7 ms·

It’s not easy to control police use of tech, even with a law

89 points by BerislavLopac 5y ago

raxxorrax 5y ago
Yes, because we don't hold people accountable anymore. It didn't happen after Snowden revelation because it was politically inconvenient. That would be for media to put guilty parties under the spotlight. That has failed so bascically police could break any law they want, wired.com is certainly part of the problem here. You have to put strong legal deterants against it. Personal responsibility. That is actually pretty easy to implement if legislators really wanted to. I don't think police needs it, but crony authorities under executive control almost certainly do. Russians, Russians, Russians...
- fighterpilot 5y ago
  Accountability is exactly what's needed. Police unions, a culture of closing ranks - all this has to go and a top-down change driven by politicians/ministers needs to happen. Chauvin had 18 complaints lodged against him, presumably at least one of those was valid, and so accountability in the form of termination would've avoided what happened. Every private organization would have fired someone with this many customer complaints but the public sector systemically lacks accountability and this leads to terrible outcomes.
  - Clubber 5y ago
    >and a top-down change driven by politicians/ministers needs to happen. I'm not sure if that is politically possible. The police unions start complaining when politicians start to do something (see when they turned their back on DeBlasio in front of news cameras). I'm not sure if it's fixable without repercussions on the offending officers or the union rather than the taxpayers. There is zero or near zero repercussions of the officers, the chain of command or the union for malfeasance. Of course they are going to act how they act, they're humans. The worst part is the bad officers often corrupt the good ones, or make them quit, so over time there's just the bad.
- kiba 5y ago
  We don't hold people accountable? Do you really think the police are any better many decades earlier? For sure, the criminal justice system had gotten worse, with over-incarceration and criminalization, but I doubt that the police are your friends in the 1950s since much of the structure of police organizations hadn't changed that much.
  - Clubber 5y ago
    I didn't live in the 1950s but some things that certainly caused where we are today are qualified immunity and powerful unions that are excluded in GOP union busting efforts. States can opt to end qualified immunity for police in their jurisdiction, so it's up to citizens to put pressure on state governments to do so. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Qualified_immunity https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Qualified_immunity
ncmncm 5y ago
Especially with a law. The police generally consider laws to be for little people. In the US, any law that is supposed to apply to police has to not depend on the District Attorney ever filing charges, because they won't, except for certain high-visibility murders, and usually not even then. Something that has worked sometimes is a state or federal law affecting city police. The law should have provisions to allow citizens to initiate enforcement, and, for egregious offenses, provisions to restrict the convicted officer from working in other police departments. Too often, departments appear to respond to public pressure by firing the officer. But that actually achieves very little; the officer just goes to work for another city, with a fresh, clean record. There are a lot of cities. It would be helpful to establish a national registry of police behavior, so that offenses at one department follow them to the next.
- wccrawford 5y ago
  OTOH, the laws that work against cops are the ones that invalidate the things they do on their day jobs. If they violate the law and a suspect goes free, that has actual consequences for them, mentally at least. Of course, they still have to get caught, but it won't be the DA that has to do something about it, it's the defendant's lawyer who will do it.
  - int0x2e 5y ago
    I agree, but this only helps if they're actually going after someone they charge with something. If they are merely violating your rights but don't charge you, this would have little to no impact on police wrongdoing.
  - ncmncm 5y ago
    Actual consequences? So, the cop cracks your skull, but the judge lets you go, and the cop continues cracking skulls, maybe yours again. Your lawyer maybe sues the department for use of excessive force, and maybe gets a settlement from the taxpayers. Again, with exactly zero effect on the crooked cop. Maybe lawyers should be suing the police union, too.
    - 5y ago
dane-pgp 5y ago
> It's not easy to control police – even with a law FTFY.
lbriner 5y ago
