8 ms·

Code of Silence

253 points by w1ntermute 10y ago

pstuart 10y ago
Yet another of countless examples of why the War on Drugs is a catastrophe.
FrancoDiaz 10y ago
I first read that as Cone of Silence http://www.wouldyoubelieve.com/cone.html http://www.wouldyoubelieve.com/cone.html
devicenull 10y ago
404?
- tempodox 10y ago
  Nope, seems to be up and running.
  - devicenull 10y ago
    That's bizzare, the page loads, then renders a big purple box saying Page not found We couldn’t find anything at this address. Please check the URL or go to the homepage.
    - TaylorAlexander 10y ago
      Corporate firewall? Are you at work?
    - mmagin 10y ago
      Me too.
- stpe 10y ago
  Same here. Looks like a JavaScript error is triggering something causing the 404 to Intercept (look what I did there!). The actual text is there if you View Source.
- ivank 10y ago
  There's a bug with JavaScript strings containing " in Chrome 54.0.2840.41 beta. It works after upgrading to 54.0.2840.50. https://bugs.chromium.org/p/chromium/issues/detail?id=640923 https://bugs.chromium.org/p/chromium/issues/detail?id=640923 https://bugs.chromium.org/p/chromium/issues/detail?id=639541 https://bugs.chromium.org/p/chromium/issues/detail?id=639541
gremlinsinc 10y ago
So is it safe to say if you want to lead a life of crime, become a cop first? Nail that get out of jail free card, then do whatever you want?
- hawkice 10y ago
  In general, being in a position to at least monitor (and maybe even guide) the investigation into your crimes will always be advantageous. This goes even further, in a somewhat bizarre direction. Suffice it to say "fraternal order of police" may be a more accurate descriptor than "protect and serve" in these cases (and, I imagine, much more generally).
- wu-ikkyu 10y ago
  The best way to rob a bank is to be a banker.
  - Phlarp 10y ago
    The quote you are looking for is "Give a man a gun, he can rob a bank. Give a man a bank, he can rob the world"
  - ikeboy 10y ago
    https://i.imgur.com/5OwAPdn.jpg https://i.imgur.com/5OwAPdn.jpg
- CaptSpify 10y ago
  This is severely anecdotal: I know a few people who basically did this. They admitted one of their prime motivations for becoming a cop was being able to do things like speed, control others, take authority in situations where they wouldn't normally need it, etc.
- _audakel 10y ago
  you have to know the system before you can beat it. Similar idea-> I think the only reason Ed. Snowden was able to get away / stay out of US prison was he had worked so long with CIA/NSA etc that he was very familiar with the tactics they would use to go after him, and he was able to take appropriate action to evade them.
throwaway98237 10y ago
God bless good journalism.
rublev 10y ago
Incredibly annoying site. - 'Read More' button, why? The only action I should be taking is scrolling. - No text resize / fluidity adjustment (yay whitespace!) - Huge graphics, not even talking about the full screen stuff. - Parallax crap - Movie background image - 50 requests / 13.9mb transferred / 8.28s load time I just want to read the article, man.
- mortenjorck 10y ago
  Just for an opposing view, I think what The Intercept has been doing lately with editorial design is fantastic. They've become one of the publications pushing the boundaries of the digital magazine experience, and the integration of rich graphics and video give an important story an appropriately compelling presentation. One thing I will agree with you on, though: The "read more" link adds no perceptible value and seems to have become an editorial design cargo cult.
  - zeroer 10y ago
    I always thought the "read more" was to track how many people read the article for analytics and ad purposes.
    - forgotpwtomain 10y ago
      Isn't scroll tracking better? They can click read more and still stop reading.
      - viraptor 10y ago
        Scroll tracking can be disabled with adblockers. Read more can always be tracked since that's the primary purpose of the link - when you want to read more.
        forgotpwtomain 10y ago
        > Scroll tracking can be disabled with adblockers. That's not strictly correct. Adblockers disable third-party services for it, you can just implement it yourself just like read-more, which again as I mentioned doesn't tell you whether they actually read or not.
kldaace 10y ago
Worth reading about the Invisible Institute (http://invisible.institute/ http://invisible.institute/) which is the journalistic company Jamie Kalven, the author of this article, started. They've been the driving force behind most of the public oversight of the Chicago Police Department in recent years. In addition to calling for the release of the Laquan McDonald shooting video, they've published a database of over 56,000 misconduct complaint records against Chicago police officers.
cryoshon 10y ago
Profit-seeking collaboration with drug dealers. Targeting of rogue cops trying to expose the dysfunction. What else aren't we hearing about? How much more evidence do we need that a lot of these malfunctioning police departments need to be liquidated and the perpetrators put into prison? Federal law enforcement exist specifically for times like these when the local law enforcement agencies have been co-opted by criminals and cronyism...
feklar 10y ago
