The use of devices like ankle bracelets, popular in the U.S. legal system, could have prevented several recent terror attacks, saved millions of surveillance dollars, and might even have stopped the Saturday attack in London, said John F. Banzhaf, a George Washington University Law School professor.
“Requiring people who are already on a watch list, or are otherwise under suspicion as potential terrorists, to wear an ankle monitoring device permits law enforcement authorities to do what they cannot possibly do now – keep large numbers of suspects under effective surveillance,” said the public interest law educator Sunday.
“Raising the threat level from severe to critical, or trying to station thousands of additional law enforcement personnel around ever widening perimeters of an ever growing number of so-called soft targets, will probably not be as effective, and certainly will be much less efficient, than 24-hour surveillance of suspected terrorists by using proven GPS ankle monitors,” he said.
Germany already uses the GPS trackers on terror suspects and Norway is testing the idea out. President Trump has been urged to consider them too.
Banzhaf explained the benefits in an email:
Keeping even 1 person under 24-hour surveillance requires, at a minimum, 3 different 2-person teams, and even then a clever terrorist might well be able to slip out through an unwatched exit.
On the other hand, GPS ankle monitors permit one law enforcement official to monitor the locations of hundreds of suspected terrorists in real time around the clock.
Such systems can easily be programmed to signal the agent if any terrorist suspect departs from his usual normal travel routines, if he goes near a suspicious location such as an armory or airport, if he meets with other suspects likewise wearing an ankle monitor, etc.
Moreover, if a terrorist event should occur, authorities can have the computer determine, after the fact, if any suspects being monitored visited the site, met with anyone else involved, etc.
Paul Bedard, the Washington Examiner’s “Washington Secrets” columnist, can be contacted at [email protected]