I think there is a commonality with the UK Police that might not be there in France and Spain that have a different MO with investigations and have an invetigating judge. Michael Mansfield QC, a barrister wrote about this ages ago with the Birmingham 6, a famous miscarriage of justice that amounted to a beaten confession and prison time for innocent people. In the book he describes the problem that the police see themselves as the only frontline for law-and-order. They are under immense pressure for results from various political forces so they are given leaway to "break a few rules" and get the job done, after all, "We know he did it!" In France, my limited understanding, is that the police do not generally investigate but the investigation comes under a judge. They will use the police to gather evidence and interview people but the pressure for a result is on the judge and not the police. The judge should ensure that laws are followed because they are part of the judiciary. If the police are then told to use some tech or not, it has already been approved by a judge, otherwise they won't risk it themselves because why should they?
- philwelch 5y ago
  > In France, my limited understanding, is that the police do not generally investigate but the investigation comes under a judge. They will use the police to gather evidence and interview people but the pressure for a result is on the judge and not the police. The judge should ensure that laws are followed because they are part of the judiciary. Police investigations in common law countries have judicial oversight, but it seems like a feature rather than a bug to separate judges from investigators. If the judge is in charge of the investigation, who's going to stop the judge from issuing unreasonable search warrants?
throwoutway 5y ago
Make the law binding that both parties report it to an government accountability office, otherwise there would be steep financial costs to either party. When one reports and the other doesn’t, then an investigation can occur. If it hits the police budget, you can expect the Chief to report it
gala8y 5y ago
I think major factor in use of all new tech by police is money which they pay for it. It's so lucrative that I would say, from the comfort of my armchair, that it basically boils down to greed and availability of this selling channel. This is the top reason (me thinks). Systemic thinking on possible impact of all of this... does not matter till money flows.
deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
matheusmoreira 5y ago
Of course. When has it ever worked? The only hope citizens have against abuse is neutralizing law enforcement technology. Control it by making it not work anymore. They'll whine about it because it'll make their jobs harder but it doesn't matter.
ike77 5y ago
But it's impossible without a law.
goatcode 5y ago
When you need laws to protect you from laws (or law enforcement), maybe there's a problem somewhere deeper down. It comes back to a principle I roughed out and live by when thinking about rules: if it's out of the box hard to enforce, it likely isn't justifiable as a rule (I'm not speaking about the laws around controlling police surveillance, but rather the laws the police are trying to enforce that lead them to using invasive surveillance).
gremlinsinc 5y ago
Pshht...we are the law... laws don't apply to us...laws of for ye, not for we... ~The Police (not the band).
ajsnigrutin 5y ago
I never understood the responsibility with organizations such as the police... I do something bad, I get punished and I pay the fine. John Smith the policeman does something bad, taxpayers pay the fine.
darig 5y ago
I thought buying a gun was easy in the USA? Is it using a gun that people find "not easy"? It's the triggery thing in the middle... you just squeeze.
2332430 5y ago
nowhere in this article or the HN comments does it talk about funding of surveillance tech. if you want to control surveillance, then control the financing of it with a publicly accountable/transparent external oversight board whose members have as no conflict of interest with the source, path, or destination of the money
DigitallyFidget 5y ago
For everyone living in America, the title may as well be "Did you know that oranges are orange?"
Gunax 5y ago
So it seems like this is something anyone can do. As in, I can go and buy or make a license plate scanner all I want. I can publish the data if I choose to. I can sell it or put in online for free. And of course a cop can do the same thing, they just cannot automate it. If the city wanted to spend a gazillion dollars they could theoretically hire an army of people to manually record plate numbers and it would be within the law. It's information leak. The truth is we always took this sort of privacy for granted. The information was there forever--it was just too arduous to process. Nothing fundamental changed from 1980-2020, only the expense and practicality of it. I don't know what the solution is. I just think we are realizing that we never had privacy to start with, we were just shielded because it was impractical to process the data.
- 2332430 5y ago
  I remember 1980s government policy reasons for refusing to collect individual personal information outside the scope of project mandate or the law were 1) it costs money to collect it, 2) it costs money to store it, 3) information cannot be secured indefinitely, 4) the cost to victims of disclosure would be high, and 5) the liability of #4 isn't worth it

