How to Safely and Ethically Film Police Misconduct • Hacker News Board

Re: How to Safely and Ethically Film Police Misconduct

#221

Post by cycomanic » Mon, Jun 01, 2020, 5:43 AM UTC

joejerryronnie wrote: post #220

cycomanic wrote: post #216

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is a discussion that comes up again and again. How do you go from the news is partisan to the truth must lie somewhere in the middle. Truth does not care about political leanings. Moreover this assumption has caused a pretty extreme drift to the right in the US, all driven by the republican party & fox news moving more and more to the extreme right, but moderates still thinking the truth must be in the middle.

I make a case by case determination based on what info is out there, what I am able to observe, and the sum total of my life experiences. What I believe is true about an individual topic does not always fall directly in the center. But I guarantee you the left spins their stories just as much as the right does.

This has simply not been the case in recent years in the US, where there has been a concentrated and deliberate attack on the truth exclusively from the right, just look at any analysis on the unprecedented number of false statements (dare I say lies) from Trump.

The whole argument also completely ignores the fact that pretty much everything of US politics is far right from the perspective of most other countries. So if the truth is in the middle, which middle is it?

Re: How to Safely and Ethically Film Police Misconduct

#222

Post by roenxi » Mon, Jun 01, 2020, 9:06 AM UTC

mtts wrote: post #158

collyw wrote: post #149

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Profiling is seen as bad, but I honestly don't think many grandmas will be the ones committing violent crime (or females in general). If you have some statistics to prove otherwise please show me them.

Someone once explained it to me like this: Let's say 1% of the population commits crimes. Let's also, for the sake of argument, say all crimes are committed by black people. Of the general population, 10% is black. If you profile all black people, you will indeed profile the 1% of the population that commits crimes, but you will also profile 9% of the population that does not commit crimes. And before you say "not th…

The conclusion doesn't really follow from the premise. If all crime were committed by one racial group it would be madness not to use that information to target crime-fighting measures.

If there are credible reports of a white man committing murders it doesn't make any sense to waste resources listing mainly female Asian suspects, for example. There are also other similar issues. For example, if a crime happens on my street I expect to be treated as more of a suspect based only on my proximity.

The issue of racism is (and needs to be) grounded in things other than rational resource allocation.

Re: How to Safely and Ethically Film Police Misconduct

#223

Post by tonyarkles » Mon, Jun 01, 2020, 3:54 PM UTC

Wingman4l7 wrote: post #209

tonyarkles wrote: post #186

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm planning on doing some experiments with that after we're done spring surveying. To start: I'm not sure what you mean by OS driver/control software. The two main (non-proprietary) flight controller platforms are PX4 and ArduPilot, which both basically act OS-like. Depending on which platform you're building for, they can use things like ChibiOS under the hood as well. It's not memory overflows. These can fly for l…

This is a really interesting problem; I feel like there's a range of solutions. First thought would be to take some sort of sensor checkpoint if you have full motor cutoff. Also wondering what the options are for soft-reboots that don't drop telemetry connections to your control hardware.

Yeah, I'm hoping we can get around it with just a telemetry command (we've got two-way telemetry radios) to reset the EKF state.

Full motor cutoff/checkpointing is a fun one. One thing I've found that seems to seems to exasperate the issue is picking it up when it's on the ground, adjusting a camera or something, and putting it back down on the ground. That's an almost guaranteed way to get a "high accelerometer bias" or "compass skew" error.

Re: How to Safely and Ethically Film Police Misconduct

#224

Post by curryst » Mon, Jun 01, 2020, 5:52 PM UTC

bzbarsky wrote: post #90

curryst wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ianal, but I wouldn't think the defense attorney would be required to share that? Wouldn't it violate your clients right to not self-incriminate? The prosecution is definitely not allowed to suppress evidence that would demonstrate someone's innocence, but I don't think the same is true of the defense.

Also not a lawyer, but as I understand it, both the defense and the prosecution tell each other and the judge what evidence they plan to bring; unlike crime shows, you generally don't spring surprises in court. In this case the defense would say "we have a video that shows we are innocent" and the prosecution would then request a copy of the video, and a warrant to acquire it. Providing said video doesn't seem any mo…

Right, that's discovery as I understand it. But why would you, as the defense, plan to present a video that demonstrates your guilt? If you aren't going to present it, it isn't part of discovery. The prosecution is required to share material that undermines their own case under the Brady Rule [1], but the defense does not bear the same burden as far as I know. In fact, the defense is not even required to request or subpoena the exculpatory evidence; the prosecution is expected to share it of their own accord. Which typically means the prosecution just shares everything they have, in case something turns out to be exculpatory (the Brady Rule is still in play even if the prosecution is unaware they have the evidence).

