Making Smart Decisions About Surveillance: A Guide for Communities

California communities are increasingly grappling with whether to deploy new surveillance technologies ranging from drones to license plate readers to facial recognition. This is understandable, since public safety budgets are tight, technology vendors promise the ability to do more with less, and federal agencies or industry sponsors may even offer funding. But surveillance can be both less effective and far more costly to local agencies and to the community at large than initially imagined, leaving communities saddled with long-term bills for surveillance that doesn\u27t end up making the community safer. Surveillance can also be easily misused, leading to the erosion of community trust, bad press, and even costly lawsuits. In the wake of the revelations about the National Security Agency’s rampant warrantless spying and the use of military equipment in Ferguson, Missouri to quell protests, communities are increasingly focused on the need for greater transparency, oversight, and accountability of surveillance and local policing. More than ever, people are aware of how billions of dollars in federal funding and equipment provided directly to law enforcement is circumventing normal democratic processes and preventing communities from thoroughly evaluating the costs and risks of surveillance. As a result, many community leaders and residents are no longer willing to heed local law enforcement’s call to “just trust us.” Instead, leaders and residents want to know when and why surveillance is being considered, what it is intended to do, and what it will really cost — both in dollars and in individual rights — before taking any steps to seek funding or acquire or deploy surveillance technology. They also want to craft robust rules to ensure proper use, oversight, and accountability if surveillance is used. Unfortunately, few resources exist to help communities make thoughtful decisions about surveillance. That’s where this document comes in. This first-of-its-kind guide provides step-by-step assistance to help communities ask and answer the right questions about surveillance. It includes case studies highlighting smart approaches and missteps to avoid. Because each community and each type of surveillance may present a different set of issues, there is no one-size-fits-all solution. Instead, this guide gives communities a flexible framework that policymakers, community members and law enforcement should use to properly evaluate a wide array of surveillance technologies and develop policies that provide transparency, oversight, and accountability. It also includes a Surveillance & Community Safety Ordinance that communities should adopt to ensure that the right process is followed every time

Hypotheses for the Origin of the Hypanis Fan-Shaped Deposit at the Edge of the Chryse Escarpment, Mars: Is it a Delta?

We investigated the origin of the fan-shaped deposit at the end of Hypanis Valles that has previously been proposed as an ExoMars, Mars 2020, and human mission candidate landing site, and found evidence that the landform is an ancient delta. Previous work suggests that the deposit originated from a time of fluvial activity both distinct from and prior to catastrophic outflow, and crater counting placed the deposit’s age at  ≥ 3.6 Ga. We found over 30 thin sedimentary strata in the proposed delta wall, and from our slope analysis conclude that the fluvial sequence is consistent with a lowering/retreating shoreline. We measured nearly horizontal bedding dip angles ranging from 0° to 2° over long stretches of cliff and bench exposures seen in HiRISE images and HiRISE stereo DTMs. From THEMIS night IR images we determined that the fan-shaped deposit has a low thermal inertia (150-240 Jm-2 K-1 s-1/2) and the surrounding darker-toned units correspond to thermal inertia values as high as 270-390 Jm-2 K-1 s-1/2. We interpret these findings to indicate that the fan-shaped deposit consists mostly of silt-sized and possibly finer grains, and that the extremely low grade and large lateral extent of these beds implies that the depositional environment was calm and relatively long-lived. We interpret the geomorphology and composition as incompatible with an alluvial fan or mudflow hypothesis. From our stratigraphic mapping we interpret the order of events which shaped the region. After the Chryse impact, sediment filled the basin, a confined lake or sea formed allowing a large delta to be deposited near its shoreline, the water level receded to the north, darker sedimentary/volcanic units covered the region and capped the light-toned deposit as hydro-volcanic eruptions shaped the interior of Lederberg crater, freeze/thaw cycles and desiccation induced local fracturing, and finally wrinkle ridges associated with rounded cones warped the landscape following trends in degraded crater rims and existing tectonic features. The ancient deltaic deposit we observe today was largely untouched by subsequent catastrophic outflows, and its surface has been only moderately reshaped by over 3 billion years of aeolian erosion

