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NZ police alterted to Geocaching
Author: Gareth HalfacreePublished: 14th February 2008
The geocache, which it must be said does an excellent impression of a limpet mine.
In a post to his personal website yesterday Ben Gracewood told of his rather exciting hour-and-a-half with the New Zealand police after he was nabbed hunting for an urban cache. The maintainer of the cache apparently placed it by a hand-rail next to a building on Mayoral Drive which was bristling with CCTV cameras. The operators of said cameras called the fuzz when they saw someone fiddling with the package.
After the police had gingerly investigated the device and had been treated to a detailed primer on the hobby by Gracewood, they dispersed and issued a statement that shows that they weren't really listening. Calling what is essentially a waterproof container that has a pad of paper and some keyrings in it an “electronic package used by computer buffs that can be tracked electronically around the world,” doesn't show the greatest understanding, and the Auckland police manage to convey their sense of bewilderment (“This is what these guys do for fun?”) with the follow-on “The computer buffs use them as a form of entertainment.”
You can almost hear the raised eyebrows and 'air-quotes' embracing 'entertainment' as you read that sentence.
Now, this isn't exactly a reprise of the Mooninites débâcle, as no-one got arrested and no-one got sued. Additionally, as you can see from the included picture, the creator of the cache could perhaps have chosen a container that didn't look like a limpet mine. Most of the urban caches I've seen – I'm a Geocacher, so you may commence laughing now – are rather more subtle 35mm film canisters placed away from important buildings.
Still, this story does highlight that in the world of today it's always worth thinking about how your hobby would look to an outsider – especially if that outsider might be armed.
A sensible reaction from the NZ police, or just more paranoia? Have you ever gone Geocaching? Let us know via the forums.
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Comments (11)
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http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/staffordshire/7243299.stm
"you and your 'third dimension'. we have 5....thousand. thats right. don't question it."
> especially if that outsider might be armed
Er, no. This, as NZ and to some extent the US, is a free country. I will go where I please and do as I please within the law, and I will be unconcerned, within reason, as to others' reactions. The police are increasingly taking a code-napoleon attitude to this sort of thing - if we don't understand it, it's a crime - and have more than adequately proved in this example that they neither listen nor care to listen.
Again the terrorism mallet is being waved threateningly. If we begin (ha, as if we haven't!) to erode our civil liberties in exactly this way, they win.
NZ cops don't carry guns anyway, and it's their job, as far as I'm concerned, to check out anything suspicious. Better to be safe than sorry.
It a great way of getting people who woudn't ever go for a stroll off into the woods "Adventurehunting".
(This includes myself...
"lets go for a walk...meeh, lets take the car"
"lets go for a geocache...Wohoo! Geocache!)
And yes, I've spent time investigating every nook and crannie of a bridge (looking for a filmbox) that would look very suspicious to an outsider.
;-)
Xir