> And perhaps it should... if average people have the technology now, how long has it been in the hands of police departments, newspapers, militaries, and intelligence agencies?

To be honest with you, when I was younger I bought into this.

Nowadays....it kinda seems like with the open source community, consumers are getting stuff first. Not always, of course, but often enough.

And police departments are one category that I can be quite certain are lagging behind, they are definitely not getting stuff before consumers have it.