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Leaked emails show crime app Citizen is testing on-demand security force

341 points by codq 5y ago

deugo 5y ago
I can't afford a private chauffeur, but I can afford an Uber Black. I can't afford a private security force, but I could afford an on-demand subscription. You want to defund the tax-paid police? Go right ahead! Now I want to collectively fund my own security force, for crimes that the police is understaffed for, what _exactly_ is the problem? If your concerns about police abuse or neighbors calling security on minorities, then focus on fixing that (defund them?) and let me interact with the private market. Or is this controversial from a rich-get-security perspective?
- EMM_386 5y ago
  So in this dystopian future you require money in order to get security protection? > I can't afford a private security force, but I could afford an on-demand subscription. And if you run into hard times in life and can not afford this subscription? Are we going to have "levels" of policing depending on which company you are subscribed to and the higher cost ones offer "better" policing? The "defund the police" movement will never be successful in a way that dismantles law enforcement. We'd have a lot more problems at that point than being forced to deal with for-profit security companies.
  - deugo 5y ago
    To me, your argument amounts to: you are rich enough to afford something, but poor people are not, so buying something unaffordable to the poor is a bad thing to do. If anything, if 50% of the neighborhood has this subscription, and you are too poor to afford it, you can freeload on the enhanced security. I do agree it is dystopian to require money for basic protection, and that this would not be collectively provided with tax money. Less if the protection is just enhanced (compare basic healthcare vs. being able to afford a private clinic). If it was possible, I'd like to pay more taxes, then vote (could be democratic, not scaled to amount paid) on where it goes. If the neighborhoods really are problematic, then maybe the local government could hire on-demand security forces for when their police capacity is low (and hold them accountable and to government standards).
    - kelnos 5y ago
      > you are rich enough to afford something, but poor people are not, so buying something unaffordable to the poor is a bad thing to do. For luxuries, I agree that would be a ridiculous point to make (a poor person can't afford a new BMW, but we as a society think that's ok). But stratification among basic services that everyone should have is the opposite of equitable. This is in part why American health care is so awful if you're poor, and it's not a situation we want to duplicate with policing. > then maybe the local government could hire on-demand security forces for when their police capacity is low (and hold them accountable and to government standards) Not exactly the same thing, but we've done that with military contractors, and that has not worked out particularly well for accountability.
      - deugo 5y ago
        I think the American health care system is a current dystopia: people are going bankrupt in a first-world country for contracting the terrible disease. Once basic protection, education, healthcare, etc. is offered to anyone (I do not see America in the future relying on private security forces for basic protection, so I think basic protection is covered), then private protection, education or healthcare should not be a problem. If America really needs private forces for maintaining basic protection, then it is probably better they have oversight of local government and serve the wider public, not secluded to a gated community.
    - EMM_386 5y ago
      > you are rich enough to afford something This is already a false assumption, you know nothing about me. > you can freeload on the enhanced security Great thanks I'm glad I got cancer, had to declare medical bankruptcy, and can now "freeload" off the rest of you hard workers who are doing the exact same thing I did for decades. Please.
- asdff 5y ago
  You probably can afford a private security force right now. In LA rates are like $20/hr. Not sure what this citizen app is offering, except packaging an industry that already exists and trying to sell it at markup to people who don't know this industry exists. I guess that's a pretty decent business model actually.
- bserge 5y ago
  I come from a country where private security is very common. Used to be ubiquitous until people started getting beaten up because the employer said so. So the police force just got funded enough to be bigger than all of the private companies. They are now the biggest private security service provider (yes, for profit company, separate from public police but run by the state, full of ex-police/military). It's quite ridiculous tbh. If you're rich, you're untouchable, while poor people eat dirt in prison even if they're not guilty. Not that different from the US. Incidentally, our military is full of used American equipment. Great value, maybe a bit too much for a country that wouldn't last a week in a war with any neighbour.
- kelnos 5y ago
  While the "defund the police" movement certainly has a lot of different motives and goals, my personal take on it is that we should be defunding the police for things that they are a bad fit for: handling things like mental health issues and doing wellness checks. Funding should be kept at levels high enough to handle being first responders to actual crimes and such.
  - deugo 5y ago
    Completely agree. Should not have taken a jab at it (maybe a reaction to those both supporting defunding public police and also vocally opposing my decisions in a private market to recover my security). IMO The entire justice system should be revamped with a focus on rehabilitation in society and viewing most drug-related "criminals" as victims who need treatment for their addiction or illness. Also concerned about the militarization of the police, and feel their budget could be spend better.
throwaway15579 5y ago
One thing that comes to mind here is that on-demand private security with fast response times are common-place in high crime countries and cities (such as Brazil and South Africa). I'm honestly not surprised that people in LA are turning to this and I wouldn't be surprised if this catches on pretty quickly where I live (Seattle). From what I can tell it seem like almost complete open season on property theft and damage in Seattle. In short, I don't really blame Citizen for doing this, I blame the politicians for not providing an adequately safe or lawful city.
- zeppelin101 5y ago
  The popularity of such security services in Brazil and South Africa is the first thing I thought about when I heard "defund the police" last summer. I then told everyone that people will start spending a lot more money on increasing their security, be it fencing or private security forces. It's not a complicated concept.
  - amznthrwaway 5y ago
    Try to imagine the police were run as a business, and think about how things would be different. Immense savings could be had just by realizing that you don’t need to send an officer (fully loaded cost $400k/yr) in a $75,000 car to drive to the scene of a non-violent crime to fill out a form. Defunding the police could easily result in lower costs and better service to citizens, if (and only if) we can get the authoritarian right to stop aggressively defending waste, and we actually work to improve the situation.
- cupcake-unicorn 5y ago
  Already happening in Seattle you just have to live in Durkan's hood: https://laurelhurstcc.com/security/ https://laurelhurstcc.com/security/
- asdff 5y ago
  Private security patrolling exclusive neighborhoods in LA has been a thing since the 70s. Even the scientology properties all over town have a private security force riding on those mall cop segways.
smoldesu 5y ago
This seems to me like it's setting a bad precedent. I totally understand the motivation behind something like this, but privatizing it and selling it to the highest bidder not only raises ethical concerns, but also ones around how this service will be used in the first place. According to citizen it seems like these forces will respond to "disturbances", which are incredibly vaguely worded. Do I need to be in danger to call them? Or do I just need to be "disturbed"? It seems to me like this will be used by the upper-middle class to pester their neighbors over minor annoyances, because they can afford a Citizen subscription. Imagine the poor family across the street, who gets visited by a black SUV and a group of burly looking suited security guards, likely telling them something vague about a "disturbance" that was reported.
