The LAPD’s little known high-tech underground “war room”
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By Madison Ruppert Editor of End the Lie [caption id="attachment_37508" align="alignleft" width="300" caption="Inside of RACR (Photo credit: Jupiter Systems)"] [/caption] Four stories underground the Los Angeles Civic Heart in a functioning bomb shelter, the Los Angeles Police Department’s Real-time Analysis Critical Response (RACR) heart was born amidst the fear and confusion which followed the attacks on September 11, 2001. According to local CBS affiliate KCAL , the idea commenced at a grass roots level with rudimentary technology and has now grown into a heart where police monitor live feeds of traffic and metropolis cameras, counter-terrorism information and real-time crime mapping with “eyes all over the metropolis.” This surveillance heart has reportedly become a type for police departments around the country, which is comprehensible seeing as police departments seem to love to jump on the bandwagon and take up the latest trend like transforming old armored trucks into cell surveillance platforms . KCAL was given an exclusive tour of RACR from Chief Charlie Beck – an opportunity which is obviously never afforded to alternative reports retailers given the coverage might be a bit more accurate and thus a little less flattering. Beck exhibited the typical fearmongering tactics used by regulation enforcement when making an attempt to justify their massive expenditures. “We are targets on our own soil,” Beck said. “We have to be ready.” Why is Beck not more worried about Angelinos being ready for car accidents? After all, statistically speaking you’re much more likely to get killed in a car accident than a terrorist incident. My regular readers are probably tired of hearing this, but I think it is always important to point out that there are countless everyday situations and items which pose a much greater danger to our lives than terrorism. Of course, the government and regulation enforcement choose to dismiss this as it would set the astounding amounts of taxpayer dollars poured into counter-terrorism and homeland security in jeopardy. “This is a system that cuts through the red tape, that gets information to the people that need it,” claims Beck said, incorporating that it is “the brains of the department, twenty-four/seven.” Captain Sean Malinowski, the Commanding Officer at RACR, utilized some fearmongering as well in order to justify the program and ensure his job security. “If we didn’t have that we would be operating blind,” Malinowski claimed. “Essentially we’re always activated here.” “We have some real-time tools that help us analyze crime as it’s occurring,” claims Malinowski. “And then we feed that information out to the geographic areas and to patrol divisions.” They claim that RACR is “a critical crime-fighting tool at the heart of every high profile incident in the Metropolis of Los Angeles.” The police boast about using it in visits from the Royals, President Obama and the crackdown on Occupy Los Angeles along with a string of arsons in Hollywood. Apparently, Malinowski admitted that in addition to video cameras owned by the metropolis, the police also monitor outside streams like those provided by protesters at Occupy Los Angeles. This suggests that they also integrate so-called “open resource intelligence” or sources of information which are publicly available. This could very well mean that like so many other agencies they are utilizing social networks and other community retailers in order to monitor action and tendencies. Actually, I would be surprised if that wasn’t part of their monitoring efforts. RACR is being touted as a blueprint for communities around the country since at the time of its development “there was no template to look at” and “very little technology” according to LAPD Commander Blake Chow. If historical precedent is any indicator, I think it is safe to say that many police departments will build a facility similar to RACR, if they haven’t already.