Re: [ARSCLIST] Help Purchasing a Microcassette

[Parker Dinkins <parker@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

on 3/25/06 6:59 PM US/Central, steven c at stevenc@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx wrote:

> Does this assume:
> 
> 1) Law Enforcement Agencies (real ones, not ones on TV shows) use
> microcassette recorders for wiretaps?

Not really, not in my experience. Most don't have top end equipment by any
means, nor at the other extreme, do they use microcassettes.

> 2) LEA's sneak into dens of criminality and hide microcassette
> recorders in heat vents, under beds and so on...and can then
> sneak in again to recover them?

This seems to be a corollary of Question #1, and again, not really.

> 3) Criminals thoughtfully record all their devious plans using
> microcassette recorders?

Forensic audio doesn't always deal with that type of criminal and their
devious plans. It sometimes includes housewives, husbands, or naïve
individuals who feel that they need to document a circumstance they find
themselves in, such as blackmail, threatened violence, child abuse, or any
of a number of less-than-glamorous circumstances. It's not Hollywood.

Maybe a husband or a wife has threatened to throw a baby in a marital
dispute.... the opposing individual typically lacks audio engineering
abilities, and he/she might go the local R. Shack to pick up a cheap device
to document the horror of the relationship. Far fetched? Not at all.

> Seems like either the LEA's or the criminals, or both, should
> be upgrading their hardware?

You take the criminals, the LEAs and even the civil cases as you find them,
and you do your very best to provide a service to fit their circumstances.

---
Parker Dinkins
MasterDigital Corporation
CD Mastering + Audio Restoration
http://masterdigital.com