Work
Give me the tools. Investigative tools, online resources, databases, equipment.
Earpieces
Every PI has to be a gadget geek right? I’ve tried a few earpieces in my time.
The bottom one is a Plantronics Voyager Legend. Big and bulky, but excellent sound quality and microphone. I use it for any in-office work, phone calls or video conferencing.
The top one was my first Bluetooth earpiece, a Plantronics M70. It’s getting older now so I use it as a backup. It still has great battery life and I’m not scared of throwing it in my back pocket just in case.
The middle ones are my newest purchase. Jabra Elite 65t. I use them for all my surveillance when I need to be on the phone to a partner. They’re unobtrusive and if people see you with them in they just think you’re listening to music or a podcast.
Lifestyle
Tell me a story. Investigator stories, news, books to read, podcasts, things to watch, lighthearted moments.
FBI spy planes monitored a single suspect for nearly 429 hours
“The FBI’s secretive spy plane program targeted a man in Florida last year with nearly constant surveillance, logging more than 400 hours in the air with a fleet of Cessna aircraft registered to what appear to be front companies.”
One of my interests is aerial surveillance, and I have used it on cases in the past. What interests me in this article is, despite the advances made in UAVs, it’s still legislatively and practically easier to use small commercial aircraft when operating in friendly airspace.
Read the full article from The Intercept here.
Photo enhancing AI by Google
In an article from PetaPixel, Google has been developing its photo enhancing AI and the results are pretty incredible.
"In image super-resolution, a machine learning model is trained to turn a low-res photo into a detailed high-res photo, and potential applications of this range from restoring old family photos to improving medical imaging."
Once this tech is available to the rest of us, I can see some clear use cases for me.
Making pre-2005 digital photos better. Remember those sub-1 megapixel cameras?
Helping to clarify surveillance camera footage. How many times have you seen a screen grab of a subject that could have been anyone, or a blurred number plate?
I look forward to using it when it’s available.
Learn
Teach me something. Learning resources, articles, books to read, podcasts.
We think anger is a sign of guilt, but it may be a sign of innocence
An article from the British Psychological Society suggests that we naturally think anger is a sign of a guilty person.
“Fictional people who’d made angry denials were taken to be guiltier than those who’d made “irritated” denials (characterised by a raised voice and less vehement protests), and they were in turn taken to be guiltier than those who’d calmly professed their innocence.”
When you interview a subject you’ll see a whole range of emotions, dependent on the person you’re interviewing. And they can mean very different things. Some people will talk and divert, others will clam up, and others will get angry.
The point is not to jump to conclusions based on someone’s emotions, as they’re all different. As an interviewer we have to leave our subconscious bias out of it and focus on the facts.
Conducting rural surveillance
Conducting surveillance in an urban or suburban environment is completely different to watching someone in a rural environment.
The biggest difference is that you can not hide in plain site. No matter how much you look like a farmer or a local, you can not wander down a rural road and expect people not to notice you.
Rod Thompson lays out some strategies in this article in Pursuit Magazine.
From planning, where to stay, and having a solid cover story to choosing your surveillance point, risk management and the use of drones.
Because privacy laws are fairly strict on using drones, one thing I hadn’t thought of is using them in injury claims when the claimant is using public property for recreational pursuits such as fishing or hunting.
It’s a quick read, and full of good tips.
End.