Police query value of terrorism patrols By Stephen Gibbs August 1, 2005 Sydney Morning Herald Some police commanders believe a counter-terrorism measure that is putting detectives on street patrol for an hour a day is taking resources away from other important commitments. One senior investigator said the disruption, including changing into and out of uniform, stripped up to 2½ hours' productive work from a detective's day. Police commanders said the new patrols had been described as a public relations operation at a meeting of managers last week. "It is purely an arse-covering exercise and the troops recognise it as such," one said. "It's still productive to one extent - it gives a perception of safety to the community, which is good." Commanders are required to submit a written account of the daily patrols. Those records could be used to counter public criticism following a major terrorist incident in Sydney. "The community will then be saying, 'this failed', 'this failed', 'this failed'," a senior officer said. "I'm working on the when, not if." His detectives understood the value of the exercise and were using the hour as productively as possible, he said. They did not have to change into uniform or wear fluorescent vests, but he expected them to patrol in pairs and identify themselves as police. "The response has been very positive," he said. Bob Waites, Assistant Police Commissioner and commander of the inner metropolitan region, said individual local area commands would decide how to deploy criminal investigators to gather intelligence and increase protection around critical infrastructure. "It's about making sure that we are alert and aware and confident that when [an incident] happens here we have some operations in place," Mr Waites said. [Non-text portions of this message have been removed] ------------------------ Yahoo! Groups Sponsor --------------------~--> <font face=arial size=-1><a href="http://us.ard.yahoo.com/SIG=12hi2lgif/M=362329.6886306.7839369.3040540/D=groups/S=1705323667:TM/Y=YAHOO/EXP=1122909974/A=2894321/R=0/SIG=11dvsfulr/*http://youthnoise.com/page.php?page_id=1992 ">Fair play? Video games influencing politics. Click and talk back!</a>.</font> --------------------------------------------------------------------~-> -------------------------- Want to discuss this topic? Head on over to our discussion list, [EMAIL PROTECTED] -------------------------- Brooks Isoldi, editor [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://www.intellnet.org Post message: osint@yahoogroups.com Subscribe: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Unsubscribe: [EMAIL PROTECTED] *** FAIR USE NOTICE. This message contains copyrighted material whose use has not been specifically authorized by the copyright owner. OSINT, as a part of The Intelligence Network, is making it available without profit to OSINT YahooGroups members who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information in their efforts to advance the understanding of intelligence and law enforcement organizations, their activities, methods, techniques, human rights, civil liberties, social justice and other intelligence related issues, for non-profit research and educational purposes only. We believe that this constitutes a 'fair use' of the copyrighted material as provided for in section 107 of the U.S. Copyright Law. If you wish to use this copyrighted material for purposes of your own that go beyond 'fair use,' you must obtain permission from the copyright owner. For more information go to: http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/17/107.shtml Yahoo! Groups Links <*> To visit your group on the web, go to: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/osint/ <*> To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] <*> Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to: http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/
