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Cops built a shadowy surveillance machine in Minnesota after George Floyd murder
- x86_64Ubuntu 5y agoThe US always has had groups that threatened the racial status hierarchy under surveillance. Whether it's COINTELPRO or the Mississippi Sovereignty Commission, this type of surveillance is a core part of American policing. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mississippi_State_Sovereignty_Commission https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mississippi_State_Sovereignty_... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/COINTELPRO https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/COINTELPRO
- mistrial9 5y agoright - and the US has also always had people who were committed to the opposite. Its a big place with a lot of people.
- cwmoreiras 5y agoCompletely disingenuous. This is about the US intelligence apparatus being used against domestic dissidents. Saying "well yeah but there are also domestic dissidents" misses the point entirely
- mistrial9 5y agowell as a USA citizen, from multiple generations of supporting a plurality of views, it is distressing to see the worst behavior of police and FBI, commented upon as if "that is the way the USA is!" .. and strictly from a word-meaning point of view "disingenuous" means I am trying to deceive or knowingly making false statements, which is not the case at all.. we are likely to agree on several points here.. hard to make comments that do not have enough disclaimers, on these large topics
- etchalon 5y agoI mean, if our FBI and police have consistently behaved a certain way than that is literally "the way it is the USA".
- getcrunk 5y agoWhen it comes to issues of life and death or liberty, we should use the worse case as the measure. For example: oh this medical intervention kills people 15% of the time. No matter what that can never be understated.
- newbie789 5y ago
- tylersmith 5y agoThat absolutely is the way the United States is, time and time again. That fact that many of us people aren't malicious doesn't change that.
- JumpCrisscross 5y ago> this is about the US intelligence apparatus being used against domestic dissidents This article is about local police surveillance. Not the U.S. intelligence apparatus.
- sjg007 5y agoThe FBI is/was involved as were the fusion centers which were originally setup as part of a joint taskforce to combat terrorism. The fusion centers were developed to integrate US intelligence with local policing.
- KennyBlanken 5y agoNYPD, a "local" city police department, has a huge terrorism counterintelligence department, one that surveils internationally and duplicates a lot of the federal intelligence infrastructure.
- ncmncm 5y agoAnd even has its own "black site" in NE Manhattan.
- meatsauce 5y ago
- getcrunk 5y agoDo u have any proof to substantiate that in the upper echelons of power? For example a document or memo being critical of government overreach. Maybe some one being critical of cointelpro or prism Further, ur comment is a false equivalency. The guy you are responding is is obviously referring to groups of people in power positions. And you seem to respond with the group the general populace
- oh_sigh 5y agoWould that be enough? I show you one document from a position of power within the government criticizing government overreach, you would then accept OPs position? Or would you just ask for another one, and then another one, and then another one?
- mbostleman 5y agoI think the problem with these narratives is that "protester" and "groups that threaten the racial status hierarchy" get casually mixed in with people who burn down buildings, loot businesses, and otherwise destroy cities. The former need to be protected by the police so that they can express their views. The latter need to be apprehended, charged, and tried. In order to have a rational discussion, these classes of people need to be separated in the discussion. The implication is that the police are out to get the former. But what portion of the police's motivation is driven by the latter?
- x86_64Ubuntu 5y agoWhat's being burned down as of late in the last month? Nothing, but these surveillance programs persist. Everyone complains about the riots but never the systems that bring them about. And they never explain that if riots are counterproductive, how come the problem persisted when there were no riots? As a wise man once said, people always seem to be more devoted to "order" than justice and prefer a negative peace which is the absence of tension to a positive peace which is the presence of justice.
- mbostleman 5y agoTo be clear, I am not defending the action of the police, only the logic of the implication that the police are unjustly conspiring to limit free speech and otherwise peaceful protest. >>What's being burned down as of late in the last month?>> I would suggest that that is pretty much the definition of being proactive. There was violence in the past, quite a bit, and maybe now actions are being taken to head it off in the future. >>Nothing, but these surveillance programs persist.>> Yes because it happened in the past. >>Everyone complains about the riots but never the systems that bring them about.>> "the systems that bring them about"? This is vague. What systems? Assuming we could parse out exactly what you're talking about, are you suggesting that the violence and destruction of private and public property is justified because the "the systems" have a problem?
- vkou 5y ago
- sacrosancty 5y agoWhat racial status hierarchy? You're comparing it to something that was for supporting segregation. That's nothing to do with this.
- x86_64Ubuntu 5y agoI'm comparing it to the pro-Jim Crow systems because they are "a long time ago", but are the same thing we're doing today. And it very much has something to do with this as they actors and igniting causes are pretty much unchanged from that era.
- postalrat 5y agoWhy do I associate "anonymous free speech" with trolls?
- yjftsjthsd-h 5y agoSelf-reflection? But seriously, are you really complaining about anonymous speech while posting under a pseudonym?
- postalrat 5y agoMy pseudonym isn't anonymous since I've been using it for many years. A three day old nearly random pseudonym would be much more anonymous.
- yjftsjthsd-h 5y agoIt may be possible to dox you; that doesn't make you not anonymous until it happens.
