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And what will be done? Nothing. The government can radiate you without consequence, without audit, without anyone being held responsible, and if that ever chang

And what will be done? Nothing. The government can radiate you without consequence, without audit, without anyone being held responsible, and if that ever changes it will be the tax payers who pay the fine to radiate themselves while the corrupt gain lucrative contracts for doing such a fine service. Americans live in a police state and they are too cowed to even admit such a basic truth.

puppetmaster3 11y ago
Here is more to support your POV: - http://twitter.com/chiefslmpd/status/501808398531563522 http://twitter.com/chiefslmpd/status/501808398531563522
- Nadya 11y ago
  What hurts this POV is people like this: http://i.imgur.com/YjGHOAN.png http://i.imgur.com/YjGHOAN.png & http://i.imgur.com/UucpLoZ.png http://i.imgur.com/UucpLoZ.png They don't care if officers killed in the line of duty, as apparently we have an unlimited numbers of people who would love to risk their lives as a LEO so that other's can remain safe. Is the system foolproof? No. Do accidents and unjustified firings happen? Yes. Are the measures some people want to take practical or logical? No. People want to throw the baby out with the bathwater. These sorts of events used to happen just as frequently - but didn't have Twitter and social media backlash behind every occurrence. With social media coverage these events seem far more common than they used to be, which leads to more outrage against them. I can understand and to some extent sympathize with where people are coming from - but we need a more practical solution than "try to hit an extremity and pray you don't hit an artery". Arm/thigh shots can be fatal from bleed-out. Life isn't the Hollywood movie that some people think it is. They are asking officers to have 100% accuracy (take an arm/leg shot on a moving target from a distance? Good fucking luck!) and don't recognize that "target with a knife" is a deadly threat from a surprisingly close distance, whether you have a gun or not [0]. [0] Tueller Drill, as seen on Mythbusters: https://youtu.be/ckz7EmDxhtU?t=263 https://youtu.be/ckz7EmDxhtU?t=263
  - johncolanduoni 11y ago
    I also don't understand how people can have the same outrage for these kind of shootings (e.g. armed with a knife) that they have for shooting an unarmed person at a traffic stop, etc. At the point where someone decided to wave a deadly weapon around at others, I think they've knowingly forfeited their right to personal safety. Doesn't mean you should just shoot them if they are 15m away, but it does make me feel a lot less bad if they get shot in a position where they could have easily killed someone otherwise.
  - cryoshon 11y ago
    I don't think that people complaining about excessive use of force hurt the point of view that the US is a police state. If anything, these people support the idea that the police are out of control. People are looking for any sort of easing up from the cops, even if it's for violent offenders. You get a constant drum beat of news articles showing the cops killing people who were unarmed, and public resistance grows, which for most people means nothing, as they aren't about to become criminals. Years of police abuses leads to a lot of people not caring if officers live or die, though-- where we are right now. This is a good thing, because everyone is on the same page: violent police are unliked. The colder the community gets to police, the faster they will change their tune. Ferguson was a turning point, with many police departments realizing that violence begets violence, and military occupation of neighborhoods as a policy begets violent opposition. Since Ferguson we've seen a lot of police departments start to walk back violence as a policy, and maybe in 10 years we'll be back to community policing. People see the European policing model (police not murdering tons of people or constantly beating/tasing them, having polite and helpful cops who are members of the community) and are getting jealous and angry. This too is a good thing.
    - Nadya 11y ago
      >You get a constant drum beat of news articles showing the cops killing people who were unarmed Anything that gets views will be a constant drum beat in the media. Media coverage is a bad indicator of reality. I would prefer these numbers stay lower [0]. But these numbers never get brought up by the media. They happen frequently enough that articles could be drummed out once a week, I wonder why they aren't? >I don't think that people complaining about excessive use of force hurt the point of view that the US is a police state. I'm arguing that the people who bring up foolish points as solutions are more harmful than helpful. I for one don't like reading articles like this one [1]. This isn't about being a police state - this is about people not knowing how to deescalate things. "Taking arm/leg shots" is not deescalation. Not shooting a violent and armed suspect is not deescalation. More or less asking officers to risk death is not deescalation. Yes - the US is increasingly becoming a police state. No, asking officers to risk death instead of shooting is not going to solve it. I agree about being members of the community. Public outreach and police interacting with the community in friendly ways goes a long way. We need more of this [2] [3] [4] [5]. It builds trust, it builds a sense of community, and that's something sorely lacking in many places of the US. [0] http://imgur.com/vu7kh0L.jpg http://imgur.com/vu7kh0L.jpg [1] http://www.cnn.com/2015/08/13/us/alabama-birmingham-police-detective-pistol-whipped/ http://www.cnn.com/2015/08/13/us/alabama-birmingham-police-d... [2] http://imgur.com/gallery/fgGLfPv http://imgur.com/gallery/fgGLfPv [3] http://imgur.com/gallery/6tpEqly http://imgur.com/gallery/6tpEqly [4] http://imgur.com/gallery/ONn2PQm http://imgur.com/gallery/ONn2PQm [5] http://imgur.com/gallery/C6d9d6Y http://imgur.com/gallery/C6d9d6Y
