Copper Thieves Jeopardize US Infrastructure 578
coondoggie supplies an excerpt from Network World that might make you consider a lock for your pipes: "The FBI today ratcheted up the clamor to do something more substantive about the monumental growth of copper theft in the US. In a report issued today the FBI said the rising theft of the metal is threatening the critical infrastructure by targeting electrical substations, cellular towers, telephone land lines, railroads, water wells, construction sites, and vacant homes for lucrative profits. Copper thefts from these targets have increased since 2006; and they are currently disrupting the flow of electricity, telecommunications, transportation, water supply, heating, and security and emergency services, and present a risk to both public safety and national security." (A July, 2006 post on Ethan Zuckerman's blog gives an idea of how widespread cable theft has affected internet infrastructure, and basketmaking, in Africa.)
Special license... (Score:5, Interesting)
If you had to be an official 'something' or licensed...that would stop a lot of criminals I'd think?
Re:Special license... (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:Special license... (Score:5, Interesting)
If I go to a recycler here in Fresno with much more than half a bag they are going to ask me where I work or where I got the wire. They even call employers to ensure the employees have permission to sell the wire. They generally have quit taking wire from people with shopping carts...
We have lost in this area just "Fresno" around 14 miles of wire in a very short period of time. And to quantify this even further that is ONLY the wire ran by the state. This does not include city or county lighting losses. We've had the same intersections robbed 4-5 times. Yes we have police watching them but they can only do so much.
Now something else to consider. These idiots who are stealing this wire are taking it from energized signals. We have battery backups and LED lights in our signals however that means nothing when you can't get a signal from the backup to the light pole because the wire is gone. Now we have an extremely dangerous situation. A Dark Signal. No flashing red no lights. No streetlights depending on how much wire is gone. All we need is a fatality to hang some dumbass bum with a murder charge. Not only that the governing entity will probably get a lawsuit for not having a lit intersection. It's a BAD BAD THING(tm)
So to resolve this problem we now buy Aluminum wire. As anyone who has worked with aluminum wire can attest this is not really a good solution electrically. However Fiscally it does work as the thieves are at least less likely to continue cutting an intersection apart once they realize it's not copper.
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Right. And there is no way today you'll get a pawn shop to buy something that might be stolen.
Alternate Solution (Score:5, Interesting)
We need a law (Score:5, Funny)
I upgraded my copper plumbing and installed PVC everywhere I could. Then I asked my electrician to upgrade my copper wiring to PVC, and the bastard refused.
Them electricians are in league with the copper lobbies, I tall you. I hope they'll make a Federal law to mandate PVC wires!
Re:We need a law (Score:4, Interesting)
Funny thing is: There are actually plastics that are conductive. PVC is not one of them though. ;)
Re:We need a law (Score:4, Interesting)
Yup, that's correct. My cousin did her thesis on conductive polymers.
The most interesting applications would be batteries, but right now, the capacity/weight ratio of polymer batteries doesn't look very good compared to metal-based couples.
Aluminum wire. (Score:4, Informative)
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
I've got a house with aluminium wiring, so I've done tons of reading and research in determining if rewiring is really worth the cost.
The real problem with aluminium wiring is that when it went into place, they used the same gauge wire as the copper it replaced. Aluminium is softer, and will oxidise more readily than copper, but it is actually better suited for wiring provided that you upgrade the gauge appropriately.
Thermal expansion was a culprit only because the screw cap connectors were used in binding
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Aluminium is also almost universally accepted by recyclers, including/especially soda cans. Still, the production of Aluminium scales a bit better than copper - it's the most abundant metal in the earth, and the third most common element.
If we did something to make electricity even cheaper, it'd be even cheaper to produce and take over more tasks from copper.
Re:Special license... (Score:4, Insightful)
first off, i highly doubt that the average copper thief is going to have access to a metal foundry where they can melt their stolen copper. what's more likely to happen is that after they've collected a few hundred lbs of material they'll try to offload it to a scrap metal dealer immediately. professional thieves don't like to hold onto stolen property. and twenty-thousand-dollars worth of copper is going to be much harder to hide than twenty-thousand-dollars worth of gold or diamonds.
secondly, if law enforcement can use metallurgic analysis to determine the exact batch of bullets a particular round came from, then i'm sure they could apply the same techniques to other metals. so even if the copper thieves had an underground metal foundry to melt down the copper they stole, there'd still be evidence of where it came from. and it's got nothing to do with each atom having a fingerprint.
