71–80 of 223 posts
Let’s check some scenarios: 1) Police puts a mic inside your house, you step on it, and destroy it. Is it ok or not? 2) Police puts a mic on a guy who comes to your house, you find it, and destroy it. Is it ok or not? 3) Police puts a nano-mic (nano-gps) on you, you find it, and destroy it. Is it ok or not? My answer to all of the above is that anything put on your property without you knowledge is up for grabs and d…
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While there is no catching a criminal in this situation. Asset forfeiture is abused. This is where police take items, usually cash, and keep it. There is no trial, just a seizure of property. https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2017/12/1/16686014/p... It's a good example of what I mean. There are others, I'm just not going to post them all. The police seem to optimize for stats and profit. And the cities/counties…
This is a fair criticism, and in line with the comment I replied to, but I still don't know if I agree with the overall sentiment of cynacism. While I'll give you the leaks about Prism/Five Eyes/Mail Espionage (the original government surveillance!), etc. the same documents are in line with what a pattern of being motivated by a fear of being unprepared to defend the greater society from upheaval would look like. Obv…
There were, and still are, plenty of horrible people, probably worst ones in the whole of history, that were doing such things with good intentions.
Also American, or commonwealth justice system, from outside perspective looks like a farce - mostly due to jury system. Based on emotions, not facts - although i do have very high respect for some of your judges.
The combination of private prisons, lobbying, police getting slap on the wrist for the abuse of powers and corrupt government makes USA looks absolutely horrible abroad.
Let’s check some scenarios: 1) Police puts a mic inside your house, you step on it, and destroy it. Is it ok or not? 2) Police puts a mic on a guy who comes to your house, you find it, and destroy it. Is it ok or not? 3) Police puts a nano-mic (nano-gps) on you, you find it, and destroy it. Is it ok or not? My answer to all of the above is that anything put on your property without you knowledge is up for grabs and d…
If someone puts a car or a body on your property, do you destroy it?
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IANAL My understanding is that it's the Police's property. If you find it, you can probably legally remove it from the car, but you can't keep it or prevent the Police from recovering it. This might be interesting to you: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theft_by_finding
Since you don't know whose tracker it is maybe the best thing to do is "lose" it again. Drop it down the nearest drain so you can plausibly say you never saw it and it must have fallen off.
After all, you're not spying on him.
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Worse is the whole guilty until proven innocent scenario the media (and our society) has created. All it takes is being a suspect once to have your life turned inside out. For years people will suspect you of whatever horrors were committed by someone else. The founding fathers are rolling over as they say if they heard where this country has gone.
You can't say that media and public shame are worse than the abuses of the criminal justice system. Your life may get turned upside down if you are simply accused of some crimes (especially sexual crimes), but you may very well bounce back. Getting rightly accused of possession of light drugs and ending up in prison is a much worse outcome, and it happens to many, many times more people. And unlike the celebrities th…
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If you hide something on my car to spy on me then it's not reasonable to expect it back if I find it. Charging somebody with theft for something like this is effectively rewarding the police for being incompetent. One of the worst mistakes in modern government is pretending that the people 'serving' have more rights and privileges then everybody else. They should have less.
> One of the worst mistakes in modern government is pretending that the people 'serving' have more rights and privileges then everybody else. The correct term to use here is "powers". The people have "rights". The people delegate, through the constitution, certain "powers" to the government. The government, in turn, delegates some of those powers to the police. The police do not have "rights". The government does not…
"They sought warrants to search Heuring’s home and the barn, alleging that there was probable cause that a crime had been committed — that Heuring had committed theft by taking off the GPS tracker. While searching the barn, they found the tracker in a bathroom locker. They also found evidence of drug use: a glass pipe. A subsequent search, granted by a judge based on the paraphernalia, uncovered bags of methamphetami…
I don't know. Investigators who are willing to stoop to "He stole our tracker" are surely not above exaggerating the evidence they've found. Why do we even bother with warrants if the police can get around them by tricking you into "stealing" something?
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If you hide something on my car to spy on me then it's not reasonable to expect it back if I find it. Charging somebody with theft for something like this is effectively rewarding the police for being incompetent. One of the worst mistakes in modern government is pretending that the people 'serving' have more rights and privileges then everybody else. They should have less.
I'd settle for experimenting with "same". If a regular citizen can't plant a bug, neither can police. If police can conduct a stakeout, so can regular citizens. They just have to follow the same process. That might include going in front of a judge and getting a warrant. If a regular citizen could break up a bar fight, the police should be able to take the same actions. If police can set up a sting operation, so shou…
Equivalencies of Powers/Rights is a good thought experiment that would keep the powers of the enforcers from multiplying without limits.
Disgusting abuse of power manages to catch a criminal. Is that our only metric for success now? Putting people in prison? Might as well shred the constitution, apparently we're ready to burn everything it stood for to prevent people from getting high. I know I sound dramatic but it is honestly impossible to overstate how damaging to privacy rights and how much horrific police militarization can be directly and indire…
>Is that our only metric for success now? Putting people in prison? Might as well shred the constitution You just threw that straw man straight down a slippery slope. >apparently we're ready to burn everything it stood for to prevent people from getting high This falls under "punching Nazis". Do you want some guy going around punching people? No, of course not. But if he's punching Nazis, then hey, let him do his thi…