5 ms·

> We know that law enforcement and intelligence agencies face significant challenges in protecting the public against crime and terrorism. Do we? Crime rate ha

by tomp 11y ago

> We know that law enforcement and intelligence agencies face significant challenges in protecting the public against crime and terrorism. Do we? Crime rate has been falling. Terrorism is a statistical bleep. The majority of "crime" is government's own invention (non-violent drug-related offenses, prostitution, civil forfeiture, arresting people because they don't pay their student loans [1] [edit: not actually true, as tzs pointed out below], cop murders). Personally, I believe that even without any ability to access any digital communication/stored data, law enforcement wouldn't be in a worse position compared to 30 years ago. [1] http://finance.yahoo.com/news/paul-aker-us-marshal-student-loan-debt-arrest-212047386.html http://finance.yahoo.com/news/paul-aker-us-marshal-student-l...

tzs 11y ago
Your list of government-invented crime includes not paying student loans [1], but the article you cite for that is an article about how someone's arrest was not for not paying student loans and how many other articles misreported it as being for not paying student loans (it was for failure to appear in court). [1] Well, actually, what you said was that arresting people because they don't pay their student loans is a crime, not that not paying student loans is a crime, but I'm assuming that was just an error of phrasing.
- tomp 11y ago
  Yeah, I was wrong, he was arrested for not appearing in court (although it's not clear that he actually received the summons to appear in court). This was blatant spreading of FUD on my part. Props to you for actually reading the sources others post, and I am ashamed of myself and will try be more like you and read articles fully, not only skim them, in the future.
rayiner 11y ago
The majority of crime is not government invented. The majority of prisoners in prison are not there for any of the crimes you list: http://felonvoting.procon.org/view.resource.php?resourceID=004339 http://felonvoting.procon.org/view.resource.php?resourceID=0... Besides that, the crime rate has been falling during a period coincident with aggressive policing, more incarceration, and more legal measures (RICO) to fight organized crime. While people have alternative theories for that decrease (e.g. banning leaded gasoline), aggressive policing cannot be ruled out as a reason for the decrease in crime. Finally, tape recordings and wire taps are the backbone of investigations of sophisticated crime. It's disingenuous to pretend that pervasive encrypted communications doesn't dramatically change the landscape law enforcement is dealing with. I happen to think the privacy benefits of encryption outweigh the cost to law enforcement, but I think it's ridiculous to pretend like there isn't real crime out there or that encryption doesn't make it harder to fight it.
- fnordfnordfnord 11y ago
  Table 5 on page 17 http://www.bjs.gov/content/pub/pdf/p14.pdf http://www.bjs.gov/content/pub/pdf/p14.pdf of this report from BJS shows that half of federal prison inmates are incarcerated for drug offenses. I'd accept the notion that some of those drug offenders may have been violent, but not all of them. I suspect the violent crime statistic from ProCon rests on the habit of police and prosecutors of escalating charges for suspects where drugs are found for things that wouldn't ordinarily even be criminal (such has having a weapon in one's home).
  - rayiner 11y ago
    Having a weapon during a drug deal is a sentencing enhancement, not a different crime. There are non-violent weapons crimes (e.g. felon in possession), but those fall under the "public order" category (see footnote c). And remember, the vast majority of violent crimes do not fall within federal jurisdiction, so it's unsurprising that a disproportionate number of federal prisoners are in for drug crimes or other non-violent crimes (e.g. white collar crimes). But most prisoners are in state rather than federal prison.
  - tptacek 11y ago
    The overwhelming majority of prisoners are in state prisons, where something like 17% of inmates are incarcerated for drug offenses. The majority of inmates are in fact incarcerated for violent crimes.
    - fnordfnordfnord 11y ago
      Yeah, I used the federal statistics because it's easier to find the data. Rayiner made a reasonable point about the difference in federal vs state inmates. >where something like 17% of inmates are incarcerated for drug offenses. I hope you don't mind if I use a single state, I know these thing will vary by state. The top drug crimes in Texas are different degrees of possession and manufacturing and distribution, and you're right, it's about 17% >The majority of inmates are in fact incarcerated for violent crimes. There are other crimes that aren't violent and aren't drug offenses, those appear to be about 43% (60% when you include drug offenses), and the violent ones about 40%, not a majority. Do you have a source for your "majority of inmates are in fact incarcerated for violent crimes" claim? The statistics I used are by offense, not by offender. I'm not sure how that will change if the statistics are broken down by offender. https://www.texastribune.org/library/data/texas-prisons/crimes/ https://www.texastribune.org/library/data/texas-prisons/crim...
ascagnel_ 11y ago
It may have been changed, but the headline of the linked article (as of approx. 8:30AM EST) is literally "U.S. Marshals didn't really arrest a man for missed student loan payments". Failure to appear (the reason he was arrested) has long been accepted as a reason for a judge to issue an arrest warrant. > According to a statement from the U.S. Marshals Service, Aker repeatedly refused to show up in court after being contacted several times. The agency said Aker told them by phone he would not appear in court to answer the summons. Disobeying a court order is a criminal offense. Within a few months, the judge issued a warrant for his arrest, which the U.S. Marshals carried out. So, yes, Aker was arrested, but not just because he owed a little student loan debt. He was arrested for disobeying a court order.
- fnordfnordfnord 11y ago
  >According to a statement from the U.S. Marshals Service, Aker repeatedly refused to show up in court after being contacted several times. If some one called my home on the telephone and said "I'm a US Marshal, send money to pay for a 20 year old debt." or something to that effect, I'd probably interrupt the caller to tell them to put me on their Do Not Call list and then immediately hang up the phone before they ever got the chance to explain half of it. I've received much more creative attempts than that to scam me out of money over the telephone, and I'm sure that I'm not alone in that respect. I get calls from scammers all of the time, and in related news the IRS has recently warned people that scammers are calling and using that exact same pattern but pretending to be collecting an IRS debt instead of student loans. Therefore there is zero chance that I would take a telephone call like that seriously since there is zero way to authenticate the caller. We don't know whether other the marshals tried anything other than the telephone to contact Aker, but I've seen no comment from them to indicate that is the case. Assuming they've only contacted him by telephone then the proposition is that we must all obey anyone who calls us on the phone and claims to be a government agent.
  - ascagnel_ 11y ago
    I doubt they only contacted him by phone; instead, that phone call was likely the only response he gave.

