Covert policing of this second type has greatly expanded over time a recent New York Times investigation estimated that there are thousands of undercover agents at the federal level alone. They conceal both their identity and purpose when they pretend to be mobsters or potential robbery victims. Police conceal their purpose when they try to convince a suspect to open his door by asking for help in locating a fictitious person.
![ruse definition ruse definition](https://www.hilotutor.com/7emotions_vertical.png)
The police may deceive by concealing their identity, their purpose, or both. Misrepresentation by the police can take many forms. What are these new deceptive capabilities, and what is their importance? No less important but less well known, however, are the enhanced capacities of the police to bait, lure, and dissemble in order to investigate crime. See, e.g., Erica Goode, Sending the Police Before There’s a Crime, N.Y. or on the use of algorithms for predictive policing or threat assessment. 2007) (“Technological progress poses a threat to privacy by enabling an extent of surveillance that in earlier times would have been prohibitively expensive,” and thus “giv the police access to surveillance techniques that are ever cheaper and ever more effective.”). Most of the attention given to today’s advances in police technology tends to focus either on online government surveillance 1 × 1. Deception and enticement have long been tools of the police, but new technologies have enabled investigative deceit to become more powerful and pervasive.