My take is that this situation applies to evidence the defense has acquired. I don't think the _defense_ is required to share it voluntarily (although it could probably still be subpoenaed if the prosecution was aware of its existence). I.e. if Joe Shmoe was being charged with burglary, and someone sent his a lawyer a video of him committing the crime, his lawyer is not required to disclose the existence of the video. If the prosecution found out that it existed, they could still subpoena it. Although I don't know if you could subpoena it from Joe Shmoe, that's beyond my limited reading. You could definitely subpoena it from whoever sent it to the defense, as their right against self-incrimination doesn't apply.

[1] https://www.law.cornell.edu/wex/brady_rule

Re: How to Safely and Ethically Film Police Misconduct

#225

Post by curryst » Mon, Jun 01, 2020, 5:58 PM UTC

allannienhuis wrote: post #129

bilbo0s wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In fairness, part of the idea of using professional cops and not soldiers, was originally that professional cops were from the community and would be better able to interact, or "liaise" with community members. It's just that over the centuries we kind of forgot about that part. In the US we moved to the current system where many of the police may not even live in the communities they serve. Heck, they may not even l…

Police often don't want to live in the community they patrol because they don't want to be recognized with their family while off duty by gang members they interact with, making their families targets. I have close family who had to move to a different city because of direct specific threats to their family made by gangsters. Organized crime changes the dynamics completely.

I would be shocked if that is effective (although I'm not an expert, so I'm open to being shocked).

Tracking someone who relocates without creating a new identity seems trivially easy even for unorganized crime. Facebook or Instagram alone makes a social engineering attempt easy. Then there are the sites that aggregate public record, which I would think could pick up on the move relatively quickly. Lexus Nexus has terrifying amounts of information on everyone.

This is without even moving into the realm of things that require organized crime. I would assume organized crime groups would have someone in the government paid off that could run a query through driver's license databases.

That seems more like security theater than actual security. It's also of note that organized crime exists outside the US, and other countries that do community policing don't seem to have the same level of concern.

Re: How to Safely and Ethically Film Police Misconduct

#226

Post by bsanr2 » Mon, Jun 01, 2020, 11:19 PM UTC

roenxi wrote: post #222

mtts wrote: post #158

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Someone once explained it to me like this: Let's say 1% of the population commits crimes. Let's also, for the sake of argument, say all crimes are committed by black people. Of the general population, 10% is black. If you profile all black people, you will indeed profile the 1% of the population that commits crimes, but you will also profile 9% of the population that does not commit crimes. And before you say "not th…

The conclusion doesn't really follow from the premise. If all crime were committed by one racial group it would be madness not to use that information to target crime-fighting measures. If there are credible reports of a white man committing murders it doesn't make any sense to waste resources listing mainly female Asian suspects, for example. There are also other similar issues. For example, if a crime happens on my…

The majority of crime in America is committed by white people, in terms of absolute numbers of arrests, value of stolen goods and funds, etc. By your logic, it would be most effective to target white people. This is without even taking into account that white suspects tend to avoid arrest, prosecution, conviction, and long jail sentences at higher rates than other racial groups (that is to say, when brought to a particular level of the justice system, they are less likely than others to proceed further).

However, it's clear that the vast majority of resources are devoted to black areas and poor areas, and to responding to directly "violent" crime. A mugging is more sensational than white collar crime, but from a purely utilitarian standpoint, I'm not sure it's rational to devote more resources to catching the mugger when, for example, there is widespread wage theft depressing incomes in the mugger's city. Which causes more damage in the long run?

Re: How to Safely and Ethically Film Police Misconduct

#227

Post by Mirioron » Tue, Jun 02, 2020, 2:27 AM UTC

cycomanic wrote: post #221

joejerryronnie wrote: post #220

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I make a case by case determination based on what info is out there, what I am able to observe, and the sum total of my life experiences. What I believe is true about an individual topic does not always fall directly in the center. But I guarantee you the left spins their stories just as much as the right does.

This has simply not been the case in recent years in the US, where there has been a concentrated and deliberate attack on the truth exclusively from the right, just look at any analysis on the unprecedented number of false statements (dare I say lies) from Trump. The whole argument also completely ignores the fact that pretty much everything of US politics is far right from the perspective of most other countries. So…

>The whole argument also completely ignores the fact that pretty much everything of US politics is far right from the perspective of most other countries.