- shmatt 5y ago
  > visited by a black SUV and a group of burly looking suited security guards Not very different than getting visited by a burly looking neighbor. Except some people can look weaker, or be afraid to approach their neighbor because their small stature When I had an upstairs neighbor having parties at all hours of the night, I wished there was a service where a bigger / more intimidating person would knock on their door and ask them to cut it out, instead of small and fragile looking me
  - tkzed49 5y ago
    And what if I'm disturbed seeing you walk around the neighborhood, and I call some big burly men to give you a talk about it? Even if most people are reasonable, this just invites the unreasonable people to power trip with private security forces.
    - ErikVandeWater 5y ago
      Talk? Yes.
  - majormajor 5y ago
    Did you talk to your neighbor ever? Or did you just dream of intimidating them while fearing them without meeting them? (And you weren't afraid of potential fallout from escalating things to intimidation either way? What if they hire a BIGGER person to go knock on your door?)
recursivedoubts 5y ago
I am not a libertarian, but do I have many libertarian friends. I always wondered why they smirked quietly at calls to defund the police...
- DaiPlusPlus 5y ago
  This was the backstory in Robocop (1987), btw. Detroit was going broke so they privatised Detroit police, OCP made the winning bid, then their plan was to replace expensive human police with cheap-to-run Robot-cops. That’s why the film was satire /first/, Hollywood-action-film second. Unfortunately I don’t think Paul Verhoven can save us from this...
  - verhoven_fan 5y ago
    I think verhoven has a particular sense of humor and while he himself labels some of his movies satire I think he makes a particular kind of low brow action movie first and foremost. Its more "demolition man" than "a modest proposal". Labelling the whole thing as a Satire and pretending to be above Hollywood audiences is part of his sense of humor imo.
  - reedjosh 5y ago
    But in that case the government paid a single company for protection. In the private market there will be competition for security services.
  - guerrilla 5y ago
    Two more fiction stories on the same subject: https://youtu.be/Eo2OQsPDwBI https://youtu.be/Eo2OQsPDwBI and https://www.newyorker.com/humor/daily-shouts/l-p-d-libertarian-police-department https://www.newyorker.com/humor/daily-shouts/l-p-d-libertari...
devwastaken 5y ago
This is exactly how gangs and mob enforcement happens. Organization of people whom are more than willing to create their own physical enforcement outside of the restrictions of the law go out and "protect" for money. And then organize to become both the perpetrator and the defender. Private citizens are not under the same legal scrutiny officers are - evidence obtained in violation of the constitution cannot be admitted in court if an officer is the one that does it. But if a private citizens does it can be acceptable. If people want rule of law, and not rule of force, then they should become officers not 'security force'. But I have a feeling that the reason they want to be 'securoty force' is to avoid the responsibility.
- irrational 5y ago
  I can’t believe you are writing this not in jest. Just a week or two ago we saw a video of an officer planting evidence in broad daylight. He was caught because of the video, how many officers have not been caught? What about yesterday when the police office ran up and kicked a handcuffed man in the head? Was that the rule of law or the rule of force?
  - Angostura 5y ago
    How much better do you think vigilante forces would be?
    - IG_Semmelweiss 5y ago
      I dont think it matters. What matters is that people are voting with their wallets. People need a solution to rampant crime. Take for example SA, where private security forces are widespread. The degree of deleriction of duty by public servants has been tremendous in the last 2 years. The NYC Major recently was on the record stating that "there is no security problem in NYC" meanwhile official City hall communication channels have implemented a buddy system where city hall employees can home in groups [1] If public servants can't provide security for people, there should not be a surprise that the private servicers would emerge. [1]https://www.nbcnewyork.com/news/local/nyc-city-hall-employees-offered-subway-buddies-as-mayor-tries-to-calm-safety-concerns/3044688/ https://www.nbcnewyork.com/news/local/nyc-city-hall-employee...
PragmaticPulp 5y ago
Between these leaked e-mails and the leaked Slack transcripts in the Verge article ( https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27236660 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27236660 ) it seems some Citizen employees are at least doing their part to push back on this ridiculousness.
- notatoad 5y ago
  when employees at facebook or google push back against the bad parts of the business, that's an encouraging sign because it might cause the company to focus more on the good parts of their business. when the employees at a company that only exists for the sake of authoritarian bullshit start pushing back, it's not really encouraging in the same way, because Citizen has no "good part of the business" to shift to.
devtul 5y ago
In Brazil the state provides free healthcare and of course, security through two polices, the day to day enforcement through the Military Police, and the investigative arm the Civil Police. Since both services are lacking, everyone that can pay, either from out of pocket or as a employment benefit, uses the private healthcare system. The more well to be pay for private security, bullet-proof cars, and other measures. It's symptomatic to see people using private services, as it may show the state provided ones are falling short. Defunding only hurts the poor that can't afford to pay for good private services.
motohagiography 5y ago
Who is the American customer for a service like this? I knew someone who did VIP protection (standard former military, protecting bank execs and families during travel), but the work was mainly international travel. The threat model appears basically to be urban street crime and maybe targeted harassment and political pressure. Unsure what else. If I could get this for airstrikes, I would totally buy it though.
- avs733 5y ago
  I'll likely get flack for this but it's white people. Out of touch white people specifically.
  - deleted 5y ago
    [deleted]
- throwaway15579 5y ago
  In my neighborhood in Seattle I've seen a tweaked-out individual literally just walking down the street spray-painting cars at around 6pm on a weekday. I called the police and they told me all officers were busy on more urgent/violent calls and wouldn't be able to respond. This was before COVID and the department is even more short-staffed now.
  - deleted 5y ago
    [deleted]
  - vkou 5y ago
    Short-staffed? SPD has one of the largest police presences, per-capita, of any American metro area, (while Seattle has middling crime statistics). They aren't short-staffed, as much as they are deliberately avoiding doing any work. They were also engaged in a lot of overtime grift over the past decade, which the city started to crack down on in 2019.
    - qvrjuec 5y ago
figbert 5y ago
This is the most cyberpunk think I've read all week. Yes please.
toss1 5y ago
>>Protect also advertises "Instant emergency response to your exact location," Seems like a bit of overselling here. "Rapid emergency response..." would be more like it. Although the request and communication to initiate response may take only seconds, the actual arrival time is unlikely to resemble "instant". Marketing getting ahead of the ability to deliver...
slownews45 5y ago
This is usually a sign of some perceived failure of the public option. Public schools in NY not delivering education some folks expect -> market starts for private schools. Existing delivery service not able to do guaranteed same or next day delivery -> merchants and others will build out their own capacity. My guess is that as police are defunded (Minneapolis is getting rid of police department entirely) folks who can pay and see a role for security will probably contract for it. In the bay area this is already happening to a small degree. It used to be you could walk into a lot of office buildings freely, now pretty tight security in some downtown areas (ie, public security option / service options are very poor and not maintained). So we get elevator passes and lockouts, security person downstairs, turnstiles, bathrooms all got doors with RFID door locks.
- throwaway15579 5y ago