Re:Special license... (Score:4, Informative)
Research performed at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratories showed bullet lead analysis to be unreliable [findarticles.com]. Following this research, the FBI announced that it was no longer making use of the process [fbi.gov].
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
first copper is the easiest metal to melt.
Second there is normally no evidence. I knew a job where the electricans literally spent 9 hours installing 2000 pounds of copper wiring in pipe. Lock the job site and go home. by 6am the next morning the wire was gone, and the pipe had been cut into 24-48 foot pieces with the wires in them. the pipe was laying on the ground.
with sawzall and gloves they undid those work hours in less than an hour. A security camera across the street recorded an unidentifiable t
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
Easiest? And here I was thinking mercury or gallium were quite easy to melt. Perhaps they're not metal after all...
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
crooked scrap dealers aren't that big of a problem. Nobody that buys copper for remelting is interested in orders under dozens of tons.. that means the companies melting copper are paying in $10k+ checks which mandate federal reporting... which means they don't have to worry about tracking you because their bank will do it for them.
The problem is the local junk yards that have a hard time knowing who's contracting to remodel and who's stealing. Thieves are clever and will only take 2-3 loads to small junk
Re: (Score:2)
many places require a contractors license or business license but it's a matter of corruption and greed. Someone walks up to you with salvaged copper and claims they pulled it from a ware house on there property what will you do. Plus it's not hard to melt the copper down and sell it in block form.
Re: (Score:2)
They would just send it abroad of find someone who is willing to ingore the rules for a cut of the profits.
These kinds of crimes are very hard to stop. I don't know a good way to do it.
Re:Special license... (Score:5, Funny)
So if I replace the pipes in my house I need a license to recycle them?
Maybe if you needed a license to post on Slashdot, there would be less stupid comments.
Re:Special license... (Score:5, Funny)
fewer stupid comments
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Weird, quotes are only messed up in the preview and reply screens.
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
You're probably better off using <blockquote> instead. I've never had any trouble with it, and it's more semantically correct since it's a block-level element (<quote> is for short quotes and is supposed to be rendered inline).
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
Maybe there would be fewer comments that are less stupid... wait...
Re:Special license... (Score:4, Interesting)
...and while you're at it, let's just expand the idea to suggest you must bear the mark of the beast before you should be allowed to buy or sell anything.
Re:Special license... (Score:5, Interesting)
cooper theft (Score:5, Funny)
Better leave those barrel makers alone!
Re:Special license... (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Special license... (Score:4, Insightful)
While you're busy appealing to people's emotions, I'll do the same.
People may be good hearted, but perhaps, just perhaps... they are drug addicts, desperate for a fix and do not see the value of getting a job and working for money like the rest of society.
In my experience, the good people who are victims are NOT the ones robbing and vandalizing for money. The ones who are responsible for crime are the ones who couldn't give two shits about mugging a homeless guy for his change cup.
US Pennies Made of Zinc (Score:4, Informative)
Not really. Since 1982, US pennies have been 97.5% zinc, with a copper coating [wikipedia.org].
sodium (Score:3, Funny)
Re:Special license... (Score:4, Insightful)
I have a better idea, find a more productive way for these individuals to make money. Ripping up copper is hard, and often dangerous work that pays for shit. Considering that these people are willing to do hard work for shitty pay, lets give them a job installing copper instead of tearing it down.
Yes, there's some portion of society that's unemployable. Convicted criminals, drug addicts, etc. So what? If we don't provide them alternatives, they will do what they have to do to get by. This is a choice we have to make as a society. Do we lose more by providing jobs to the unreliable, or by allowing them to rob us blind?
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Except spending two hours stealing $200 worth of copper and driving it across town to the scrap dealer/fence means they're making well over 10x per hour what they'd make installing the same copper.
Re:Special license... (Score:5, Insightful)
Kinda hard to insinuate that a theft of materials for purely financial gain is somehow intended to strike fear into the hearts of the populace.
Or are you just following the knee-jerk reaction to label "anything sufficiently disliked" as "terrorism"?
Re:Special license... (Score:5, Insightful)
Theft of materials might not be terrorism, but destruction of infrastructures to get said materials should at least be labeled vandalism.
Re:Special license... (Score:4, Insightful)
destruction of infrastructures to get said materials should at least be labeled vandalism.
I think a more appropriate term might be sabotage.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Nah, that term is reserved for throwing clogs.