Police seem to only want to manage the war on drugs not defeat it, as was explained to me by a friend who's a cop and became totally disillusioned, just counting out his days until retirement. This means working with one criminal group to help arrest the other groups. Of course by interfering in the drug dealing free market by propping up various mid level street gangs and arresting the others they create an extremely dangerous powder keg where these targeted groups go to great insane lengths to survive, and the propped up group is often dismantled and arrested by police whenever they become too confident and do something stupid like their untouchable gang members terrorizing too many innocent people. The demise of the dominant group once propped up by police means a power vacuum forms and streets become a warzone as all fight to take over the dominant position of police protected status. I'm pretty sure that without police 'managing' these mid level street gangs, they would just exist as smaller decentralized crews that would be much less violent as we would stop creating Tony Montanas and instead just have disorganized criminal activity on a smaller income scale since honest police would be able to easily disrupt these networks into bankruptcy. Instead we get police helping to form supergangs, with multi millions to spend on weapons and corrupt all aspects of a city with criminals getting into mafia-like construction industries to influence city tenders, bribe city employees or unchecked extortion of local business. Either legalize it all or end the strategy of selective enforcement, which means we likely need to double police budgets as cost is a major factor in this strategy of enforcement that relies on criminal cooperation.
- pixl97 10y ago
  >Police seem to only want to manage the war on drugs not defeat it Because they cannot defeat it. You will never win a war on vice. We didn't learn our lesson when prohibition was enacted. When you target vice and addiction a violent black market is created. >they would just exist as smaller decentralized crews that would be much less violent Being sure is pretty different from knowing. It's just as likely the street gangs would congregate power because there is a whole lot of money in illegal drug sales anyway you look at it. This is no different than non drug gangs, and even businesses themselves. Decriminalization of most drugs, and clinics where drugs are given in free, metered doses is probably the best way to remove massive amounts of money from the drug black markets.
bpchaps 10y ago
Invisible Institute is an incredible group. They are one of the few journalist groups who are interested in solving complex problems rather than simply reporting on them. If anyone is interested in doing similar work, it's surprisingly easy to get into by using FOIA. Just submit a request for something that interests you and pursue it when (not if) you get resistance. My contribution to the ongoing lack of police oversight was a request for police complaints that was never responded to. Since I received no response and Illinois FOIA has actions based on unresponsiveness, my lawyer - who I think the invisible Institute shares - had something extra to build a case for the release of police complaints. It didn't lead to anything being released, but it was still helpful. Every bit counts!
whack 10y ago
It still boggles my mind that police misconduct is supposed to be investigated and prosecuted by the accused person's peers. How is this not an obvious conflict of interests? Mandate body-cams for every single cop nationwide. Have all misconducts investigated by a completely separate department. Convict a few cops for perjury if they lie on the stand to help their peers. These three steps should go a long way towards mitigating gross misconduct.
- noobiemcfoob 10y ago
  It's not that it isn't an obvious conflict of interest. I believe it stems from the same realm as the military courts. Namely, civilians and noncombatants are not the peers of soldiers (or cops) because of the vast difference in experiences and mission. That's not a statement of support. Personally, I reject all military-esque ideas within a police force and consider them terribly dangerous.
  - dragonwriter 10y ago
    > It's not that it isn't an obvious conflict of interest. I believe it stems from the same realm as the military courts. Namely, civilians and noncombatants are not the peers of soldiers (or cops) because of the vast difference in experiences and mission. I don't think that's right, which is why we don't have police courts with a separate system of law and judges, prosecutors, and defense attorneys that are also police officers, the way the military is. Instead, the theory is the opposite, overlooking the inherent conflict of interest and just holding that police are just like everyone else, so that, just as it would be the police department that handled the investigation, arrest, etc. if any random person was accused of a crime, so to, if a police officer is accused of a crime, its the police department that performs those functions. To have someone else do that when police are the subject of the accusation would be an acknowledgement that there is a difference between the police and everyone else when it comes to criminal investigations.
forgotpwtomain 10y ago
>I recall talking to an American who worked for the Aftosa Commission in Mexico. Six hundred a month plus expense account: "How long will the epidemic last ?" I enquired. "As long as we can keep it going.... And yes... maybe the aftosa will break in South America," he said dreamily. Naked Lunch, William Burroughs.
RankingMember 10y ago
If you like this story and/or are a glutton for punishing tales of bad cops hammering good cops, check out the "This American Life" episode about a guy who recorded corruption in the NYPD: http://www.thisamericanlife.org/radio-archives/episode/414/right-to-remain-silent http://www.thisamericanlife.org/radio-archives/episode/414/r...
koverstreet 10y ago
Jesus. CPD needs to be burned to the ground.
- angersock 10y ago
  One of the problems with modern police politics is that there is basically no way for occupied populations to actually purge their corrupt police. Time was, theoretically, you could at least mobilize to throw the bastards out (see the Battle of Athens) within reason and let the community heal itself. Nowadays, though, the militarization of police and the desire of the .gov to crackdown on that sort of thing helps create this sorts of festering pockets of corruption that cannot be replaced because to do so is highly illegal. (On a related note, this is part of the reason a great many people are reluctant to disarm or to accept legislation that would put them further at the mercy of police.)
moeketsimhlongo 10y ago
I can't read the original article? Is police blocking it?

