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> How do you think they are going to verify a threat? By showing up, right? I don't follow your implication - obviously nobody's suggesting the police not show

> How do you think they are going to verify a threat? By showing up, right? I don't follow your implication - obviously nobody's suggesting the police not show up. The point is that swat teams should treat anonymous calls as potential crimes - and potential pranks or mistakes - until they have reason not to. Systems need to be robust against bad inputs! If a system occasionally kills people when lied to, the solution is not to try and prevent people from lying to it - it's to improve the system.

jrochkind1 8y ago
Yes, the system needs to be improved, the way that police respond with indiscriminate violence as a first resort puts people in danger in many situations beyond these, and needs to be changed. But I feel like some in this thread are calling for leniancy for 'swatters', perhaps because they've done it themselves or are friends with those who have. "the solution is not to try and prevent people from lying to it." No, it's that too. The police ARE a dangerous murderous gang, as long as that is true tricking them into responding to someone on false pretenses is a violent act, with potentially deadly consequences, a grossly immoral act. If anyone thinks they can escape moral culpability for swatting because it's the police's fault -- even making that argument is explicitly recognizing that the police are a dangerous violent force, so if you sic them on someone you know what you are doing, you know the potential consequences. If you let your dangerous dog loose on purpose and it attacks someone, it's your fault and the dogs fault too. You have responsibility for your actions. Intentionally exposing someone to potential police violence is on the person who does it, even if the police ought not to be so easy to be used in that way, that person still used them in that way. And it's a horribly unethical thing to do.
- fenomas 8y ago
  > some in this thread are calling for leniancy for 'swatters' Saying that swat teams need to safely deal with false reports is not in any way sympathizing with swatters. Of course swatting is bad - everyone knows that. But "get people to stop lying to police" is not an achievable goal; "get police to stop killing randoms because someone lied" is. > perhaps because they've done it themselves or are friends with those who have. This is out of line, surely.

jrochkind1 8y ago

Yes, the system needs to be improved, the way that police respond with indiscriminate violence as a first resort puts people in danger in many situations beyond these, and needs to be changed. But I feel like some in this thread are calling for leniancy for 'swatters', perhaps because they've done it themselves or are friends with those who have. "the solution is not to try and prevent people from lying to it." No, it's that too. The police ARE a dangerous murderous gang, as long as that is true tricking them into responding to someone on false pretenses is a violent act, with potentially deadly consequences, a grossly immoral act. If anyone thinks they can escape moral culpability for swatting because it's the police's fault -- even making that argument is explicitly recognizing that the police are a dangerous violent force, so if you sic them on someone you know what you are doing, you know the potential consequences. If you let your dangerous dog loose on purpose and it attacks someone, it's your fault and the dogs fault too. You have responsibility for your actions. Intentionally exposing someone to potential police violence is on the person who does it, even if the police ought not to be so easy to be used in that way, that person still used them in that way. And it's a horribly unethical thing to do.

fenomas 8y ago
> some in this thread are calling for leniancy for 'swatters' Saying that swat teams need to safely deal with false reports is not in any way sympathizing with swatters. Of course swatting is bad - everyone knows that. But "get people to stop lying to police" is not an achievable goal; "get police to stop killing randoms because someone lied" is. > perhaps because they've done it themselves or are friends with those who have. This is out of line, surely.