"Telltale Heart Implant" Gets Guy An Arson Conviction

Investigators used data from a man''s pacemaker to help
convict him of setting this arson fire at his home. 

Seems like everything is watching us nowadays.

Security cameras are everywhere, and all kinds of devices are telling somebody, somewhere what we're doing and what we're thinking.

Here's a new example that has me torn on whether it'singenious or creepy.

Police in Middletown, Ohio used data from an electronic heart device that had been implanted in Ross Compton, 59, to help convict him of arson and insurance fraud, says NetworkWorld.com

It all started with a fire that caused $400,000 in damage to his house and its contents

Authorities had already gotten very suspicious of Compton before they got the data. The fire at his house was clearly arson, as investigators noticed the fire had started in several spots on the exterior of the home.

Police said Compton's stories of what happened the day of the fire were inconsistent, The 911 call he made to report the fire seemed weird, too.

In the 911 call, "an out-of-breath Compton claimed he had 'grabbed a bunch of stuff, threw it out the window.'  He claimed to have packed his suitcases, broken the glass out of a bedroom window with his walking stick, and tossed the suitcases outside," says NetworkWorld.com

Here's where the medical device data comes in. Police obtained a search warrant to look at the data from Compton's pacemaker. Authorities wanted to know "Compton's heart rate, pacer demand ad cardiac rhythms before, during and after the fire."

Court documents said, "A cardiologist who reviewed the data determined 'it is highly improbable  Mr. Compton would have been able to collect, pack and remove the number of items from the house, exit his bedroom window and carry numerous large and heavy items to the front of his residence during the short time period he has indicated due to his medical conditions."

This piece of evidence was among the factors that helped lead to Compton's conviction.

It's still a more than a little spooky, though that authorities are using data from computerized systems to investigate crime. For instance, cars now have data recorders that can be used to determine who was at fault in a crash.

What I worry about is, can people be framed and/or falsely convicted using computer data? It seems easy to hack into data and alter it, and I'm guessing many people might not be able to determine if evidence was falsified or altered through hacking.

We already had a case in Vermont where a school teacher got in big trouble for possessing child porn. 

The teacher had visited a web site with malware that placed child porn on his computer. He didn't know it was there, but investigators found it.

Charges against the teacher were eventually dropped because the guy never willingly looked up child porn and never wanted to see it,  but by then he'd been fired from his job and his reputation was in shambles.

I wonder how often this kind of thing happens?

I guess like anything that involves computers, investigators use data as a tool. Like any tool, it can be used for good or for bad. The only problem is computer data can be good or bad writ large.  Computer data can either cause great good or great harm.

Strange Sound Spooks Oregon Town

Forest Grove, Oregon has been experiencing weird noises,
and nobody knows where they're coming from. 

To me, there's almost nothing worse than hearing a strange sound in the middle of the night, or anytime for that matter, and can't figure out from where it's coming.  

It gets even spookier when nobody else can figure it out, too.

Which makes me glad I don't live in Forest Grove, Oregon, which is suburb of Portland.

It's a sharp, high pitched noise that's been heard in the town off and on for weeks now. When it goes off is random, and lasts anywhere from a few seconds to several minutes.

Gas lines in the area are buried underground, and it's not likely to be that. Plus the gas company has been looking for leaks since the noise started.

It sounds a bit like bad brakes on something like a logging truck struggling to slow down going down a hill, but there's no steep hills nearby. Or it could be a train, but the only tracks in the area are ones that are rarely used and dead end in downtown Forest Grove.

A random, note. I played a clip of the noise from this link to television station KATU in Portland, Oregon, and it drove oe of my dogs nuts. Jackson started barking like crazy. All other sounds this morning have elicit little notice from Jackson.

A sound engineer said high pitched noises like this one don't travel as far as low rumbling ones, so the source of the noise has to be relatively close to the people hearing it.

Audio expert Tobin Cooley told KATU that he doesn't know what the sound is.

"'It sounds like some sort of pressurized gas or air through a fitting or valve or something,' Cooley said. 'It's not steady state and you can't predict when it's going to happen. Those are all interesting sound features.'"

Unlike what a few people are saying, I really doubt this is a UFO or secret government plot.

But everyone would love to know what's going on.

