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Dataminr tracked Gaza-related protests

theintercept.com

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Re: Dataminr tracked Gaza-related protests

#31

Post by skrtskrt »

tharne wrote: post #27
bastardoperator wrote: post #24

LAPD and LASD are going to bankrupt Los Angeles. They're more concerned with being a paramilitary police force versus stopping or preventing neighborhood crime.

> They're more concerned with being a paramilitary police force versus stopping or preventing neighborhood crime. Didn't they pull back on enforcement of quality of life crimes when the previous DA stopped prosecuting criminals? You can't expect the police to arrest criminals knowing full well the DA is immediately going to drop or reduce charges and let them loose.

LAPD has never been anything but a violent gang, and the DA didn't "stop prosecuting criminals"

Re: Dataminr tracked Gaza-related protests

#32

Post by johnisgood »

krapp wrote: post #26
johnisgood wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You could always make sure it could only increase and not decrease privacy or what have you. Similarly, the "expire every 19 years" must always be included and must never be removed. Gotta keep this small though, because then what's the point...

>You could always make sure it could only increase and not decrease privacy or what have you. How could one "make sure" of this, and with what authority? >Similarly, the "expire every 19 years" must always be included and must never be removed. Again, says who? The constitution has expired, and with it any legal basis for such a requirement.

Enforcement is always an issue either way though.

So whoever does it today, or would do it either way in our hypothetical scenario.

Re: Dataminr tracked Gaza-related protests

#33

Post by tharne »

skrtskrt wrote: post #31
tharne wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> They're more concerned with being a paramilitary police force versus stopping or preventing neighborhood crime. Didn't they pull back on enforcement of quality of life crimes when the previous DA stopped prosecuting criminals? You can't expect the police to arrest criminals knowing full well the DA is immediately going to drop or reduce charges and let them loose.

LAPD has never been anything but a violent gang, and the DA didn't "stop prosecuting criminals"

> the DA didn't "stop prosecuting criminals"

The voters of California certainly think he did: https://calmatters.org/justice/2024/11/george-gascon-pamela-...

Re: Dataminr tracked Gaza-related protests

#34

Post by CalChris »

lenerdenator wrote: post #6

Is this really surprising to anyone? If you're out in public and using public websites to organize protests, it's a given that data will be mined about that. The trick is to make it unattractive for those doing the enforcing to act upon their analysis of that data.

This is surprising. Why are the police monitoring constitutionally protected activity?

Re: Dataminr tracked Gaza-related protests

#36

Post by tharne »

MegaButts wrote: post #30
tharne wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> They're more concerned with being a paramilitary police force versus stopping or preventing neighborhood crime. Didn't they pull back on enforcement of quality of life crimes when the previous DA stopped prosecuting criminals? You can't expect the police to arrest criminals knowing full well the DA is immediately going to drop or reduce charges and let them loose.

> You can't expect the police to arrest criminals knowing full well the DA is immediately going to drop or reduce charges and let them loose. You can't expect the police to do their jobs?

> You can't expect the police to do their jobs?

Imagine you're a programmer, or a chef, or a carpenter, really anything. Now imagine you go to work every day, put in 8-10 hours a day working hard, and at the end of each day someone in a more powerful position than yourself throws out, ignores, or otherwise destroys all of your work for that day.

And this happens every day, day after day. No matter your work ethic or how much you care about your job, sooner or later after enough of your work is sabotaged, you're going to give up.

So no, I do not expect the police to "do their job" as you put it, when a chief prosecutor publicly and vocally undermines that work each and every day. If you can't understand that very fundamental human reaction, then I don't know what to tell you.

Re: Dataminr tracked Gaza-related protests

#37

Post by shadowgovt »

CalChris wrote: post #34
lenerdenator wrote: post #6

Is this really surprising to anyone? If you're out in public and using public websites to organize protests, it's a given that data will be mined about that. The trick is to make it unattractive for those doing the enforcing to act upon their analysis of that data.

This is surprising. Why are the police monitoring constitutionally protected activity?

For the same reason they use ancestry databases to narrow the field of potential serial killers to a few that can be investigated through legally-admissible means.

There is a vast gap between what the cops can do in general and what holds up in court, but to a first approximation: the things they aren't allowed to do because it would taint the case are in general explicitly spelled out, and if it isn't spelled out it's legal to use as a stepping stone to conventional, more-understood-protections police tactics. Thus arresting someone for a general Twitter post is probably off-limits (the incitement-to-riot or sedition laws are narrowly tailored), but taking someone online who says "Hey let's all get together and do a riot" seriously, and allocating police resources to prepare for it as if they're telling the truth about their intentions, is almost certainly legal.

(This is the battleground that the ACLU fights on in this day and age).

Re: Dataminr tracked Gaza-related protests

#38

Post by shadowgovt »

tdb7893 wrote: post #21
lenerdenator wrote: post #6

Is this really surprising to anyone? If you're out in public and using public websites to organize protests, it's a given that data will be mined about that. The trick is to make it unattractive for those doing the enforcing to act upon their analysis of that data.

I think that while not surprising it's still interesting and useful to know exactly how they are doing it and what tools they are using. In the US protests are a constitutionally protected right and visibility into how they are monitoring and reacting to them is important.

If we remove the tech from the story and consider the old "colonial village test":

A man walks up and down the street either shouting about, or handing out flyers, that say "We should get together and blockade main street in protest of the illegitimate taxes Congress has passed on our whiskey." Is it legal for the cops to stop him? Probably not.

Is it legal for the cops to move their plans around to show up on main street that day? I can't see why it wouldn't be.

Re: Dataminr tracked Gaza-related protests

#39

Post by dragonwriter »

bastardoperator wrote: post #24

LAPD and LASD are going to bankrupt Los Angeles. They're more concerned with being a paramilitary police force versus stopping or preventing neighborhood crime.

> LAPD and LASD are going to bankrupt Los Angeles.

LAPD and LASD aren't both part of any single entity called "Los Angeles" (the city and county of that name being separate entities).

> They're more concerned with being a paramilitary police force versus stopping or preventing neighborhood crime.

That's pretty much true (and foundationally so) of all American local general-jurisdictions police forces.

LASD and LAPD may have problems beyond those endemic to American police agencies, but that isn't one of them.

Re: Dataminr tracked Gaza-related protests

#40

Post by MegaButts »

tharne wrote: post #36
MegaButts wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> You can't expect the police to arrest criminals knowing full well the DA is immediately going to drop or reduce charges and let them loose. You can't expect the police to do their jobs?

> You can't expect the police to do their jobs? Imagine you're a programmer, or a chef, or a carpenter, really anything. Now imagine you go to work every day, put in 8-10 hours a day working hard, and at the end of each day someone in a more powerful position than yourself throws out, ignores, or otherwise destroys all of your work for that day. And this happens every day, day after day. No matter your work ethic or…

Whenever you feel like not doing your job, just tell your boss "I don't want to" and see how that goes for you.

I understand how motivation works. Sometimes doing a job sucks. That's part of why you get paid to do it.

It sounds to me like those police officers don't want to do their jobs. I'd encourage them to quit instead of wasting tax dollars. Of course the real issue is they want the money without the work, and the respect without having to earn it.

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