  I'm seeing the same thing in Seattle. Private security has become MUCH more common all over the city in the past few years. I even see apartment buildings hiring 24/7 private security that patrols the building and the street around the building as an amenity.
  - slownews45 5y ago
    Overseas the end results if the police are totally defunded or weak is that you tend to end up with really strong differences / ghettos around places where there is and is not security. It's like gated communities on steroids, but starts to include office, mfg and other items like retail (which totally leave places with no security). Can result in shocking differences on both sides of the fence that usually separates these areas. Ironically the police then tend to follow along and provide better security to what are not better areas (if they have any capacity).
    - tpmx 5y ago
      Overseas where?
      - 5y ago
kaczordon 5y ago
If rich people can hire private security why can’t other people have that ability as well? As evidenced from this years riot’s lots of businesses weren’t protected by the police, I’m sure plenty of people would have needed this.
- ummonk 5y ago
  Yup. Private security has always been a thing. This is just democratizing access to the middle class and upper middle class.
newaccount2021 5y ago
An example cited in the article mentions a Citizen staffer wanting an escort to a coffee shop...if these are the types of situations where one might want to utilize a private service...what's the harm? The police aren't your personal bodyguards. Most colleges have walk-home services etc. In many states, security guards can be armed in public, but so can private citizens. The endgame for this will be large-scale gated communities that are town-level. A surefire to prevent homelessness in a particular town is for the entire town to be private property. If you can't card-in, you don't get in. Dystopian yes, but probably inevitable, and the trail was blazed by the modern corporate campus that operates on the same principles.
- throwaway15579 5y ago
  I would say the trail was blazed by cities over-correcting from the war on drugs and basically making low-level crime completely unpunished or enforced.
- klyrs 5y ago
  What happens when your private security is infringing my rights? Maybe I'll hire my own private security to fight your private security. Only a fool brings nonlethal ammo to a knife fight... Funny thing about the second amendment, people always gloss over the well regulated militia, and we're accelerating away from that, pedal to the metal
  - newaccount2021 5y ago
    Did you read the article? No one is suggesting a private army with special legal rights to employ force.
  - rootusrootus 5y ago
    > people always gloss over the well regulated militia Well, 'well regulated' did not mean the same thing in 1791 that it does now. And that part of the amendment was the prefatory clause anyway, so it's moot.
Gunax 5y ago
This is what will happen when you defund the police. Its not the end if law enforcement, it's the end of equal (supposedly) law enforcement.
- andrewzah 5y ago
  Adequately funded police can still take forever to arrive or decide not to come at all. This has absolutely zero to do with defunding police. Which by the way doesn't mean taking -all- of their money away. It means readjusting their budgets and allocating some of that money to other types of responders. There always has been a market for immediate response private security, if one has the money.
  - ummonk 5y ago
    Theoretically, a well-funded government police force could actually provide some on-demand services like this to the general public.
- realmod 5y ago
  The reality is that police funding has maintained even throughout the "defund movement", so this situation is not caused by police defunding.
podric 5y ago
What a brilliant idea from a business standpoint! Just like how rideshare apps increased the availability of car services in areas underserved by traditional taxies, on-demand security services like this can provide value in a similar way, by making available security services in areas underserved by the police.
jostmey 5y ago
Short sci-fi film beautifully illustrating the dangers https://youtu.be/Eo2OQsPDwBI https://youtu.be/Eo2OQsPDwBI It is also entertaining to watch
asdff 5y ago
Citizen is a dystopian app. It's like the worst elements of the boston bombing reddit fiasco packaged into a for profit application. The CEO offered a $30k bounty for a random homeless person just a few days ago: https://www.theverge.com/2021/5/21/22447446/citizen-app-internal-slack-palisades-fire-arson-bounty-manhunt-los-angeles https://www.theverge.com/2021/5/21/22447446/citizen-app-inte...
- andrewzah 5y ago
  Looks like they explicitly plan on incorporating bounties into the app itself. My prediction is someone will go all viligante and beat/maim/kill someone, probably who is innocent. Then the app will get pulled.
  - Judgmentality 5y ago
    > My prediction is someone will go all viligante and beat/maim/kill someone, probably who is innocent. Then the app will get pulled. I think it's more likely the first time this happens the person is actually guilty, and there will be a huge debate as to whether or not it's a good thing.
    - abfan1127 5y ago
      queue the "if we save only 1 child, its worth it" theme music as well.
      - skeeter2020 5y ago
        ah yes, won't anyone think of the children?
      - peteretep 5y ago
        As much as ‘queue’ looks like it would make sense, the word is actually ‘cue’
        abfan1127 5y ago
edoceo 5y ago
Pinkerton, rebranded.
jakeinspace 5y ago
Personally, as someone with very little interest in 2A, I’d prefer seeing people arm themselves rather than calling on budget Pinkertons.
Simulacra 5y ago
"Now a Burbclave, that's the place to live. A city-state with its own constitution, a border, laws, cops, everything."
iforgetti 5y ago
I wonder what Citizen would do if someone activated the “protect” application during a wrongful use of force incident by police?
- kibwen 5y ago
  If the combination Uber/Lyft moonlighters are any indication, you'd just make the officer's phone buzz in their pocket.
harlanji 5y ago
I’m homeless in SF and have had the feeling that something like this exists for about a year. Used to be in big tech, might’ve pissed people off with my mouth. I draw diagrams of how electronic harassment sustems could be implemented on my IG. Living in public isn’t scary on its own (1,085 nights), but apps like this are.
chaostheory 5y ago
This is inevitable. Even before the defund the police movement, departments across the country had police shortages where for every 5 officers they needed, they only had 3. Things have gotten worse regardless of which side of the debate you're on https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/crime/police-in-philly-and-beyond-are-struggling-with-a-shortage-of-police-recruits-and-a-surge-in-retirements/ar-BB1fZgML https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/crime/police-in-philly-and-be... I was just expecting AI and robots to take over ala Robocop and Little Sister cameras everywhere. I did not foresee the gig companies like Bannerman and Citizen doing it, but here we are.
- Black101 5y ago
  Around here they pull over people for simple traffic stops with 3 police cars
  - chaostheory 5y ago
    I'm just the messenger, and anecdotes aren't as useful as data.
    - Black101 5y ago
      Do you have some data backing that?
      - chaostheory 5y ago
        If my other link didn't contain enough data for you, here's more from before COVID and before Floyd https://www.npr.org/2018/12/12/675359781/americas-growing-cop-shortage https://www.npr.org/2018/12/12/675359781/americas-growing-co... Yes, I agree that US police forces need heavy reform, starting with decreasing the power and influence of their unions, then with limiting their function (e.g. they should be escorted by a health professional for mental health related calls), and then with increasing their increasing pay and expecting better and more educated results. If we're just going to swing far right ("Nothing is wrong. Everyone else is wrong and we should stay the course"), or far left ("the police can never be reformed, let's abolish it") hammers to solve or ignore the problem, then both solutions will just lead to the same result: no one wants to be a police officer anymore which imo will also increase police brutality and crime as a side effect. If we go down either extreme route, I predict that eventually machines will be our judge, jury, and executioner. I hope I'm wrong.
yosito 5y ago
