Don't look now, but camera is watching

Salt Lake Tribune ^ | 2004-08-13 | Bob Mims

[MizSterious]

Don't look now, but camera is watching

Privacy: The video eye is almost everywhere these days, but the view isn't like they portray on crime shows
By Bob Mims
The Salt Lake Tribune

Salt Lake Tribune

2004-08-13 00:25:49.959

On a plane, train or bus, strolling a mall or park, using an ATM, riding an elevator, pumping gas, feeding coins into a tollbooth, in class or even your doctor's examining room - someone could be watching.

    Are you a store clerk? Your cash register may be the star attraction of a security cam. So may be the hallways at your apartment, the crowd at a ballgame, your parking lot, college campus, hospital - or local convenience store.

    By now, almost everyone has seen images of fidgety accused killer Mark Hacking buying smokes, allegedly after shooting his wife, Lori.

    Seeing that clip on television, you may have asked, "Why does he keep looking at his hands and fingers? Why, on 'CSI: Crime Scene Investigation,' they'd just zoom in, do some computer magic to turn those blurs into a clear picture!"

    "Shows like 'CSI' raise the bar on reality," says Mike Hepworth, a video recovery expert with the Utah State Crime Laboratory. "In the case of video forensics, they have more than raised the bar - they've hung up a sky hook."

    Hepworth would not answer any questions about the Hacking tape, nor even confirm whether the lab is working on it. But in general terms, he did say that most video surveillance units still record to videotape, which suffers in quality from slow-capture settings and poor maintenance.

    "Most are recording six to eight hours of video on a tape, at slower speeds and thus lower resolutions - and they may have been recorded over several times on units recording 24 hours a day with dirty [recording] heads and old electronics," he says with a sigh.

   In these real world conditions, Hepworth and his colleagues take painstaking hours to gain even marginal improvements.

    First, Hepworth digitizes videotape, capturing it as it plays into a computer. He then tries to improve that copy with sophisticated software.

   If the lighting is poor or the target image far away, no amount of zooming will increase the data available. Tricks involving luminescence settings (contrasts and shadows) might help. If a target image is stationary long enough, data from multiple frames - each slightly different in pixels captured - can be "frame averaged" to produce a clearer image.

    "We might be able to pull up a license plate number or name of a school on a jersey, but if the object is moving, that won't work as well," Hepworth said.

    Upgrading surveillance systems from analog videotape to digital recordings could result in much clearer images - but in reality, thrifty executives throw away that potential.

    "Since high resolution takes up a lot of space on a hard drive, they will typically set the [frame] capture rates lower, and resolution is then lost," Hepworth said. "Camera technology is getting better, though . . . It just all comes down to how the operator uses it."

    George Gyllenskog, president of Salt Lake City's Eyewitness Security Systems, makes a living installing video surveillance units.

    "With the new digital technology there is better clarity, and once you convert those images, you can do all the fun things computers allow," he says. "There is software than can enhance an image's resolution, but not to the extent they go on TV."

    But, Gyllenskog says, the video surveillance industry is steadily growing.
    There are no authoritative national numbers on public and private security cameras in operation, though these unobtrusive sentinels are widespread.

    The Electronic Privacy Information Center (EPIC) notes that its recent study just of a three-block area around the National Mall in Washington, D.C., identified hundreds of cameras.

    Another recent report identified nearly 2,400 cameras in Manhattan, while a Carnegie Mellon University study estimates more than 10,000 Internet-linked cameras watching public places in the U.S.

    Add to that the unknown number of privately installed systems watching over commercial property, and any resident of a large city can count on being captured by a camera multiple times in a given day, says Cedric Laurent, policy counsel for EPIC.

    "There is no law that regulates exactly how or under what conditions you can place a camera in privately owned spaces," he notes. "If a company wants to put video cameras within its premises [barring locker rooms and restrooms], there is nothing preventing them."

    EPIC focuses its watchdog energies on law enforcement and governmental camera use, calling for strict rules - backed by law - governing how long images can be archived, who has access to the recordings and how they can be used in investigations.

    Nonetheless, Laurent sees the technology's spread as likely unstoppable.

    That is a trend the American Civil Liberties Union is watching carefully, says Margaret Plane, the group's Salt Lake City staff attorney.

    "This technology has evolved so quickly that we could realize too late the pervasiveness of these cameras in public places," Plane adds. "There is a lack of constraint on private cameras, too."

