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Police Say They Use Facial Recognition Despite Bans

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Re: Police Say They Use Facial Recognition Despite Bans

#121

Post by [deleted] »

tiahura wrote: post #101
ashtonkem wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

American police don’t feel institutionally above the law, for all intents and purposes they are. Qualified immunity, a doctrine made up out of whole cloth by the courts, means that cops often can’t be prosecuted or even sued for the most egregious of conduct. And the lengths the courts will go to protect cops are ridiculous, to the point where the courts have upheld the idea that a cop didn’t know that attacking a su…

Qualified immunity, a doctrine made up out of whole cloth by the courts, means that cops often can’t be prosecuted or even sued for the most egregious of conduct. Qualified immunity has nothing to do with criminal liability, it is a civil affirmative defense and a sound one. Essentially, it provides personal protection for ordinary negligence. When an employee at Pottery Barn drops a plate, we don't deduct it from th…

[deleted]

Re: Police Say They Use Facial Recognition Despite Bans

#122

Post by 8note »

rendall wrote: post #73
zupreme wrote: post #72

At some point governments will have to address the elephant in the room. Across much of the globe, modern police forces have been empowered and emboldened to such a degree that many departments, and their members, feel institutionally above the law. In no other occupation, that I can think of, can so many rules and directives be flouted without losing ones job, as is the case with modern police. Its frankly insulting…

> we (civilians) I just want to remind everyone that police are civilians too. I also sometimes forget

Ah, so if they shoot me at all, it's assault with a deadly weapon, just like any other civilian

Re: Police Say They Use Facial Recognition Despite Bans

#123

Post by handoflixue »

AnthonyMouse wrote: post #86
zupreme wrote: post #72

At some point governments will have to address the elephant in the room. Across much of the globe, modern police forces have been empowered and emboldened to such a degree that many departments, and their members, feel institutionally above the law. In no other occupation, that I can think of, can so many rules and directives be flouted without losing ones job, as is the case with modern police. Its frankly insulting…

> In no other occupation, that I can think of, can so many rules and directives be flouted without losing ones job, as is the case with modern police. That isn't really true. Have you read half the corporate policies published by large companies? Neither have most of their employees. Nobody cares and they're not enforced until Something Bad happens, at which point it's time to open the book for the first time to see…

I think there's two key differences here:

1) The police can get away with stuff even when the public has clear video proof of wrong-doing. Usually that's enough to at least trigger the "sacrifice a scapegoat" process, but not here.

2) The police can get away with violating not only policy, but actual laws.

Re: Police Say They Use Facial Recognition Despite Bans

#124

Post by 8note »

macspoofing wrote: post #106
zupreme wrote: post #72

At some point governments will have to address the elephant in the room. Across much of the globe, modern police forces have been empowered and emboldened to such a degree that many departments, and their members, feel institutionally above the law. In no other occupation, that I can think of, can so many rules and directives be flouted without losing ones job, as is the case with modern police. Its frankly insulting…

>At some point governments will have to address the elephant in the room. Crime? If a community is suffering from a very high crime rate (and some American cities are amongst the most violent cities in the world) - why are we prioritizing one set of rights (right to privacy) over another (right to personal security, right to raise children in a safe environment)? In many cases, you can't have one with the other. Priv…

There's a much easier way? Remove access to weapons. It's not a 2 way balance. America has chosen that access to weapons to commit crimes with is more important than personal safety or privacy, and no amount of giving up privacy will make up for prioritizing weapons

Re: Police Say They Use Facial Recognition Despite Bans

#125

Post by 8note »

LinuxBender wrote: post #87
sys_64738 wrote: post #36

A ban is ineffectual without consequences. Criminal prosecution of police chiefs is what's needed, IMO.

Money drives everything AFAIK. So if laws existed that allowed a state to withhold budget to a county that had cops not following rules, then the county would take interest. If the counties could withhold funding from cities that had bad cops, the mayors would take interest. Or perhaps the laws could permit budget reallocation. I doubt any such laws would ever get passed, but in theory this could help keep people foc…

Cities don't have much ability to handle bad cops though. The police unions are too powerful

Re: Police Say They Use Facial Recognition Despite Bans

#126

Post by macspoofing »

8note wrote: post #124
macspoofing wrote: post #106

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>At some point governments will have to address the elephant in the room. Crime? If a community is suffering from a very high crime rate (and some American cities are amongst the most violent cities in the world) - why are we prioritizing one set of rights (right to privacy) over another (right to personal security, right to raise children in a safe environment)? In many cases, you can't have one with the other. Priv…

There's a much easier way? Remove access to weapons. It's not a 2 way balance. America has chosen that access to weapons to commit crimes with is more important than personal safety or privacy, and no amount of giving up privacy will make up for prioritizing weapons

>There's a much easier way? Remove access to weapons.

