Earlier quoted context omitted.
> by resigning Ah, so then they just resumed another law enforcement job in the next town over like so many do, whose investigations into their criminal activity was terminated because they resigned, and because they were never charged or fired, then they have a clean record to apply elsewhere.
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Police Have Used License Plate Readers at Least 14x to Stalk Romantic Interests
91–100 of 114 posts
Re: Police Have Used License Plate Readers at Least 14x to Stalk Romantic Interests
#92Earlier quoted context omitted.
Agree but better than the system we have today. There will always be issues with it but I think on average it would better incentivize hiring lower risk employees.
I'm agreeing with you: it would essentially be applying a missing cost to the current externalities
Yes, I was agreeing with you and just saying differently that no system is perfect but it would attempt too price as best as possible.
Re: Police Have Used License Plate Readers at Least 14x to Stalk Romantic Interests
#93Earlier quoted context omitted.
YC CEO funded Flock and is involved in politics to remove police regulations To quote him responding to criticism against Flock: "You're thinking Chinese surveillance. US-based surveillance helps victims and prevents more victims."
Cameras are free speech and are a shield against property crimes and assault. Our building complex has rampant break-ins. We've needed more cameras for years and we're only now starting to add them. Worse, someone recently someone set fire to the roof which caused a 12-hour long debacle. Not sure what the "#-of-alarms fire" ranking it was, but several people lost their homes to months of remediation and they tore apa…
> Cameras are free speech... individuals, companies, and communities should be at liberty to hire surveillance tech to protect their persons and their property.
At scale, corporate surveillance can effectively intermingle with, and/or become indistinguishable from, state surveillance. We see that happening today: why wiretap when Palantir exists?
Cameras may be speech, but surveillance has a chilling effect against it.
Re: Police Have Used License Plate Readers at Least 14x to Stalk Romantic Interests
#94Earlier quoted context omitted.
if 1 of those 14 was your daughter, wife, sister, mom you would not be writing this. 14x is exactly 14x too many
It is a given that any power will be abused. However not giving power out is often worse that the abuse of power. The real question is what do we do to detect and prevent that abuse so it is minimized. All too often people are "this person is mostly on my side so I will overlook their abuse" which is the wrong answer.
I agree but the combination giving power without doing anything to detect and prevent abuse in my opinion is worse than not giving power at all, in 100% of the situations - no exceptions. if 14 detected incidents here end up with 14 convictions and enough time in prison to deter anyone else from doing this ever again (5-10 years, per incident minimum), cool with me. it is no different than any other "law breaking" - people will people and law should be there to protect the citizens. but in our society it is obvious we cannot give power to people of authority cause whenever they abuse that power - there is either no law to charge them against or even if there is one they'd be immune to it
Re: Police Have Used License Plate Readers at Least 14x to Stalk Romantic Interests
#95Earlier quoted context omitted.
The same one that I make when I stand somewhere and describe what I see. So I hold a camera to do it more accurately. And then I get tired so I mount the camera on a trip setup instead.
I'm still not hearing any speech from the camera doing the recording. Can you tell me specifically, how recording with a camera is speech?
My recording of police interactions is free speech, for example.
My recording my property is free speech.
My taking a camera into public spaces and recording is free speech.
Re: Police Have Used License Plate Readers at Least 14x to Stalk Romantic Interests
#96Earlier quoted context omitted.
I would guess the only way to make this data available long term is by regulation. Then again, I would hope Flock is subject to FOIA already if they are collaborating with state or local law enforcement...
Washington State just exempted Flock data from its public records law. https://app.leg.wa.gov/billsummary?billnumber=6002&year=2025...
that's craaazy
Re: Police Have Used License Plate Readers at Least 14x to Stalk Romantic Interests
#97Earlier quoted context omitted.