Code of Silence

253 points by w1ntermute 10y ago

pstuart 10y ago

Yet another of countless examples of why the War on Drugs is a catastrophe.

FrancoDiaz 10y ago

I first read that as Cone of Silence http://www.wouldyoubelieve.com/cone.html http://www.wouldyoubelieve.com/cone.html

devicenull 10y ago

404?

tempodox 10y ago
Nope, seems to be up and running.
- devicenull 10y ago
  That's bizzare, the page loads, then renders a big purple box saying Page not found We couldn’t find anything at this address. Please check the URL or go to the homepage.
  - TaylorAlexander 10y ago
    Corporate firewall? Are you at work?
  - mmagin 10y ago
    Me too.
stpe 10y ago
Same here. Looks like a JavaScript error is triggering something causing the 404 to Intercept (look what I did there!). The actual text is there if you View Source.
ivank 10y ago
There's a bug with JavaScript strings containing " in Chrome 54.0.2840.41 beta. It works after upgrading to 54.0.2840.50. https://bugs.chromium.org/p/chromium/issues/detail?id=640923 https://bugs.chromium.org/p/chromium/issues/detail?id=640923 https://bugs.chromium.org/p/chromium/issues/detail?id=639541 https://bugs.chromium.org/p/chromium/issues/detail?id=639541

gremlinsinc 10y ago

So is it safe to say if you want to lead a life of crime, become a cop first? Nail that get out of jail free card, then do whatever you want?