Re:Special license... (Score:4, Insightful)
Well, if we start labeling everything terrorism, maybe we'll get over our national obsession with it sooner and pols won't be able to manipulate us so easily by using that word.
Liberty Bell (Score:4, Funny)
The Liberty Bell has copper in it. This can only mean one thing:
They're stealing copper because they hate our freedoms!
In response, Duracell has introduced a product line called the "freedom top".
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Special license... (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Special license... (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Special license... (Score:5, Insightful)
Maybe it's time to consider copper theft an act of terrorism?
At least in the cases when infrastructure is threatened.
Maybe it's time to consider those who use current topics on the minds of the people to pass stupid laws and ruin the country "Traitors"!
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
ignore parent, some guy spamming a lame ebay auction, nothing to do with article.
Some Darwin awars ready and waiting (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Some Darwin awars ready and waiting (Score:4, Interesting)
Substation theft is very common. There are incidents of copper bus (thick copper bars) just being cut through and taken. The theives don't cut all of the buswork because that would alert someone when the power went out. The problem is that if you remove 1/4 or 1/3 of the copper, there is a good chance that the remaining copper will heat up and then fail. Copper thieves have shut off the power on more than one occassion to lots of people.
Knives and hacksaws are relativley common for substation thieves. Apparentley they think that their rubber soled shoes and rubber gloves can keep them safe against 115kV. Sometimes it does, but when it does not...it is ugly.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Knives and hacksaws are relativley common for substation thieves. Apparentley they think that their rubber soled shoes and rubber gloves can keep them safe against 115kV. Sometimes it does, but when it does not...it is ugly.
There's a simple way to deal with this. Up the voltage, and the problem becomes self-fixing. And it's not like those idiots can claim that nobody told them it was dangerous: high-voltage substations are well-signed already.
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Well-signed is an understatement. In Lima, Ohio, the power company has rented multiple billboards around town, to warn people not to steal copper from substations. "Cut copper, cut your life," they say, and look something like this [flickr.com].
Several have already received their Darwin Award.. (Score:3, Interesting)
Including this genius, who was trying to steal ground wires in an electrical substation.
WARNING:Don't view while eating--Gruesome images!
http://www.electricalknowledge.com/images/HiVoltageShock.pps [electricalknowledge.com]
Re:Some Darwin awars ready and waiting (Score:5, Interesting)
On many parts of a substation, insulation wouldn't matter.
A friend of mine is the chief engineer for an array of power plants in the area. Apparently he once found the exploded body of a guy who had opened up a 20,000V feeder and was using a screwdriver and a pair of pliers, both insulated. He was dead before the tools ever came into contact with the transformer coils.
I believe three limbs were broken off by the arc, one arm and both legs, all cauterized so that there was surprisingly little blood.
The copper thieves have been very successful though: in what he believes was an inside job, some people entered a mothballed plant through a tunnel from a nearby substation and took about $20,000 worth of copper from lines that came directly off of the generator. I believe there were tens of feet of this wire, about 1-2" in diameter, that they removed in chunks and transported out underground.
The worst case, however, was a bit more scary. At one point some copper thieves got into the same mothballed plant, found a locked door, turned on a forklift and rammed the door with the forklift until the forklift fell down some nearby stairs and got stuck. DHS then got interested in the plant since had the thief made it into this room, he would have been able to shut down power for the entire city of Pittsburgh (the plant was mothballed, but the substation controls in this room were active)! Now the plant's fitted with IR cameras and anyone who gets spotted is likely to be answering some questions courtesy of the DHS cowboys.
~Ben
Plumbing out of house stolen (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Plumbing out of house stolen (Score:5, Interesting)
Had some friends in a landscaping, odd jobs business where they were knocking down an old building and trying to save what was worth scraping for the owner to offset costs of a new building somewhat.
So they had some scrapers come by while they were knocking down a section of the building, who started picking up stuff from their scrap pile and throwing it on their truck. When they were asked what they thought they were doing (getting caught), they unloaded the stuff and had a laugh about it saying they'd just be back later.
So the guys knocking the place down parked their back-hoe across the only real entrance to the place and parked other machinery on top of the scrap piles. When they came in the next day, the windows were broken out of their equipment and someone had shit in the cabs of the equipment.
