Lets spend that spy plane money on mental health professionals and stuff that actually helps people and lets us not use the police for everything all the time. AKA "Defund the police."
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Baltimore police lied about almost every aspect of its spy plane program
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Re: Baltimore police lied about almost every aspect of its spy plane program
#22Unsurprising. I wish that mass surveillance didn't have complicit bipartisan support, but people in power only ever seem interested in expanding it.
For this to change, more people who share an aversion to mass surveillance have to get involved in politics. There are lots of people like this, but they are either apolitical, apathetic, hopeless, don't want to get their hands dirty, think politics is beneath them, that their resistance would be ineffectual, or they are too busy with other things. That has to change.
> have to get involved in politics.
Given the scope of human experience now encompassed by "politics", that's not sustainable.
Or as someone else once put it:
"130. Technology advances with great rapidity and threatens freedom at many different points at the same time (crowding, rules and regulations, increasing dependence of individuals on large organizations, propaganda and other psychological techniques, genetic engineering, invasion of privacy through surveillance devices and computers, etc.). To hold back any ONE of the threats to freedom would require a long and difficult social struggle. Those who want to protect freedom are overwhelmed by the sheer number of new attacks and the rapidity with which they develop, hence they become apathetic and no longer resist. To fight each of the threats separately would be futile. Success can be hoped for only by fighting the technological system as a whole; but that is revolution, not reform."
Re: Baltimore police lied about almost every aspect of its spy plane program
#23Police can't really face any consequences for lying, so why wouldn't they? On an individual level it doesn't matter even if the lie is in a courtroom for the purpose of turning a murder into justified deadly force! Why wouldn't an organization of police lie even more when they know full well neither the org nor the individual officers will be punished? Even in this story the truly disturbing part is this: > A three-j…
In the current system maybe. All things can change, laws especially. But there seems to be heavy bipartisan support federally/executively for mass surveillance in the US so good luck with getting your privacy protected nationally. Your best hope is some local policy changes at the state or municipal level in Baltimore or Maryland. Which may inspire change elsewhere.
Yes -- if you or anyone else is a concerned citizen please look into your local district attorney and your state's attorney general.
Make sure your DA knows that if they aren't willing to indict criminal cops they will be out of a job. We just did this in Los Angeles! No clue how far the new guy will take it, but he definitely understands that this was a referendum on the previous DA's near-absolute refusal to even consider indicting police misconduct.
Re: Baltimore police lied about almost every aspect of its spy plane program
#24Re: Baltimore police lied about almost every aspect of its spy plane program
#25Police can't really face any consequences for lying, so why wouldn't they? On an individual level it doesn't matter even if the lie is in a courtroom for the purpose of turning a murder into justified deadly force! Why wouldn't an organization of police lie even more when they know full well neither the org nor the individual officers will be punished? Even in this story the truly disturbing part is this: > A three-j…
In the current system maybe. All things can change, laws especially. But there seems to be heavy bipartisan support federally/executively for mass surveillance in the US so good luck with getting your privacy protected nationally. Your best hope is some local policy changes at the state or municipal level in Baltimore or Maryland. Which may inspire change elsewhere.
Things can change, but only in ways that are beneficial to the system. Corporations and governments at every level now have more power over human affairs than they have at any other time in human history.
Re: Baltimore police lied about almost every aspect of its spy plane program
#26Baltimore police does need a mass surveillance program - for it's own officers. Remember when they looked at 2 years of body-cam footage for one of their highest earners and came out the other end with 32 counts of assault, false imprisonment and generalized misconduct? [1]
They didn't get that idea themselves, though.
1: https://www.washingtonpost.com/dc-md-va/2019/12/12/an-office...
Re: Baltimore police lied about almost every aspect of its spy plane program
#27It seems like the more I read about the police, the more I realize that in their current form, they are unnecessary. For general policing, as in keeping the population safe and dampening crime, they don't need spy planes, they need legs; they don't need pistols, they need communication skills; they don't need body armor, they need to earn the trust of the people that pay them. If 99% of police encounters don't involv…
Police should be able to pack heat and use it pursuant to local laws. They should be able to fly whatever planes they want but in compliance with the same laws (including ones about intercepting communications) as everyone else, They are a civilian police force so they should get the same rights as other civilians. The double standards are the root issue.
Re: Baltimore police lied about almost every aspect of its spy plane program
#28Earlier quoted context omitted.
In general, yes, but not on the whole. This article goes into some detail about recent votes related to the Patriot act. https://inthesetimes.com/article/bernie-sanders-patriot-act-... Interestingly, there was a three-month extension of the three Patriot Act provisions, included in a House resolution to prevent a government shutdown . It's bad that these things are linked in the same resolution to begin wi…
Why are they tied together? Because someone proposed an amendment to the bill, and enough people voted for it for the amendment to pass . Then politicians don't have to put their name on voting for the extension to the "Patriot" Act. But some of them still voted for this. With some research, they could be named and shamed.
Because presidents keep refusing to veto (presumably because they will look weak if they veto something that gets enough votes for an override)
Re: Baltimore police lied about almost every aspect of its spy plane program
#29Police can't really face any consequences for lying, so why wouldn't they? On an individual level it doesn't matter even if the lie is in a courtroom for the purpose of turning a murder into justified deadly force! Why wouldn't an organization of police lie even more when they know full well neither the org nor the individual officers will be punished? Even in this story the truly disturbing part is this: > A three-j…
The headline says "lied about" but I think it should be updated to "lied to a judge about" - that's perjury! Nothing in the article about them being charged :(
Re: Baltimore police lied about almost every aspect of its spy plane program
#30Police are a critical component of any government. This crap is why they get no sympathy when people start talking about getting rid of them.