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Calling the "Facebook police unit" - a group of city police officers assigned to the Facebook campus - the "privatization of the law" is quite overblown, especi
by LurkersWillLurk 7y ago
Calling the "Facebook police unit" - a group of city police officers assigned to the Facebook campus - the "privatization of the law" is quite overblown, especially when compared to the actual private police departments that exist across the United States.
If the residents of Menlo Park don't like how their police department operates, then they can elect new city leadership to change the police department accordingly.
Compare that to university police, which is often controlled by the university trustees. Who elects the trustees? It usually isn't the undergraduates, which comprise the majority of the university's population. Whether it's the state governor, legislature, or alumni, the decisionmakers charged with administering the police power do not answer to those against whom that power is used.
It gets worse with railroad police, which are wholly owned, funded, and operated by private railroad companies, and have national jurisdiction.
The powers of the state should never be in the hands of a private corporation, organization, or university, but what's happening at Facebook isn't that at all.