PlzSnow 11y ago
"Americans live in a police state" Americans do not live in a police state. Not by any sane interpretation of the definition. That's just absurd nonsense.
- merpnderp 11y ago
  Some people think living in a police state is where it is absurdly easy for the police to do their job. Like say being able to casually do an X-Ray scan of any car or vehicle they see.
  - AnimalMuppet 11y ago
    Some people think lots of things. If you've ever been in an actual police state, you'd understand that New York isn't one.
    - LordKano 11y ago
      Try walking around New York after dark as an African American or Latino male and tell me again how it's not an actual police state.
    - angersock 11y ago
      s/actual/archaic You overlook what technology has opened up in terms of non-invasive surveillance.
    - merpnderp 11y ago
      "Police state is a term denoting government that exercises power arbitrarily through the police." Like say....stop and frisking "shady" people who've committed no crime? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Police_state https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Police_state
- beeboop 11y ago
  Here's how Wikipedia describes a police state: >The inhabitants of a police state may experience restrictions on their mobility, or on their freedom to express or communicate political or other views, which are subject to police monitoring or enforcement. Political control may be exerted by means of a secret police force which operates outside the boundaries normally imposed by a constitutional state. ~100% of American communications are monitored by the government. We have secret courts that authorize the killing of American citizens. We have National Security Letters, requiring people to do exactly as they're told and not allowing them to tell anyone (in some cases even their lawyer) they've been served with one. Government agencies operate outside the bounds of the constitution on a routine and mass basis (NSA's phone spying program was found to be illegal/unconstitutional) with zero repercussions to government employees and agents who violated the law. It also defines this: >An electronic police state is one in which the government aggressively uses electronic technologies to record, organize, search, and distribute forensic evidence against its citizens America is the poster child of an electronic police state. We do it more than any other country on a scale larger than any country in history. Americans are more monitored than any large group of people in the history of the world.
deathtoamerica 11y ago
Soon America will be unseated and the world will be free.
adventured 11y ago
This article is about the NYPD, and you go off claiming Americans live in a police state. I think you lost the context somewhere.
- avn2109 11y ago
  In fairness, lots of police departments would love to have X-ray vans. But probably only the NYPD and a few of its peer departments can afford them. Likely as the tech gets cheaper, Podunk USA's cops will also get them.
  - pbhjpbhj 11y ago
    Then you get your donuts heated whilst you wait in a parking lot somewhere because someone forgot to switch the x-ray scanner off.
johncolanduoni 11y ago
In many places around the world that actually deserve the name of "police state", you would not be reading this article in a domestic publication. In fact, many of these countries wouldn't even let you read it online if it was published somewhere else. America has a lot of problems, but hyperbole isn't a solution to any of them.
- happyscrappy 11y ago
  They are not looking for solutions, they are here for the hate.
  - yourepowerless 11y ago
    Peoples bald assertion that America is not a police state is empty useless rhetoric, plenty of facts disagree with such simple, propagandistic statements. Try actually contributing instead of shouting useless nonsense. EDIT: It is clear no significant counter arguments can be made, so instead down votes and accusations. Enjoy your echo chamber HN
    - johncolanduoni 11y ago
      Calling other people's arguments propaganda is empty useless rhetoric itself. Not sure how it contributes.
cryoshon 11y ago
I have to wonder, what do people think the line is? When does the US become a police state? I see people claiming that because we can discuss whether we are in a police state openly, we are not in one. This is a mistake because it assumes the goal of a police state is oppression. Oppression is not the goal of harsh policing or surveillance. Oppression is the means to achieve the goal of political stability. Oppression can be used to liquidate protesters which threaten stability, as it has been done in the US as well as many other places. Oppression can be used to squash unorthodox thought, as it was done in the USSR and East Germany. Oppression doesn't have to do both of these things, though. Power is free to decide what items constitute the biggest threat, and how oppression should be applied to best mitigate that threat. Openly using forceful oppression to prevent people from criticizing the government's policies is likely to stir up far more bad will and instability than merely using oppression to protect physical assets via invasive scanning etc. It is not intellectually realistic to envision a 1984-esque police state where speaking out against Big Brother gets you black bagged. That is far too obvious, and far too simple for reality. Our current situation is as real of a police state as it gets. If you live in NYC, you're 24/7 surveilled via a multitude of vectors, even if you're not suspected of any crime. The police are not accountable for anything, and allowed to conceal their methods and programs, even to your detriment. A police state.

