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> But they do think a crime is in progress and has occured. Yes, crimes like having mud on your feet or a lawyer's phone number written on your skin. https://

by mulmen 2y ago

> But they do think a crime is in progress and has occured. Yes, crimes like having mud on your feet or a lawyer's phone number written on your skin. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stop_Cop_City#March_2023_protests https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stop_Cop_City#March_2023_prote... > these are lists of people the police expect to charge with crimes. Yes, that's the problem. These people aren't criminals. These are people that went to study groups, sometimes for unrelated reasons. It's politically motivated. The surveillance happened before any alleged crime. It's indefensible.

roenxi 2y ago
I suspect I'm not the one who has a deep misunderstanding here. How do you expect this to work? The police were tracking a bunch of people they were suspicious of with lists. Then several of them (I assume there is overlap here) have been charged with crimes. They may, in fact, be criminals. They probably are criminals, the US has a lot of dangerous and misguided law on the books that criminalises reasonable activity. Unless you happen to be a judge or a whip in a legislative body, you don't have the power to arbitrarily declare who is and is not a criminal based on your preferences. Odds are your entire community is a minority that lacks that power on many issues that are important to you. The way this works, and the only way it can work, is the police decide who they think are criminals and then there is a review afterwards of whether the police were reasonable or not. If you think they're doing a particularly terrible job then the review might result in all sorts of actions but it isn't a reasonable position to say that the police can't use public evidence when deciding who they think the criminals are. That is a view that will lead to silly results.
- soulofmischief 2y ago
  Unfortunately, this simply does not hold up in reality, wherein police routinely stalk and harass individuals, to the point that the police decide to fabricate criminal evidence just to prove themselves right. I would know, this is exactly what happened to me, as I mentioned in another comment. An example of police organizations surveilling groups of people who are against a gas pipeline running through their lands: https://www.aclu.org/news/free-speech/surveillance-state-descends-dakota-access-pipeline-spirit-camp https://www.aclu.org/news/free-speech/surveillance-state-des... Are they criminals for organizing and petitioning the government to relent? Example, from my own city, of how police organizations routinely fabricate evidence, typically against minorities and those the police have decided they "do not like" and "could be criminals". Unfortunately, my own hometown was not included in this investigation and my conviction wasn't overturned. https://www.wbrz.com/news/nakamoto-how-corruption-in-brpd-led-to-hundreds-of-dropped-drug-charges https://www.wbrz.com/news/nakamoto-how-corruption-in-brpd-le... What you fail to take into account is the average academic and emotional intelligence of the type of person who finds themselves working in a US police force, given the low pay, high stress and allure of wielding soft power. There aren't just a few bad apples; The entire bunch is rotten and we find this corruption as far back as we find State police forces. Now it's just more apparent because we also surveil the police.
  - roenxi 2y ago
    > What you fail to take into account... I've accounted for all that though. I even said in the comment "even if the police in this instance are, for the sake of argument, irredeemably corrupt" just to highlight that I'm very open to the idea that these police are actively engaging in corruption. This issue I'm raising is that the call to action in the article is observably stupid. They're arguing that if a Mob boss is publicly racketeering on facebook then that shouldn't be used by the police as evidence to raise their suspicions. And there is no way that makes sense. They should be calling for something that will actually help their cause. Shutting your brain down and panicking isn't going to get you to a good place - there are a bunch of problems outlined in the article and the call the action addresses none of them. You really need these people to focus on doing things that will help, rather than doing things at random. In this case like - reigning in RICO abuse, replacing the police leadership or a demilitarisation strategy for the training facility. Trying to ban the police from using public information to inform their policing is remarkably foolish. > I would know, this is exactly what happened to me, as I mentioned in another comment. Well, you probably need to hear this although it is a bit brutal: you're going to lose more if you make stupid arguments. Try to avoid doing that, the justice system responds to it really badly. It also make a difference politically although not as much. If you score a win, you need to be fighting for something that actually helps your position, not arbitrary demands.
