Earlier quoted context omitted.
Why does that matter? You could block literally anything if all you need to show is that it can be used again a judge or city official.
Because the powers that be get sensitive about things that could allow people to physically attack members of the powers that be. Or, in simpler terms: Because the person hearing the lawsuit is a judge.
Baltimore police lied about almost every aspect of its spy plane program
51–60 of 107 posts
Re: Baltimore police lied about almost every aspect of its spy plane program
#52Earlier quoted context omitted.
The only thing the police provide victims is a deterrence for criminals and for some, perhaps, a sense of justice and closure. Beyond that, there is nothing more the police can do for victims. Victims need laws passed to help their communities from turning to crime in the first place or laws that decriminalize so called victimless crimes. Part of those changes means funding schools and small businesses and tax abatem…
>When talking about policing, the only thing it provides victims is deterrence for criminals. Beyond that, there is nothing more the police can do for victims. What about taking criminals out of the community and locking them away in prison? Would that not help? Because that's what this surveillance program would do. It allows the police to view footage after the crime occurred and track down the perp. It wouldn't he…
Locking people up is a deterrence but it creates many criminals by putting them in depraved conditions for extended periods of time, then depriving them of employability and then as an insult, charging monthly fees for probation or other post-incarceration monitoring.
The last thing I want to point out is how often the police victimize people and create new victims. It's incredibly common.
Re: Baltimore police lied about almost every aspect of its spy plane program
#53Earlier quoted context omitted.
There is also huge support to reduce high crime rates. People will compromise some things to achieve this.
> There is also huge support to reduce high crime rates. People will compromise some things to achieve this. Except crime rates are at their lowest points in decades [0]. [0] https://www.brennancenter.org/our-work/analysis-opinion/amer...
Re: Baltimore police lied about almost every aspect of its spy plane program
#54Earlier quoted context omitted.
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 e…
The choice is between doing nothing and doing what you can within your limited, fallible, human means.
Even the giants of history have failed to fix everything, but even small people have managed to make a difference.
The problem is that too many people capable of making a difference don't even try.
Re: Baltimore police lied about almost every aspect of its spy plane program
#55Earlier quoted context omitted.
There is also huge support to reduce high crime rates. People will compromise some things to achieve this.
This type of surveillance doesn't reduce crime rate, and your vote on the matter is meaningless if the people doing the surveillance are LYING to you about what that surveillance entails.
Re: Baltimore police lied about almost every aspect of its spy plane program
#56Earlier quoted context omitted.
Allowing cops to commit crimes doesn’t help victim-rights, it creates more victims and more citizens unwilling to assist police. Did you read the article? Prosecutors didn’t make up the charges against this officer, they have documented video proof. There is no reason to arrest and assault bystanders, none. I believe the vast majority of cops are doing their jobs legally and honestly. But you have to punish and root…
>Did you read the article? I did. ACLU is trying to prevent this program from restarting after a trial run. >or you will never get the public trust necessary to really make a dent in high crime areas. Where is the evidence that 'public trust' is the reason for the high crime rate? What if the causality is reversed ... what if high crime rate is what breeds tougher policing because you know, police are human, and it h…
https://www.washingtonpost.com/dc-md-va/2019/12/12/an-office...
Every bystander he harassed or assaulted is going to dislike the police even more, and help them even less. When police detectives go to them for help solving a crime, how often will they refuse to testify because of their distrust of the cops?
It’s a fantasy that the solution to high crime areas is tougher policing.
You can try to bust all the low level drug sellers on street corners to stop consentual drug use, but some will run. So you violently arrest anyone who runs, but done if those don’t have drugs or are just scared kids. Now those kids and their families hate you.
Soon dealers get smarter and only hold cash in their person. So you start frisking everyone out on the street or driving in these neighborhoods and take their cash, using civil forfeiture. But some of those people are honest citizens and you stole their paycheck, or the cash they were going to buy a car with, and they and their families now hate you.
You start getting warrants to enter homes of people you are told are dealing dope. Sometimes it’s true, sometimes you find something else to justify it, sometimes they were just regular folks it’s just a mistake. But they all end up hating you for it.
Sometimes the drug dealers flush the drugs while you politely wait at the door so you start getting no knock warrants and just burst in the door screaming at them, and shooting their dogs (you know, for safety). Sometimes it’s the wrong address or a false top, and the family now hates you even more, as you killed their dog man.
Sometimes the residents are armed and in the shock and confusion think it’s a home invasion and shoot back and you shoot them. If they survive, they hate you.
Then one day one of your brother officers is gunned down on the street, during the middle of the day, in that tough crime neighborhood you are “pacifying”.
When you roll up there are a hundred residents standing there staring at his corpse, but when you ask all you get is hard looks and “no-one saw nothing”.
Re: Baltimore police lied about almost every aspect of its spy plane program
#57Earlier quoted context omitted.
There is also huge support to reduce high crime rates. People will compromise some things to achieve this.
It’s hard to reduce crime rates when you constantly manufacture new types of victimless crimes and create lucrative black markets to incentivize participants to use assault, intimidation and murder in the course of business.
Re: Baltimore police lied about almost every aspect of its spy plane program
#58Earlier quoted context omitted.
> There is also huge support to reduce high crime rates. People will compromise some things to achieve this. Except crime rates are at their lowest points in decades [0]. [0] https://www.brennancenter.org/our-work/analysis-opinion/amer...
In Baltimore?
Re: Baltimore police lied about almost every aspect of its spy plane program
#59Baltimore 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...
>Baltimore police does need a mass surveillance program - for it's own officers. Baltimore is #11 on a list of most violent cities in the world[1]. There are children and good people trying to live in those crime-ridden neighborhoods. The police is not the problem. I feel for the cops there because you can't take one of the most violent cities in the world and expect to police it like Sweden. As such, I wish they mai…
If the police were better at their job I imagine more people would be willing to look the other way. You don't get to violate people's rights and fail to keep them safe.
Re: Baltimore police lied about almost every aspect of its spy plane program
#60Earlier quoted context omitted.
> There is also huge support to reduce high crime rates. People will compromise some things to achieve this. Except crime rates are at their lowest points in decades [0]. [0] https://www.brennancenter.org/our-work/analysis-opinion/amer...
In Baltimore?
[0] https://www.brennancenter.org/our-work/analysis-opinion/take...