You have to wonder how widespread this is.
The Sacramento (Calif.) Bee has found that a dozen-and-a-half city firefighters raked in thousands of dollars in incentives after they reported earning college degrees. But the degrees were purchased from online diploma mills. Even so, the firefighters were allowed to keep the bonuses.
When New York City discovered a similar problem, the city didn't just take the money back -- it fined the firefighters.
The
Bee reports:
Retired FBI agent Allen Ezell, a co-author of "Degree Mills: The
Billion-Dollar Industry That Has Sold Over a Million Fake Diplomas,"
also criticized the Fire Department's response to what he called fraud.
"Taxpayers'
money is knowingly allowed to be kept by people who presented phony
degrees to get raises?" he asked. "Is this the example the Fire
Department wants to set in the community?"
Ezell said diploma
mill degrees, which date to 1835 in the United States, have become a
growing problem for government agencies because of their easy
accessibility -- and proliferation -- on the Internet. He has testified
before House committees in Washington, D.C., about how incentives
offered by government agencies cause people to cut corners.
"When
you dangle more money in front of people if they get a piece of paper,
they're going to go out and get it and this is what's going to happen,"
Ezell said.
Learn more about diplomas mills here.
Here is a blog that follows stories of people busted for using fake diplomas.
Click here and generate your own degree from a fake school. My favorite is the Hartsfield-O'Hare University.
You also can also easily generate a fake transcript.
The Federal Trade Commission has this Web site to help employers spot fakes.
License Plate Recognition Gets a Boost
Last week, when a San Jose, Calif., cop found a missing child, the technology that made it happen got a big boost. It is called license plate recognition, and
The San Francisco Chronicle explains how it works:
The swift arrest of a San
Jose man in the abduction of a 12-year-old girl this week was aided by
an eye-opening gadget that can scan the license plates of a street full
of cars and instantly alert police to which vehicles have been reported
stolen.
It was a breakthrough moment for license plate recognition, a
technology that is spreading to law enforcement around the Bay Area --
and is prompting privacy concerns.
San Jose police Officer Max Boyer was on routine patrol Monday,
hours after the girl had been rammed with a stolen car and pulled
inside while she was walking with her sister in the Willow Glen
neighborhood. Police said her attacker had tried to sexually assault
her before she fought back and escaped barefoot.
As Boyer passed by parked cars, one of four cameras mounted on his
cruiser seized on a plate, compared its characters to a database of
stolen cars and triggered an alarm.
"Stolen car," a computer voice said. Boyer pulled up next to a white
Toyota sedan, which investigators soon concluded was the one that had
struck the girl.
Here is one vendor's Web site explaining how these cameras work. Tuscon, Ariz., police recently rolled out the technology, and they are using them in Maryland too.
The Chronicle story goes on to explain how city after city is adopting the technology:
San Jose is among more than a
dozen public agencies in the Bay Area that are using, or installing,
license plate readers. It is a trend that has emerged quietly -- in part
because authorities, reasoning that criminals might try to defeat their
systems, aren't eager to advertise that they have them.
Officers use the readers to look for vehicles that are stolen or
tied to crimes. Parking officers hunt for unpaid-ticket scofflaws and
slap boots on their wheels. In Petaluma, the devices are used to
enforce time limits for parking downtown.
Airport workers in San Jose use the readers to catch parking-lot
cheaters who claim they arrived much later than they actually did.
Oakland International Airport soon will start doing the same.
Motorcycle Paramedics
I keep seeing stories about cities trying out a new thing:
Putting first-responder paramedics on motorcycles.
Last year NPR produced a story about this idea, saying motorcycle paramedics can generate faster response times, especially in traffic-congested cities.
Everything You Need to Know About Buying a Flat Screen TV
I appreciated
this piece from
The Washington Post. Honestly, is there anything more confusing than buying a TV right now? Hi-def, digital, flat screen, LCD and plasma are all new words for the the uninitiated.
The 'Tats' They Regret
MSNBC has a fun, user-contributed multimedia package of tattoos the wearers wish they had not gotten. Some of the stories have to do with people who inscribed girlfriend's names on their body and then broke up. A few others were unsure what they wanted when they went in to get inked, and walked out with an ink blob.
Al's Morning Multimedia: The New Newsweek.com
I am digging Newsweek's new Web site design. I especially like the "lightbox" choice in the rotating media box at the top.
The Top Ten display is interesting for most e-mailed and most-viewed.
We are always looking for your great ideas. Send Al a few sentences and hot links.
Editor's Note: Al's Morning
Meeting is a compendium of ideas, edited story excerpts and other
materials from a variety of Web sites, as well as original concepts and
analysis. When the information comes directly from another source, it
will be attributed and a link will be provided whenever possible. The
column is fact-checked, but depends on the accuracy and integrity of
the original sources cited. Errors and inaccuracies found will be
corrected.