I'm currently reading The Sovereign Individual (1999), which predicted that the State would start to lose it's monopoly on the use of force in the Information Age. I wonder if that's what we're seeing happen here. It's a bit disturbing to think that we may be going from having a state that (in theory) offers protection to all of it's citizens to only the privileged being able to hire private security, which is virtually unaccountable to the law, at their own expense. I'm hoping that this Citizen app is just one organization that's crossing the line that is soon to be shut down, but I worry that it represents a larger trend.
- azernik 5y ago
  I think that in most countries but the US, the state will stomp down on any such infringement hard; and in the US the state will use a much lighter and slower hand. Every time I can think of that people have predicted (with hope or fear) the Information Age will bring about an erosion of state authority, the state's control of existing levers of power have trumped the mere ability to organize/communicate.
- asdff 5y ago
  If we want to know where we are going, we should just look at other countries with similar levels of rampant crony corruption and growing inequality. I'd say an example would be Brazil, but they actually build a lot more housing and have a stronger social safety net than the U.S., and a favela seems like a decent place to live compared to a ripped up tarp and some cardboard on the sidewalk.
- jeffbee 5y ago
  I sincerely hope you are reading that trash just because you want to empathize with the libertarian wing of the VC class, because it would be sad if you expected it to be the product of serious thinking.
- gotoeleven 5y ago
  Perversely this is where the equity madness leads.. in education, since they can't make everyone achieve like asian kids, they are going to eliminate programs for advanced students. Rich people will go to private schools. In policing, since they can't figure out how to keep certain groups from committing crimes at higher rates than other groups, they're going to just stop policing. Rich people will get their own police forces.
chitowneats 5y ago
> First released under the name Vigilante in 2016 Oh, I see.
dang 5y ago
Ongoing related thread: Citizen CEO offered to personally fund LA arson manhunt for the wrong person - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27236660 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27236660
scarmig 5y ago
Citizen's implementation aside, I feel like there's a real market for something like this. I was walking down the street a few months ago and was physically attacked by somebody (as in, the man punched and attacked me until I ran out into the middle of the street into oncoming traffic for safety). I feel like there should be some sort of service that's able to offer some kind of protection in situations like this, or at least able to track down and prevent this kind of person from recommitting after he's shown a willingness to violently attack other people.
- jeffbee 5y ago
  Exactly what do you imagine the hypothetical service's response would be?
  - scarmig 5y ago
    Something that'd disincentivize or prevent him from doing it again. Ideally detain him and rehabilitate him. Barring that, track him and have people ready to physically intervene when he attacks someone. It's unpleasant to be physically assaulted, and I'd like to avoid it in the future.
    - jeffbee 5y ago
      That might work in Somalia but for a private entity to detain a person on the say-so of another private person would obviously violate the civil rights of the 2nd party.
      - scarmig 5y ago
        It also violates the civil rights of a private entity if someone beats and attacks him on the street, doesn't it?
    - throwaway292893 5y ago
      File a police report. Move somewhere the local government backs their police and they do their job. What you want is the ability to pay to get expedited help, to which I say is that the fair option to those who can't afford to pay for protection?
swiley 5y ago
I, for one, am very much looking forward to the n-gate write up on this thread.
tisFine 5y ago
I predict the demise of this company when one of their entitled rent-a-cops gets 2nd Amendmented for harassing people without legal authority.
JulianMorrison 5y ago
You know what would be great? If Karens had access to an app that could deliver branded cars full of rent-a-cops to their location at the push of the button. What's the problem, Customer? Did that nasty man demand you leash your dog in an area where dogs are required to be leashed? Let us just sit on him and hit him with sticks for a bit.
deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
pklausler 5y ago
Putting aside this particular company, I do think that there may be a market for a service that would provide documented accountable security responses for situations where subscribers have a legitimate hesitancy for ethical reasons to call public emergency services that have a history of racism or disproportionate violence. I'm not going to call my local PD for a noise complaint I can't handle because I worry that they're going to kill a person or their dog and I don't want that on my conscience.
- analog31 5y ago
  Likewise, there could also be a market for a service that comes to your aid when you are targeted by a private security force. For instance if someone comes to my house because of a noise complaint, I would not want to answer the door, but could call either the police or my own security service to hash it out with whoever is visiting me. This could get interesting.
- mike_d 5y ago
  Privately owned police departments and privately funded police officers already exist in the US. University Police, private police forces at nuclear plants and chemical plants, heck I know of at least one megachurch that has a SWAT team. The US Marshalls service has a "special deputy" program where bodyguards of the rich and famous become federal law enforcement with little to no oversight. This allows them to carry firearms nationwide regardless of state or local laws.
  - e12e 5y ago
    > I know of at least one megachurch that has a SWAT team. Really? Which one?
    - mike_d 5y ago
      I have provided training to them, so I'm not going to out them publicly. But stuff like this happens a lot more frequently than you'd think: https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-47732393 https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-47732393
chasd00 5y ago
if you use the app and call for help, who shows up to help? If it's someone trained and equipped to deal with any emergency i don't see how it's going to be even remotely affordable. They would have to keep scores of these people all over every part of every city. If it's just a random person who signed up as a responder i think they'd make the situation worse instead of better.
- donmcronald 5y ago
  People lack critical thinking skills. Anyone who thinks they’re getting better value from a consumption priced private service than from a public institution funded by the progressive tax system isn’t considering the economics of it. Like I said in another thread... You’re paying $20 per month to be a surveillance endpoint so Citizen can sell the real services to the rich.
dwt204 5y ago
Sounds like OmniCorp from Robocop. Private security firms in gated communications is well over 60 years old, but now augmented with new IT technologies and AI, this could be a problem, especially if legislation is passed to legitimize these outfits and give them special police powers, which many private security firms have now, including carrying firearms.
Pfhreak 5y ago
Hey, someone invented Pinkertons as a service! I look forward to this being used to violate the rights of minorities, union strikers, women, and the homeless!
tmslnz 5y ago
Giving a new, dystopian meaning to User Agent.
e12e 5y ago
> One of those companies, according to the emails, is well-known private security contractor Securitas. Finally, a Pinkerton in every pocket...
Ancapistani 5y ago
We’re getting PDAs, but we still don’t have direct brain/computer interfaces? This isn’t the cyberpunk dystopia I signed up for. PDAs: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Private_defense_agency https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Private_defense_agency
cuculandia 5y ago
Thanks for the heads up Vice! Just signed up. Been looking for solutions to state and local CA gov pulling the rug out from under basic law enforcement.
RGamma 5y ago
Cyberpunk 2077 here we go! * * without any of the cool stuff
aussieguy1234 5y ago
This sounds like the start of an episode of Black Mirror
ashneo76 5y ago
This is how the rich people hide behind whatever reason they find to justify hurting and killing random innocent people including "the Poors" and the plebs. Now they want to be judge, jury and executioner. This should be banned