This news report gives you another example of what the sound is like:

The White Guy Or Guys Who Harassed Native American Kids In South Dakota Not So Smug Now

Native American kids were recently verbally abused
and had beer sprayed at them by idiots in a skybox at
this Rapid City hockey game recently. Police
are hunting the idiots down now.  

It must be wonderful to be a smug white drunk guy.

You're on top of the world, aren't you? You're better than everybody else, aren't you?

Especially those Native American kids you see below you, from your perch in the skybox as you watch a hockey game in a Rapid City, South Dakota arena.

What are those awful Native American kids doing here, anyway, you wonder. They don't belong here. This is only for white people. Native American kids show stay on the reservation.

So you tell them, through your drunken beer addled brain. "Go back to the reservation," you yell. 

You see the kids and their chaperones are getting visibly upset. Good, you think. They don't deserve to have a nice evening out at a hockey game. That's only for white people, isn't it? Especially white men like yourself.

Thank goodness there's plenty of beer. The beer distributor Eagle Sales of the Black Hills owns this skybox. This is good. There's so much beer you can pour some of it on those awful Native American kids down below and keep yelling at them to go back to the reservation.

Finally, they do. They all get up and leave. And they're upset. Good. Only white people like you deserve to have fun, don't you?  The Native American kids going back to the reservation. Where they can live in poverty like they're supposed to.

Us white guys are kings. They're our slaves. And you don't want to hear they were here before you were, huh? You're the big He-man conquerer, aren't you, the guy pouring beer on innocent kids and heaping abuse on them.

Oh, look at that. Tribal leaders, and the parents of the kids you yelled at and poured beer on during the hockey game demand a meeting, and justice, with Rapid City city leaders.

The leaders grant the meeting. Probably just to humor them and for PR, you think. The meeting last for three hours. Why did the white city leaders of Rapid City waste so much time on these stupid Native Americans, you think.

Afterwards, Rapid City's police chief emerges from the meeting. He looks pissed. He's a white guy, so you probably think he's pissed at those stupid Native Americans for wasting so much of his time when he could be drinking beer at a hockey game. And tossing some of it on these stupid Native Americans.

The police chief, Karl Jegeris is pissed alright. At YOU, white guy or guys who tortured these kids at the hockey game.

Jegeris has this to say:

"We're going to be looking at assault. We're going to look at the hate crimes statutes. We will look at the child abuse statutes. And we, will look at any other relevant statutes," he says.

Yes, the police chief is looking for you, stupid white guy or guys with the beer, so he can charge you with child abuse, or assault, or a hate crime.

You wonder what the world has come to. Charging you with a crime for being a good 'ol American, the place that is the land exclusively for white people, especially ignorant white men like you.

You find out the Native American kids were at the  hockey game in the first place because they were being rewarded for studying hard. Behaving. Trying to get ahead in this world.

What right to they have to study, to get ahead? They'll take jobs away from dumb white men like you. Because you're too stupid to hold down a job, at least compared to these bright Native American kids.

That's why you hate them so much, isn't it?  Deep down inside, you know they have a lot more going for them than you. So you do anything to keep them down, to demoralize them, to make them want to give up.

It seemed to work at first, didn't it? The parents of the Native American kids were on TV, tearfully explaining how upsetting this was for the kids.

But now others in the community are reaching out to these Native American kids. Many of these community members are white, and are being nice to these kids. You probably think these nice white people are traitors, being nice to the Native American kids who you think belong in abject poverty on the reservation.

Even the guy who owns the skybox at the hockey arena is apologizing for your behavior. You begin to think he's some sort of traitor, too.

And now, white guy or guys, the police know who you are, and will come to arrest you, too. Your name will be all over the papers, and on line. You'll get an onslaught of hate messages.

You think you're being beaten down by political correctness. "What is this country coming to", you wonder. "Why am I suddenly the victim?", you wonder. I'm supposed to be on top. I'm a white guy, you think.

Well, actually there are a lot of white guys and gals on top. The ones that won't beat others down because of racism, like yours. You don't think you are a bigot, but most other people think you are.

And you really are. The rest of us can't wait to see you arrested, to see who you are, to see how you react the world, which was once the way you want it to be, is changing.

Have another beer. You'll need it. Because they don't serve beer in jail.