Ring has partnered with 400 police forces • Hacker News Board

Re: Ring has partnered with 400 police forces

#111

Post by anigbrowl » Wed, Aug 28, 2019, 4:57 PM UTC

vorpalhex wrote: post #17

This headline leaves out an important detail from the article: > Officers don’t receive ongoing or live-video access, and homeowners can decline the requests, which Ring sends via email It's not as if the police are pulling a Batman and watching every ring simultaneously, but instead they can do the digital equivalent of going door-to-door and asking "Hey, did you catch footage of your neighbors house being broken in…

> This headline leaves out an important detail from the article:

No it doesn't, headlines aren't required to include every detail in the article. That's what the article as a whole is for. Pedantic objections to headlines are not useful or conducive to discussion, since they suggest an element of bad faith in the reporting that isn't present and bias discussion with the untoward accusation.

Re: Ring has partnered with 400 police forces

#112

Post by anigbrowl » Wed, Aug 28, 2019, 5:02 PM UTC

ghaff wrote: post #106

ixtli wrote: post #100

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Maybe we shouldn't construct a society where your obligations to your employer are at odds with you helping society find justice for a murder victim. This is a great example of how atomized our society has become.

I'm honestly not sure what that means. Many large companies tend to be pretty flexible with respect to things like jury duty. But, to say that even a small business needs to keep paying full salary for someone who is out for weeks or longer (and even if they have to hire a temporary replacement) is probably not realistic. Per diems for things like jury duty should arguably be higher. But there's no world in which, sa…

'atomization' describes a social phenomenon of mass strategic isolation, though one which requires additional reading rather than being easily definable here.

Anyway, why shouldn't a business of any size continue to pay people? Just treat employee absences as a minor insurable risk, or press for adequate compensation for witnesses and jurors by restructuring the tax system.

Passively accepting bad things guarantees you will get more of them.

Re: Ring has partnered with 400 police forces

#113

Post by garmaine » Wed, Aug 28, 2019, 5:03 PM UTC

authoritarian wrote: post #95

threwawasy1228 wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As someone who just served Jury Duty in the USA. I can tell you the 'bill' for my services was barely minimum wage.

Fortunately it's incredibly easy to get eliminated during the selection process if you know how to answer the questions

And without lying / perjuring yourself either. Telling the selective truth is enough :)

Re: Ring has partnered with 400 police forces

#114

Post by anigbrowl » Wed, Aug 28, 2019, 5:07 PM UTC

refurb wrote: post #79

delfinom wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's not equivalent. In one case you need a human testifying because the memory of the events are stored in their brain that's inaccessible to any other form of retrieval besides giving a deposition. In the other case, the camera caught it on a digital format thats accessible by literally anyone living in the 21st century.

That's not how trials work. Someone has to testify that yes, they installed the camera on X date, yes, the date/time stamp is accurate, yes, it was working the last time they checked, yes, the video in question was recovered, yes, the video was transferred to the prosecutors office, no, the video was not modified to the best of my recollection. Saying "hey, I have this mp4 that proves the murder" doesn't work in cour…

Cloud storage provides de facto answers to most of those questions as far as the property owner is concerned.

Re: Ring has partnered with 400 police forces

#115

Post by ghaff » Wed, Aug 28, 2019, 5:24 PM UTC

anigbrowl wrote: post #114

refurb wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's not how trials work. Someone has to testify that yes, they installed the camera on X date, yes, the date/time stamp is accurate, yes, it was working the last time they checked, yes, the video in question was recovered, yes, the video was transferred to the prosecutors office, no, the video was not modified to the best of my recollection. Saying "hey, I have this mp4 that proves the murder" doesn't work in cour…

Cloud storage provides de facto answers to most of those questions as far as the property owner is concerned.

Possibly.

The "issue" in this case is probably that the prosecutor wants to do everything in his power to maximize the probability of a successful prosecution based on the available evidence even if it means taking three weeks of someone's time rather than making do with a simple notarized statement.

And the defense wants to do everything is his power to throw roadblocks in the way of the prosecution even if it means wasting three weeks of some third party's time.

Nowhere are there any incentives to make things efficient for someone if doing so could hurt your case by even a little bit.