341 points by codq 5y ago

I can't afford a private chauffeur, but I can afford an Uber Black. I can't afford a private security force, but I could afford an on-demand subscription. You want to defund the tax-paid police? Go right ahead! Now I want to collectively fund my own security force, for crimes that the police is understaffed for, what _exactly_ is the problem? If your concerns about police abuse or neighbors calling security on minorities, then focus on fixing that (defund them?) and let me interact with the private market. Or is this controversial from a rich-get-security perspective?

EMM_386 5y ago
So in this dystopian future you require money in order to get security protection? > I can't afford a private security force, but I could afford an on-demand subscription. And if you run into hard times in life and can not afford this subscription? Are we going to have "levels" of policing depending on which company you are subscribed to and the higher cost ones offer "better" policing? The "defund the police" movement will never be successful in a way that dismantles law enforcement. We'd have a lot more problems at that point than being forced to deal with for-profit security companies.
- deugo 5y ago
  To me, your argument amounts to: you are rich enough to afford something, but poor people are not, so buying something unaffordable to the poor is a bad thing to do. If anything, if 50% of the neighborhood has this subscription, and you are too poor to afford it, you can freeload on the enhanced security. I do agree it is dystopian to require money for basic protection, and that this would not be collectively provided with tax money. Less if the protection is just enhanced (compare basic healthcare vs. being able to afford a private clinic). If it was possible, I'd like to pay more taxes, then vote (could be democratic, not scaled to amount paid) on where it goes. If the neighborhoods really are problematic, then maybe the local government could hire on-demand security forces for when their police capacity is low (and hold them accountable and to government standards).
  - kelnos 5y ago
    > you are rich enough to afford something, but poor people are not, so buying something unaffordable to the poor is a bad thing to do. For luxuries, I agree that would be a ridiculous point to make (a poor person can't afford a new BMW, but we as a society think that's ok). But stratification among basic services that everyone should have is the opposite of equitable. This is in part why American health care is so awful if you're poor, and it's not a situation we want to duplicate with policing. > then maybe the local government could hire on-demand security forces for when their police capacity is low (and hold them accountable and to government standards) Not exactly the same thing, but we've done that with military contractors, and that has not worked out particularly well for accountability.
    - deugo 5y ago
      I think the American health care system is a current dystopia: people are going bankrupt in a first-world country for contracting the terrible disease. Once basic protection, education, healthcare, etc. is offered to anyone (I do not see America in the future relying on private security forces for basic protection, so I think basic protection is covered), then private protection, education or healthcare should not be a problem. If America really needs private forces for maintaining basic protection, then it is probably better they have oversight of local government and serve the wider public, not secluded to a gated community.
  - EMM_386 5y ago
    > you are rich enough to afford something This is already a false assumption, you know nothing about me. > you can freeload on the enhanced security Great thanks I'm glad I got cancer, had to declare medical bankruptcy, and can now "freeload" off the rest of you hard workers who are doing the exact same thing I did for decades. Please.
asdff 5y ago
You probably can afford a private security force right now. In LA rates are like $20/hr. Not sure what this citizen app is offering, except packaging an industry that already exists and trying to sell it at markup to people who don't know this industry exists. I guess that's a pretty decent business model actually.
bserge 5y ago
I come from a country where private security is very common. Used to be ubiquitous until people started getting beaten up because the employer said so. So the police force just got funded enough to be bigger than all of the private companies. They are now the biggest private security service provider (yes, for profit company, separate from public police but run by the state, full of ex-police/military). It's quite ridiculous tbh. If you're rich, you're untouchable, while poor people eat dirt in prison even if they're not guilty. Not that different from the US. Incidentally, our military is full of used American equipment. Great value, maybe a bit too much for a country that wouldn't last a week in a war with any neighbour.
kelnos 5y ago
While the "defund the police" movement certainly has a lot of different motives and goals, my personal take on it is that we should be defunding the police for things that they are a bad fit for: handling things like mental health issues and doing wellness checks. Funding should be kept at levels high enough to handle being first responders to actual crimes and such.
- deugo 5y ago
  Completely agree. Should not have taken a jab at it (maybe a reaction to those both supporting defunding public police and also vocally opposing my decisions in a private market to recover my security). IMO The entire justice system should be revamped with a focus on rehabilitation in society and viewing most drug-related "criminals" as victims who need treatment for their addiction or illness. Also concerned about the militarization of the police, and feel their budget could be spend better.

throwaway15579 5y ago

One thing that comes to mind here is that on-demand private security with fast response times are common-place in high crime countries and cities (such as Brazil and South Africa). I'm honestly not surprised that people in LA are turning to this and I wouldn't be surprised if this catches on pretty quickly where I live (Seattle). From what I can tell it seem like almost complete open season on property theft and damage in Seattle. In short, I don't really blame Citizen for doing this, I blame the politicians for not providing an adequately safe or lawful city.

zeppelin101 5y ago
The popularity of such security services in Brazil and South Africa is the first thing I thought about when I heard "defund the police" last summer. I then told everyone that people will start spending a lot more money on increasing their security, be it fencing or private security forces. It's not a complicated concept.
- amznthrwaway 5y ago
  Try to imagine the police were run as a business, and think about how things would be different. Immense savings could be had just by realizing that you don’t need to send an officer (fully loaded cost $400k/yr) in a $75,000 car to drive to the scene of a non-violent crime to fill out a form. Defunding the police could easily result in lower costs and better service to citizens, if (and only if) we can get the authoritarian right to stop aggressively defending waste, and we actually work to improve the situation.
cupcake-unicorn 5y ago
Already happening in Seattle you just have to live in Durkan's hood: https://laurelhurstcc.com/security/ https://laurelhurstcc.com/security/
asdff 5y ago
Private security patrolling exclusive neighborhoods in LA has been a thing since the 70s. Even the scientology properties all over town have a private security force riding on those mall cop segways.

smoldesu 5y ago

This seems to me like it's setting a bad precedent. I totally understand the motivation behind something like this, but privatizing it and selling it to the highest bidder not only raises ethical concerns, but also ones around how this service will be used in the first place. According to citizen it seems like these forces will respond to "disturbances", which are incredibly vaguely worded. Do I need to be in danger to call them? Or do I just need to be "disturbed"? It seems to me like this will be used by the upper-middle class to pester their neighbors over minor annoyances, because they can afford a Citizen subscription. Imagine the poor family across the street, who gets visited by a black SUV and a group of burly looking suited security guards, likely telling them something vague about a "disturbance" that was reported.

shmatt 5y ago
> visited by a black SUV and a group of burly looking suited security guards Not very different than getting visited by a burly looking neighbor. Except some people can look weaker, or be afraid to approach their neighbor because their small stature When I had an upstairs neighbor having parties at all hours of the night, I wished there was a service where a bigger / more intimidating person would knock on their door and ask them to cut it out, instead of small and fragile looking me
- tkzed49 5y ago
  And what if I'm disturbed seeing you walk around the neighborhood, and I call some big burly men to give you a talk about it? Even if most people are reasonable, this just invites the unreasonable people to power trip with private security forces.
  - ErikVandeWater 5y ago
    Talk? Yes.
- majormajor 5y ago
  Did you talk to your neighbor ever? Or did you just dream of intimidating them while fearing them without meeting them? (And you weren't afraid of potential fallout from escalating things to intimidation either way? What if they hire a BIGGER person to go knock on your door?)

recursivedoubts 5y ago

I am not a libertarian, but do I have many libertarian friends. I always wondered why they smirked quietly at calls to defund the police...

