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Justice Department announces takedown of catalytic converter theft ring

justice.gov

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Re: Justice Department announces takedown of catalytic converter theft ring

#391

Post by jameshart »

dsfyu404ed wrote: post #373
Symbiote wrote: post #339

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Let's up the ante and see where you stand. In Britain, criminals were stealing the thick, copper cables used for power and signaling of the railway. They wrapped a chain around cables near a road crossing, attached it to a truck, and dragged a significant length of cable away, to sell as scrap. That naturally means the railway can't be used for many hours, occasionally over a day, and costs a tremendous about to repa…

>About 10 years ago, a law was introduced forbidding scrap metal dealers from paying cash, and requiring them to check ID. That led to a 30% drop in theft. My ass it did. I've worked in the metal recycling industry. Getting payment in some form other than cash doesn't deter people who were already willing to commit a crime. They have a buddy scrap it and the buddy takes a cut for taking on the risk. Yards don't want…

I’m not sure I understand why you think this reduction can’t be attributed to the law?

I think you might have a point that this law may have also deterred 30% of legitimate copper scrap transactions, if basically it made scrap dealers decide not to bother with copper at all…

Re: Justice Department announces takedown of catalytic converter theft ring

#392

Post by whoooooo123 »

adrr wrote: post #230
User23 wrote: post #211

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When the cops don’t show up to take a report it doesn’t show up in crime report statistics.

Do you have data backing that up? The data is all FOIA-able like calls to the police department and dispatch data. There's also insurance claim data which requires a police report.

When it's widely perceived that the police don't care about property crime, people don't call the police in the first place.

Re: Justice Department announces takedown of catalytic converter theft ring

#393

Post by whoooooo123 »

Nullabillity wrote: post #40
TEP_Kim_Il_Sung wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A lot of people seem to use "killing" and "murder" interchangably, though they are different in more than legal ways. A building collapsing can kill a person, as can a landslide, and an uncontrollably skidding car. A lion attacking a human and eating his organs is no murderer, and neither is that human for defending themselves by killing that lion before he can finish his attack. One human killing another does not ne…

GGP is talking about intentionally killing people. That's murder. Please consider applying the correct word to the context you wish to discuss.

"Intentionally killing someone" isn't synonymous with "murder". E.g. intentionally killing someone in self-defence is not necessarily murder.

Please consider using the correct definitions of words when telling others to "please consider applying the correct word".

Re: Justice Department announces takedown of catalytic converter theft ring

#394

Post by joenot443 »

vogt wrote: post #360
googlryas wrote: post #336

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sure, why not? It's not like anyone is saying merely installing the app makes you guilty of anything. It's just a lead. Police chase leads all the time and then abandon when they determine the person isn't involved in the crime.

>Sure, why not? Well, for starters, to prevent the police from kicking my door in and shooting me or my pets simply because I was placed on a list of people who downloaded an app. Simply "police chase and abandon leads all the time" is not a strong enough rationale to justify the original suggestion to me.

Is it seriously your working model of police that they’re frequently given lists of people who download apps and instructed to kill them? That’s how you believe policing works?

I know the BLM astroturfing had a profound effect on the rest of the internet, but it’s disappointing to see such a skewed version of reality presented here on HN.

I just downloaded the app. Bring on the marauders. If they end up blasting me, you can start a charity in my honor, Vogt.

Re: Justice Department announces takedown of catalytic converter theft ring

#395

Post by extraduder_ire »

jliptzin wrote: post #141

Yet another reason to get an electric car

For real, this is one of the reasons my next car's going to be a diesel. No cat to steal.

Also fuel efficiency, and until very recently, diesel was cheaper than petrol here due to tax reasons. (even regular. Not Ag-diesel)

I'd get an electric car, if they were cheaper/available used. (road tax is based on CO2/km, so an electric one is free.)

Re: Justice Department announces takedown of catalytic converter theft ring

#396

Post by P5fRxh5kUvp2th »

googlryas wrote: post #365
tourist2d wrote: post #361

Earlier quoted context omitted.

By that logic you're fine with Google handing over all users' location data to the police? Since the police can just determine if you're not involved in crime from it.

Google isn't some app designed for criminals, so no.

The app was designed for phones.

Re: Justice Department announces takedown of catalytic converter theft ring

#397

Post by georgeplusplus »

nine_k wrote: post #389
dsfyu404ed wrote: post #371

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is a dumb law. It treats the symptom not the problem. There is an existing market for getting around KYC requirements. Just search "buying cats" on FB or CL and you will find plenty of them. These people buy cats from the thieves who are too known to the local yards to deal directly with them and pocket a fraction of the profit. You can keep adding laws but the material here is so valuable that the market can su…

Does not a law like this allow to actually GAF and start acting on leads towards resellers at FB, etc? Without resale being criminalized, what grounds would police have to even look at the middlemen?

Between the surge of violent crime, defunding police budgets, and firing of city police forces due to vaccine status, inflation causing massive poverty. Do you think police departments have the resources to tackle these massive amount of larceny cases?

I'd like to be respectable with regards to opposing views about this but wtf did people think would happen following these things?

Re: Justice Department announces takedown of catalytic converter theft ring

#398

Post by bluGill »

WalterBright wrote: post #356
Symbiote wrote: post #339

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Let's up the ante and see where you stand. In Britain, criminals were stealing the thick, copper cables used for power and signaling of the railway. They wrapped a chain around cables near a road crossing, attached it to a truck, and dragged a significant length of cable away, to sell as scrap. That naturally means the railway can't be used for many hours, occasionally over a day, and costs a tremendous about to repa…

Hmm. I wonder if steel cables would work well enough?

If you make them a lot bigger, copper is an excellent conductor. Silver is better yet, but not by enough to be worth the cost (contrary to popular belief, gold isn't very good, though it is better than iron) aluminum is often used as it is cheaper by enough, but it turns out of have weird properties and so extra care is needed to use it.

Re: Justice Department announces takedown of catalytic converter theft ring

#400

Post by danielheath »

alar44 wrote: post #318
serf wrote: post #251

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>I'm on guard for overreah all the time, but I'm OK with showing ID to buy alcohol, drive a car, fly on a plane, sell items that should rarely be done in bulk outside of rare conditions, like a bunch of catalytic converters. you should probably re-evaluate your ideas about personal ID with regards to travel if you're interested in over-reach. These laws are routinely used as an anti-immigration method by ICE and equi…

Anyone who thinks countries and states don't have the right to control their borders has lost touch with reality.

Sure they do, but in an ostensibly-free state is "you must unlock your devices and give immigration full access to the data within" really a reasonable position? If you wanted to bring sketchy data into the country, surely it'd be easier to do it via a VPN, right?
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