Correspondents' Correspondence

...The PBA is "very unhappy" about the "arbitrary restrictions" placed on the police, and New York's Chief of Detectives foresees the day when cops, believing that suspected criminals might get off on legal technicalities, will take matters into their own hands...

...And here in New York, Mario Biaggi, a former police lieutenant known for his bravery and his itchy trigger finger (he once fired three shots in Union Square at a man who had shop-lifted two pairs of pants), is a frontrunner in this year's mayoral race...

...Innocuously "technical" as the uses of remote sensing may seemthe study of soil erosion, climatic phenomena, geological formations, etc...

...Still, American spokesmen at the UN are insisting that remote sensing is in its infancy, that an "operational" as distinct from experimental system will not be feasible before the end of the decade, and that there will be ample time to work out the legal implications...

...Correspondents' Correspondence BRIEF TAKEOUTS OF MORE THAN PERSONAL INTEREST FROM LETTERS AND OTHER COMMUNICATIONS RECEIVED BY THE EDITOR Firing on the Finest New York where is Norman Rockwell's cop, he of the smiling Irish eyes and the ruddy complexion, hero to every freckled lad in town...

...I am warning these very influential people that crimes will not cease until policemen are once again given the authority to meet force with equal or superior force...

...The working group on remote sensing, like any body dealing with space matters, is of necessity dominated by the U.S...

...Chicago keeps reelecting a man who is quick to defend the worst offenses of his law-enforcement authorities, including the officially designated "police riot" of 1968...

...As for the rest of us, we will just have to dig in a little deeper, our Saturday night specials at our sides, and await the opening shot.calvin Fentress The UN in Space United Nations if the true vocation of the UN is to mediate the dawning awareness of our global interdependence, it does so with many a backward glance at the essentially 19th-century principles that still guide international relations...

...For their part, the developing countries seem resigned to the prospect of little more than crumbs from the rich men's tables...

...but the bugbear of state sovereignty will be forced to yield at little more ground to the global interests of mankind,1 and out world will be a slightly safer places...

...Commissioner Murphy has rejected the demand of the Patrolmen's Benevolent Association (PBA) that shotguns be issued to men on duty, but a majority of New York's 29,500 uniformed policemen reportedly now carry And sometimes use unauthorized guns of their own...

...In New York City lately, he is apt to be sprawled behind the bullet-splintered windshield of his patrol car...

...the political repercussions are potentially enormous...

...Already they have been successful in pushing the idea of restricting direct broadcasting from satellites, to the detriment of the principle of freedom of information...

...If a nation of urban armed camps run by cops of the shoot-first-ask-questions-later school is what the "Liberationists" are after, they may be well on their way to getting it...

...In the few years of its existence, the UN Outer Space Committee has created a body of brand new international law to regulate extraterrestrial affairs...

...And there's the rub...

...John Lindsay's oft-repeated pleas for effective gun controls go ignored while the city's vast arsenal of legal and illegal weapons grows...

...Garbage...

...Changes in land use, the disposition and extent of natural resources, the development, of infrastructure All will be an open book...

...Only the superpowers have the technology to gather and process the data, and it is naturally feared that in the absence of international supervision they may make private use of such information to the detriment of the "sensed country...

...Rightly or wrongly, developing countries feel that it would be practically impossible to protect their interests in the commercial free-for-all that might follow the publication of their national secrets...

...and the USSR...

...The Soviets, who have consistently posed as the- champioH of Third World interests in sucti matters as sovereignty over natural resources, are pressing for earW work on a treaty to ward off tbjS latest threat to their xenophobic secretiveness...

...Understandably, the cops on the streets are far from reassured by these measures...

...The greatest resentment, however, is coming from the industrialized nations that are within hailing distance of the technology and would like to see an effective challenge to the great-power monopoly in space...

...This and other implications of "remote sensing" of the earth were debated last month by a 23-member UN working group...