Habitability of the Phoenix landing site

Peer Reviewedhttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/95488/1/jgre2706.pd

Formation of an Hesperian-aged sedimentary basin containing phyllosilicates in Coprates Catena, Mars

The extensive light-toned deposits in canyons and troughs in Valles Marineris provide evidence of formation through water-related processes. As such, these deposits offer a window to past conditions on Mars. We study a small outcrop of light-toned deposits in a closed trough in Coprates Catena, a chain of collapse pits to the south-east of the main Valles Marineris system. A well-exposed sequence of deposits on the base of the north wall of the trough offers a 220 m section for geochemical and morphologic analysis. Using CRISM data we identify the presence of both phyllosilicates and sulfates and/or opaline silica in the light toned deposits, which vary in relative strength with elevation. We observe a trend in the dominant mineralogical signal, with Al phyllosilicates occurring near the base of the deposits, both below and above a band of Fe/Mg phyllosilicates, before a transition to more sulfate- or opaline silica-rich material near the top of the section. This trend likely reflects a change in the chemistry of the water in which the deposits formed. Using a HiRISE Digital Elevation Model, we find that the layers in the light-toned deposits on both sides of the trough dip gently towards the center of the trough, with a dip direction that aligns with the strike of the trough, suggesting that the light-toned deposits formed after the trough. Our general morphologic and mineralogical observations fit well with significant amounts of water in the trough. The deposits are too small to be dated using crater counting techniques, however, our crater analysis suggests that the plains in which the trough formed are probably Late Hesperian in age. If the chemistry of the light-toned deposits reflects the primary depositional mineralogy, then this and other small troughs in Coprates Catena might provide evidence of limited phyllosilicate formation in this region towards the end of the Hesperian era on Mars

Making Smart Decisions About Surveillance: A Guide for Communities

California communities are increasingly grappling with whether to deploy new surveillance technologies ranging from drones to license plate readers to facial recognition. This is understandable, since public safety budgets are tight, technology vendors promise the ability to do more with less, and federal agencies or industry sponsors may even offer funding. But surveillance can be both less effective and far more costly to local agencies and to the community at large than initially imagined, leaving communities saddled with long-term bills for surveillance that doesn\u27t end up making the community safer. Surveillance can also be easily misused, leading to the erosion of community trust, bad press, and even costly lawsuits. In the wake of the revelations about the National Security Agency’s rampant warrantless spying and the use of military equipment in Ferguson, Missouri to quell protests, communities are increasingly focused on the need for greater transparency, oversight, and accountability of surveillance and local policing. More than ever, people are aware of how billions of dollars in federal funding and equipment provided directly to law enforcement is circumventing normal democratic processes and preventing communities from thoroughly evaluating the costs and risks of surveillance. As a result, many community leaders and residents are no longer willing to heed local law enforcement’s call to “just trust us.” Instead, leaders and residents want to know when and why surveillance is being considered, what it is intended to do, and what it will really cost — both in dollars and in individual rights — before taking any steps to seek funding or acquire or deploy surveillance technology. They also want to craft robust rules to ensure proper use, oversight, and accountability if surveillance is used. Unfortunately, few resources exist to help communities make thoughtful decisions about surveillance. That’s where this document comes in. This first-of-its-kind guide provides step-by-step assistance to help communities ask and answer the right questions about surveillance. It includes case studies highlighting smart approaches and missteps to avoid. Because each community and each type of surveillance may present a different set of issues, there is no one-size-fits-all solution. Instead, this guide gives communities a flexible framework that policymakers, community members and law enforcement should use to properly evaluate a wide array of surveillance technologies and develop policies that provide transparency, oversight, and accountability. It also includes a Surveillance & Community Safety Ordinance that communities should adopt to ensure that the right process is followed every time