Police Say They Use Facial Recognition Despite Bans

Post by carapace » Fri, Jan 29, 2021, 9:17 PM UTC

t-writescode wrote: post #129

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…

Post by tiahura » Fri, Jan 29, 2021, 10:08 PM UTC

burkaman wrote: post #117

tiahura wrote: post #109

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's a lovely theory which somehow manages to ignore the industrial-scale, inhuman abuses excused every day. On what planet? I'll admit, I don't do a ton of criminal work, but, I've spent more than my fair share of time sitting through criminal dockets observing cops and criminals and I just don't see it. My good friend won the last significant police brutality case in my metro of 2M people and that was 5 years ago…

It's not because you're afraid of the police, it's because the courts have made it clear that accountability is impossible and cases are pointless. The standard is that you can't convict an officer for constitutional violations unless there was clearly established precedent before the violation occurred. It's an obvious catch 22: to establish precedent you must convict an officer, but you can't convict them unless th…

Post by gabereiser » Fri, Jan 29, 2021, 10:47 PM UTC

ashtonkem wrote: post #131

gabereiser wrote: post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

^ 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 have never seen a convincing argument that we don’t need cops, courts, and prisons (not that you’re making that argument). Every society seems to have them, and I have a very hard time imagining a society that wouldn’t lock up someone like, say, Anders Breivik. That being said, it’s pretty obvious that the American justice system is unnecessarily brutal and inefficient. We lock up a huge percentage of our populatio…

Post by rrauenza » Sat, Jan 30, 2021, 5:10 AM UTC

FireBeyond wrote: post #145

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…

QI is horrifically racist. A group of black community members and pastors, I believe, were getting some coffee before boarding a Greyhound, and an officer "moved them on", so as to prevent (in his perception or claim) a dangerous situation from a group of people who were "upset" by this. They refused, and despite no crime being committed (as was later shown in court, with a directed verdict of no violation), all fift…

Post by b0tzzzzzzman » Sat, Jan 30, 2021, 6:34 AM UTC

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…