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Cops Use Old Brink's Truck to Shame Suspects

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Re: Cops Use Old Brink's Truck to Shame Suspects

#51

Post by chrischen »

grandalf wrote: post #46
chrischen wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What treatment? It's a scarecrow, not a killer scarecrow. Yes it's my view in that I am not a drug dealer, it is preferable for me to have this in front of my house (granted there is a drug dealing/violent illegal activity in my neighborhood) to warrant it.

If you trust law enforcement officials to do this, then why not require far more detailed surveillance as a matter of course, in the name of preventing criminality?

Why would I want far more surveillance? I want what's enough to get those damn drug dealers out of my yard! Is that too much to ask without slipping off your slope!?!

First of all that truck was not meant as surveillance. You'll have read in the article that they used the cameras mainly as a deterrent. These cops are just trying to help. Why make it seem like they're trying to start the next totalitarian regime?

So I ask you, is there anything explicitly wrong about their limited use of cameras and a police van, without going into what it could lead to?

Re: Cops Use Old Brink's Truck to Shame Suspects

#52

Post by Semiapies »

movix wrote: post #11

More than 900 people have been followed and filmed by Greater Manchester Police as part of a pilot project to prevent crime. http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/manchester/8164697.stm They can arrest you before you've even THOUGHT of committing a crime. Not as a 'civil libitarian' but as an ordinary human I find this disturbing. I don't know how you solve the problem of these mostly 'low level' criminal activities, bu…

Judging by the comments here, a lot of HN commentors would welcome surveillance, especially if targeted at poor, minority neighborhoods.

The kindest thing I can think to say is that when the cops get the address wrong, they only intimidate the Hell out of the people inside and maybe scare them into moving, as opposed to the usual practice of smashing down their doors, assaulting them, and sometimes shooting them.

Considering the ridiculously flimsy pretenses narcotics officers can use to get warrants to raid homes, the fact that police would resort to something like this when they can't justify arresting someone should be a waving, neon-red flag.

Re: Cops Use Old Brink's Truck to Shame Suspects

#53

Post by brandon272 »

grandalf wrote: post #43
blhack wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You may wish to visit this website: http://maps.google.com . Pick a location, then hit "street view".

funny,... but it just snaps a single picture, and in no way monitors what is going on at street level.

Is there a big difference, from a legal perspective?

Re: Cops Use Old Brink's Truck to Shame Suspects

#54

Post by Semiapies »

electromagnetic wrote: post #45
mrshoe wrote: post #14

My college roommate's dad worked with microfinance companies in India. Every month, a representative from the company would go from town to town collecting monthly payments from the borrowers. Sometimes the borrower would claim that they could not pay. In that case, the collector was instructed to just sit down and wait for them to pay. The shame of having the collector sitting in their village was overwhelming, and…

That doesn't just work with debters, I've done it to electronics retailers who've jerked me around. I was told my phone had water damage when it was in fact over heating, and then they somehow managed to lose it when I asked for it to be returned. I sat in the phone store for about 3 hours watching the guy, and the store front was about 20sqft with a bench. I got a brand new replacement phone out of that one. I've al…

A thoughtless person might think there's a difference between being harmlessly stubborn with someone who owes you money and the cops parking a brightly marked armored vehicle in front of someone's house because of supposed offenses.

Re: Cops Use Old Brink's Truck to Shame Suspects

#55

Post by jsteele »

calcnerd256 wrote: post #15
jsteele wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Who are "civil libertarians"? People who value their civil liberties? People who are willing to do something to protect them? Whatever they are, you say you're not one. Interesting.

I think the label suggests that they self-identify about it in an obnoxious way. Kind of like how "card-carrying member of the ACLU" is sometimes used as an insult, even though everyone wants their own civil liberties defended.

Exactly. And I find it lazy to use such loaded terms to denigrate an argument one doesn't agree with instead of confronting its (lack of) merits. Obnoxious != wrong.

Actually, I find it strange that the initial commenter only suspects that "civil libertarians" might have a problem with the surveillance that s/he thinks is fine. The sentence seems to me a gratuitous pot shot at people who might think of themselves as "civil libertarians". Why?

HN deserves better rhetoric. Otherwise, there's always Slashdot.