    Gyllenskog, a leading provider of such security systems in Utah, acknowledges people have the right to be concerned about "a Big Brother issue" - but sees loss of some privacy inevitable in a time of terror.

    "It's definitely a trade-off, and very debatable," he allows. "But there are going to be people offended by being watched, whatever the circumstances. You can sit on a bus and make eye contact with some people, and they will be offended."


    bmims@sltrib.com

[MizSterious]

Lori Hacking pinglist--if you want on or off, let me know via freepmail. Here is the latest, and gives more details on the statement given today--

---

Mark Hacking's Parents Visit Him and Ask Forgiveness For the Family

LAST UPDATE: 8/13/2004 10:58:37 AM

Mark Hacking, accused of killing his sleeping wife and dumping her body in a trash bin, has been grieving and praying, his parents said after visiting him Thursday night.

Douglas and Janet Hacking visited him at the Salt Lake County Jail on the first day he was allowed visitors since his arrest last week.

Her voice breaking, Janet Hacking told reporters outside the jail that they pray for Lori Hacking and her family, "and hope that people will forgive us and pray for us."

Police and cadaver dogs returned to the county landfill Thursday night to resume the search for Lori Hacking's body.

An area of the landfill where the body is believed to have been emptied from a garbage truck has been searched on and off since two days after Mark Hacking reported Lori missing on July 19. The searching is being done at night for the benefit of the cadaver dogs, who are better able to differentiate among the smells when it is cooler. The dogs are under stress from the heat and all of the smells. The searches go on for a few nights, and then the dogs are given a few nights off.

Hacking is charged with first-degree felony murder, punishable by five years to life in prison, and with three counts of three counts of obstructing justice, which carries a maximum penalty of one to 15 years in prison. The obstruction charges relate to his alleged disposal of the body, the rifle he allegedly used to shoot her and the mattress where she had been sleeping. It is believed he disposed of the evidence in three different trash containers. The actual time served in Utah's indeterminate sentences is determined by the state's parole board.

Hacking, 28, had claimed his wife went jogging and never showed up for work.

But police suspected him from the start and had an early tip that Lori's body had been taken to the landfill. Meanwhile, thousands of people searched for the 27-year-old woman until the families said Mark had provided information that made the search unnecessary.

It was learned later that Mark had been confronted by his two brothers and he allegedly told them that he and Lori had argued, she had gone to bed, he "came across" his .22 caliber rifle and he shot her.

The couple had been preparing to move to North Carolina where he claimed to have been admitted to medical school. Authorities believe his wife had learned that he had never even applied to the school and it is now known that he had not even graduated from college, contrary to his claims.

The night after Hacking reported Lori missing, he was found naked outside a hotel and was taken to a psychiatric ward, where he remained until he was taken to jail.

His attorney, Gil Athay, has said that "mental illness, mental deficiency certainly will be an issue in this case," including the possibility that Hacking may have suffered organic damage when he fell from a roof several years ago.

Janet Hacking said Thursday night she has spent a lot of time thinking of Mark as "a sweet, little boy," of the promise and the good things, "and that I still have faith in him that he will find his way back."

Source

[MizSterious]

Catherine Crier just now had a guy on who says, contrary to all we've heard, that neighbors heard plenty--fighting, yelling, and so on--that night. I think he is from the National Enquirer, so take that for what it's worth. However, if she found out, it would make sense that she might yell at him!

[Bonaparte]

"Mark Hacking... has been grieving and praying..."

Grieving that he got caught and praying that God will let him get away with murder.

If Hacking wants to get right with God, it's simple: Enter a guilty plea, make a full confession and throw himself on the mercy of the court. And if he knew that Lori was pregnant, he will be truthful about that as well, even though he can then be given the death penalty. Instead, he's going the not-guilty-by-reason-of-insanity route, putting the families through more trauma and the tax-payers through more expense.

[MizSterious]

Yes, those look like Scott Peterson tears, not anything at all genuine.

[SunnySide]

"Catherine Crier just now had a guy on who says, contrary to all we've heard, that neighbors heard plenty--fighting, yelling, and so on--that night. I think he is from the National Enquirer, so take that for what it's worth. However, if she found out, it would make sense that she might yell at him!"

Different people react differently. Personally if my husband admitted to a secret double life I would be in too much shock to yell at first. It would probably take a day or two for it to really sink in before I got to the angry phase then I would be afraid I might come out swinging instead of just yelling. I despise people like Scott Peterson, Mark Hacking and most of all dope peddlers.

