BACKGROUND:Gardaí will have a wide range of bugging equipment available for targeting drugs gangs, writes CONOR LALLY
THE NEW legislation published yesterday governing the covert surveillance of criminals will involve gardaí venturing into areas where they have not traditionally gone.
Not only will they be empowered to secretly break into houses and any other buildings, but they will also use state-of-the- art bugging devices that most Irish people will only have seen on television programmes like The Wire.
The covert surveillance of criminals by the Garda is nothing new. Physical surveillance has always been used and criminals have also been photographed going about their business. Gardaí have long tapped landline and mobile telephones.
Mobile phone records can be checked to establish the movements of suspects in the build-up to crimes and during their commission by studying the locations of telecommunications masts the suspects’ phones have been operating off during periods of interest.
The intelligence gathered by taking photographs and tapping telephones has only ever been used to aid a Garda investigation. It has never been presented as evidence in court.
Mobile phone records indicating the locations of suspects have been used as evidence. They have been vital in placing a suspect – or at least his or her phone – at a crime scene when they claim they were elsewhere.
Traffic between criminal associates has also been vital in proving numerous suspects before the courts on the same charge had been working closely during the time of the commission of a crime.
Under the new Criminal Justice Surveillance Bill, the monitoring of suspects goes further.
Gardaí can plant tiny audio and visual recorders in any location frequented by those gangland figures they are investigating. This includes any dwelling or other building, vehicles, vessels and aircraft.
The existing National Surveillance Unit will run the new bugging programmes. Garda Commissioner Fachtna Murphy yesterday said there was no need to create a new Garda unit.
The bugging devices can be hidden in any location, indoors or outdoors where they can record sound and image but are concealed from view. A wide variety of equipment is available.
Many companies specialising in small covert cameras have built full camera systems, including batteries, into Exit and Entry signs, smoke detectors and working sockets.
Pin-hole cameras can also be fitted to ornaments, picture frames, books and clocks.
Some of the miniature cameras come with their own infra-red light source, meaning they can record in dark conditions.
Other small surveillance cameras can be mounted on the shelf of a car’s rear window and record drug transactions and other activities on the street.
With most of the covert cameras now on the market, images can be beamed to laptops for live viewing, meaning officers close by can move in on criminals at vital times; either before they shoot somebody, flee a scene or destroy evidence.
The direction cameras point can be changed remotely meaning the widest area possible is covered at the target location.
Some of the cameras are so small they can be hidden in the clip that holds a pen on to a shirt pocket. Others can be placed in the buttonhole of a shirt. Most are available for as little as several hundred euro.
Devices that record audio only are even smaller and easier to conceal. Like the visual bugs, they broadcast live to receiver computers and can also be saved on hard drives and disks for evidential purposes.