Unfortunately, this simply does not hold up in reality, wherein police routinely stalk and harass individuals, to the point that the police decide to fabricate criminal evidence just to prove themselves right.
I would know, this is exactly what happened to me, as I mentioned in another comment.
An example of police organizations surveilling groups of people who are against a gas pipeline running through their lands:
Are they criminals for organizing and petitioning the government to relent?
Example, from my own city, of how police organizations routinely fabricate evidence, typically against minorities and those the police have decided they "do not like" and "could be criminals". Unfortunately, my own hometown was not included in this investigation and my conviction wasn't overturned.
What you fail to take into account is the average academic and emotional intelligence of the type of person who finds themselves working in a US police force, given the low pay, high stress and allure of wielding soft power. There aren't just a few bad apples; The entire bunch is rotten and we find this corruption as far back as we find State police forces. Now it's just more apparent because we also surveil the police.
I've accounted for all that though. I even said in the comment "even if the police in this instance are, for the sake of argument, irredeemably corrupt" just to highlight that I'm very open to the idea that these police are actively engaging in corruption.
This issue I'm raising is that the call to action in the article is observably stupid. They're arguing that if a Mob boss is publicly racketeering on facebook then that shouldn't be used by the police as evidence to raise their suspicions. And there is no way that makes sense. They should be calling for something that will actually help their cause.
Shutting your brain down and panicking isn't going to get you to a good place - there are a bunch of problems outlined in the article and the call the action addresses none of them. You really need these people to focus on doing things that will help, rather than doing things at random. In this case like - reigning in RICO abuse, replacing the police leadership or a demilitarisation strategy for the training facility. Trying to ban the police from using public information to inform their policing is remarkably foolish.
> I would know, this is exactly what happened to me, as I mentioned in another comment.
Well, you probably need to hear this although it is a bit brutal: you're going to lose more if you make stupid arguments. Try to avoid doing that, the justice system responds to it really badly. It also make a difference politically although not as much. If you score a win, you need to be fighting for something that actually helps your position, not arbitrary demands.
> I've accounted for all that though. I even said in the comment "even if the police in this instance are, for the sake of argument, irredeemably corrupt" just to highlight that I'm very open to the idea that these police are actively engaging in corruption.
You still fail to take it into account. When creating policy, one has to consider all ways in which a policy might be used or abused.
Any sociopolitical structure which confers power to individuals over others must be designed to protect innocents against worst-case scenarios. If there is even the possibility that the wrong person in the driver's seat could do significant or irreversible damage to innocent people, then it's bad policy. Because organizations and their policies often last longer than any one individual within the organization. This is the very basis on which the US Constitution was written.
> You're going to lose more if you make stupid arguments. Try to avoid doing that, the justice system responds to it really badly.
>> You're going to lose more if you make stupid arguments. Try to avoid doing that, the justice system responds to it really badly.
> What on earth are you referring to?
You're claiming you were stalked, harassed and the police fabricated evidence against you. Your response is to advocate that they can't read your Facebook posts. That response is stupid, it is a stupid thing to advocate for. You should be calling for something more like people to be fired. Based on that stance, I'd assume you're going to get rolled by the police strategically. Over the long term you're going to get nothing if you think calling for a reading-public-information-ban is going to get you anything.
If there was such a ban in place, it wouldn't even start to protect you from the problems you're describing. They'd just read your posts in their lunchbreak and keep the list at home on a stickynote outside of an official capacity.
> You still fail to take it into account. When creating policy, one has to consider all ways in which a policy might be used or abused.
Yeah, you do. And when you do that with a policy like "The police can't read public information" the consideration will come to "this policy is moronic, the police should be able to read publicly available information and act if they feel it is appropriate".
I'm not sure how you are thinking that policy of restriction is a good idea and your argument is unpersuasive. You'd either end up with situations like people actively inciting murder on social media and the police are powerless or no change from the current state. The entire idea is silly. The police have to, as a matter of principle, have the power to read public information and act on it if they think it is evidence of a crime. Particularly if they're planning RICO charges. And you can't overrule their judgements on whether something is a crime while their still in an early investigative phase as they would be if they are drawing up lists. It can't possibly work.
If you're just going to keep moving goalposts and creating straw man arguments then this discussion is going to rapidly deteriorate past the point of usefulness. Let's break a few things down:
> Your response is to advocate that they can't read your Facebook posts. That response is stupid, it is a stupid thing to advocate for
> Over the long term you're going to get nothing if you think calling for a reading-public-information-ban is going to get you anything.
> And when you do that with a policy like "The police can't read public information"
When did I say that? When did I advocate for that? Absolute straw man.
My comment, which began this particular thread of conversation, was:
"Should the police maintain a list of every individual with a public social media account that speaks out against any policy which the police support?"
Read that sentence carefully and please point out where it or any other question/statement I've made supports the argument you claim I've made to ban cops from using OSINT or browsing public posts on social media, or any public information at all. Again, total straw man. You even put it in quotes, implying, intentional or not, that it was a direct quote/paraphrase of my words!
> You should be calling for something more like people to be fired. Based on that stance, I'd assume you're going to get rolled by the police strategically.
You have no clue how small town and police corruption work. The entire town was captured. The district attorney was the mayor's son. The mayor was also the town's bail bondsman. It is a racket from top to bottom, and the whole town is in on it. There is no one within the town to complain to.
The woman who arrested me smokes, manufactures and distributes methamphetamine openly. I personally witnessed her smurfing for Sudafed using an old toothless woman at a grocery store whom she drove to the store in her police unit. Her brother was incidentally murdered by some folks I know over a meth dispute and they found a big meth lab at his home. I have photos of her conversing with and delivering pallets to a trucker. This runs deeper than you could possibly know. The full details of the situation and my trial would astound you.
This was a decade ago. I made tips to the FBI. Tried to involve a few journalists. No one would touch it. And my arresting officer did get fired, after she got drunk and methed out and decided to speed down the highway while shooting her gun in the air from out the window and yeehawing at the top of her lungs. I'm not even joking. And guess what... she was back on the force 3 months later after her timeout.
I also find it extremely alarming that you would in one breath encourage unwarranted police surveillance and targeting, and then say "I'd assume you're going to get rolled by the police strategically". It's like you recognize the issue and yet attempt to justify it. We should not be cheering
> You'd either end up with situations like people actively inciting murder on social media.
In many cases that's already a crime and reason for suspicion, and it has nothing to do with the topic at hand.
If you'd like to actually debate the argument I made, be my guest, otherwise let's end this discussion now before it gets even more out of hand. Because I agree, "The police can't read public information" is an absolutely stupid argument to make, but you're the one who presented it.
I would know, this is exactly what happened to me, as I mentioned in another comment.
An example of police organizations surveilling groups of people who are against a gas pipeline running through their lands:
https://www.aclu.org/news/free-speech/surveillance-state-des...
Are they criminals for organizing and petitioning the government to relent?
Example, from my own city, of how police organizations routinely fabricate evidence, typically against minorities and those the police have decided they "do not like" and "could be criminals". Unfortunately, my own hometown was not included in this investigation and my conviction wasn't overturned.
https://www.wbrz.com/news/nakamoto-how-corruption-in-brpd-le...
What you fail to take into account is the average academic and emotional intelligence of the type of person who finds themselves working in a US police force, given the low pay, high stress and allure of wielding soft power. There aren't just a few bad apples; The entire bunch is rotten and we find this corruption as far back as we find State police forces. Now it's just more apparent because we also surveil the police.