    - soulofmischief 2y ago
      > I've accounted for all that though. I even said in the comment "even if the police in this instance are, for the sake of argument, irredeemably corrupt" just to highlight that I'm very open to the idea that these police are actively engaging in corruption. You still fail to take it into account. When creating policy, one has to consider all ways in which a policy might be used or abused. Any sociopolitical structure which confers power to individuals over others must be designed to protect innocents against worst-case scenarios. If there is even the possibility that the wrong person in the driver's seat could do significant or irreversible damage to innocent people, then it's bad policy. Because organizations and their policies often last longer than any one individual within the organization. This is the very basis on which the US Constitution was written. > You're going to lose more if you make stupid arguments. Try to avoid doing that, the justice system responds to it really badly. What on earth are you referring to?
JumpCrisscross 2y ago
> crimes like having mud on your feet or a lawyer's phone number written on your skin If the Wikipedia article is the whole story, you are correct. That said, as I noted in another comment [1], it appears to be badly sourced. Do we have any primary evidence? Presumably there are charge sheets and statements from the university and cops, too. > people that went to study groups The Guardian article quotes the university claiming that the protesters were trespassers and not students [2]. [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41188054 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41188054 [2] https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2024/apr/25/emory-university-protest-arrests https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2024/apr/25/emory-univer...
- mulmen 2y ago
  > people that went to study groups Separate events. Some of the people under surveillance for attending Stop Cop City had simply attended study groups. They don't have to be students, or even study groups at a school. This also includes people who attended meetings with Stop Cop City on the agenda. So you could have gone to a neighborhood meeting with four items on the agenda including Stop Cop City and a new parking zone in front of your house and been on the local PD homeland security watchlist as a suspected political opponent.
- soulofmischief 2y ago
  Read this account of the police illegally trespassing onto private property and violently beating and apprehending individuals who were protesting a recent police killing of a black man named Alton Sterling. It happened in my city and and several of my friends were there, beaten by police and arrested. I was not around at the time or I'd have been there as well, and likely shot and killed. https://19thnews.org/2023/05/baton-rouge-police-violence-protesters-witnesses-settlement/ https://19thnews.org/2023/05/baton-rouge-police-violence-pro... https://www.youtube.com/embed/IwK-E1iC2v8 https://www.youtube.com/embed/IwK-E1iC2v8 (footage of the assault) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Killing_of_Alton_Sterling https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Killing_of_Alton_Sterling > Police alleged that Sterling had reached for the loaded handgun in his pants pocket ... The owner of the store where the shooting occurred said that Sterling had started carrying a gun a few days prior to the event as other CD vendors had been robbed recently. He also said that Sterling was "not the one causing trouble" during the situation that led to the police being called. I personally had an incident that led to almost a dozen police officers pointing their guns at me and detaining me just for visiting a convenience store that had recently been robbed. I shudder to think about what would have occurred if I were black.

