Liberty Minute September 4 2013

Police departments  in and around Fresno, California are implementing a program of ?predictive policing? that critics are comparing to the totalitarian ?pre-crime? system depicted in the film ?Minority Report.? Six police departments will participate in the initiative, which will gather surveillance videos and information from huge computer databases for use by a half-dozen ?crime analysts.? Those officials will identify so-called ?hot spots? and try to anticipate criminal activity before it occurs.

This system is an adaptation of the ?pattern-of-life? analysis used by counter-insurgency forces in Afghanistan and Iraq. Interestingly, Fresno police were used nearly two decades ago to refine urban occupation tactics that were subsequently used by the military overseas.

Beginning in 1994, the Fresno PD?s Violent Crime Suppression Unit, which describes itself as the department?s ?special forces? auxiliary conducted block-by-block house searches and saturation patrols in targeted neighborhoods. Officers in the unit would typically arrive in a fleet of armored vehicles deployed like a ?wolf pack,? and conduct aggressive ?contact patrols.?

This approach was referred to as ?clear-and-hold? ? a tactic that was employed in Iraqi cities during the much-heralded ?troop surge.?

It?s not clear why Fresno was chosen to be a laboratory for martial law, but we would be wise to pay attention to what?s happening there.

Let us take back the liberty wherewith Christ has made us free.