Guys are akin to organized crime in some areas, they work in little teams and do that kinda stuff if you stop them from taking what they think is theirs.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Hah. Here is how you solve that problem.
http://www.claytoncramer.com/gundefenseblog/labels/ME.html [claytoncramer.com]
12 gauge slugs to the tires and engine block of the truck will not only stop their thefts, but send a clear message to the criminals in the area to fuck off.
Re:Plumbing out of house stolen (Score:5, Insightful)
Not when copper prices fall through the floor thanks to the implosion of the construction boom. If there's no demand for the stuff, the price goes way down.
Don't Pay Cash (Score:5, Insightful)
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
actuality Vancover island Rogers internet lines where taken out 2 times because of this. Theafs got into a manhole and just grabbed wire. fiber line came to so Vancover island lost all internet from Rogers. 6 months later SAME exact thing happened. And yes there are redundant lines but that one spot is the OLNY place the lines are in the same place, crossing. Know the tech who got called out
Re:Don't Pay Cash (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Don't Pay Cash (Score:4, Funny)
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
provide your name & address and in 30 days the dealer mails you a cheque.
I'd go even further than that. Have the scrap dealers issue mail-in rebates instead. That way people would have to spend half an hour assembling forms and ID numbers to submit. Then they'd have to wait 8-10 weeks to get a "check" printed with a fuzzy carbon transfer on a piece of postcard. It would come from some 3rd-party fulfillment house in Arizona, and there's a 60% chance that it will never arrive. No junkie in the world would put up with that hassle.
Old News. (Score:5, Interesting)
As an anecdote, there was a construction site we were working on where the plumbers painted all the copper pipes black, to make them look like steel pipes, to thwart would-be thieves during construction where access to the building is very easy.
Re:Old News. (Score:5, Informative)
Yep. Copper prices have dropped considerably in the past few months:
http://www.metalprices.com/FreeSite/metals/cu/cu.asp [metalprices.com]
Fiber Optics... (Score:2)
...everywhere. On the chip level, even, like that prototype I saw a while back.
Muhuhahahahaha! And then, I, Electro-light-monster-villian, will finally complete my diabolical plan!
problem solved? (Score:5, Informative)
This is one problem I figured the current administration had fixed.
http://www.kitcometals.com/charts/copper_historical_large.html#6months [kitcometals.com]
Tank the housing market, and copper isn't needed, the price falls, not worth steeling.
But thieves are apparently slow learners.
High Voltage (Score:5, Funny)
Just charge up _all_ the copper to at least 50KV. Copper theft will become self-punishing. However, taking a shower will get quite risky.
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
I heard a story awhile back about a couple of copper thieves that got what they had coming. Seems these two where fresh off the boat from Somalia or some other 3rd world hell hole. They decided the best way to earn a living was to ply the same trade here as they did there.
So they slipped over a fence one night to steal some big ass copper bars. They where to stupid to notice the train tracks next door. The copper bars where feed lines to the subway 3rd rail. They say that when the bodies where colle
Tragic... (Score:5, Interesting)
When I was stationed in Balad, Iraq I volunteered at the base hospital. We mostly just helped unload the choppers and what not, sometimes walk around and chat with the patients. Balad was the biggest hospital in theatre so the worst cases eventually made their way there for stabilization before being sent to Germany or sent home (in the case of Iraqis).
Anyways, I must have seen one or two patients a week come in with severe electrical burns from trying to steal copper wire, most of the time it was kids.
So its not ALWAYS some idiot out to make a quick buck...people can just get desperate.
Re:Tragic... (Score:5, Insightful)
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
They had the opportunity and motive to learn that copper was something worthwhile to steal. Why did they not have the opportunity and motive to learn what electricity did? Surely they noticed that when the kid down the street got electrocuted, the electricity they used for things like cooking, TV, and hat have you went out.
You think these people don't know what electricity is, what it does, and where it comes from? Get real. What 5-year-old doesn't know what an electric shock feels like?
This is just stupid
aluminum (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:aluminum (Score:4, Insightful)
Anonymous Coward (Score:2, Informative)
The price of copper has tanked along with the rest of the world economy. It is now down to around $1.50/lb. The article would have been more timely 6 months ago.
http://www.metalprices.com/FreeSite/metals/cu/cu.asp
A fair exchange (Score:4, Funny)
The utter selfishness of what the thieves do is mind-boggling.
