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Wide surveillance that aids the government in creating portfolios of “incriminating” circumstantial ”evidence” greatly increases the risk to the innocent, espec
by Nevermark 2y ago
Wide surveillance that aids the government in creating portfolios of “incriminating” circumstantial ”evidence” greatly increases the risk to the innocent, especially the under privileged, if it isn’t counter balanced by an increase in stronger protections for the innocent.
Unfortunately, in the US there is no bottom line constitutional protection for the (actually or credibly) innocent.
Procedure pre-empts innocence.
This impacts everything from permanent property confiscation based on subjective declarations of “suspicion” without any criminal indictment [0], general crime [1], to execution of the likely innocent [2].
Without a fundamental right for the innocent to have convictions vacated, after they are revealed to be highly suspect, procedure pre-empts information, even when the case for innocence is widely considered credible.
Executing the (credibly) innocent can even become a strategic politically advantageous performance. [3].
Constitutional protection of the incident would compel the courts to address catch 22 problems for the credibly innocent directly, providing a mechanism for relief when the gears of formal justice otherwise create no balanced recourse.
[0] https://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2014/11/10/363102433/police-can-seize-and-sell-assets-even-when-the-owner-broke-no-law https://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2014/11/10/363102433...
[1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_wrongful_convictions_in_the_United_States https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_wrongful_convictions...
[2] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Execution_of_Nathaniel_Woods https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Execution_of_Nathaniel_Woods
[3] https://www.endfmrnow.org/arkansas-governor-denies-clemency-to-innocent-man#:~:text=Sanders%20denies%20clemency%20to%20Charlie,%2C%22%20at%20the%20Arkansas%20Times https://www.endfmrnow.org/arkansas-governor-denies-clemency-....
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Telling: what government is also pushing for all internal deliberations, materials and search queries, databases and algorithms leading up to prosecutions to be archived for the defense? Or to open up comprehensive surveillance systems search to the defense team?
Centralizing power and information in a way that supports convictions, but not defense, is a recipe for increased motivated, convenient, and incidental injustice.
- FpUser 2y ago[3] is total madness. I think that highest level politicians who allow it to continue after being made aware should fucking rot in jail.
- BLKNSLVR 2y agoAfter my incident (detailed elsewhere in these comments), we followed up with a few agencies whether there was anything that could be done to make it less likely that innocent parties are traumatised in the future by the very system that purports to do the opposite. Raised it with a local member of government as well. There is no recourse against "procedure". The closest option was to raise it with the Police's internal affairs, but were told that's specifically for officer misconduct. And, with the exception of one inflammatory bitch, the officers were all polite and friendly (as they rifled through and took my equipment). There's no ... anything ... that caters to the misconduct of the system. (It's not surprising to a disinterested observer, but the feeling of powerlessness against such an injustice made it surprising to me).