DaiPlusPlus 5y ago
This was the backstory in Robocop (1987), btw. Detroit was going broke so they privatised Detroit police, OCP made the winning bid, then their plan was to replace expensive human police with cheap-to-run Robot-cops. That’s why the film was satire /first/, Hollywood-action-film second. Unfortunately I don’t think Paul Verhoven can save us from this...
- verhoven_fan 5y ago
  I think verhoven has a particular sense of humor and while he himself labels some of his movies satire I think he makes a particular kind of low brow action movie first and foremost. Its more "demolition man" than "a modest proposal". Labelling the whole thing as a Satire and pretending to be above Hollywood audiences is part of his sense of humor imo.
- reedjosh 5y ago
  But in that case the government paid a single company for protection. In the private market there will be competition for security services.
- guerrilla 5y ago
  Two more fiction stories on the same subject: https://youtu.be/Eo2OQsPDwBI https://youtu.be/Eo2OQsPDwBI and https://www.newyorker.com/humor/daily-shouts/l-p-d-libertarian-police-department https://www.newyorker.com/humor/daily-shouts/l-p-d-libertari...

devwastaken 5y ago

This is exactly how gangs and mob enforcement happens. Organization of people whom are more than willing to create their own physical enforcement outside of the restrictions of the law go out and "protect" for money. And then organize to become both the perpetrator and the defender. Private citizens are not under the same legal scrutiny officers are - evidence obtained in violation of the constitution cannot be admitted in court if an officer is the one that does it. But if a private citizens does it can be acceptable. If people want rule of law, and not rule of force, then they should become officers not 'security force'. But I have a feeling that the reason they want to be 'securoty force' is to avoid the responsibility.

irrational 5y ago
I can’t believe you are writing this not in jest. Just a week or two ago we saw a video of an officer planting evidence in broad daylight. He was caught because of the video, how many officers have not been caught? What about yesterday when the police office ran up and kicked a handcuffed man in the head? Was that the rule of law or the rule of force?
- Angostura 5y ago
  How much better do you think vigilante forces would be?
  - IG_Semmelweiss 5y ago
    I dont think it matters. What matters is that people are voting with their wallets. People need a solution to rampant crime. Take for example SA, where private security forces are widespread. The degree of deleriction of duty by public servants has been tremendous in the last 2 years. The NYC Major recently was on the record stating that "there is no security problem in NYC" meanwhile official City hall communication channels have implemented a buddy system where city hall employees can home in groups [1] If public servants can't provide security for people, there should not be a surprise that the private servicers would emerge. [1]https://www.nbcnewyork.com/news/local/nyc-city-hall-employees-offered-subway-buddies-as-mayor-tries-to-calm-safety-concerns/3044688/ https://www.nbcnewyork.com/news/local/nyc-city-hall-employee...

PragmaticPulp 5y ago

Between these leaked e-mails and the leaked Slack transcripts in the Verge article ( https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27236660 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27236660 ) it seems some Citizen employees are at least doing their part to push back on this ridiculousness.

notatoad 5y ago
when employees at facebook or google push back against the bad parts of the business, that's an encouraging sign because it might cause the company to focus more on the good parts of their business. when the employees at a company that only exists for the sake of authoritarian bullshit start pushing back, it's not really encouraging in the same way, because Citizen has no "good part of the business" to shift to.

devtul 5y ago

In Brazil the state provides free healthcare and of course, security through two polices, the day to day enforcement through the Military Police, and the investigative arm the Civil Police. Since both services are lacking, everyone that can pay, either from out of pocket or as a employment benefit, uses the private healthcare system. The more well to be pay for private security, bullet-proof cars, and other measures. It's symptomatic to see people using private services, as it may show the state provided ones are falling short. Defunding only hurts the poor that can't afford to pay for good private services.

motohagiography 5y ago

Who is the American customer for a service like this? I knew someone who did VIP protection (standard former military, protecting bank execs and families during travel), but the work was mainly international travel. The threat model appears basically to be urban street crime and maybe targeted harassment and political pressure. Unsure what else. If I could get this for airstrikes, I would totally buy it though.

avs733 5y ago
I'll likely get flack for this but it's white people. Out of touch white people specifically.
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
throwaway15579 5y ago
In my neighborhood in Seattle I've seen a tweaked-out individual literally just walking down the street spray-painting cars at around 6pm on a weekday. I called the police and they told me all officers were busy on more urgent/violent calls and wouldn't be able to respond. This was before COVID and the department is even more short-staffed now.
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
- vkou 5y ago
  Short-staffed? SPD has one of the largest police presences, per-capita, of any American metro area, (while Seattle has middling crime statistics). They aren't short-staffed, as much as they are deliberately avoiding doing any work. They were also engaged in a lot of overtime grift over the past decade, which the city started to crack down on in 2019.
  - qvrjuec 5y ago

figbert 5y ago

This is the most cyberpunk think I've read all week. Yes please.

toss1 5y ago

>>Protect also advertises "Instant emergency response to your exact location," Seems like a bit of overselling here. "Rapid emergency response..." would be more like it. Although the request and communication to initiate response may take only seconds, the actual arrival time is unlikely to resemble "instant". Marketing getting ahead of the ability to deliver...

slownews45 5y ago

This is usually a sign of some perceived failure of the public option. Public schools in NY not delivering education some folks expect -> market starts for private schools. Existing delivery service not able to do guaranteed same or next day delivery -> merchants and others will build out their own capacity. My guess is that as police are defunded (Minneapolis is getting rid of police department entirely) folks who can pay and see a role for security will probably contract for it. In the bay area this is already happening to a small degree. It used to be you could walk into a lot of office buildings freely, now pretty tight security in some downtown areas (ie, public security option / service options are very poor and not maintained). So we get elevator passes and lockouts, security person downstairs, turnstiles, bathrooms all got doors with RFID door locks.