hawkice 10y ago
In general, being in a position to at least monitor (and maybe even guide) the investigation into your crimes will always be advantageous. This goes even further, in a somewhat bizarre direction. Suffice it to say "fraternal order of police" may be a more accurate descriptor than "protect and serve" in these cases (and, I imagine, much more generally).
wu-ikkyu 10y ago
The best way to rob a bank is to be a banker.
- Phlarp 10y ago
  The quote you are looking for is "Give a man a gun, he can rob a bank. Give a man a bank, he can rob the world"
- ikeboy 10y ago
  https://i.imgur.com/5OwAPdn.jpg https://i.imgur.com/5OwAPdn.jpg
CaptSpify 10y ago
This is severely anecdotal: I know a few people who basically did this. They admitted one of their prime motivations for becoming a cop was being able to do things like speed, control others, take authority in situations where they wouldn't normally need it, etc.
_audakel 10y ago
you have to know the system before you can beat it. Similar idea-> I think the only reason Ed. Snowden was able to get away / stay out of US prison was he had worked so long with CIA/NSA etc that he was very familiar with the tactics they would use to go after him, and he was able to take appropriate action to evade them.

throwaway98237 10y ago

God bless good journalism.

rublev 10y ago

Incredibly annoying site. - 'Read More' button, why? The only action I should be taking is scrolling. - No text resize / fluidity adjustment (yay whitespace!) - Huge graphics, not even talking about the full screen stuff. - Parallax crap - Movie background image - 50 requests / 13.9mb transferred / 8.28s load time I just want to read the article, man.

mortenjorck 10y ago
Just for an opposing view, I think what The Intercept has been doing lately with editorial design is fantastic. They've become one of the publications pushing the boundaries of the digital magazine experience, and the integration of rich graphics and video give an important story an appropriately compelling presentation. One thing I will agree with you on, though: The "read more" link adds no perceptible value and seems to have become an editorial design cargo cult.
- zeroer 10y ago
  I always thought the "read more" was to track how many people read the article for analytics and ad purposes.
  - forgotpwtomain 10y ago
    Isn't scroll tracking better? They can click read more and still stop reading.
    - viraptor 10y ago
      Scroll tracking can be disabled with adblockers. Read more can always be tracked since that's the primary purpose of the link - when you want to read more.
      - forgotpwtomain 10y ago
        > Scroll tracking can be disabled with adblockers. That's not strictly correct. Adblockers disable third-party services for it, you can just implement it yourself just like read-more, which again as I mentioned doesn't tell you whether they actually read or not.

kldaace 10y ago

Worth reading about the Invisible Institute (http://invisible.institute/ http://invisible.institute/) which is the journalistic company Jamie Kalven, the author of this article, started. They've been the driving force behind most of the public oversight of the Chicago Police Department in recent years. In addition to calling for the release of the Laquan McDonald shooting video, they've published a database of over 56,000 misconduct complaint records against Chicago police officers.

cryoshon 10y ago

Profit-seeking collaboration with drug dealers. Targeting of rogue cops trying to expose the dysfunction. What else aren't we hearing about? How much more evidence do we need that a lot of these malfunctioning police departments need to be liquidated and the perpetrators put into prison? Federal law enforcement exist specifically for times like these when the local law enforcement agencies have been co-opted by criminals and cronyism...

feklar 10y ago

Police seem to only want to manage the war on drugs not defeat it, as was explained to me by a friend who's a cop and became totally disillusioned, just counting out his days until retirement. This means working with one criminal group to help arrest the other groups. Of course by interfering in the drug dealing free market by propping up various mid level street gangs and arresting the others they create an extremely dangerous powder keg where these targeted groups go to great insane lengths to survive, and the propped up group is often dismantled and arrested by police whenever they become too confident and do something stupid like their untouchable gang members terrorizing too many innocent people. The demise of the dominant group once propped up by police means a power vacuum forms and streets become a warzone as all fight to take over the dominant position of police protected status. I'm pretty sure that without police 'managing' these mid level street gangs, they would just exist as smaller decentralized crews that would be much less violent as we would stop creating Tony Montanas and instead just have disorganized criminal activity on a smaller income scale since honest police would be able to easily disrupt these networks into bankruptcy. Instead we get police helping to form supergangs, with multi millions to spend on weapons and corrupt all aspects of a city with criminals getting into mafia-like construction industries to influence city tenders, bribe city employees or unchecked extortion of local business. Either legalize it all or end the strategy of selective enforcement, which means we likely need to double police budgets as cost is a major factor in this strategy of enforcement that relies on criminal cooperation.

