In response to AW, it's very simple. Some animals are not only more equal, but more important than others. Gee, that redundantly repeats itself. Trivia file entry # 1: In the land of the brave, home of the Freeh, there are motion detectors in the basement. Nice. Squeak squeak. At 05:33 PM 3/31/01 -0800, Bill Stewart wrote:

Obviously this calls for wiretaps on Freeh's phones and email and hidden cameras in his house to prevent future occurrences....

From [risks] Risks Digest 21.28 ========================= Date: Thu, 8 Mar 2001 13:57:54 -0500 From: Graystreak Subject: Risks of self-induced false alarms

http://washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A38625-2001Mar7.html

FBI Director Louis J. Freeh said he and his wife had been baffled by a series of false alarms from the security system in their Great Falls area home. Fairfax County police responded each time, but no suspects had been nabbed.

It seems that two of his six sons, then ages 5 and 4, had been amusing themselves by making their 2-year-old brother run in circles in the basement to set off the motion detector. "They would sit and watch for the police to come," Freeh said.

[AW notes: no discussion of why the motion detector was on in the basement while the children were home, nor why the police didn't adopt a "call before responding" policy after some number of false alarms.]

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Declan McCullagh wrote:

My home has a security system. I wonder what would happen if I let, say, young relatives stay here and they triggered, say, five false alarms.

Most likely outcome: A severe talking-to by the local constabulary, and many fines. Not, oh gosh, and back-slapping among comrade LErs.

Like you said, more equal than others.

It would be interesting to read up on the laws re: false alarms of Fairfax County.

-Declan

The usual arrangement is that some jurisdictions will allow one free false alarm per specified time period and then start charging. The costs typically range from $25-50 on average. My home system doesn't ring into the police as I consider that akin to inviting vampires into your home. My system rings my pager when an intrusion is detected plus I have 24-7 IR video surveillance on my exterior and a couple choice locations interior. Regards, Matt- ************************************************************************** Subscribe to Freematt's Alerts: Pro-Individual Rights Issues Send a blank message to: freematt@coil.com with the words subscribe FA on the subject line. List is private and moderated (7-30 messages per week) Matthew Gaylor, 2175 Bayfield Drive, Columbus, OH 43229 (614) 313-5722 ICQ: 106212065 Archived at http://groups.yahoo.com/group/fa/ **************************************************************************