There are no simple solutions and to pretend that all you need to do is X and then therefore everything will work is naïve to the extreme. This kind of argumentation, where reality on the ground is ignored in favor of some pie-in-the-sky hypothetical policy, is not actually conducive to actually helping people suffering from crime (not just gun violence but crime).

Re: Police Say They Use Facial Recognition Despite Bans

#127

Post by danShumway »

handoflixue wrote: post #123
AnthonyMouse wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> In no other occupation, that I can think of, can so many rules and directives be flouted without losing ones job, as is the case with modern police. That isn't really true. Have you read half the corporate policies published by large companies? Neither have most of their employees. Nobody cares and they're not enforced until Something Bad happens, at which point it's time to open the book for the first time to see…

I think there's two key differences here: 1) The police can get away with stuff even when the public has clear video proof of wrong-doing. Usually that's enough to at least trigger the "sacrifice a scapegoat" process, but not here. 2) The police can get away with violating not only policy, but actual laws.

Right. I'm less sympathetic to this argument than I was years ago when I first started paying more attention to police corruption, because since then I've watched widespread protests happen over police brutality, and I've watched prosecutors literally just refuse to charge the officers involved.

The protests didn't matter, prosecutors would not consciously attack the people on "their side."

It's an argument that sounds good, and in a system that wasn't so fundamentally broken, it might even be true. But it doesn't hold up to the reality we're seeing with police departments. We're past the point where we can describe the problem as just being about education or awareness. The current system is brazen.

Re: Police Say They Use Facial Recognition Despite Bans

#128

Post by Maha-pudma »

cannabis_sam wrote: post #103
kwhitefoot wrote: post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> why should they be considered civilians? Because they are. Robert Peel was insistent on exactly that point when he set up the police force in the UK. See, for instance, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peelian_principles Edit: corrected URL

No, they are not. They are literally instruments of the government’s monopoly on violence. I have no idea why you reference a dead politician’s antiquated analysis of the role of the police.. shit has happened since 1850, and I personally believe catholics should not be barred from parliament. Also, not everyone lives in the UK. Edit: as an example: what’s “sir” Robert Peel’s view on facial recognition...?

Not everyone lives in America which is what most of this thread seems to be about.

No idea why you're mentioning Catholics in the UK Parliament. Unless its an attempt at discrediting the previous commenters statement.

We certainly refer to them as the civi-police in the military. Though we don't have the gun issues the US has, but that seems based on an antiquated amendment even older the Peels analysis.

Re: Police Say They Use Facial Recognition Despite Bans

#129

Post by t-writescode »

carapace wrote: post #114

Yes, (Duh, wouldn't you?) I've said this before so I apologize in advance for repeating myself. Whether we like it or not ubiquitous surveillance is the new order of the day. You cannot put the technological genie back in the bottle. You can't enforce rules against using it without using it. We're stuck with what I call the "Tyranny of Mrs. Grundy"[1]. The primary result is that we should all work to make a humane ty…

> Imagine all the criminals who, when Snowden dropped his bombshell, only just then realized that the NSA already had all their dirty laundry.

As a country, the United States has decided that the Bill of Rights was important enough to write down, even if some bad people get to go free.

As a country, the United States also decided that wiretapping is illegal except when permitted in a specific instance, with approval from a judge.

You may think it's okay, but our Founding Fathers and our predecessors decided that these things weren't okay, likely do to immediate dangers they had just been experiencing.

Arguably, the software and practices that Snowden exposedallow after-the-fact wiretapping, where everything was recorded, but not looked at prior to the fact. I argue that is against the spirit of the wiretapping laws, myself.

Re: Police Say They Use Facial Recognition Despite Bans

#130

Post by wtetzner »

gabereiser wrote: post #91
ashtonkem wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

American police don’t feel institutionally above the law, for all intents and purposes they are. Qualified immunity, a doctrine made up out of whole cloth by the courts, means that cops often can’t be prosecuted or even sued for the most egregious of conduct. And the lengths the courts will go to protect cops are ridiculous, to the point where the courts have upheld the idea that a cop didn’t know that attacking a su…

^ This. Cops aren’t your friends. They can and will use anything you say against you, never for you, in a court of law. I’m not saying we don’t need them. I’m saying they aren’t your friend. Never underestimate the ability of a cop to twist the truth. In court, a cop has the fullest faith of the courts even if they don’t show up. Defending yourself against what a cop says happened is almost impossible. It can be done…

> I’m not saying we don’t need them

We need them, but we also need them to be held accountable for their actions.

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