pixl97 10y ago
>Police seem to only want to manage the war on drugs not defeat it Because they cannot defeat it. You will never win a war on vice. We didn't learn our lesson when prohibition was enacted. When you target vice and addiction a violent black market is created. >they would just exist as smaller decentralized crews that would be much less violent Being sure is pretty different from knowing. It's just as likely the street gangs would congregate power because there is a whole lot of money in illegal drug sales anyway you look at it. This is no different than non drug gangs, and even businesses themselves. Decriminalization of most drugs, and clinics where drugs are given in free, metered doses is probably the best way to remove massive amounts of money from the drug black markets.

bpchaps 10y ago

Invisible Institute is an incredible group. They are one of the few journalist groups who are interested in solving complex problems rather than simply reporting on them. If anyone is interested in doing similar work, it's surprisingly easy to get into by using FOIA. Just submit a request for something that interests you and pursue it when (not if) you get resistance. My contribution to the ongoing lack of police oversight was a request for police complaints that was never responded to. Since I received no response and Illinois FOIA has actions based on unresponsiveness, my lawyer - who I think the invisible Institute shares - had something extra to build a case for the release of police complaints. It didn't lead to anything being released, but it was still helpful. Every bit counts!

whack 10y ago

It still boggles my mind that police misconduct is supposed to be investigated and prosecuted by the accused person's peers. How is this not an obvious conflict of interests? Mandate body-cams for every single cop nationwide. Have all misconducts investigated by a completely separate department. Convict a few cops for perjury if they lie on the stand to help their peers. These three steps should go a long way towards mitigating gross misconduct.

noobiemcfoob 10y ago
It's not that it isn't an obvious conflict of interest. I believe it stems from the same realm as the military courts. Namely, civilians and noncombatants are not the peers of soldiers (or cops) because of the vast difference in experiences and mission. That's not a statement of support. Personally, I reject all military-esque ideas within a police force and consider them terribly dangerous.
- dragonwriter 10y ago
  > It's not that it isn't an obvious conflict of interest. I believe it stems from the same realm as the military courts. Namely, civilians and noncombatants are not the peers of soldiers (or cops) because of the vast difference in experiences and mission. I don't think that's right, which is why we don't have police courts with a separate system of law and judges, prosecutors, and defense attorneys that are also police officers, the way the military is. Instead, the theory is the opposite, overlooking the inherent conflict of interest and just holding that police are just like everyone else, so that, just as it would be the police department that handled the investigation, arrest, etc. if any random person was accused of a crime, so to, if a police officer is accused of a crime, its the police department that performs those functions. To have someone else do that when police are the subject of the accusation would be an acknowledgement that there is a difference between the police and everyone else when it comes to criminal investigations.

forgotpwtomain 10y ago

>I recall talking to an American who worked for the Aftosa Commission in Mexico. Six hundred a month plus expense account: "How long will the epidemic last ?" I enquired. "As long as we can keep it going.... And yes... maybe the aftosa will break in South America," he said dreamily. Naked Lunch, William Burroughs.

RankingMember 10y ago

If you like this story and/or are a glutton for punishing tales of bad cops hammering good cops, check out the "This American Life" episode about a guy who recorded corruption in the NYPD: http://www.thisamericanlife.org/radio-archives/episode/414/right-to-remain-silent http://www.thisamericanlife.org/radio-archives/episode/414/r...

koverstreet 10y ago

Jesus. CPD needs to be burned to the ground.

angersock 10y ago
One of the problems with modern police politics is that there is basically no way for occupied populations to actually purge their corrupt police. Time was, theoretically, you could at least mobilize to throw the bastards out (see the Battle of Athens) within reason and let the community heal itself. Nowadays, though, the militarization of police and the desire of the .gov to crackdown on that sort of thing helps create this sorts of festering pockets of corruption that cannot be replaced because to do so is highly illegal. (On a related note, this is part of the reason a great many people are reluctant to disarm or to accept legislation that would put them further at the mercy of police.)

moeketsimhlongo 10y ago

I can't read the original article? Is police blocking it?