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Turning the profiles and prejudices of police into an explicit metric, whose code can be examined and debated, seems like an idea that might have not have legs

by jMyles 11y ago

Turning the profiles and prejudices of police into an explicit metric, whose code can be examined and debated, seems like an idea that might have not have legs in a free society. However, surprisingly unmentioned here is the inevitability, so long as the client is the state, that these metrics include political dissent as a threat model. Has anyone asked Beware for comment on this?

cryoshon 11y ago
This is probably the unstated purpose of the software rather than providing stratagems for officers responding to incidents-- the repertoire of possible moves contains only "violence" or "ultraviolence", so information on which to use when responding to an incident isn't that useful. The police already build dossiers on people who attend protests so that they will have targets to discredit or harass. When do the citizens start building dossiers on the police?
- newman314 11y ago
  I'm definitely for scoring the police if they insist on rolling this out. Police should not be above the law. Unfortunately, this is not likely to happen just like LEO are able to hide their home address because safety but you Joe citizen do not have that option.
sliverstorm 11y ago
If political dissent is correlated to violence, why shouldn't it be a parameter in the threat model? Everyone, including police, form threat models in their own minds all the time. Ever avoided the hoodied skinhead hiding his hands in his pockets in a dark alley? Threat model. The model isn't grounds for prosecution, but it is reasonable grounds to adjust your response.
- pjc50 11y ago
  If political dissent is correlated to violence, why shouldn't it be a parameter in the threat model? Because we know this will be implemented in a partisan way. "Dissent" implies that there is a single politics from which everything different must be considered suspect. Simply using the word implies totalitarianism. You can see this in the US where the white people talking about the violent overthrow of the government somehow aren't considered terrorists and are relatively unmolested even if they actually occupy Federal land and buildings, but a nonwhite kid holding a toy gun gets shot in a playground. Edit: just to drive the point home, does the threat model include a database of gun owners? Do we think gun ownership might be correlated with crime? Or is it illegal to investigate that as it is for the CDC?
  - sliverstorm 11y ago
    How does "dissent" imply totalitarianism? If someone was to believe that women should not be allowed to vote today in the USA, they would be dissenters. Does that mean the USA is totalitarian? As far as I can tell, they're relatively unmolested because: http://imgur.com/AYNRxlo http://imgur.com/AYNRxlo
- jMyles 11y ago
  > political dissent is correlated to violence In some important ways, this is already a non-sequitur. First, let's stipulate that dissent is positively correlated to violence, although I don't know how exactly you'd measure that. I suspect that, for reasonable measurements, it's not and that in fact it's negatively correlated. But let's stipulate. To use the example of the current political configuration of the United States: the government is ruthlessly violent, not only within its borders but around the world. So, which is more strongly "correlated" to violence, support for the government or dissent? If you hobnob with government officials, does this make you more closely connected to violence than if you associate with dissenters?

by jMyles 11y ago

cryoshon 11y ago

This is probably the unstated purpose of the software rather than providing stratagems for officers responding to incidents-- the repertoire of possible moves contains only "violence" or "ultraviolence", so information on which to use when responding to an incident isn't that useful. The police already build dossiers on people who attend protests so that they will have targets to discredit or harass. When do the citizens start building dossiers on the police?

newman314 11y ago
I'm definitely for scoring the police if they insist on rolling this out. Police should not be above the law. Unfortunately, this is not likely to happen just like LEO are able to hide their home address because safety but you Joe citizen do not have that option.

sliverstorm 11y ago

If political dissent is correlated to violence, why shouldn't it be a parameter in the threat model? Everyone, including police, form threat models in their own minds all the time. Ever avoided the hoodied skinhead hiding his hands in his pockets in a dark alley? Threat model. The model isn't grounds for prosecution, but it is reasonable grounds to adjust your response.

pjc50 11y ago
If political dissent is correlated to violence, why shouldn't it be a parameter in the threat model? Because we know this will be implemented in a partisan way. "Dissent" implies that there is a single politics from which everything different must be considered suspect. Simply using the word implies totalitarianism. You can see this in the US where the white people talking about the violent overthrow of the government somehow aren't considered terrorists and are relatively unmolested even if they actually occupy Federal land and buildings, but a nonwhite kid holding a toy gun gets shot in a playground. Edit: just to drive the point home, does the threat model include a database of gun owners? Do we think gun ownership might be correlated with crime? Or is it illegal to investigate that as it is for the CDC?
- sliverstorm 11y ago
  How does "dissent" imply totalitarianism? If someone was to believe that women should not be allowed to vote today in the USA, they would be dissenters. Does that mean the USA is totalitarian? As far as I can tell, they're relatively unmolested because: http://imgur.com/AYNRxlo http://imgur.com/AYNRxlo
jMyles 11y ago
> political dissent is correlated to violence In some important ways, this is already a non-sequitur. First, let's stipulate that dissent is positively correlated to violence, although I don't know how exactly you'd measure that. I suspect that, for reasonable measurements, it's not and that in fact it's negatively correlated. But let's stipulate. To use the example of the current political configuration of the United States: the government is ruthlessly violent, not only within its borders but around the world. So, which is more strongly "correlated" to violence, support for the government or dissent? If you hobnob with government officials, does this make you more closely connected to violence than if you associate with dissenters?