I don't really mean to offend, but I think you've drunk so much of the leftwing coolaid in the US that you don't notice it anymore and consider it normal. Just try to analyze people like Don Lemon. The few clips I've seen of him are very partisan politics. Look at Time Magazine when they talked about border detention. The images used were there to paint a narrative.

The US hasn't moved to the right politically at all recently. You're getting more government spending on social programs and you're getting a more liberal stance on many social issues such as gay marriage.

If you still don't see it, then ask yourself this: how much has the religious right influenced politics recently? Because Bush cited religion as one of the reasons for war. It's clearly losing ground.

Re: How to Safely and Ethically Film Police Misconduct

#228

Post by allannienhuis » Tue, Jun 02, 2020, 4:08 AM UTC

curryst wrote: post #225

allannienhuis wrote: post #129

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Police often don't want to live in the community they patrol because they don't want to be recognized with their family while off duty by gang members they interact with, making their families targets. I have close family who had to move to a different city because of direct specific threats to their family made by gangsters. Organized crime changes the dynamics completely.

I would be shocked if that is effective (although I'm not an expert, so I'm open to being shocked). Tracking someone who relocates without creating a new identity seems trivially easy even for unorganized crime. Facebook or Instagram alone makes a social engineering attempt easy. Then there are the sites that aggregate public record, which I would think could pick up on the move relatively quickly. Lexus Nexus has te…

I agree with you that organized crime is not a US-only problem. The example I shared is not in the US - so you have at least one counter example to your statement about other countries. Concerns and awareness about issues with policing in the community where they live isn't isolated to just a few individuals.

You seem to easily dismiss someone else's experience - why would you think that you have enough information from a short anecdote to judge their difficult decision to uproot their entire family, as useless security theatre? How effective something like that is depends completely on the specific circumstances, people involved, and the nature of the threat. I assure you that the decisions they made for themselves were done with appropriate advice.

My point was that organized crime changes the nature of policing and the relationship with police and their community. Organized criminals have a much greater sense of power and immunity, so they are more likely to be involved in confrontation with police and to take things further past the line (threatening family is just one example) than an 'average' crook who commits crimes out of desperation (for example).

Re: How to Safely and Ethically Film Police Misconduct

#229

Post by mtts » Tue, Jun 02, 2020, 9:25 AM UTC

roenxi wrote: post #222

mtts wrote: post #158

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Someone once explained it to me like this: Let's say 1% of the population commits crimes. Let's also, for the sake of argument, say all crimes are committed by black people. Of the general population, 10% is black. If you profile all black people, you will indeed profile the 1% of the population that commits crimes, but you will also profile 9% of the population that does not commit crimes. And before you say "not th…

The conclusion doesn't really follow from the premise. If all crime were committed by one racial group it would be madness not to use that information to target crime-fighting measures. If there are credible reports of a white man committing murders it doesn't make any sense to waste resources listing mainly female Asian suspects, for example. There are also other similar issues. For example, if a crime happens on my…

Yes it does, because this is about profiling.

If all crime is committed by South Asian women, you're right that it would be madness not to use that information to target crime-fighting measures such as, for example, only looking for suspects that are female and have a South Asian suspects.

Profiling, however, where you preventively search if not outright harass people, is something entirely different: if one in ten South Asian women engage in crime, every time you preventively search and harass one of them, you have a ninety percent chance of searching and harassing someone who is innocent.

Re: How to Safely and Ethically Film Police Misconduct

#230

Post by JoeAltmaier » Tue, Jun 02, 2020, 11:50 AM UTC

curryst wrote: post #224

bzbarsky wrote: post #90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Also not a lawyer, but as I understand it, both the defense and the prosecution tell each other and the judge what evidence they plan to bring; unlike crime shows, you generally don't spring surprises in court. In this case the defense would say "we have a video that shows we are innocent" and the prosecution would then request a copy of the video, and a warrant to acquire it. Providing said video doesn't seem any mo…

Right, that's discovery as I understand it. But why would you, as the defense, plan to present a video that demonstrates your guilt? If you aren't going to present it, it isn't part of discovery. The prosecution is required to share material that undermines their own case under the Brady Rule [1], but the defense does not bear the same burden as far as I know. In fact, the defense is not even required to request or s…

If the prosecution isn't make aware of its existance, the defense attorney is vulnerable to being disbarred. That's a lot to ask, for one deadbeat client. A good defense lawyer would say "If that video doesn't obviously clear your name, then don't show it to me".