5 ms·

> * Police are more than half as likely to die on the job as a trash collectors. How is this at all relevant to whether a police officer deserves privacy? Yes,

by alehul 8y ago

> * Police are more than half as likely to die on the job as a trash collectors. How is this at all relevant to whether a police officer deserves privacy? Yes, their fatality rate is around half that of a trash collector. Since when was HN anti-privacy? You can use data like this to analyze and criticize the system, but I see no reason why the officers' identities would be helpful for any legitimate purpose, especially weighed against their privacy and the danger of such exposure in this heated political environment.

stefan_ 8y ago
I think you have a fundamental misunderstanding of privacy. Privacy is not for government employees in the execution of their duties.
pessimizer 8y ago
> How is this at all relevant to whether a police officer deserves privacy? Who was debating whether police officers deserve privacy? That's a question for theologians. The debate was about whether the threat to police officers' safety was an important enough factor to the public to merit censoring their names from reports of their conduct. If policework is currently less dangerous than trash collecting, that's an obvious argument against. I like the economic argument: if you prefer your violence anonymous, quit and find another job.
thatcat 8y ago
They aren't in a three letter agency, they are low level public servants. Individuals in such a position must be held accountable for their own actions. The system of police unions protecting them is a different matter.
danso 8y ago
Police officers have a vast amount of authority, not just being able to decide when to use lethal force, but in how to or even whether or not to pursue a case. In addition, they are protected by laws and resources that make targeting police for harassment an extremely foolish proposition. Judges and prosecutors don’t have their identities hidden, why would the officer whose testimony is often central and unquestioned to a case? Years ago, David Simon (creator of The Wire and The Deuce), wrote about the difficulty in getting the name of an officer behind a fatal shooting. [0] That officer turned out to have a prior incident of a shooting, and the case against the surviving suspect ended up being dropped. If the prerogative is “prioritize police privacy”, where would thenline be drawn for when transparency is/isn’t allowed? 0: https://davidsimon.com/in-baltimore-no-one-left-to-press-the-police/ https://davidsimon.com/in-baltimore-no-one-left-to-press-the...
- cgriswald 8y ago
  I'm not sure that's relevant, for two reasons. First, the McCarthy and Stirling et al. already have this data, so if it is needed for criminal or civil cases, likely they would make it available and if not it can be subpoenaed. Second, the majority of these officers aren't involved and won't be involved in a fatal shooting or other serious matters. I think this data is valuable for two things: 1. Discovering systemic problems. Why does department A have so many cases of use of force? It might be racism. It might be bad training. It might be underfunding/understaffing. Or any number of other things. 2. A complex analysis of individual police officers within departments. Is this officer outside a standard deviation in use-of-force with officers within the same department or patrolling the same beat or answering the same type of calls? Is the demographics of his use of force against individuals inconsistent with the demographics of the area? Is he largely using force against suspects who are not charged with a crime or are charged with a non-violent crime? Publishing these names has questionable value and is unlikely to lead to any type of complex analysis. Already most of the arguments for publishing the names are doing so on the basis of a presumption of guilt.
  - danso 8y ago
    > so if it is needed for criminal or civil cases, likely they would make it available Who is "they"?
    - cgriswald 8y ago
      McCarthy and Stirling.
      - danso 8y ago
        You expect the reporters, who are likely continuing to pursue the project and related stories, to operate as a data warehouse for legal and other requests? Nevermind the work it takes to build such a service, journalists are usually extremely reticent to be an active participant for either side for a lawsuit. We usually hear about it in the case of the government demanding a reporter reveal their anonymous sources and unpublished notes. But it goes the other way too. https://www.rcfp.org/browse-media-law-resources/news/judge-refuses-force-screenwriter-testify-oj-simpson-case https://www.rcfp.org/browse-media-law-resources/news/judge-r...
onetimemanytime 8y ago
>>How is this at all relevant to whether a police officer deserves privacy? They get paid to serve and protect and no one is asking for their cancer status. Everything they do is public, so it's well within our rights to know how many times they used force. Now if Officer Tim used force four times more than others in the same area and years, we can wonder...
toofy 8y ago
> Since when was HN anti-privacy? The Citizenry should have privacy while the government should be transparent. Tangent: Somewhere along the lines this has flipped and we've somehow stumbled into a situation where the government believes it deserves privacy and owes the citizenry none. I'm not sure how we ended up flipped, but it is not a good sign. This can probably go without saying considering the user-base here, but if we don't know what our government is doing, we can't hold them accountable and we have no idea for who or what to vote. Tangent to the tangent: If we're not careful, we might end up with new classes divisions, those who have both privacy and access to our data, and those who have neither privacy nor access to data, even their own. Strange times.
- alehul 8y ago
  I agree with what you're saying and the sentiment behind it (and the same goes for most of the other replies to my comment). I just wonder: is there a better way than giving names to the public to make mob-rule style decisions? It's impossible for us to know the full context (which is maybe something the government should strive to provide for all instances of police response), and I can't help but feel that the public will make sweeping decisions, without due process, and without proper examination (which again, seems currently implausible). While it's possible someone with more use of force is a rabid psychopath, it's also possible they've been in a lot of unlucky situations. I doubt the general public consider how true randomness can sometimes result in use-of-force outliers that are in fact behaving just fine, and have had a stroke of bad luck.
tchaffee 8y ago
> Since when was HN anti-privacy? Why should there be any expectation of privacy about what someone does during the course of their job paid for by tax payers that also involves direct interaction with the public? This sounds like expecting us to anonymize what politicians do in some sort of weird effort to protect the "privacy" of their public actions.
deleted 8y ago
[deleted]

by alehul 8y ago

stefan_ 8y ago

I think you have a fundamental misunderstanding of privacy. Privacy is not for government employees in the execution of their duties.