I'm not entirely against trading their haul of copper for a small quantity of lead.
capitalism at work (Score:5, Funny)
Hey, this is the free market at work! Why is everyone upset about this? If it wasn't for government regulation we wouldn't have this problem! And now our godless heathen communist government wants to arrest people for simply trying to put those goods back into production? How shameful -- these "criminals" are really the unsung heroes of these regulated markets.
.
.
warning: contains sarcasm.
Re:capitalism at work (Score:5, Insightful)
In fact, the basic premise of Capitalism is that if you have some resources, some capital, if you will (like, say, US dollars, or copper pipes) you get to keep them and invest them in something which will (hopefully) bring you something of value in the future (like, say, a small business, or stock of a big business, or the warmth/comfort/enjoyment of your home).
Been going on a long time. (Score:2, Interesting)
This cable was about 2 feet diameter and a couple of hundred metres long, and was installed with 2 or 3 meter tails sticking out at either end. Night after the cable was installed, they all came back and cut the tails about a meter below ground level, pulled the rest and made a VERY tidy sum sell
just went through it (Score:5, Interesting)
I just went through a process of buying a house. I limited myself to $50k cash total with the intent of doing most of the repairs myself. This limited me to HUD and foreclosures. One thing that was a common denominator of all houses listed by HUD was every piece of copper; AC unit, water heater, pipes, fixtures, and electric wires, were completely striped. I was amazed at the efficiency of many of the robberies. Only a few had holes punched randomly in the walls like someone searching for cable and pipes. The vast majority looked as if someone took the time to walk through the house with a metal detector and surgically removed everything. It made me wonder if someone did just watch for houses to hit the HUD list then rob them.
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Look at it this way: they saved you the trouble of "finding" all the problems in the plumbing, and you can replace all that copper with PEX.
2007 California Plumbing Code (CPC) (effective 1/1/08) allows the use of PEX for domestic water systems in the State of California on a case by Case basis only. (ref: 2007 CPC Table 6-4 Footnote 1; previously: 2001 CPC 604.1 #2).
No copper at my place (Score:3, Interesting)
I just moved into a brand new house last month I had built for me. The pipes in the wall aren't copper... they're PVC, with some kind of transparent rubber tubes connecting them to the fixtures.
Ignorant thieves ... (Score:4, Informative)
We need more incidents like these [edmontonsun.com].
The site was clearly labeled with electrical warning signs, yet the idiot still went ahead with attempting to steal the wiring. Long story short, he probably will pay a little more attention to signs...
you have sit on scrap dealers (Score:4, Insightful)
that's the choke point
you're not going to stop heroin junkies, you're not going to secure theft sites
scrap dealers need to be bound up in red tape, and then scrap dealers who skirt the ordinances must be dealt with harshly. you don't have to worry about international or interstate transport, as you are going to destroy your profit margin on what usually amounts to less than $100 for a lot of heavy metal, and you are not usually dealing with criminal masterminds here who would exert the effort. nor do they have the resources to melt it down themselves
the scrap dealer is the point at which illegal goods get turned into legal goods and profit. scrap dealers therefore are going to have to be tied up in laws and regulations in order to stop this trade, and watched like hawks. chain of custody regulations must be put in place: if you use a bunch of metal, you have to produce paperwork detaling where it came from
City lights (Score:4, Informative)
In Chandler, AZ park lights have had the wire removed for miles. The problem is that it cannot be stopped by law enforcement, which means it pretty much cannot be stopped at all.
Someone sees some wire, they take the wire and get cash. Nobody wants to infringe upon the rights of the scrap dealers, so accepting of wire from just about anyone is going to continue. We now have people that in order to buy their next HD TV are ripping out the wires to street lights, homes, and anywhere else that wire can be obtained.
It is an easy way to get cash with very limited risks.
bahaha! (Score:5, Funny)
..."currently disrupting the flow of electricity"
just remember.... (Score:5, Insightful)
As we're condemning these thieves for being fucking assholes, tearing down their own community's infrastructure for the scrap value, just remember that the only difference between them and the financial wizards and CEO's who brought us into our current crisis is a matter of scale.
Copper in homes. (Score:3, Interesting)
My father is in real estate and has seen an increasing number of homes gutted of their copper, particularly those acquired by banks which have been left vacant. And they really demolish the interiors these homes trying to get at any bit of copper. You can only imagine what that does to property values, but it also has opened up the potential for great investment opportunities.
And of course, the ridiculous thing is that for all the work they put into stripping the copper they don't earn all that much for it. They'd earn more taking a job at a fast food restaurant. But I suppose if they weren't so stupid they wouldn't be committing crime anyway. It's pathetic.