89 points by BerislavLopac 5y ago

Yes, because we don't hold people accountable anymore. It didn't happen after Snowden revelation because it was politically inconvenient. That would be for media to put guilty parties under the spotlight. That has failed so bascically police could break any law they want, wired.com is certainly part of the problem here. You have to put strong legal deterants against it. Personal responsibility. That is actually pretty easy to implement if legislators really wanted to. I don't think police needs it, but crony authorities under executive control almost certainly do. Russians, Russians, Russians...

fighterpilot 5y ago
Accountability is exactly what's needed. Police unions, a culture of closing ranks - all this has to go and a top-down change driven by politicians/ministers needs to happen. Chauvin had 18 complaints lodged against him, presumably at least one of those was valid, and so accountability in the form of termination would've avoided what happened. Every private organization would have fired someone with this many customer complaints but the public sector systemically lacks accountability and this leads to terrible outcomes.
- Clubber 5y ago
  >and a top-down change driven by politicians/ministers needs to happen. I'm not sure if that is politically possible. The police unions start complaining when politicians start to do something (see when they turned their back on DeBlasio in front of news cameras). I'm not sure if it's fixable without repercussions on the offending officers or the union rather than the taxpayers. There is zero or near zero repercussions of the officers, the chain of command or the union for malfeasance. Of course they are going to act how they act, they're humans. The worst part is the bad officers often corrupt the good ones, or make them quit, so over time there's just the bad.
kiba 5y ago
We don't hold people accountable? Do you really think the police are any better many decades earlier? For sure, the criminal justice system had gotten worse, with over-incarceration and criminalization, but I doubt that the police are your friends in the 1950s since much of the structure of police organizations hadn't changed that much.
- Clubber 5y ago
  I didn't live in the 1950s but some things that certainly caused where we are today are qualified immunity and powerful unions that are excluded in GOP union busting efforts. States can opt to end qualified immunity for police in their jurisdiction, so it's up to citizens to put pressure on state governments to do so. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Qualified_immunity https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Qualified_immunity

ncmncm 5y ago

Especially with a law. The police generally consider laws to be for little people. In the US, any law that is supposed to apply to police has to not depend on the District Attorney ever filing charges, because they won't, except for certain high-visibility murders, and usually not even then. Something that has worked sometimes is a state or federal law affecting city police. The law should have provisions to allow citizens to initiate enforcement, and, for egregious offenses, provisions to restrict the convicted officer from working in other police departments. Too often, departments appear to respond to public pressure by firing the officer. But that actually achieves very little; the officer just goes to work for another city, with a fresh, clean record. There are a lot of cities. It would be helpful to establish a national registry of police behavior, so that offenses at one department follow them to the next.

wccrawford 5y ago
OTOH, the laws that work against cops are the ones that invalidate the things they do on their day jobs. If they violate the law and a suspect goes free, that has actual consequences for them, mentally at least. Of course, they still have to get caught, but it won't be the DA that has to do something about it, it's the defendant's lawyer who will do it.
- int0x2e 5y ago
  I agree, but this only helps if they're actually going after someone they charge with something. If they are merely violating your rights but don't charge you, this would have little to no impact on police wrongdoing.
- ncmncm 5y ago
  Actual consequences? So, the cop cracks your skull, but the judge lets you go, and the cop continues cracking skulls, maybe yours again. Your lawyer maybe sues the department for use of excessive force, and maybe gets a settlement from the taxpayers. Again, with exactly zero effect on the crooked cop. Maybe lawyers should be suing the police union, too.
  - 5y ago

dane-pgp 5y ago

> It's not easy to control police – even with a law FTFY.

