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SWATters Target Dozens of Journalists

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Re: SWATters Target Dozens of Journalists

#191

Post by RickJWagner »

aphextron wrote: post #138
nothis wrote: post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I know in my country, the police would probably knock on the door and verify that something's wrong, especially if the caller can't spin a convincing scenario that fits the location. Maybe pistols drawn, but pointed down. If someone answers and says "huh? I didn't call anyone? what's going on?" in a somewhat convincing way, ask them to step outside, hands up, and if he complies the situation is probably solved, right…

> I know in my country, the police would probably knock on the door and verify that something's wrong, especially if the caller can't spin a convincing scenario that fits the location. This is because in your country it is exceedingly unlikely the cops will receive a barrage of high powered assault rifle fire after knocking. The militarization of police in the US is a complicated problem that ultimately stems from ou…

I disagree.

I own guns, as my father did before me and his father before him. All my brothers own guns. We're sportsmen, hunting is a popular recreation where we live.

Of all the guns in my family, not one has ever hurt a human being. Not a single incident, over many decades and who knows how many shots fired.

I have many friends with the same situation-- I don't know of anyone who has ever shot another human being. Not a single one.

The problem is the dramatic drop in respect for other people and their lives. Some people have lost respect, they are dangerous. It's not the gun's fault.

Re: SWATters Target Dozens of Journalists

#192

Post by ajxs »

joe_the_user wrote: post #182
ajxs wrote: post #156

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's disingenuous to ask us to accept this data alone as a reason to disregard the risks that American police face in the course of their work. Whether their job is safer today than at the height of the so-called 'crack epidemic' is irrelevant to the reality of the day to day risks that they face. For starters, this data doesn't include the numbers of police non-fatally harmed in the course of their work. Even still,…

Police work is less dangerous than many common occupations in the US but it is indeed still dangerous. The question is whether this level of danger is a sufficient to justify police tactics that severely endanger civilians such as no-knock raids - factors that make "SWATing" so dangerous for the average person. The further factor here is that the false belief that there's an armed camp ready to attack cops instantly…

Here's some data here that seems to differ somewhat from what was originally posted: https://www.bls.gov/iif/oshwc/cfoi/police-officers-2014.htm

I would never be an advocate for the kind of no-knock raids the article is describing. I'm not addressing that by contesting the use of those statistics. My point is more that _any_ risk of getting shot in the line of duty changes the entire playing field. Just because it's declining doesn't mean that it's insignificant. That being said, as said before I'm not advocating for the kind of overwhelmingly violent responses that SWATting describes.

Re: SWATters Target Dozens of Journalists

#193

Post by rndgermandude »

tptacek wrote: post #185
rndgermandude wrote: post #169

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>the extramarital partners of politicians? To me, fair game. I knew somebody, part of our gang of friends, who had a one night stand with a local "personality", was then revealed by some "journalist" only giving a the first name and printing a picture with a black bar across the eyes (which is still more than enough for people who knew him to identify him, of course), outed as gay in the process, didn't even know the…

I would generally have a problem with deliberately outing an LGBT person (or an undocumented immigrant, or any of a number of at-risk groups of people). And performatively revealing sensitive information about anyone for no reason at all is at least unneighborly (I can't go so far as to call it immoral). But none of that is what Krebs did. He violated the code of a subculture he does not belong to, in a manner that j…

Krebs doxed a few people who didn't want to be doxed, for reasons I do not consider good enough, and doxed a lot of people who didn't want to be doxed for reasons I consider good enough. That's all I said. YMMV

I have no idea why you keep trying to frame what I said differently.

Re: SWATters Target Dozens of Journalists

#194

Post by tptacek »

grandmczeb wrote: post #190
tptacek wrote: post #146

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What obligation did Krebs have to be nice to these people? Were they sources of his? Did he have a prior relationship with them? We can stipulate a bunch of scenarios in which Krebs would have been obligated not to publish Canfield's name, but it is not a general principle that he is enjoined from doing so; you have to identify the specific relationship that creates the obligation. Sometimes those relationships are q…

> What obligation did Krebs have to be nice to these people? I’ll take that as an agreement that it wasn’t nice then? Regardless, I don’t think I said anywhere that he had an obligation to be nice , only that his comments were a violation of Twitter’s TOS. Which presumably he does have an obligation to follow since he’s using their platform. > The professional ethics rules of journalism have more the opposite directi…

As you can see upthread, it is plainly false that he violated Twitter’s TOS.