The next goldmine: catalytic converters (Score:3, Insightful)
What I really love are the jokers who cut or break the catalytic converters off of cars (most often SUVs or trucks, more clearance to work) in the hope of recovering the small amount of platinum they contain. Platinum is considerably more scarce than copper, and they keep finding new (ab)uses for it to make it even more scarce.
I guess you could call all this theft "pre-cycling"? *snicker*
Pakistan (Score:3, Interesting)
Just In Time! (Score:4, Informative)
Stealing radioactive stainless steel (Score:4, Interesting)
About ten years ago, Stanford used to have a small fenced yard on Stock Farm Road which contained some large stainless steel items, mostly large-diameter plumbing left over from physics experiments. A small radioactive trefoil was posted on the fence, and it had its own street light, but other than that, it wasn't protected.
I bicycled by this every day on my way to the Stanford barn (I kept a horse on campus at the time). One day I noticed that the fence had been cut and much of the metal was missing. So I stopped by Stanford's toxic waste incinerator ("environmental safety facility") nearby to report this, and was sent to the radiation safety officer. He immediately made some calls.
Stanford had to have people check all the scrapyards for miles around, but nothing seriously radioactive turned up. The steel had been there for years, and was down to about twice background, so it wasn't a serious hazard. It was from experiments at the old linear accelerator (not SLAC, the little one at Hansen Labs), and had picked up some induced radioactivity. You can't really make stainless all that radioactive. Stanford shipped out the remaining metal to some remote disposal site for burial.
Re: (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:3rd world nation (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:3rd world nation (Score:5, Insightful)
This is due to the difference in income status between the rich and the poor in the US. The rich need the valuable infrastructure. The poor just need to live.
Absolute rubbish. The US is far from the Paris depicted in "Les Miserables", where the poor have to steal to live. These people are doing it because they think it will put them on the fast track to make them rich. Having an LCD television or supporting a drug habit is not "needing to live".
To think I almost cried at the plight of the "poor" in America after reading your post. NOT. I live in the REAL 3rd world, and I see REAL poverty every day.
Re:3rd world nation (Score:5, Informative)
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
"US has now entered 3rd world nation status. Where individuals are so poor that ripping up and selling the vital infrastructure becomes a useful business."
Copper is easy to harvest and pays well when scrapped. Scrapping metal generally has been profitable in recent years, and that has everything to do with developing nations like China BUYING scrap as opposed to any US decline.
Aluminum gets less press but also pays well, often ten or twelve bucks per automobile wheel.
Re:I might buy your story in New Jersey (Score:5, Funny)
My dad worked at an RCA location in scenic Gibbsboro, New Jersey in the 70's. They made television transmitter antennas there, and decided to put up a chain link fence around the place. One weekend, the fence was stolen.
Yes, ladies and gentlemen, someone stole a security fence.
Tony Soprano bought his kids Nikes with that. Except, in my neck of the woods, the family was called "Forte."
Re:I might buy your story in New Jersey (Score:4, Funny)
I'll see your stolen security fence and raise you a stolen security camera. [dnalounge.com]
OK, so it was a general-use webcam, not MAINLY for security, but it did serve that function... even got 2 shots of the guy taking it. :-)
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
The fences aren't made from real iron? What are they made from?
Also, that's a perfect example of irony: your efforts to reduce loss form theft lead directly to increased loss from theft. Doncha think?
I learned this in high school: (Score:2, Offtopic)
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
Unicorn bones. Veeerrrry rare, Veeerrrrry expensive...
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Unsuprising (Score:5, Insightful)
What "fucked up" system are you talking about?
The one where money earns money faster than labor can. The one where a minimum wage worker can be fired for being 10 minutes late one day, but the CEO that drives his company into the ground gets millions of dollars in bonuses. The one that incarcerates a greater proportion of its population than any other country in the world. If you haven't noticed how fucked up America is, you simply haven't been paying attention.
Yes, people are responsible for their own actions. But they don't act in a vacuum. Nobody would choose to steal copper from a live power station if they had other alternatives. We can either give them alternatives, or we can watch this kind of criminal behavior continue. That's our choice as a society, and we're going to have to live with the consequences. Which would be least costly?
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
When legal, the drugs become a lot cheaper. Also when legal, drug use is less of a barrier to employment. It's really pretty simple.