God Bless the spirit of Lori and her surviving family.
May he grant them the strength to endure what lay ahead.

[the Deejay]

hope that people will forgive us and pray for us."

No one has to "forgive" the Hackings for anything. Other than having a son that turned out to be a professional liar and murderer. (true, it could happen to anyone of us as well.)

Mark made his own life and his fate was strickly in his hands

[the Deejay]

I've been following the Scott Peterson case all week, since Amber appeared on Tuesday for testimony.

After listening to the first tape, I became convinced he's guilty and not innocent. Until those tapes, I really couldn't get a good handle on the trial/evidence. When I can't watch and follow a trial daily, it's too difficult to make a grasp all that's being testified to.

I'm thinking as I'm listening to Scott wooing Amber, 'Laci's not been found dead or alive and Scott's totally disconnected from Laci. As if he doesn't know her.'

[spectre]

Well said concerning the Hackings.

I heard Mark's Mother and it sounds like they have accepted the situation, and won't fight the charges. It just goes to show these horrible things can happen in the best of families. They are truly heartbroken.

As for Scott. What struck me odd about the conversations revealed today, was he kept referring to Connor as "HER baby".

I don't buy the BS that he even thought for a second she was pregnant by another man. What an absolute insult to her memory.

sw

[the Deejay]

Lori & Mark's neighbors probably did hear fighting, and yelling on Friday & Saturday as they stated.

It makes since, because on Friday is when Lori talked to the college in NC and then went home early.

A neighbor that lives below M & L, said she came home about 1:30 A.M. on Monday. She came close to running into Mark. Was he not at the store about that time?

[the Deejay]

Scott never has wanted a child of his own.

Why then, did he NOT have a vasectomy BEFORE he ever met and married Laci? I HAVE heard of guys doing this. Some later had regrets, some didn't.

All I can think of is Scott is one major piece of work. Just when I thought I'd seen them ALL.....Along comes Scott......

My theory is, something blew up between Scott & Laci, Scott lost control and he caught Laci from behind and strangled her. That would account for "no blood found in the house." I think he loaded her body into his pickup and took it to the warehouse, placed it in the boat and made his plan to dump her body in the bay. I think he planned all night long how to do this. (Much like Mark Hacking planning the depositing of Lori's body.)

[Bonaparte]

Excellent find, MS! What clowns some of these reporters are. They flushed their careers down the toilet for a lousy $10K each.

[spectre]

I like your way of thinking. We've got to focus on how Scott killed Laci without ALL THAT BLOOD that is lacking at the home.

If she died at the house, there are a few ways he could have done it. He could have held his hand over her mouth, for all we know.

But you are on the right track. It's stupid to assume just because there is no blood evidence, it was the perfect crime. It wasn't. He put himself at the scene where she washed up. What are the odds of this being a coincidence? Absolutely none.

It wasn't the perfect crime because Scott was afraid someone saw him fishing, so he had to admitt that is where he was. Duh...

sw

[the Deejay]

Many police depts., FBI sent videos to NASA,
and they really do a good job of making
shoddy videos fairly clear for viewing.
I've seen the results and they tell a lot
more.
(Hope they do this with the video in this
case.)

[oceanperch]

I don't buy that Scott and Mark went their whole life without family seeing some oddities to suspect mental illness.

I also don't think that they were masters of hidding the mental illness either.

Mental illness is progressive and it outs itself at some point. Usually the in the twenties. Depends on how sick the person is.

I think it would have and will save lives if families would relize who is mentally disabled and educate themselves so that loved ones can live life to their best ability, if Scott has an inability to form lasting relationships then he should accept this and with the other talents he has flourish in those areas.

It is like putting all your energy in to finding cures for a legless man and never expanding what he can do with his arms. What is wrong with accepting one will never be able to for organic or other brain dysfunctioning marry. You don't force pedophiles to work with kids.

Life can be good even if you are not able to fall in the footsteps of those around you.

Hackings friends saw the bafoon in him. Clumsy but laughed at his own short comings yet he felt he needed to suceed in goals that were not attainable. Why didn't his family reconize this early on and let him know what ever he chose to do in life even if it was a sewer inspector they love and support him or tell him they can't deal with it and cut the ties.

I don't mean to inable a mental ill person but someone should clue them in that they need to live life according to their strenghts or their weaknessess will kill them.