- uejfiweun 5y agoAs the police are further demonized and defunded (edit: destaffed), I would expect to see a gradual uptick in the number of autonomous measures used by the remaining law enforcement. Think ShotSpotter, Facial Recognition, stuff like this, etc. Eventually we will approach the levels of Minority Report.
- waffleiron 5y agoThe police isn't actually getting defunded, most of the US is increasing policing budgets. https://www.wsj.com/articles/cities-reverse-defunding-the-police-amid-rising-crime-11622066307 https://www.wsj.com/articles/cities-reverse-defunding-the-po... https://www.nbcnews.com/news/nbcblk/cities-vowed-2020-cut-police-funding-budgets-expanded-2021-rcna9864 https://www.nbcnews.com/news/nbcblk/cities-vowed-2020-cut-po...
- uejfiweun 5y agoPerhaps "defunded" is not the right word, as it will require a lot of funding to implement these systems. Maybe "destaffed". My understanding is that a lot of departments are facing major hiring and retention issues.
- diob 5y agoI wouldn't be surprised if when you look into it, that's propaganda. It's very similar to the defunding claims.
- yardie 5y agoMost of the retention issues is about retirement. The generation of Boomers are retiring or retiring early. Many civil jobs you can retire at age 55 or 20 years of service. So you have a very large generation of boomers hitting retirement age and a much smaller subsequent generations to fill those open positions.
- meatsauce 5y ago
- chaostheory 5y agoPolice work will eventually become akin to farm work. Fewer people will have to work in the field due to automation and mechanization. This will be the norm due to both the resurgence of crime and less new police officers.
- dasil003 5y agoTo frame this in terms of Stallone movies, do you see the future being more like Demolition Man or more like Judge Dredd?
- chaostheory 5y agoStallone movies don’t apply. Minority Report is the future mixed with Robocop.
- parkingrift 5y ago"Protests" in Minneapolis damaged 1,500 property locations, destroyed 100 property locations, and caused $500 million in total damage. 150 buildings were set on fire. I'd say the surveillance is warranted. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_Floyd_protests_in_Minneapolis–Saint_Paul https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_Floyd_protests_in_Minne...
- trees101 5y agothere seems to be an imbalance of reporting about this sort of thing. When state power is used against BLM protests, we get articles about "shadowy surveillance". When state power is used to track down Jan 6 protesters, it's apparently a good thing.
- spicyusername 5y agoMostly I think that's because the world isn't black and white and most real problems, preventing terrorism in this case, are too complicated for simple one-size-fits-all solutions.
- Timwi 5y agoI'm not sure I understand your point. BLM protests are legal while storming the Capitol is not. You'd hope the police would go after breaches of the law and not innocent people.
- mbostleman 5y agoSo then the violence, looting, burning, and destruction of property that occurred at the same time and place as the BLM protests are somehow conveniently NOT the BLM protests?
- kasey_junk 5y agoI’m sure you actually do understand the difference right? In one case you have a group of people taking advantage of protests to engage in criminal theft that is divorced from the reason for the protest. In the other the point of the protest was to disrupt the orderly transfer of power. The violence, looting etc were a mechanism to accomplish that goal. We wouldn’t include looters using the protests at the capital as cover for breaking into a mall in the capital protests anymore than we’d forgive a BLM protest that’s stated goal was disrupting general policing by starting a violent riot.
- etchalon 5y agoThe point of the BLM protests weren't violence. The point of the Jan. 6th protest was.
- mariodiana 5y agoI'm skeptical that the government has learned the wrong lesson. What it should have learned is that rioting needs to be put down — no ifs, ands, or buts. But, apparently, rioting is okay. The state isn't interested in that, so much as it is in setting up a Big Brother infrastructure. I say this as someone who fully recognizes that a legitimate protest will sometimes attract hotheads. A protest can get out of control. It can turn violent. And then, opportunists may decide to take advantage of the breakdown of law and order and indulge in the impulse to loot. I don't like it, but I recognize this as somewhere within the bounds, or just over the bounds, of normal. What I have a problem with is the following. When people go home from their riot, have a bite to eat, nap, maybe watch a little TV, and then decide to go out the next night and do it again — and this happens day after day, with the government doing nothing to restore law and order — that is not normal. That's a broken government. Government's first job is maintaining law and order. That doesn't require pervasive, high tech surveillance. Maintaining law and order in the face of a days-long insurrection is a solved problem. Our government is broken. This "shadowy surveillance" is not an accident, or an honest mistake.
- ianbicking 5y agoHaving watched this looting and rioting I sincerely wonder if the police wanted it to happen. The first night of looting it was chaotic, but the police showed up and instantly everyone left. There was no confrontation. This wasn't like the LA riots in the 90s, there really was no violence against people. Then the next nights the police didn't show up. The first time I saw police was when neighbors had acquired their own firehose and were trying to put out a fire, at which time the police drove by and shot canisters at us. The Minneapolis police specifically turned down firefighting assistance from the suburbs even as the fires burned for hours after the streets were empty. The MPD despises Minneapolis and wanted the city to suffer. It was Derek Chauvin writ large.
- meatsauce 5y ago
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