throwaway15579 5y ago
I'm seeing the same thing in Seattle. Private security has become MUCH more common all over the city in the past few years. I even see apartment buildings hiring 24/7 private security that patrols the building and the street around the building as an amenity.
- slownews45 5y ago
  Overseas the end results if the police are totally defunded or weak is that you tend to end up with really strong differences / ghettos around places where there is and is not security. It's like gated communities on steroids, but starts to include office, mfg and other items like retail (which totally leave places with no security). Can result in shocking differences on both sides of the fence that usually separates these areas. Ironically the police then tend to follow along and provide better security to what are not better areas (if they have any capacity).
  - tpmx 5y ago
    Overseas where?
    - 5y ago

kaczordon 5y ago

If rich people can hire private security why can’t other people have that ability as well? As evidenced from this years riot’s lots of businesses weren’t protected by the police, I’m sure plenty of people would have needed this.

ummonk 5y ago
Yup. Private security has always been a thing. This is just democratizing access to the middle class and upper middle class.

newaccount2021 5y ago

An example cited in the article mentions a Citizen staffer wanting an escort to a coffee shop...if these are the types of situations where one might want to utilize a private service...what's the harm? The police aren't your personal bodyguards. Most colleges have walk-home services etc. In many states, security guards can be armed in public, but so can private citizens. The endgame for this will be large-scale gated communities that are town-level. A surefire to prevent homelessness in a particular town is for the entire town to be private property. If you can't card-in, you don't get in. Dystopian yes, but probably inevitable, and the trail was blazed by the modern corporate campus that operates on the same principles.

throwaway15579 5y ago
I would say the trail was blazed by cities over-correcting from the war on drugs and basically making low-level crime completely unpunished or enforced.
klyrs 5y ago
What happens when your private security is infringing my rights? Maybe I'll hire my own private security to fight your private security. Only a fool brings nonlethal ammo to a knife fight... Funny thing about the second amendment, people always gloss over the well regulated militia, and we're accelerating away from that, pedal to the metal
- newaccount2021 5y ago
  Did you read the article? No one is suggesting a private army with special legal rights to employ force.
- rootusrootus 5y ago
  > people always gloss over the well regulated militia Well, 'well regulated' did not mean the same thing in 1791 that it does now. And that part of the amendment was the prefatory clause anyway, so it's moot.

Gunax 5y ago

This is what will happen when you defund the police. Its not the end if law enforcement, it's the end of equal (supposedly) law enforcement.

andrewzah 5y ago
Adequately funded police can still take forever to arrive or decide not to come at all. This has absolutely zero to do with defunding police. Which by the way doesn't mean taking -all- of their money away. It means readjusting their budgets and allocating some of that money to other types of responders. There always has been a market for immediate response private security, if one has the money.
- ummonk 5y ago
  Theoretically, a well-funded government police force could actually provide some on-demand services like this to the general public.
realmod 5y ago
The reality is that police funding has maintained even throughout the "defund movement", so this situation is not caused by police defunding.

podric 5y ago

What a brilliant idea from a business standpoint! Just like how rideshare apps increased the availability of car services in areas underserved by traditional taxies, on-demand security services like this can provide value in a similar way, by making available security services in areas underserved by the police.

jostmey 5y ago

Short sci-fi film beautifully illustrating the dangers https://youtu.be/Eo2OQsPDwBI https://youtu.be/Eo2OQsPDwBI It is also entertaining to watch

asdff 5y ago

Citizen is a dystopian app. It's like the worst elements of the boston bombing reddit fiasco packaged into a for profit application. The CEO offered a $30k bounty for a random homeless person just a few days ago: https://www.theverge.com/2021/5/21/22447446/citizen-app-internal-slack-palisades-fire-arson-bounty-manhunt-los-angeles https://www.theverge.com/2021/5/21/22447446/citizen-app-inte...

andrewzah 5y ago
Looks like they explicitly plan on incorporating bounties into the app itself. My prediction is someone will go all viligante and beat/maim/kill someone, probably who is innocent. Then the app will get pulled.
- Judgmentality 5y ago
  > My prediction is someone will go all viligante and beat/maim/kill someone, probably who is innocent. Then the app will get pulled. I think it's more likely the first time this happens the person is actually guilty, and there will be a huge debate as to whether or not it's a good thing.
  - abfan1127 5y ago
    queue the "if we save only 1 child, its worth it" theme music as well.
    - skeeter2020 5y ago
      ah yes, won't anyone think of the children?
    - peteretep 5y ago
      As much as ‘queue’ looks like it would make sense, the word is actually ‘cue’
      - abfan1127 5y ago

edoceo 5y ago

Pinkerton, rebranded.

jakeinspace 5y ago

Personally, as someone with very little interest in 2A, I’d prefer seeing people arm themselves rather than calling on budget Pinkertons.

Simulacra 5y ago

"Now a Burbclave, that's the place to live. A city-state with its own constitution, a border, laws, cops, everything."

iforgetti 5y ago

I wonder what Citizen would do if someone activated the “protect” application during a wrongful use of force incident by police?

kibwen 5y ago
If the combination Uber/Lyft moonlighters are any indication, you'd just make the officer's phone buzz in their pocket.

harlanji 5y ago

I’m homeless in SF and have had the feeling that something like this exists for about a year. Used to be in big tech, might’ve pissed people off with my mouth. I draw diagrams of how electronic harassment sustems could be implemented on my IG. Living in public isn’t scary on its own (1,085 nights), but apps like this are.

chaostheory 5y ago

This is inevitable. Even before the defund the police movement, departments across the country had police shortages where for every 5 officers they needed, they only had 3. Things have gotten worse regardless of which side of the debate you're on https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/crime/police-in-philly-and-beyond-are-struggling-with-a-shortage-of-police-recruits-and-a-surge-in-retirements/ar-BB1fZgML https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/crime/police-in-philly-and-be... I was just expecting AI and robots to take over ala Robocop and Little Sister cameras everywhere. I did not foresee the gig companies like Bannerman and Citizen doing it, but here we are.

Black101 5y ago
Around here they pull over people for simple traffic stops with 3 police cars
- chaostheory 5y ago
  I'm just the messenger, and anecdotes aren't as useful as data.
  - Black101 5y ago
    Do you have some data backing that?
    - chaostheory 5y ago
      If my other link didn't contain enough data for you, here's more from before COVID and before Floyd https://www.npr.org/2018/12/12/675359781/americas-growing-cop-shortage https://www.npr.org/2018/12/12/675359781/americas-growing-co... Yes, I agree that US police forces need heavy reform, starting with decreasing the power and influence of their unions, then with limiting their function (e.g. they should be escorted by a health professional for mental health related calls), and then with increasing their increasing pay and expecting better and more educated results. If we're just going to swing far right ("Nothing is wrong. Everyone else is wrong and we should stay the course"), or far left ("the police can never be reformed, let's abolish it") hammers to solve or ignore the problem, then both solutions will just lead to the same result: no one wants to be a police officer anymore which imo will also increase police brutality and crime as a side effect. If we go down either extreme route, I predict that eventually machines will be our judge, jury, and executioner. I hope I'm wrong.