Re: Ring has partnered with 400 police forces

#116

Post by refurb » Wed, Aug 28, 2019, 5:31 PM UTC

anigbrowl wrote: post #114

refurb wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's not how trials work. Someone has to testify that yes, they installed the camera on X date, yes, the date/time stamp is accurate, yes, it was working the last time they checked, yes, the video in question was recovered, yes, the video was transferred to the prosecutors office, no, the video was not modified to the best of my recollection. Saying "hey, I have this mp4 that proves the murder" doesn't work in cour…

Cloud storage provides de facto answers to most of those questions as far as the property owner is concerned.

How exactly? The cloud has a copy of a video from a camera with a given IP associated with a given account.

That doesn’t prove where the camera footage was taken. Or who owns it. Lots of unanswered questions that the defense could use to raise doubts about it.

Re: Ring has partnered with 400 police forces

#117

Post by palisade » Wed, Aug 28, 2019, 5:35 PM UTC

authoritarian wrote: post #95

threwawasy1228 wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As someone who just served Jury Duty in the USA. I can tell you the 'bill' for my services was barely minimum wage.

Fortunately it's incredibly easy to get eliminated during the selection process if you know how to answer the questions

I'd be a great juror. I can spot a criminal just by looking at them!

Re: Ring has partnered with 400 police forces

#118

Post by mikestew » Wed, Aug 28, 2019, 5:50 PM UTC

ghaff wrote: post #83

mikestew wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

At equal risk of being glib, I don't think the purchase of consumer electronics should put you on the hook for weeks of depositions for a crime you didn't personally witness. I believe that would the literal manifestation of "that's not what I signed up for". Here's the MP4 file, now go away.

What if you were a random witness? You didn't sign up for that either. You have certain civic obligations which are enforced by law. I assume in these types of cases, you could be held in contempt if you wouldn't respond voluntarily. It's unfortunate for the person involved and the incentives in the system are such that no one is trying to make efficient use of their time. But that's pretty much the way it is. It's n…

What if you were a random witness?

I'm not, I'm a random person in possession of a consumer electronics device that might have a video recording of the crime in question. No need for depositions, everything I know is in this MP4 file, and now that I have transferred the file to you, LEO, you know everything I know. Further interrogation will gain you nothing but my contempt.

It's not really that different from being seated on a multi-week jury trial much less a possibly multi-month grand jury.

Forget ballparks, it's not even the same sport.

Re: Ring has partnered with 400 police forces

#119

Post by xeromal » Wed, Aug 28, 2019, 5:52 PM UTC

authoritarian wrote: post #95

threwawasy1228 wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As someone who just served Jury Duty in the USA. I can tell you the 'bill' for my services was barely minimum wage.

Fortunately it's incredibly easy to get eliminated during the selection process if you know how to answer the questions

Then we end up with a jury that has only people that have nothing better to do

Re: Ring has partnered with 400 police forces

#120

Post by clairity » Wed, Aug 28, 2019, 6:14 PM UTC

sixothree wrote: post #87

HarryHirsch wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do police have any obligation to be honest in these requests? No. Infractions would have to be prosecuted by the district attorney, who has no interest to get on the bad side of the police because he needs them to be successful. Consider the case of Arlington police! Arlington cops were in bed with a drug dealer because he supplied the force with steroids. In return for the goodies, the police informed their supplier…

We really need checks and balances on police. Seems like such a fundamental underpinning of democracy eroded.

by design, the police concentrate force in a separate group of people who then specialize in that use of force. residents relinquish that (threat of) force voluntarily to the police to enjoy being a citizen of a (hopefully) more peaceful society in exchange.

part of the problem is that we naturally conflate (1) knowing and enforcing rules and (2) the use of force. despite the similarity of the words, enforcement doesn't necessarily require direct force. such intertwined subtleties make your entreaty to "institute checks and balances" hard to realize.

and this disjunction is problematic; i think it's better to have a little force spread widely throughout communities, rather than a lot of force concentrated in one sub-group, as its less risk of catastrophic use of force and a more even application all around (more fair). but that's a challenge in the increasingly specialized social groupings (and identities) we live in.

even so, "police" is too much of an identity separate from the society to which they're enjoined. i think policemen/women should be community members first, and enforcers second, not the other way around.