Shot spotter is listening. Governor Polis' love affair with layered leases. And, because it's Friday, some interesting physics/chem/bio simulations.
Depending on where you live, the police have microphones out there to listen for gunshots.
I posted earlier about some police departments watching your car's license plates (and not only for robotic tickets). Did you know that they are listening as well?
I came across an interesting quote in the Sun article linked first below. It is, "According to court documents, two police officers were investigating after a Spot Shotter [sic--should be Shot Spotter] detector reported 36 rounds being fired nearby on March 21."
So, this made me wonder what exactly a Spot Shotter was. Well, it turns out that it's actually Shot Spotter. Shot Spotter is a service that police departments can buy into whereby the company installs listening devices in a city. The listening devices ping when they hear a gunshot(s) and record it with a timestamp. A computer then reduces this back, using multiple sensors that pinged and triangulation to give a likely area for the source of the sound.
The sound file is then sent to a human at the Shot Spotter company who verifies it's a shot, and then that company rep alerts the police department that hired them and gives the details of the gunshot(s).
See the attached screenshot.
I called the Denver Police Department (DPD) to get some info on this system: how long have they used it, what have they done to alert the communities of its presence and etc. As of this writing, I haven't heard back. If I do, I'll update.
Looking online showed a couple things I thought were of note. First, apparently DPD has been using this stuff for a while now. The Denverite article linked second below says that the first contract between the city and Shot Spotter dates back to 2016. DPD and the city apparently liked it enough to renew the contract and it now goes through 2026 (and will cost $4.7 million).
Second, there are more than just weirdo civil libertarians like myself that are concerned with this. The AP article linked third below goes into great depth about the pitfalls of Shot Spotter, but I'll give a quick rundown about some concerns:
--The system can fail. The computer is set to recognize a specific percussive signature of a gunshot, but can miss shots and/or give false positives for things like cars backfiring. My guess is that the human backstop checking the sounds that the computer forwards can help with the false positives, but if the microphones don't register gunshots there's nothing for a human to double check.
--It can cost up to $95,000 a square mile
--It can lead to false convictions.
--This one is more of a question than a settled fact, but I wonder if other, cheaper alternatives would give cities more bang for their buck. There seems to be some evidence that this may be the case, but, as I say, it's not settled yet.
I myself, as I alluded to above have some genuine privacy concerns about this too. The company itself goes into great detail (see the fourth link below) about how much they respect privacy and how many safeguards there are, but as I've said before, the only 100% sure way to make sure that no one is listening to us constantly is to not have microphones salted around our cities. If there are objects collecting data and if that data is processed, the potential to abuse this exists. Plain and simple.
I put in an email to the company to see if they'd tell me all the places in Denver that work with them but so far I haven't heard back. If I do, I'll update.
In the meantime, if this is a concern, contact your local police. I am pretty near to certain that my local police do not use this service but I intend to keep watching.
Despite all the clever marketing and assurances about privacy, I'm not convinced that the benefits outweigh the concerns I have.
https://coloradosun.com/2023/03/29/brighton-shooting-teen-girl-arrested/
https://denverite.com/2021/12/15/a-new-five-year-4-7-million-shotspotter-contract-for-denver-police-gets-tentative-approval/
https://apnews.com/article/artificial-intelligence-algorithm-technology-police-crime-7e3345485aa668c97606d4b54f9b6220
https://www.shotspotter.com/privacy-policy/
***Related:
Another reminder that nothing is perfect. Another reminder that, no matter what policymakers, police, or company spokesmen say, there are ways to cause harm with new technology.
Know what tools your police are using. Ask the questions.
https://www.nytimes.com/2023/03/31/technology/facial-recognition-false-arrests.html
State of Colorado Land Use Board, Jared Polis, and Layered Leases ...
I got an email forwarded to me by a reader that led to an interesting discussion. I learned something, and, my guess is that if you don't lease land from the state to raise cattle, you will too.
First let's talk some context.
Our state owns a fair bit of Colorado. The state owns large tracts of land, but it also owns things like office buildings downtown.
These assets are leased out to individuals and/or companies for various purposes. A corporation might lease a few floors in Downtown Denver from the state. A cattle operation might lease some land out on the Plains to raise cattle. A hunting outfitter might lease some land to take clients out to hunt deer. The person I talked to about the topic didn't have numbers for office buildings, but told me that typical cattle leases have 10 year terms and typical recreation (think hunting as an example) go 5. Another important detail is that you are allowed to improve the land (or presumably the building) you lease. Any improvements you make, say running pipe to a cattle tank or fences, are the property of the lessee and not the state.
The state collects revenue from these leases and in an amount that is proportional to what the state thinks the asset is worth. For example, the person I spoke with told me that for cattle if the state thinks the land would sell at (taking nice round numbers) $100/acre, they lease it out at $85/acre. This number is an increase over previous values.
What becomes of this money? It goes to education. According to the video put out by the Land Board (see at the bottom of the page in the first link below) 50% of that money goes to a fund that gives out grants to schools to help pay facilities costs and etc. The remainder likely goes into administering the Land Board and/or the General Fund.