Re: SWATters Target Dozens of Journalists

#195

Post by closeparen »

joe_the_user wrote: post #143
aphextron wrote: post #138

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I know in my country, the police would probably knock on the door and verify that something's wrong, especially if the caller can't spin a convincing scenario that fits the location. This is because in your country it is exceedingly unlikely the cops will receive a barrage of high powered assault rifle fire after knocking. The militarization of police in the US is a complicated problem that ultimately stems from ou…

But that is ... wrong. The US cops have talked about escalating risks for years but US cops haven't faced actual escalating dangers. One can track the actual danger faced by police and it has been declining. The problem is the average citizen gets their information from TV dramas where cops indeed constantly face dangers. headline: "Once again: police work is NOT getting more dangerous" https://www.washingtonpost.com…

How could you distinguish "the situation isn't getting any more dangerous" from "risk mitigation tactics are working"?

Re: SWATters Target Dozens of Journalists

#196

Post by paulddraper »

bcoates wrote: post #62
penagwin wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To play devils advocate a little - If I'm a 911 operator and the person calling says "They have gun next door - there's shouting, I'm really scared WHAT DO I DO?!" What do we do? Turn them down? Ask for proof? From the police perspective - they're entering a potentially dangerous environment, which means gun drawn until the environment is cleared. To your point though - the fact that the swatting has resulted in inno…

"They have gun next door - there's shouting, I'm really scared WHAT DO I DO?!" "Is something on fire?" "Is someone injured?" "I'm sorry, 911 is for emergencies only, not personal therapy"

Yes, I think someone is injured. There were gunshots and lots of screaming.

Re: SWATters Target Dozens of Journalists

#197

Post by monksy »

anigbrowl wrote: post #174
monksy wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Also, a list in the US created to target the right/extremists: https://www.elon.edu/E-Net/Article/166381

Where's the targeting part? Megan Squire is not int eh habit of SWATting people, nor has anyone promoted using her research as such.

She's creating a database of people labeled in that category. She's playing the "well I didn't say to go harass these people.. but here's a database of them"

Re: SWATters Target Dozens of Journalists

#199

Post by donw »

weaksauce wrote: post #184
donw wrote: post #164

Earlier quoted context omitted.

True, but I think the general idea is not that police work isn't dangerous -- it is! -- but rather, that it has become less dangerous over the decades. I don't have an opinion on that, having not looked at the data, but it is entirely plausible.

i mean cops do have a fairly dangerous job but they also by no means the most or even comparatively that dangerous a job. if you look at the stats being a roofer is 1.5x more dangerous. being a delivery driver is about the same danger as a cop. industrial machine installer/repair/maintenance workers have a slightly higher fatality rate per 100k compared to cops. stoking the fears of the average citizen to be fearful…

Sure, maybe? Haven't looked at the data myself, ergo no well-founded opinion. :)

Re: SWATters Target Dozens of Journalists

#200

Post by jonnycomputer »

stordoff wrote: post #189
jonnycomputer wrote: post #136

Earlier quoted context omitted.

May SWAT team guns shouldn't have independent triggers, but require some kind of consensus algorithm across SWAT team members for a pulled trigger to have an effect.

Interesting idea, but the following two scenarios look identical to the consensus algorithm: * One officer sees a suspect drawing a weapon, and reacts more quickly than the others or the suspect is not visible to the other officers, and thus fires a justified shot and saves a fellow officer's life. * One officer misinterprets an innocent gesture, fires an unjustified shot and takes the life of a suspect/innocent pers…

Regarding your first two points, a proper evaluation would involve some estimate the relative utilities of those two outcomes, and an estimate of their frequencies. Taking a cue from signal detection theory, one would want to design the algorithm such that the true positive rate maximizes expected utility, and takes into account how the probabilities shift in a situation. A tough task, on all accounts; however, the situation as it stands now is no different, except that, perhaps, we have less control over how we adjust the decision threshold (one thing that is apparent here is that there is a potential conflict between the individual utility of the police officer and the sort of social welfare function that the role of the police is supposed to fulfill).

With respect to the diffusion of responsibility effect, I think you are probably right that there are lots of possible unintended consequences. In as much as an officer decision to pull the trigger explicitly or implicitly takes in to account the reduced feelings of guilt and increased feelings of peer support in case the weapon is in fact fired, and if it takes into account the smaller likelihood that pulling a trigger will actually discharge the weapon, it may well increase the frequency which the trigger is pulled. More darkly, one could imagine a squad of officers making it into a distributed game of Russian Roulette.

On the other hand, I think this highlights the limits of our imagination. For example, one could imagine the following alternative. Each officer has a body cam, and a pair at base, who is actively monitoring the camera. A decision to fire the weapon must involve both the person on the ground, and the buddy. Or one could have a supervisor of some sort, who can override individual decisions, and so forth.

I don't have the answer, but I think it warrants thinking about.

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