Oakland Police Get Free Forensic Software to Analyze Occupy Videos
More on Cognitech from SF Chronicle:
February 6, 2012
A Pasadena forensic video enhancement software company has donated its technology to Oakland police to help in capturing the goings-on at Occupy Oakland demonstrations, the company announced in a statement.
At the request of Oakland law enforcement, Cognitech, Inc. officials said they bequeathed the Oakland Police Department the company’s Tri-Suite 11 software system. The software will help enhance and “deblur” the hours of footage police have of demonstrations, double video storage and capture accurate biometric measurements from video to provide police with any possible wrong-doer’s height and weight.
“It is our sincere hope that in donating our forensic video Tri-Suite software to the Oakland Police Department, we are helping to assist the entire community,” CEO Lenny Rudin said in a statement. “Pictures tell the truth and when enhancing these videos and photos forensically, unlawful acts will be seen and analyzed clearly and scientifically, no matter who committed them.”
Occupy Oakland protester Shon Kay, 30, said he thinks such technology won’t deter the movement at all — many protesters assumed that police were employing some form of forensic software already.
However, Kay said he thinks that knowing the police have such technology will just spread more fear and distrust.
“This kind of thing aids their attempt to portray the movement as criminal, by being able to single out the actions of certain individuals and use that as a way to frame everyone that was there,” he said.
“I wish that some private video analytics firm would give us that equipment so that we could analyze what the OPD is doing,” Kay continued. “I think we’d find a lot of criminal activity there.”