pessimizer 8y ago

> How is this at all relevant to whether a police officer deserves privacy? Who was debating whether police officers deserve privacy? That's a question for theologians. The debate was about whether the threat to police officers' safety was an important enough factor to the public to merit censoring their names from reports of their conduct. If policework is currently less dangerous than trash collecting, that's an obvious argument against. I like the economic argument: if you prefer your violence anonymous, quit and find another job.

thatcat 8y ago

They aren't in a three letter agency, they are low level public servants. Individuals in such a position must be held accountable for their own actions. The system of police unions protecting them is a different matter.

danso 8y ago

Police officers have a vast amount of authority, not just being able to decide when to use lethal force, but in how to or even whether or not to pursue a case. In addition, they are protected by laws and resources that make targeting police for harassment an extremely foolish proposition. Judges and prosecutors don’t have their identities hidden, why would the officer whose testimony is often central and unquestioned to a case? Years ago, David Simon (creator of The Wire and The Deuce), wrote about the difficulty in getting the name of an officer behind a fatal shooting. [0] That officer turned out to have a prior incident of a shooting, and the case against the surviving suspect ended up being dropped. If the prerogative is “prioritize police privacy”, where would thenline be drawn for when transparency is/isn’t allowed? 0: https://davidsimon.com/in-baltimore-no-one-left-to-press-the-police/ https://davidsimon.com/in-baltimore-no-one-left-to-press-the...

cgriswald 8y ago
I'm not sure that's relevant, for two reasons. First, the McCarthy and Stirling et al. already have this data, so if it is needed for criminal or civil cases, likely they would make it available and if not it can be subpoenaed. Second, the majority of these officers aren't involved and won't be involved in a fatal shooting or other serious matters. I think this data is valuable for two things: 1. Discovering systemic problems. Why does department A have so many cases of use of force? It might be racism. It might be bad training. It might be underfunding/understaffing. Or any number of other things. 2. A complex analysis of individual police officers within departments. Is this officer outside a standard deviation in use-of-force with officers within the same department or patrolling the same beat or answering the same type of calls? Is the demographics of his use of force against individuals inconsistent with the demographics of the area? Is he largely using force against suspects who are not charged with a crime or are charged with a non-violent crime? Publishing these names has questionable value and is unlikely to lead to any type of complex analysis. Already most of the arguments for publishing the names are doing so on the basis of a presumption of guilt.
- danso 8y ago
  > so if it is needed for criminal or civil cases, likely they would make it available Who is "they"?
  - cgriswald 8y ago
    McCarthy and Stirling.
    - danso 8y ago
      You expect the reporters, who are likely continuing to pursue the project and related stories, to operate as a data warehouse for legal and other requests? Nevermind the work it takes to build such a service, journalists are usually extremely reticent to be an active participant for either side for a lawsuit. We usually hear about it in the case of the government demanding a reporter reveal their anonymous sources and unpublished notes. But it goes the other way too. https://www.rcfp.org/browse-media-law-resources/news/judge-refuses-force-screenwriter-testify-oj-simpson-case https://www.rcfp.org/browse-media-law-resources/news/judge-r...

onetimemanytime 8y ago

>>How is this at all relevant to whether a police officer deserves privacy? They get paid to serve and protect and no one is asking for their cancer status. Everything they do is public, so it's well within our rights to know how many times they used force. Now if Officer Tim used force four times more than others in the same area and years, we can wonder...

toofy 8y ago

> Since when was HN anti-privacy? The Citizenry should have privacy while the government should be transparent. Tangent: Somewhere along the lines this has flipped and we've somehow stumbled into a situation where the government believes it deserves privacy and owes the citizenry none. I'm not sure how we ended up flipped, but it is not a good sign. This can probably go without saying considering the user-base here, but if we don't know what our government is doing, we can't hold them accountable and we have no idea for who or what to vote. Tangent to the tangent: If we're not careful, we might end up with new classes divisions, those who have both privacy and access to our data, and those who have neither privacy nor access to data, even their own. Strange times.

alehul 8y ago
I agree with what you're saying and the sentiment behind it (and the same goes for most of the other replies to my comment). I just wonder: is there a better way than giving names to the public to make mob-rule style decisions? It's impossible for us to know the full context (which is maybe something the government should strive to provide for all instances of police response), and I can't help but feel that the public will make sweeping decisions, without due process, and without proper examination (which again, seems currently implausible). While it's possible someone with more use of force is a rabid psychopath, it's also possible they've been in a lot of unlucky situations. I doubt the general public consider how true randomness can sometimes result in use-of-force outliers that are in fact behaving just fine, and have had a stroke of bad luck.

tchaffee 8y ago

> Since when was HN anti-privacy? Why should there be any expectation of privacy about what someone does during the course of their job paid for by tax payers that also involves direct interaction with the public? This sounds like expecting us to anonymize what politicians do in some sort of weird effort to protect the "privacy" of their public actions.

deleted 8y ago

[deleted]