yosito 5y ago

I'm currently reading The Sovereign Individual (1999), which predicted that the State would start to lose it's monopoly on the use of force in the Information Age. I wonder if that's what we're seeing happen here. It's a bit disturbing to think that we may be going from having a state that (in theory) offers protection to all of it's citizens to only the privileged being able to hire private security, which is virtually unaccountable to the law, at their own expense. I'm hoping that this Citizen app is just one organization that's crossing the line that is soon to be shut down, but I worry that it represents a larger trend.

azernik 5y ago
I think that in most countries but the US, the state will stomp down on any such infringement hard; and in the US the state will use a much lighter and slower hand. Every time I can think of that people have predicted (with hope or fear) the Information Age will bring about an erosion of state authority, the state's control of existing levers of power have trumped the mere ability to organize/communicate.
asdff 5y ago
If we want to know where we are going, we should just look at other countries with similar levels of rampant crony corruption and growing inequality. I'd say an example would be Brazil, but they actually build a lot more housing and have a stronger social safety net than the U.S., and a favela seems like a decent place to live compared to a ripped up tarp and some cardboard on the sidewalk.
jeffbee 5y ago
I sincerely hope you are reading that trash just because you want to empathize with the libertarian wing of the VC class, because it would be sad if you expected it to be the product of serious thinking.
gotoeleven 5y ago
Perversely this is where the equity madness leads.. in education, since they can't make everyone achieve like asian kids, they are going to eliminate programs for advanced students. Rich people will go to private schools. In policing, since they can't figure out how to keep certain groups from committing crimes at higher rates than other groups, they're going to just stop policing. Rich people will get their own police forces.

chitowneats 5y ago

> First released under the name Vigilante in 2016 Oh, I see.

dang 5y ago

Ongoing related thread: Citizen CEO offered to personally fund LA arson manhunt for the wrong person - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27236660 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27236660

scarmig 5y ago

Citizen's implementation aside, I feel like there's a real market for something like this. I was walking down the street a few months ago and was physically attacked by somebody (as in, the man punched and attacked me until I ran out into the middle of the street into oncoming traffic for safety). I feel like there should be some sort of service that's able to offer some kind of protection in situations like this, or at least able to track down and prevent this kind of person from recommitting after he's shown a willingness to violently attack other people.

jeffbee 5y ago
Exactly what do you imagine the hypothetical service's response would be?
- scarmig 5y ago
  Something that'd disincentivize or prevent him from doing it again. Ideally detain him and rehabilitate him. Barring that, track him and have people ready to physically intervene when he attacks someone. It's unpleasant to be physically assaulted, and I'd like to avoid it in the future.
  - jeffbee 5y ago
    That might work in Somalia but for a private entity to detain a person on the say-so of another private person would obviously violate the civil rights of the 2nd party.
    - scarmig 5y ago
      It also violates the civil rights of a private entity if someone beats and attacks him on the street, doesn't it?
  - throwaway292893 5y ago
    File a police report. Move somewhere the local government backs their police and they do their job. What you want is the ability to pay to get expedited help, to which I say is that the fair option to those who can't afford to pay for protection?

swiley 5y ago

I, for one, am very much looking forward to the n-gate write up on this thread.

tisFine 5y ago

I predict the demise of this company when one of their entitled rent-a-cops gets 2nd Amendmented for harassing people without legal authority.

JulianMorrison 5y ago

You know what would be great? If Karens had access to an app that could deliver branded cars full of rent-a-cops to their location at the push of the button. What's the problem, Customer? Did that nasty man demand you leash your dog in an area where dogs are required to be leashed? Let us just sit on him and hit him with sticks for a bit.

deleted 5y ago

[deleted]

pklausler 5y ago

Putting aside this particular company, I do think that there may be a market for a service that would provide documented accountable security responses for situations where subscribers have a legitimate hesitancy for ethical reasons to call public emergency services that have a history of racism or disproportionate violence. I'm not going to call my local PD for a noise complaint I can't handle because I worry that they're going to kill a person or their dog and I don't want that on my conscience.

analog31 5y ago
Likewise, there could also be a market for a service that comes to your aid when you are targeted by a private security force. For instance if someone comes to my house because of a noise complaint, I would not want to answer the door, but could call either the police or my own security service to hash it out with whoever is visiting me. This could get interesting.
mike_d 5y ago
Privately owned police departments and privately funded police officers already exist in the US. University Police, private police forces at nuclear plants and chemical plants, heck I know of at least one megachurch that has a SWAT team. The US Marshalls service has a "special deputy" program where bodyguards of the rich and famous become federal law enforcement with little to no oversight. This allows them to carry firearms nationwide regardless of state or local laws.
- e12e 5y ago
  > I know of at least one megachurch that has a SWAT team. Really? Which one?
  - mike_d 5y ago
    I have provided training to them, so I'm not going to out them publicly. But stuff like this happens a lot more frequently than you'd think: https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-47732393 https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-47732393

chasd00 5y ago

if you use the app and call for help, who shows up to help? If it's someone trained and equipped to deal with any emergency i don't see how it's going to be even remotely affordable. They would have to keep scores of these people all over every part of every city. If it's just a random person who signed up as a responder i think they'd make the situation worse instead of better.

donmcronald 5y ago
People lack critical thinking skills. Anyone who thinks they’re getting better value from a consumption priced private service than from a public institution funded by the progressive tax system isn’t considering the economics of it. Like I said in another thread... You’re paying $20 per month to be a surveillance endpoint so Citizen can sell the real services to the rich.

dwt204 5y ago

Sounds like OmniCorp from Robocop. Private security firms in gated communications is well over 60 years old, but now augmented with new IT technologies and AI, this could be a problem, especially if legislation is passed to legitimize these outfits and give them special police powers, which many private security firms have now, including carrying firearms.

Pfhreak 5y ago

Hey, someone invented Pinkertons as a service! I look forward to this being used to violate the rights of minorities, union strikers, women, and the homeless!

tmslnz 5y ago

Giving a new, dystopian meaning to User Agent.

e12e 5y ago

> One of those companies, according to the emails, is well-known private security contractor Securitas. Finally, a Pinkerton in every pocket...

Ancapistani 5y ago

We’re getting PDAs, but we still don’t have direct brain/computer interfaces? This isn’t the cyberpunk dystopia I signed up for. PDAs: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Private_defense_agency https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Private_defense_agency

cuculandia 5y ago

Thanks for the heads up Vice! Just signed up. Been looking for solutions to state and local CA gov pulling the rug out from under basic law enforcement.

RGamma 5y ago

Cyberpunk 2077 here we go! * * without any of the cool stuff

aussieguy1234 5y ago

This sounds like the start of an episode of Black Mirror

ashneo76 5y ago

This is how the rich people hide behind whatever reason they find to justify hurting and killing random innocent people including "the Poors" and the plebs. Now they want to be judge, jury and executioner. This should be banned