?

Operating in Hostile and Non-Permissive Environments:
A Survival and Resource Guide for Those Who Go in Harm’s Way

 

Military personnel deployed to a combat area, their supporting contractors overseas, government civilian employees overseas, non-government organizations (NGOs), journalists working on international stories, businesses attempting to establish a foothold in developing countries, and individual travelers to remote areas of the world can all find themselves in hostile and non-permissive environments. This guide covers a broad range of subjects that are intended to aid individuals, living and working in dangerous areas, in being safer in their daily lives and in being better able to protect themselves and survive in case of an emergency, disaster, or hostile action.