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I've read similar stories about lost police documents. A public blockchain could be useful to prevent that.

by Tinfoilhat666 7y ago

rienbdj 7y ago
how?
saagarjha 7y ago
A public anything would be helpful; you don’t need a blockchain because there’s a single publisher.
yoavm 7y ago
Or, instead of blockchain, a simple API.
ohithereyou 7y ago
Being able to lose the paper trail is a feature, not a bug, so a system like that would never be implemented. The police exist to protect the property and station of those in power. It's why New York City was able to function without a police department until the 1840s while the New York Fire Department can trace its history back to the 1640s.
- MagnumOpus 7y ago
  New York had 180 police officers (marshals and local policemen, and before that, night watchmen) way before the NYPD was established - they were just not organised in one big hierarchy because most crime was local before the mid-19th century immigration wave.
chvid 7y ago
The issue was not the internal communication within the police. For that there was a complete paper trail. But the top police officers got their instructions from somewhere; probably high ranking civil servants, spin doctors or maybe even politicians in the then government. Those communications were gone.
- drtillberg 7y ago
  > “no officer had a case to answer for misconduct or gross misconduct.” Pretty suggestive that in this case, the police were able to demonstrate a binding order from someone who was not an 'officer'.
- pjc50 7y ago
  Really for cases like this the only way through is the Nuremberg one: "only following orders" is not a defence, especially if you can't or won't say who gave the order.
bleh123 7y ago
That'll drive them to use encrypted channels without oversight. The functioning of many a government agency isn't a derivation of the official processes. The official processes and record keeping are something that needs to be "Worked around" in many of these agencies. The foundation of America as a country was based upon the Founding Fathers deep mistrust of the concentration of power. They used the word "Government" to describe this back then, but today, the influence of governmental agencies, private corporations and large unions with outsize decision making powers all threaten regularly the exercise of individual liberty as this case shows. The answer is to return power to the people. The default scenario shouldn't be that someone gets arrested for whatever reason an unelected bureaucrat decides. Government or their agencies should have to request express permission to breach an individuals liberties and not the rubber stamp BS they follow now with warrants that require a threshold that's more likely than not to be granted on a mere suspicion. Transparency in this process is much more key to the honest functioning of Government than many others. Much too often, for the sake of brevity or to just follow a routine, judges and the people entrusted with safeguarding these liberties and acting as a check tend to obfuscate much of the process or worse, leave it up without the possibility of contesting the decision until after severe actions such as remand are carried out. We need to reinforce individual liberties.

I've read similar stories about lost police documents. A public blockchain could be useful to prevent that.

rienbdj 7y ago

how?

saagarjha 7y ago

A public anything would be helpful; you don’t need a blockchain because there’s a single publisher.

yoavm 7y ago

Or, instead of blockchain, a simple API.

ohithereyou 7y ago

Being able to lose the paper trail is a feature, not a bug, so a system like that would never be implemented. The police exist to protect the property and station of those in power. It's why New York City was able to function without a police department until the 1840s while the New York Fire Department can trace its history back to the 1640s.

MagnumOpus 7y ago
New York had 180 police officers (marshals and local policemen, and before that, night watchmen) way before the NYPD was established - they were just not organised in one big hierarchy because most crime was local before the mid-19th century immigration wave.

chvid 7y ago

The issue was not the internal communication within the police. For that there was a complete paper trail. But the top police officers got their instructions from somewhere; probably high ranking civil servants, spin doctors or maybe even politicians in the then government. Those communications were gone.

drtillberg 7y ago
> “no officer had a case to answer for misconduct or gross misconduct.” Pretty suggestive that in this case, the police were able to demonstrate a binding order from someone who was not an 'officer'.
pjc50 7y ago
Really for cases like this the only way through is the Nuremberg one: "only following orders" is not a defence, especially if you can't or won't say who gave the order.

bleh123 7y ago

That'll drive them to use encrypted channels without oversight. The functioning of many a government agency isn't a derivation of the official processes. The official processes and record keeping are something that needs to be "Worked around" in many of these agencies. The foundation of America as a country was based upon the Founding Fathers deep mistrust of the concentration of power. They used the word "Government" to describe this back then, but today, the influence of governmental agencies, private corporations and large unions with outsize decision making powers all threaten regularly the exercise of individual liberty as this case shows. The answer is to return power to the people. The default scenario shouldn't be that someone gets arrested for whatever reason an unelected bureaucrat decides. Government or their agencies should have to request express permission to breach an individuals liberties and not the rubber stamp BS they follow now with warrants that require a threshold that's more likely than not to be granted on a mere suspicion. Transparency in this process is much more key to the honest functioning of Government than many others. Much too often, for the sake of brevity or to just follow a routine, judges and the people entrusted with safeguarding these liberties and acting as a check tend to obfuscate much of the process or worse, leave it up without the possibility of contesting the decision until after severe actions such as remand are carried out. We need to reinforce individual liberties.