> Other stalking cases could fail any one of those stages and be invisible to the public. "could" is doing a lot of work here... > where stalking was reported/suspected, investigated, discovered, and prosecuted. No, that's not what IJ said. From the article: "Nearly all of these officers were criminally charged and lost their jobs, either by resigning or getting fired." So not all 14 of these were "reported/suspected…
I don't think "could" is doing a lot of work here at all. It seems logical that if cases where the misuse of flock systems were discovered only when the same officers misbehaved in other, more visible situations then there are officers that avoid the more visible situations and continue to use the system that does not expose their bad behavior (flock).
Logical as in fits your world view or as in can be backed up by observable evidence?
The IJ (which I financially support) is a very serious organization that understands datasets, rules-based evidence and also public relations. If there was a stronger case that they could have made with the data that they had available, they would have.
I've already stated that I agree with the premise suggested, but I'm making the point that if you actually want to do anything about it, you need the evidence to back it up.
I can't go to my boss with a proposal to do something significant without measurable evidence to back up my reasoning and neither can you.
I have personally had a traffic ticket thrown out because the officer had a DV case brought by his spouse, who worked in the court. This caused the officer to be fired. I'm VERY aware of problems with LEO, but if you want to do something with a high administrative or human resources cost like any change to the status quo would obviously have -- you need real hard proof. Not "oh isn't it obvious"?
Re: Police Have Used License Plate Readers at Least 14x to Stalk Romantic Interests
#98Earlier quoted context omitted.
> Other stalking cases could fail any one of those stages and be invisible to the public. "could" is doing a lot of work here... > where stalking was reported/suspected, investigated, discovered, and prosecuted. No, that's not what IJ said. From the article: "Nearly all of these officers were criminally charged and lost their jobs, either by resigning or getting fired." So not all 14 of these were "reported/suspected…
For those following along, this was the original comment: > Other stalking cases could fail any one of those stages and be invisible to the public. > "could" is doing a lot of work here... I'd be careful replying to someone commenting and editing with such large diffs without calling it out. Fairly deceptive.
There's no deception. I added to my comment before anybody replied. I didn't change a word of the original text.
You're throwing unnecessary shade.
Re: Police Have Used License Plate Readers at Least 14x to Stalk Romantic Interests
#99Earlier quoted context omitted.
Police abuse of power in the US is a systemic problem. Your opinion is akin to thinking the Catholic church bears no burden for all the diddling they neglected to observe.
Do you make any distinction between sheriff's departments that are elected into their office (e.g. Jacksonville Sheriff's Office) vs commissioned LEOs?
Honestly, a great question that I would have to think on. Whatever limits both their power, haha. Not really an answer, but I think what it boils down to is accountability. I work with a lot of state and federal cops. They are good people for the most part with good hearts. I am still incredibly weary of police on the whole. It seems that both commissioned and elected LEO lack the right level of accountability and we would do well to curb their immunity.
Re: Police Have Used License Plate Readers at Least 14x to Stalk Romantic Interests
#100Earlier quoted context omitted.
Do you make any distinction between sheriff's departments that are elected into their office (e.g. Jacksonville Sheriff's Office) vs commissioned LEOs?
Honestly, a great question that I would have to think on. Whatever limits both their power, haha. Not really an answer, but I think what it boils down to is accountability. I work with a lot of state and federal cops. They are good people for the most part with good hearts. I am still incredibly weary of police on the whole. It seems that both commissioned and elected LEO lack the right level of accountability and we…
Thanks for the thoughtful answer and not kneejerk snark and downvotes like I'm getting elsewhere in the thread.
I think that I agree to a large degree, but with the caveat that elected sheriffs that don't serve their communities get voted out. Incoming elected sheriffs know well why their predecessors lost their seat. In theory, but to a much lesser degree, this should also apply to commissioned LEO, but often in large municipalities there's only one pool you can pull candidates from.
This isn't perfect, but it does largely function in places with sane government/electorate. Also it kind of just follows that in such cases abuse of power (and who it is abused against) is at the direction of voters.
These abuses happen because at some level, we want them to. Just not to us.
Aside: I would like to see more departments where the boss of cops is not just an appointment by politicians, but an elected position accountable to voters and not controlled by other political office.