puppetmaster3 11y ago

Here is more to support your POV: - http://twitter.com/chiefslmpd/status/501808398531563522 http://twitter.com/chiefslmpd/status/501808398531563522

Nadya 11y ago
What hurts this POV is people like this: http://i.imgur.com/YjGHOAN.png http://i.imgur.com/YjGHOAN.png & http://i.imgur.com/UucpLoZ.png http://i.imgur.com/UucpLoZ.png They don't care if officers killed in the line of duty, as apparently we have an unlimited numbers of people who would love to risk their lives as a LEO so that other's can remain safe. Is the system foolproof? No. Do accidents and unjustified firings happen? Yes. Are the measures some people want to take practical or logical? No. People want to throw the baby out with the bathwater. These sorts of events used to happen just as frequently - but didn't have Twitter and social media backlash behind every occurrence. With social media coverage these events seem far more common than they used to be, which leads to more outrage against them. I can understand and to some extent sympathize with where people are coming from - but we need a more practical solution than "try to hit an extremity and pray you don't hit an artery". Arm/thigh shots can be fatal from bleed-out. Life isn't the Hollywood movie that some people think it is. They are asking officers to have 100% accuracy (take an arm/leg shot on a moving target from a distance? Good fucking luck!) and don't recognize that "target with a knife" is a deadly threat from a surprisingly close distance, whether you have a gun or not [0]. [0] Tueller Drill, as seen on Mythbusters: https://youtu.be/ckz7EmDxhtU?t=263 https://youtu.be/ckz7EmDxhtU?t=263
- johncolanduoni 11y ago
  I also don't understand how people can have the same outrage for these kind of shootings (e.g. armed with a knife) that they have for shooting an unarmed person at a traffic stop, etc. At the point where someone decided to wave a deadly weapon around at others, I think they've knowingly forfeited their right to personal safety. Doesn't mean you should just shoot them if they are 15m away, but it does make me feel a lot less bad if they get shot in a position where they could have easily killed someone otherwise.
- cryoshon 11y ago
  I don't think that people complaining about excessive use of force hurt the point of view that the US is a police state. If anything, these people support the idea that the police are out of control. People are looking for any sort of easing up from the cops, even if it's for violent offenders. You get a constant drum beat of news articles showing the cops killing people who were unarmed, and public resistance grows, which for most people means nothing, as they aren't about to become criminals. Years of police abuses leads to a lot of people not caring if officers live or die, though-- where we are right now. This is a good thing, because everyone is on the same page: violent police are unliked. The colder the community gets to police, the faster they will change their tune. Ferguson was a turning point, with many police departments realizing that violence begets violence, and military occupation of neighborhoods as a policy begets violent opposition. Since Ferguson we've seen a lot of police departments start to walk back violence as a policy, and maybe in 10 years we'll be back to community policing. People see the European policing model (police not murdering tons of people or constantly beating/tasing them, having polite and helpful cops who are members of the community) and are getting jealous and angry. This too is a good thing.
  - Nadya 11y ago
    >You get a constant drum beat of news articles showing the cops killing people who were unarmed Anything that gets views will be a constant drum beat in the media. Media coverage is a bad indicator of reality. I would prefer these numbers stay lower [0]. But these numbers never get brought up by the media. They happen frequently enough that articles could be drummed out once a week, I wonder why they aren't? >I don't think that people complaining about excessive use of force hurt the point of view that the US is a police state. I'm arguing that the people who bring up foolish points as solutions are more harmful than helpful. I for one don't like reading articles like this one [1]. This isn't about being a police state - this is about people not knowing how to deescalate things. "Taking arm/leg shots" is not deescalation. Not shooting a violent and armed suspect is not deescalation. More or less asking officers to risk death is not deescalation. Yes - the US is increasingly becoming a police state. No, asking officers to risk death instead of shooting is not going to solve it. I agree about being members of the community. Public outreach and police interacting with the community in friendly ways goes a long way. We need more of this [2] [3] [4] [5]. It builds trust, it builds a sense of community, and that's something sorely lacking in many places of the US. [0] http://imgur.com/vu7kh0L.jpg http://imgur.com/vu7kh0L.jpg [1] http://www.cnn.com/2015/08/13/us/alabama-birmingham-police-detective-pistol-whipped/ http://www.cnn.com/2015/08/13/us/alabama-birmingham-police-d... [2] http://imgur.com/gallery/fgGLfPv http://imgur.com/gallery/fgGLfPv [3] http://imgur.com/gallery/6tpEqly http://imgur.com/gallery/6tpEqly [4] http://imgur.com/gallery/ONn2PQm http://imgur.com/gallery/ONn2PQm [5] http://imgur.com/gallery/C6d9d6Y http://imgur.com/gallery/C6d9d6Y