by tomp 11y ago

tzs 11y ago

Your list of government-invented crime includes not paying student loans [1], but the article you cite for that is an article about how someone's arrest was not for not paying student loans and how many other articles misreported it as being for not paying student loans (it was for failure to appear in court). [1] Well, actually, what you said was that arresting people because they don't pay their student loans is a crime, not that not paying student loans is a crime, but I'm assuming that was just an error of phrasing.

tomp 11y ago
Yeah, I was wrong, he was arrested for not appearing in court (although it's not clear that he actually received the summons to appear in court). This was blatant spreading of FUD on my part. Props to you for actually reading the sources others post, and I am ashamed of myself and will try be more like you and read articles fully, not only skim them, in the future.

rayiner 11y ago

The majority of crime is not government invented. The majority of prisoners in prison are not there for any of the crimes you list: http://felonvoting.procon.org/view.resource.php?resourceID=004339 http://felonvoting.procon.org/view.resource.php?resourceID=0... Besides that, the crime rate has been falling during a period coincident with aggressive policing, more incarceration, and more legal measures (RICO) to fight organized crime. While people have alternative theories for that decrease (e.g. banning leaded gasoline), aggressive policing cannot be ruled out as a reason for the decrease in crime. Finally, tape recordings and wire taps are the backbone of investigations of sophisticated crime. It's disingenuous to pretend that pervasive encrypted communications doesn't dramatically change the landscape law enforcement is dealing with. I happen to think the privacy benefits of encryption outweigh the cost to law enforcement, but I think it's ridiculous to pretend like there isn't real crime out there or that encryption doesn't make it harder to fight it.