lbriner 5y ago

I think there is a commonality with the UK Police that might not be there in France and Spain that have a different MO with investigations and have an invetigating judge. Michael Mansfield QC, a barrister wrote about this ages ago with the Birmingham 6, a famous miscarriage of justice that amounted to a beaten confession and prison time for innocent people. In the book he describes the problem that the police see themselves as the only frontline for law-and-order. They are under immense pressure for results from various political forces so they are given leaway to "break a few rules" and get the job done, after all, "We know he did it!" In France, my limited understanding, is that the police do not generally investigate but the investigation comes under a judge. They will use the police to gather evidence and interview people but the pressure for a result is on the judge and not the police. The judge should ensure that laws are followed because they are part of the judiciary. If the police are then told to use some tech or not, it has already been approved by a judge, otherwise they won't risk it themselves because why should they?

philwelch 5y ago
> In France, my limited understanding, is that the police do not generally investigate but the investigation comes under a judge. They will use the police to gather evidence and interview people but the pressure for a result is on the judge and not the police. The judge should ensure that laws are followed because they are part of the judiciary. Police investigations in common law countries have judicial oversight, but it seems like a feature rather than a bug to separate judges from investigators. If the judge is in charge of the investigation, who's going to stop the judge from issuing unreasonable search warrants?

throwoutway 5y ago

Make the law binding that both parties report it to an government accountability office, otherwise there would be steep financial costs to either party. When one reports and the other doesn’t, then an investigation can occur. If it hits the police budget, you can expect the Chief to report it

gala8y 5y ago

I think major factor in use of all new tech by police is money which they pay for it. It's so lucrative that I would say, from the comfort of my armchair, that it basically boils down to greed and availability of this selling channel. This is the top reason (me thinks). Systemic thinking on possible impact of all of this... does not matter till money flows.

deleted 5y ago

[deleted]

matheusmoreira 5y ago

Of course. When has it ever worked? The only hope citizens have against abuse is neutralizing law enforcement technology. Control it by making it not work anymore. They'll whine about it because it'll make their jobs harder but it doesn't matter.

ike77 5y ago

But it's impossible without a law.

goatcode 5y ago

When you need laws to protect you from laws (or law enforcement), maybe there's a problem somewhere deeper down. It comes back to a principle I roughed out and live by when thinking about rules: if it's out of the box hard to enforce, it likely isn't justifiable as a rule (I'm not speaking about the laws around controlling police surveillance, but rather the laws the police are trying to enforce that lead them to using invasive surveillance).

gremlinsinc 5y ago

Pshht...we are the law... laws don't apply to us...laws of for ye, not for we... ~The Police (not the band).

ajsnigrutin 5y ago

I never understood the responsibility with organizations such as the police... I do something bad, I get punished and I pay the fine. John Smith the policeman does something bad, taxpayers pay the fine.

darig 5y ago

I thought buying a gun was easy in the USA? Is it using a gun that people find "not easy"? It's the triggery thing in the middle... you just squeeze.

2332430 5y ago

nowhere in this article or the HN comments does it talk about funding of surveillance tech. if you want to control surveillance, then control the financing of it with a publicly accountable/transparent external oversight board whose members have as no conflict of interest with the source, path, or destination of the money

DigitallyFidget 5y ago

For everyone living in America, the title may as well be "Did you know that oranges are orange?"

Gunax 5y ago

So it seems like this is something anyone can do. As in, I can go and buy or make a license plate scanner all I want. I can publish the data if I choose to. I can sell it or put in online for free. And of course a cop can do the same thing, they just cannot automate it. If the city wanted to spend a gazillion dollars they could theoretically hire an army of people to manually record plate numbers and it would be within the law. It's information leak. The truth is we always took this sort of privacy for granted. The information was there forever--it was just too arduous to process. Nothing fundamental changed from 1980-2020, only the expense and practicality of it. I don't know what the solution is. I just think we are realizing that we never had privacy to start with, we were just shielded because it was impractical to process the data.

2332430 5y ago
I remember 1980s government policy reasons for refusing to collect individual personal information outside the scope of project mandate or the law were 1) it costs money to collect it, 2) it costs money to store it, 3) information cannot be secured indefinitely, 4) the cost to victims of disclosure would be high, and 5) the liability of #4 isn't worth it