It's a kiss-simple, cheap, innocuous (until recently) timing, team coordination, and secondary intelligence gathering mechanism (via time-indexed observation lo

It's a kiss-simple, cheap, innocuous (until recently) timing, team coordination, and secondary intelligence gathering mechanism (via time-indexed observation logs of potential target activities). These models are probably available for cash (at or below cost) through a plethora of street-side vendors, pawn shops, and cheap electronics retailers in any metropolitan area. In principle, this is no different than "burner" cell phones historically used by drug dealers (and featured prominently in season 3 of The Wire). I can envision more well-funded groups using Flip cameras.