So far so good. This is not a bad program on its face. People get to lease the land the state owns and put it to work, the state gets revenue, kids get education dollars. Winners all around. There is a wrinkle that is new in this, however and according to the people I spoke with, if it didn't start with Polis, it's certainly expanded.
That wrinkle is called a "layered lease".
Let me give you an analogy. Pretend that you needed a place to live and so you rented a 2 bedroom house. You live modestly and so most of that second bathroom is sitting empty. You're not using much, but you did rent the house.
So now imagine that your landlord calls you and says that he noticed that there wasn't much in that second bedroom and so he rented that space out to another dude who wanted to have a room to have a party in.
Put simply, that's a layered lease. You're leasing the same thing twice for two different uses.
In the context of our state's lands, what this can look like is the state comes and tells a rancher that they're going to lease out the recreation rights for the land he or she is already leasing to run cattle on. They do offer the rancher a chance to come to the auction and bid, but if the rancher doesn't get the recreation lease, the rancher can no longer hunt on the land and must allow hunting parties through the land used for grazing. The rancher gets no say in that.
Another type of layered lease the governor and Land Board (made up of the Governor's appointees) have been big fans of lately is layered leases for green projects. One such example is in the article linked second below. Making ethanol produces quite a bit of CO2 and so in an effort to feel better about that, the ethanol plant in Yuma has decided to start burying its CO2 underground, deep in a hole under a bit of state land currently being leased to a cattle outfit.
That means pipelines. That means roads. That means drilling. That means trucks on those roads. Right through the middle of land someone is paying to graze cattle on.
Let's put aside how you or I would weigh the various benefits of any of these activities and cut to the more important, fundamental concerns here.
Let's talk fairness.
Is it fair to sell something twice to two different people? I mean fair to both, because you and I both know that conflicts will happen. Problems will arise. Do we want to get more money by buying more problems and conflict?
What message do the governor and Land Board send to ranchers when they show up and effectively tell the rancher that she'll now have to deal with roads, pipelines, and etc. in the middle of the land she was leasing to raise cattle? You could make the argument that the rancher has the chance to outbid the other party and keep that lease, but either that's a big rate increase on her lease or, what's much more likely, she'll lose the auction to a well-funded carbon sequestration company.
Now let's talk pragmatism.
How about access? To return to my earlier analogy, how is the party dude supposed to get to that second bedroom except by going through the house. In the case of the CO2 plant, where does that pipeline go? Where do the roads go? What if one or the other of those intersects or interferes with a water line? A fence?
Similarly, how do you handle the inevitable damage sharing things can cause? What if one of the hunters accidentally wounds a cow? What if the carbon people back a truck into your cattle tank? Who gets to adjudicate this? Who pays?
I'm not opposed to the state leasing its land and properties. I'm not even necessarily opposed to layered leasing in some cases, but, like always, the devil is in the details and in how you do things.
From what I've seen and read, the way it's happening so far is not the way it should.
I don't like the message it's sending about the value of ranchers and ranching. I don't like the big potential for conflict it will create.
I don't think the extra money's worth it.
https://slb.colorado.gov/
https://www.akronnewsreporter.com/2023/03/29/carbon-america-introduces-project-to-community
***Related:
Frustrated and upset at how this state is run?
I don't blame you. I would say getting upset is a good start, but I want to challenge you to do more.
I want to challenge you to be a part of the solution. One way to do that is to try and get representation for all areas of the state (even, gasp!, those parts East of I-25 or West of Vail) on the various boards and etc.
There are plenty of Boards that are not a big commitment and one for every interest and ability.
All you need to is apply.
Below find a link to the list for openings in 2023.
https://www.colorado.gov/governor/sites/default/files/inline-files/2023%20BlueBook.pdf
Do you like science but didn’t get much education in it? Do you like it and just want to know more (not become an expert)? Do you know someone who does?
This is the last one of the day and you know what that means! Something for fun and not related to politics.
I had a student tell me the other day that they were really interested in what we happened to be covering in physics the last week or so (circuits, induced currents, how does the coil in your car make 12 V into 25,000 V to get your spark plug to work, etc.).
The student asked if I had a recommendation of how to learn more on the topic.
After I picked my jaw up off the floor (if you’re a teacher you know how startling it is to have a student say something like this in real time as opposed to never or years later), I recommended the Phet series of simulations to them.
Thought there might be folks just like this student out there that might enjoy too.
The physics education technology program out of CU (see the first link below) is chock full of fun, engaging, and easy to use simulations on a variety of physics, biology, chemistry and math topics.
The simulations themselves are really intuitive to use and (I think) work for almost all ages. It’s just a matter of the sophistication and depth of understanding one wants or that is developmentally appropriate.
If you are interested in science, pop over and give them a look.
I’ll even make you the same offer I made my student: if you find something interesting and are wondering more about it, shoot me a question and we’ll give it a look.**
**I’d love to say I know about chem or bio, but I don’t. So don’t ask me!
Have a good Friday!
https://phet.colorado.edu/