fnordfnordfnord 11y ago
Table 5 on page 17 http://www.bjs.gov/content/pub/pdf/p14.pdf http://www.bjs.gov/content/pub/pdf/p14.pdf of this report from BJS shows that half of federal prison inmates are incarcerated for drug offenses. I'd accept the notion that some of those drug offenders may have been violent, but not all of them. I suspect the violent crime statistic from ProCon rests on the habit of police and prosecutors of escalating charges for suspects where drugs are found for things that wouldn't ordinarily even be criminal (such has having a weapon in one's home).
- rayiner 11y ago
  Having a weapon during a drug deal is a sentencing enhancement, not a different crime. There are non-violent weapons crimes (e.g. felon in possession), but those fall under the "public order" category (see footnote c). And remember, the vast majority of violent crimes do not fall within federal jurisdiction, so it's unsurprising that a disproportionate number of federal prisoners are in for drug crimes or other non-violent crimes (e.g. white collar crimes). But most prisoners are in state rather than federal prison.
- tptacek 11y ago
  The overwhelming majority of prisoners are in state prisons, where something like 17% of inmates are incarcerated for drug offenses. The majority of inmates are in fact incarcerated for violent crimes.
  - fnordfnordfnord 11y ago
    Yeah, I used the federal statistics because it's easier to find the data. Rayiner made a reasonable point about the difference in federal vs state inmates. >where something like 17% of inmates are incarcerated for drug offenses. I hope you don't mind if I use a single state, I know these thing will vary by state. The top drug crimes in Texas are different degrees of possession and manufacturing and distribution, and you're right, it's about 17% >The majority of inmates are in fact incarcerated for violent crimes. There are other crimes that aren't violent and aren't drug offenses, those appear to be about 43% (60% when you include drug offenses), and the violent ones about 40%, not a majority. Do you have a source for your "majority of inmates are in fact incarcerated for violent crimes" claim? The statistics I used are by offense, not by offender. I'm not sure how that will change if the statistics are broken down by offender. https://www.texastribune.org/library/data/texas-prisons/crimes/ https://www.texastribune.org/library/data/texas-prisons/crim...

ascagnel_ 11y ago

It may have been changed, but the headline of the linked article (as of approx. 8:30AM EST) is literally "U.S. Marshals didn't really arrest a man for missed student loan payments". Failure to appear (the reason he was arrested) has long been accepted as a reason for a judge to issue an arrest warrant. > According to a statement from the U.S. Marshals Service, Aker repeatedly refused to show up in court after being contacted several times. The agency said Aker told them by phone he would not appear in court to answer the summons. Disobeying a court order is a criminal offense. Within a few months, the judge issued a warrant for his arrest, which the U.S. Marshals carried out. So, yes, Aker was arrested, but not just because he owed a little student loan debt. He was arrested for disobeying a court order.

fnordfnordfnord 11y ago
>According to a statement from the U.S. Marshals Service, Aker repeatedly refused to show up in court after being contacted several times. If some one called my home on the telephone and said "I'm a US Marshal, send money to pay for a 20 year old debt." or something to that effect, I'd probably interrupt the caller to tell them to put me on their Do Not Call list and then immediately hang up the phone before they ever got the chance to explain half of it. I've received much more creative attempts than that to scam me out of money over the telephone, and I'm sure that I'm not alone in that respect. I get calls from scammers all of the time, and in related news the IRS has recently warned people that scammers are calling and using that exact same pattern but pretending to be collecting an IRS debt instead of student loans. Therefore there is zero chance that I would take a telephone call like that seriously since there is zero way to authenticate the caller. We don't know whether other the marshals tried anything other than the telephone to contact Aker, but I've seen no comment from them to indicate that is the case. Assuming they've only contacted him by telephone then the proposition is that we must all obey anyone who calls us on the phone and claims to be a government agent.
- ascagnel_ 11y ago
  I doubt they only contacted him by phone; instead, that phone call was likely the only response he gave.