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Texas police invested in phone-tracking software and won’t say how it’s used

texasobserver.org

71–80 of 135 posts

Re: Texas police invested in phone-tracking software and won’t say how it’s used

#71
post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We’re obviously failing the expectations of the founding fathers if we don’t have civilian owned HIMARS.

I'd argue the modern equivalent would be anything you can mount/move with a pick up or a trailer. So a machine-gun, but not a howitzer. Either way, those "field pieces" were the property of the state, that it was expected to supply by the AoC treaty, rather than something individuals were expected to bring along.

The Constitution explicitly states the government may grant "Letters of Marque and Reprisal" to private citizens.

What are those private citizens attacking enemy ships with exactly - strong words?

Re: Texas police invested in phone-tracking software and won’t say how it’s used

#72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That isn't the muskets version of that argument I have heard. The version I've heard is that the firearm technology when the second amendment was ratified was very different than today and that makes it worth evaluating if we want to amend it again. Similarly the military landscape looks very different as well such that there's a very different risk of foreign armies taking ground and citizens everywhere needing to b…

> where are the well regulated militias? They keep getting arrested because some fed informants show up and convince them to kidnap a governor of whatever before they can become "Well regulated".

This is really strong passive voice. I have to wonder if they were actually on track towards the "well regulated" part if some feds were able to convince them to kidnap a governor.

Re: Texas police invested in phone-tracking software and won’t say how it’s used

#73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You get it. I’m also concerned that we’re past the point of no return.

We're already past the point of no return IMO. It's why people are having fewer kids.

And in fact, it's possible the latter is a direct and explicitly desired outcome of the former

Re: Texas police invested in phone-tracking software and won’t say how it’s used

#75
post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They’re comfortable saying this because the US doesn’t have the rule of law, as evidenced by laws not applying to police.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:American_police_offic...

you link to a page with convicted police numbering in the tens in a nation of 340 million people, with a police force on the order of a million. I wouldn't believe you in a second if you said that the police commit crimes at a rate of 0.0001 per capita. That's absurd. You're basically verifying the claim that the police are not held accountable for breaking the law. Great work. If that was your intent, please do more than post a link, and elucidate your opinion in the future please, if it wasn't your intent, well, next time just please don't post, it's not a useful contribution to the discussion in this forum.

Re: Texas police invested in phone-tracking software and won’t say how it’s used

#76
post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The interesting part here is that they are apparently no longer even trying to use parallel construction [0] to cover this stuff up. They somehow feel confident that just saying we have this technology, we don’t say how we use it, but we wind up on the right trail and then gather some evidence down the road we wound up on somehow. Seems shaky at best. Smells of hubris. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parallel_const…

Nothing will change until and unless police start suffering severe consequences for breaking the law. Such consequences will never come from the state.

> Such consequences will never come from the state.

Seattle’s consent decree directly contradicts this.

https://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/justice-department-returns-fu...

Re: Texas police invested in phone-tracking software and won’t say how it’s used

#77
post #76
post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nothing will change until and unless police start suffering severe consequences for breaking the law. Such consequences will never come from the state.

> Such consequences will never come from the state. Seattle’s consent decree directly contradicts this. https://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/justice-department-returns-fu...

The idea that the SPD consent decree constituted "severe consequences", or was successful at all, is a joke.

https://www.capitolhillseattle.com/2026/01/video-cops-rallie...

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