...Thus Sweden circulated a paper accusing the UN Secretarial of shying away from a truly multinational approach to remote sensing, and calling on the world organization to shoulder its responsibilities...

...The technology of remote sensing is irresistible to anyone who likes gadgetry, and there was much talk of hardware during the two week session...

...Our civilian controllers . . . fret about the possibility of innocent people being injured in the battle," says PBA President Robert McKier-nan, who heads the largest police union in the nation...

...They complain that their .38 caliber revolvers provide little self-protection against the more sophisticated weaponry of their assailants...

...Rather as if human beings were to be suddenly gifted with x-ray vision and become as transparent to-one another as goldfish bowls, so will nations, traditionally jealous of their privacy, henceforth lie naked under the scrutiny of their fellows...

...These people are notorious for their willingness to excuse the excesses of the Left...

...Many of these assaults plus several others Are believed to be the handiwork of something called the Black Liberation Army...

...Whether the Outer Space Commit* tee decides to go ahead now with the drafting of new international law in this area or chooses to wait !for the "state of the art" td develop further, sooner or later the great and small powers will have to grope their way toward international reg-ulation of remote sensing...

...For those who have access to the data, that is...

...To the have-nots, neither posture is reassuring, for the unrestricted dissemination of remote sensing data may be as potentially damaging as refusal to part with it at all...

...Korochenko...

...The tough questions are those posed by wholly new technology...

...Philadelphia's Mayor Frank Rizzo was elected on his reputation as a bully cop...

...a month ago, two cops on routine patrol were wounded when a black man opened fire as they waited for a light to change...

...the latter is notoriously secretive on the subject...

...State sovereignty over natu ral resources is an axiom of modem international law, but what is the status of information about these resources obtained by observation from satellites in space...

...In response to such outrages...

...During a recent 72-hour period, four New York patrolmen were ambushed and wounded...

...The United States took the lead in this field with the orbiting last July of its first "Earth Resources Technology Satellite" (erts...

...The former makes a point of giving its (nonmilitary) space applications the widest possible publicity...

...They mutter darkly about police states...

...passing f the buck back up the 'line to its parent body...

...As usually happens at the UNj the working group ended its session inconclusively...

...Apparently increasing numbers of city dwellers around the country are responding to rhetoric of this sort...

...Police Commissioner Patrick V. Murphy ordered backup escorts in unmarked cars to follow regular squad cars operating in high-crime areas...

...Lip Service will be paid ad nauseam to inalienable rights and the inadmissibility of this and that...

...New York is run by a powerful coalition of people to the left of center on the political spectrum," says McKiernan...

...Issues such as liability for damage caused by a space vehicle can be resolved relatively easily, through an extension of existing norms...

...Mayor Lindsay instituted a crash program to rush 3,150 recruits through the Police Academy...

...Over the last two years, 34 U.S...

...Thus they view remote sensing technology as yet another unfair advantage enjoyed by the superpowersAnd the handful of others who may be capable of launching space satellites in the years ahead...

...Though the actutal collection of remote sensing data will doubtlessly continue to be undertaken by only a few nation, the dissemination of the information is properly an international job...

...yards of reservations will be read into' the record...

...Officials, however, are not sure of its size or structure (if it has one...

...What most New York policemen are sure of is that their lives are in danger as never before, not only when pursuing suspected lawbreakers but also while performing the most innocuous jobs on their beats: Last year, two patrolmen were assassinated (shot first in the back, and then, already down, in the eyes and groin) after ticketing an illegally parked automobile...

...Difficulties arise, however, where space activities impinge on the earthly sphere...

...While the world community remains dead-locked over disarmament, say, or the Middle East, the space experts are quietly drafting blueprints for the 21st century...

...But in such a society it is doubtful that "revolutionary justice" will be all they bargained for...

...So the call is out for an escalation of New York's arms race A call that surely will be answered in kind by the self-styled revolutionaries...

...policemen have been killed by surprise attacks...

...Nowhere is the clash between the old myths and the new reality more striking than in outer space...