PlzSnow 11y ago

"Americans live in a police state" Americans do not live in a police state. Not by any sane interpretation of the definition. That's just absurd nonsense.

merpnderp 11y ago
Some people think living in a police state is where it is absurdly easy for the police to do their job. Like say being able to casually do an X-Ray scan of any car or vehicle they see.
- AnimalMuppet 11y ago
  Some people think lots of things. If you've ever been in an actual police state, you'd understand that New York isn't one.
  - LordKano 11y ago
    Try walking around New York after dark as an African American or Latino male and tell me again how it's not an actual police state.
  - angersock 11y ago
    s/actual/archaic You overlook what technology has opened up in terms of non-invasive surveillance.
  - merpnderp 11y ago
    "Police state is a term denoting government that exercises power arbitrarily through the police." Like say....stop and frisking "shady" people who've committed no crime? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Police_state https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Police_state
beeboop 11y ago
Here's how Wikipedia describes a police state: >The inhabitants of a police state may experience restrictions on their mobility, or on their freedom to express or communicate political or other views, which are subject to police monitoring or enforcement. Political control may be exerted by means of a secret police force which operates outside the boundaries normally imposed by a constitutional state. ~100% of American communications are monitored by the government. We have secret courts that authorize the killing of American citizens. We have National Security Letters, requiring people to do exactly as they're told and not allowing them to tell anyone (in some cases even their lawyer) they've been served with one. Government agencies operate outside the bounds of the constitution on a routine and mass basis (NSA's phone spying program was found to be illegal/unconstitutional) with zero repercussions to government employees and agents who violated the law. It also defines this: >An electronic police state is one in which the government aggressively uses electronic technologies to record, organize, search, and distribute forensic evidence against its citizens America is the poster child of an electronic police state. We do it more than any other country on a scale larger than any country in history. Americans are more monitored than any large group of people in the history of the world.

deathtoamerica 11y ago

Soon America will be unseated and the world will be free.

adventured 11y ago

This article is about the NYPD, and you go off claiming Americans live in a police state. I think you lost the context somewhere.

avn2109 11y ago
In fairness, lots of police departments would love to have X-ray vans. But probably only the NYPD and a few of its peer departments can afford them. Likely as the tech gets cheaper, Podunk USA's cops will also get them.
- pbhjpbhj 11y ago
  Then you get your donuts heated whilst you wait in a parking lot somewhere because someone forgot to switch the x-ray scanner off.

johncolanduoni 11y ago

In many places around the world that actually deserve the name of "police state", you would not be reading this article in a domestic publication. In fact, many of these countries wouldn't even let you read it online if it was published somewhere else. America has a lot of problems, but hyperbole isn't a solution to any of them.

happyscrappy 11y ago
They are not looking for solutions, they are here for the hate.
- yourepowerless 11y ago
  Peoples bald assertion that America is not a police state is empty useless rhetoric, plenty of facts disagree with such simple, propagandistic statements. Try actually contributing instead of shouting useless nonsense. EDIT: It is clear no significant counter arguments can be made, so instead down votes and accusations. Enjoy your echo chamber HN
  - johncolanduoni 11y ago
    Calling other people's arguments propaganda is empty useless rhetoric itself. Not sure how it contributes.

cryoshon 11y ago

I have to wonder, what do people think the line is? When does the US become a police state? I see people claiming that because we can discuss whether we are in a police state openly, we are not in one. This is a mistake because it assumes the goal of a police state is oppression. Oppression is not the goal of harsh policing or surveillance. Oppression is the means to achieve the goal of political stability. Oppression can be used to liquidate protesters which threaten stability, as it has been done in the US as well as many other places. Oppression can be used to squash unorthodox thought, as it was done in the USSR and East Germany. Oppression doesn't have to do both of these things, though. Power is free to decide what items constitute the biggest threat, and how oppression should be applied to best mitigate that threat. Openly using forceful oppression to prevent people from criticizing the government's policies is likely to stir up far more bad will and instability than merely using oppression to protect physical assets via invasive scanning etc. It is not intellectually realistic to envision a 1984-esque police state where speaking out against Big Brother gets you black bagged. That is far too obvious, and far too simple for reality. Our current situation is as real of a police state as it gets. If you live in NYC, you're 24/7 surveilled via a multitude of vectors, even if you're not suspected of any crime. The police are not accountable for anything, and allowed to conceal their methods and programs, even to your detriment. A police state.