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Rebekah Jones' house raided at gunpoint

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Re: Rebekah Jones' house raided at gunpoint

#41
post #39
post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> What, this was so time-sensitive that we couldn't pick her up with a traffic stop when she was out of the house? It is standard operating procedure to catch online criminals in the act, with the computers booted, terminals unlocked and drives unencrypted. In general, your premise that police should avoid confrontations with (allegedly) very dangerous individuals, and leave them wiggle room to destroy evidence, is u…

That's garbage: almost no crime is so time-sensitive and so unique that this is a problem. Heck look at the take down of Silk Road for example of doing it right: they clearly took their time (despite the impact being obviously greater), and no one had to pull any weapons because the situation was executed in a known safe environment. Police deserve no leeway for this: the evidence points to repeatedly creating a dang…

> the evidence points to repeatedly creating a dangerous situation (by them)

What evidence is that? Have you gathered the data, performed a statistically significant analysis or can you point to one?

Or perhaps you are inferring your conclusions from media anecdotes and select those cases that best fit your world view?

Re: Rebekah Jones' house raided at gunpoint

#42
post #3

I'm not sure what the cops think this person did but whatever she was accused of this is an absolutely unacceptable way to handle it in the US.

I'm sure if it were to happen to me, I'd feel similar to the citizen posting this on Twitter, especially if they felt it was unjust and weren't expecting it.

However, from a police procedural point-of-view:

When the subject(s) perceive a threat, it only takes a small amount of time for the adrenaline rush that could make them more dangerous than they typically would be.

Subject(s) that would never usually be a threat can act in ways they don't even expect when they are confronted by something they perceive as a threat.

Even if the first subject is calm, one of the others in the house might react poorly and use whatever is at their disposal to resist or harm the perceived threat.

Let's say instead that a single plain-clothes officer calls or emails asking someone to come downtown, or maybe even comes to a house unexpectedly because they couldn't get in-touch with the person, then asks them to come downtown at their convenience. The subject may shortly after throw the kids in the car and speed off so quickly they run into traffic and kill themselves and another driver. So, when police control the situation, they cause a little more temporary stress in the short-term, but may avoid harm for the individual citizen and the rest of the citizens.

The alternative is a society within which each person acts responsibly on their own, but there are bad actors, and using science to treat or evolve bad actors is:

1. imagined as evil, such as in the fictional works:

Brave New World - example of dual-society, half utilitarian scientist gangbangers and the other half free natives; the reader understands the "evolved" culture as disgusting, scary, and harmful.

A Clockwork Orange - attempt to rehabilitate the psychopath, sex-addict subject, but due to the music choice, the psychopath becomes hurt when they play the music, leaving them where they started- with a psychopath.

2. actually evil in real life, for example: psychological and Eugenics experiments, as well as genocides and holocaust.

In social media bubbles, psychotic elements in the bubble tend to be hushed or hidden; they seem not to exist. In real-life, about 1 in 10 people are not sufficiently altruistic to be trusted to act on societal best interests under duress and about 1 in 100 people are psychopathic to the point of being a greater risk to others on any day of the year.

Even for a fully libertarian society to function, some part of the 90% would have to cover for the 10% and some portion of the 99% would have to cover for that 1% to make things run smoothly. So, we have police. And, if you add wild animals and wide open spaces without assistance into the mix, you understand why the U.S. has the 2nd amendment, and that applies to everywhere because it's meant to cover all cases and likely futures (if disaster happens and infrastructure collapses, we may need to hunt to survive, given the amount of space in the U.S.).

But, I don't want gun violence, and I don't want citizens to be unjustly apprehended.

Re: Rebekah Jones' house raided at gunpoint

#43
post #41
post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's garbage: almost no crime is so time-sensitive and so unique that this is a problem. Heck look at the take down of Silk Road for example of doing it right: they clearly took their time (despite the impact being obviously greater), and no one had to pull any weapons because the situation was executed in a known safe environment. Police deserve no leeway for this: the evidence points to repeatedly creating a dang…

> the evidence points to repeatedly creating a dangerous situation (by them) What evidence is that? Have you gathered the data, performed a statistically significant analysis or can you point to one? Or perhaps you are inferring your conclusions from media anecdotes and select those cases that best fit your world view?

Have you gathered data? Not seeing a lot of citations there, whereas: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_police_violence_incide...

Which is obviously a limited sample, should I continue or are videos of actual incidents, leading to actual casualties, really just "anecdotes"?

I mean we could go with just this: https://www.criminallegalnews.org/news/2018/jun/16/doj-polic... and ask how the hell is this a thing since the starting point is "discharging a firearm in a populated area" and is reported by the DoJ itself as an incredible problem.

But I suspect you can't point to anything. The null-hypothesis here is definitely not "police procedure is absolutely correct". You know, seeing how the literal subject of this comment chain is "police raid on data scientist's house where guns were pointed at her children as part of a politically motivated shakedown for a crime which is by definition non-violent".

Re: Rebekah Jones' house raided at gunpoint

#45
post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

American gun culture has little to do with this case. Cops behave like this because behind door number one there could be a guy with an assault rifle ready to take them down. In 99% of the cases there isn't, but if you do 100 of these raids without taking risks, it becomes more likely than not that your own children will become orphans. It's hypocritical to attack the cops that (literally) fight to stay alive without…

Policing in the US is undoubtedly risky - but thats not the issue here. It is very likely that they were sent to intimidate and terrify a scientist who has done nothing except cause embarrassment to a politician. It is legitimate to criticise the police for allowing themselves to be used in this way.

Do you know this for a fact, or is it what you read or were told? I don't know anything about this incident other than what I'm reading here, which puts me at a disadvantage to discuss it, as I'm sure is the case for most if not all others here.

Re: Rebekah Jones' house raided at gunpoint

#46
post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> On my phone is every communication I have ever had with someone who works with the state Why? This information should be stored, encrypted, and be almost impossible to decrypt. You need a dead mans switch (which is tried and tested) to destroy any and all data. In fact, you could have a system where if you don't visit a URL within a few hours, it destroys a part of the method to access the decryption mechanism (or…

She's a data scientist, not a security expert. Holding her to this standard is unfair and very much blaming the victim.

Sounds like a business opportunity for Security experts to consult for journalists.

Re: Rebekah Jones' house raided at gunpoint

#47
post #3

I'm not sure what the cops think this person did but whatever she was accused of this is an absolutely unacceptable way to handle it in the US.

There are rumors that she did not open the door for a long time and hang up on them when they called. Obviously we dont know if that is true but if it is the cops had to assume well prepared people inside the house. It would be gross negligence to just walk in and please everyone to come out regardless of what the people did that caused the raid.
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