Vancouver's cops have espoused vague, technologically ignorant objections to city-wide WiFi. They argue that the ability to communicate anonymously will help criminals (cough pay-phones cough) and that WiFi is all about people stealing each others' connectivity. It's like the Vancouver cops have never even considered the possibility that people might deliberately share their Internet connections with their friends and neighbors just to be neighborly.
Police are concerned that unrestricted wireless access would give criminals an advantage by making it more difficult to track them…
"In this particular project, we're not concerned about the project in itself. We will mitigate risks properly. In the general sense, however, we have concerns. You can go by coffee shops and even people's houses and piggyback on their wireless," he said.
(Thanks, Andrew!)
Update:
Wayan sez, "Its not only Vancouver cops who think WiFi = evil, so do FBI agents:"
Kevin R. West, a federal agent who oversees the computer crimes unit in North Carolina's State Bureau of Investigation: "Free wireless spots are everywhere, and it makes it easy for people . . . to sit there and do their nefarious acts. The fear is that if we talk about it, people will learn about it and say, 'I can go to a parking lot, and no one will catch me.' But we need to talk about it so that we can figure out how to solve it."
