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The scariest part is that this kind of program drops all pretense and explicitly characterizes all interactions with the authorities in the context of the "thre
by cgearhart 11y ago
The scariest part is that this kind of program drops all pretense and explicitly characterizes all interactions with the authorities in the context of the "threat" each of us poses. It anchors the discussion in terms inherently antagonistic relationship, and normalizes aggressive policing behavior. Why aren't more people scared by this?
Although it is inconvenient for law enforcement, the government should not conduct persistent, universal surveillance on the citizenry - even if it only consists of monitoring & compiling publicly available information. The value of these tools is dubious, and the potential for abuse is high; there is no accountability for the costs in comparison to the utility, and they are routinely established in the absence of oversight by design.
Mechanisms already exist for targeted surveillance when authorities have probable cause. Normalizing casual surveillance with no specific intent marginalizes the discussion of more invasive surveillance techniques, and emboldens authorities who dismiss privacy as a trivial impediment to security.
- dmix 11y agoThought experiment: is this very different from police targeting high-risk neighbourhoods? Police have been over-policing black and poor neighbourhoods for decades but no one is protesting that. There will certainly be a correlation between "interactions with the authorities" <-> where police spend their time patrolling, skewing the data. The only time I've ever been stopped and interrogated randomly, simply for walking down the sidewalk with a hoodie on (in winter) in a bad neighbourhood, was visiting a friend in a housing project. Asking where I was going and who am I meeting. All of his family and friends get harassed by police living there, despite having zero background of criminality. And in Toronto they record your name/location each time you get stopped and carded in an "anti-gang" database.
- pjc50 11y agoPolice have been over-policing black and poor neighbourhoods for decades but no one is protesting that. Er, apart from all those Black Lives Matter protesters that keep getting in the news?
- dmix 11y agoApologies I wasn't aware over-policing black neighbourhoods was one of their issues. It seems to be rare that this issue specifically gets raised. Usually the media focuses on the conduct on officers upon an altercation rather than how often police are engaging with black people needlessly. As the parent comment pointed out, the use of counting the amount of altercations as crime data is a worrying point. Amplifying the side-effects of over-policing certain areas.