Subject: [NEXTEL-1] Pennies on dollars as spy gear sells

From: [email-masked]
Date: Thu, 04 Sep 2003 03:27:52 -0400

Pennies on dollars as spy gear sells
By Craig Boerner, [email-masked]
September 04, 2003

A local detective couldn’t believe his eyes when he saw what he
estimates was originally $15,000-$25,000 worth of Metro Police
surveillance equipment on the Metro Government eBid Nashville
Auction Site at www.nashville.gov.

TSCM Special Operations Group Inc. owner Mitch Davis sweated out
the bidding process until its close at 11:10 a.m. Wednesday and
immediately went to Metro’s Support Services Surplus Warehouse to
claim his prize for $82.50.

Warehouse Manager Kenneth Eads said he receives only items that
have no restrictions as far as selling them. Surveillance equipment,
for example, can be purchased at various locations around town
including the Spy Yard located in downtown’s historic Arcade.

Guns, on the other hand, are melted down rather than re-sold by the
government.

“Surveillance equipment and stuff like that you can buy at Radio
Shack. But we don’t normally get that kind of item, that was a rarity,”
Eads said.

Davis said he mainly bought the equipment to use as a prop when
giving lectures to corporate clients on protecting their business from
devices utilized to steal proprietary information.

“I run an investigation company here in Nashville and what we do is
deal with technical surveillance counter measures,” he said.

“When somebody has a business or an official wants to make sure
their phones are not tapped and there’s no transmitters in the
building, they would call us. We also do video surveillance at a higher
level than what’s available on the average market.”

Davis’ purchase included a self-contained video system he says was
probably used for covert surveillance — two RCA cameras and a
Motorola alert monitor, both around 15 years old. It also came with a
telephone tapping system and microphones.

He doesn’t know yet what of the equipment actually works but said
the Halliburton case it was stored in is worth about $250 new.

“The equipment that is in here is usable equipment,
government-grade stuff,” Davis said. “It is still usable if everything still
works.”

“With new technology, it’s not the cat’s meow as far as surveillance
goes. But, for what I paid for it, I feel that it’s worth it because there
are connectors and headphones and things in here that we use in our
business.”

He speculated that police once used the equipment to obtain voice
recordings from both inside buildings and off the telephones to
investigate grouped criminal activity.

“This was probably used for maybe a stolen car ring or maybe a drug
distribution operation, or vice squad may have used it, there is no
telling,” he said.

“I was surprised to see it on the Web site because a lot of times
items like this are disposed of or donated to different museums like
telephone museums or maybe the International Spy Museum in
Washington, D.C.”

Eads said, since his warehouse began receiving items once sold at
police auctions, the variety has increased.

“We are getting jewelry that we didn’t get before, sporting goods,
comic books. It’s like a big yard sale,” he said.

Other curious Metro-owned items that have sold include a tub
grinder, which is a machine used to grind stumps.

Eads said the most off-the-wall police department item to be sold
thus far was a jacket covered in sequins that had “South Nashville”
airbrushed on the back.

http://www.nashvillecitypaper.com/index.cfm?section=9&screen=news&news_id=26264

------------------------ Yahoo! Groups Sponsor ---------------------~-->
Buy Ink Cartridges or Refill Kits for Your HP, Epson, Canon or Lexmark
Printer at Myinks.com. Free s/h on orders $50 or more to the US & Canada. http://www.c1tracking.com/l.asp?cid=5511
http://us.click.yahoo.com/l.m7sD/LIdGAA/qnsNAA/61FxlB/TM
---------------------------------------------------------------------~->

Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/