Re: Cops Use Old Brink's Truck to Shame Suspects

#56

Post by dkarl »

nonrecursive wrote: post #36
dkarl wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The problem is that this is designed specifically for when police don't want to do their job. They believe the people are "bad" and engaged in undesirable activity, but they can't be bothered to investigate and gather evidence of criminal activity. Instead, they want to make their lives miserable, on the principle that the threat of surveillance bothers the guilty, but not the innocent. And any sweet old lady can tag…

I wouldn't say that it's designed for when police don't want to do their job. There are many communities where there aren't enough police to do a good job. Using techniques like this seems like it would allow them to use actual humans where they're more needed. The cases cited in the article were of neighbors asking the police to somehow combat the unruly elements in their communities. It seems like you're under the…

As far as I'm concerned, nobody is a drug dealer until the police have caught them dealing drugs. Gossip is not a good way to determine who the good guys and bad guys are. In the cases described, what's freaking people out is their neighbors being noisy and dirty and keeping odd hours. These are class and cultural differences which, I will admit, are really annoying and (I assume) strongly associated with criminal activity, but people should be held responsible for behavior that is observed and documented, not serious criminal behavior that is statistically inferred from violations of decorum. You can easily make a neighborhood more pleasant and secure by running out all the poor people, or all the black people, or all the straight people. Or the Irish. That's stereotyping. (It works, bitches! But it's wrong.)

You want to raise the tenor of the neighborhood, broken-windows style? Then use existing laws or HOA rules about trash and noise. Pass new and draconian ones if necessary. Go wild! But the police shouldn't hold people responsible for their neighbors' assumptions about them. We're supposed to be a liberal society, in the classic sense of the word. If you want to treat someone as a drug dealer, catch them dealing drugs.

Re: Cops Use Old Brink's Truck to Shame Suspects

#57

Post by Semiapies »

Kadin wrote: post #12
patio11 wrote: post #2

Seems that it is probably less to shame and more to threaten the suspects with surveillance of their criminal activities. I don't have any particular issue with it, but I suspect civil libertarians might. (In particular, "We pretend to watch them, to scare them into thinking we really are watching them, and thus to control them without exerting effort" is called the "panopticon" in academic literature, and is widely…

I consider myself a "civil libertarian," in the sense of caring about the preservation of liberty -- but I don't have a problem with this. Well-placed targeted enforcement and surveillance are good things; without them, as people start to feel more and more threatened by crime, you start to get more demands for everpresent surveillance and UK-style CCTV. Using targeted surveillance on a case-by-case basis seems like…

"as people start to feel more and more threatened by crime"

Yes, despite crime rates in a long-term decline in the US, at least there are folks like you to push the idea that people should feel more and more "threatened" so as to accept measures like this.

Re: Cops Use Old Brink's Truck to Shame Suspects

#58

Post by Semiapies »

bonsaitree wrote: post #18
jpwagner wrote: post #3

So they shame people before they've proven they've committed a crime? They are putting the neighborhood under surveillance? I appreciate the ingenuity, but this is big brother-ish.

Technically speaking, the residence is being accused of an infraction, not a crime. It's akin to a parking ticket. As I've noted in my earlier comment, the "jig" is up with this procedure the minute the infraction is fought in court and a single precedent is established in case law.

Which is why they'd never use it anywhere they'd expect the targets to have a reaction beyond helpless apprehension at the cops parking in front of their house - ie, no white suburbs.

Re: Cops Use Old Brink's Truck to Shame Suspects

#59

Post by Semiapies »

jsteele wrote: post #55
calcnerd256 wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think the label suggests that they self-identify about it in an obnoxious way. Kind of like how "card-carrying member of the ACLU" is sometimes used as an insult, even though everyone wants their own civil liberties defended.

Exactly. And I find it lazy to use such loaded terms to denigrate an argument one doesn't agree with instead of confronting its (lack of) merits. Obnoxious != wrong. Actually, I find it strange that the initial commenter only suspects that "civil libertarians" might have a problem with the surveillance that s/he thinks is fine. The sentence seems to me a gratuitous pot shot at people who might think of themselves as…

Because parking an armored camera-truck in front of the place darker-skinned people not accused of any crime live doesn't involve the "civil liberties" a lot of HN commentors care about.

It's not about DRM, the GPL, when stuff goes out of copyright, or whether whitehouse.gov uses tracking cookies - the "big stuff". It's just some people, somewhere, seeing a big-ass police vehicle parked in front of their home with cameras pointed directly at them. To a lot of HN folks, that doesn't seem terribly important; after all, they're probably drug dealers - at least, the police say so!

Re: Cops Use Old Brink's Truck to Shame Suspects

#60

Post by Semiapies »

tedunangst wrote: post #22
grandalf wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I do have a bit of a problem with it. Suppose if rather than a truck it were a giant scarecrow with cameras, placed facing the house of people suspected of having committed a crime. Is the average person allowed to own a vehicle with cameras and park it outside the home of someone they don't like? It seems like blatant harassment.

"Is the average person allowed to own a vehicle with cameras and park it outside the home of someone they don't like?" Yes.

You might want to educate yourself about harassment law.
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