by mulmen 2y ago

roenxi 2y ago

I suspect I'm not the one who has a deep misunderstanding here. How do you expect this to work? The police were tracking a bunch of people they were suspicious of with lists. Then several of them (I assume there is overlap here) have been charged with crimes. They may, in fact, be criminals. They probably are criminals, the US has a lot of dangerous and misguided law on the books that criminalises reasonable activity. Unless you happen to be a judge or a whip in a legislative body, you don't have the power to arbitrarily declare who is and is not a criminal based on your preferences. Odds are your entire community is a minority that lacks that power on many issues that are important to you. The way this works, and the only way it can work, is the police decide who they think are criminals and then there is a review afterwards of whether the police were reasonable or not. If you think they're doing a particularly terrible job then the review might result in all sorts of actions but it isn't a reasonable position to say that the police can't use public evidence when deciding who they think the criminals are. That is a view that will lead to silly results.

soulofmischief 2y ago
Unfortunately, this simply does not hold up in reality, wherein police routinely stalk and harass individuals, to the point that the police decide to fabricate criminal evidence just to prove themselves right. I would know, this is exactly what happened to me, as I mentioned in another comment. An example of police organizations surveilling groups of people who are against a gas pipeline running through their lands: https://www.aclu.org/news/free-speech/surveillance-state-descends-dakota-access-pipeline-spirit-camp https://www.aclu.org/news/free-speech/surveillance-state-des... Are they criminals for organizing and petitioning the government to relent? Example, from my own city, of how police organizations routinely fabricate evidence, typically against minorities and those the police have decided they "do not like" and "could be criminals". Unfortunately, my own hometown was not included in this investigation and my conviction wasn't overturned. https://www.wbrz.com/news/nakamoto-how-corruption-in-brpd-led-to-hundreds-of-dropped-drug-charges https://www.wbrz.com/news/nakamoto-how-corruption-in-brpd-le... What you fail to take into account is the average academic and emotional intelligence of the type of person who finds themselves working in a US police force, given the low pay, high stress and allure of wielding soft power. There aren't just a few bad apples; The entire bunch is rotten and we find this corruption as far back as we find State police forces. Now it's just more apparent because we also surveil the police.
- roenxi 2y ago
  > What you fail to take into account... I've accounted for all that though. I even said in the comment "even if the police in this instance are, for the sake of argument, irredeemably corrupt" just to highlight that I'm very open to the idea that these police are actively engaging in corruption. This issue I'm raising is that the call to action in the article is observably stupid. They're arguing that if a Mob boss is publicly racketeering on facebook then that shouldn't be used by the police as evidence to raise their suspicions. And there is no way that makes sense. They should be calling for something that will actually help their cause. Shutting your brain down and panicking isn't going to get you to a good place - there are a bunch of problems outlined in the article and the call the action addresses none of them. You really need these people to focus on doing things that will help, rather than doing things at random. In this case like - reigning in RICO abuse, replacing the police leadership or a demilitarisation strategy for the training facility. Trying to ban the police from using public information to inform their policing is remarkably foolish. > I would know, this is exactly what happened to me, as I mentioned in another comment. Well, you probably need to hear this although it is a bit brutal: you're going to lose more if you make stupid arguments. Try to avoid doing that, the justice system responds to it really badly. It also make a difference politically although not as much. If you score a win, you need to be fighting for something that actually helps your position, not arbitrary demands.
  - soulofmischief 2y ago
    > I've accounted for all that though. I even said in the comment "even if the police in this instance are, for the sake of argument, irredeemably corrupt" just to highlight that I'm very open to the idea that these police are actively engaging in corruption. You still fail to take it into account. When creating policy, one has to consider all ways in which a policy might be used or abused. Any sociopolitical structure which confers power to individuals over others must be designed to protect innocents against worst-case scenarios. If there is even the possibility that the wrong person in the driver's seat could do significant or irreversible damage to innocent people, then it's bad policy. Because organizations and their policies often last longer than any one individual within the organization. This is the very basis on which the US Constitution was written. > You're going to lose more if you make stupid arguments. Try to avoid doing that, the justice system responds to it really badly. What on earth are you referring to?

JumpCrisscross 2y ago

> crimes like having mud on your feet or a lawyer's phone number written on your skin If the Wikipedia article is the whole story, you are correct. That said, as I noted in another comment [1], it appears to be badly sourced. Do we have any primary evidence? Presumably there are charge sheets and statements from the university and cops, too. > people that went to study groups The Guardian article quotes the university claiming that the protesters were trespassers and not students [2]. [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41188054 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41188054 [2] https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2024/apr/25/emory-university-protest-arrests https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2024/apr/25/emory-univer...

mulmen 2y ago
> people that went to study groups Separate events. Some of the people under surveillance for attending Stop Cop City had simply attended study groups. They don't have to be students, or even study groups at a school. This also includes people who attended meetings with Stop Cop City on the agenda. So you could have gone to a neighborhood meeting with four items on the agenda including Stop Cop City and a new parking zone in front of your house and been on the local PD homeland security watchlist as a suspected political opponent.
soulofmischief 2y ago
Read this account of the police illegally trespassing onto private property and violently beating and apprehending individuals who were protesting a recent police killing of a black man named Alton Sterling. It happened in my city and and several of my friends were there, beaten by police and arrested. I was not around at the time or I'd have been there as well, and likely shot and killed. https://19thnews.org/2023/05/baton-rouge-police-violence-protesters-witnesses-settlement/ https://19thnews.org/2023/05/baton-rouge-police-violence-pro... https://www.youtube.com/embed/IwK-E1iC2v8 https://www.youtube.com/embed/IwK-E1iC2v8 (footage of the assault) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Killing_of_Alton_Sterling https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Killing_of_Alton_Sterling > Police alleged that Sterling had reached for the loaded handgun in his pants pocket ... The owner of the store where the shooting occurred said that Sterling had started carrying a gun a few days prior to the event as other CD vendors had been robbed recently. He also said that Sterling was "not the one causing trouble" during the situation that led to the police being called. I personally had an incident that led to almost a dozen police officers pointing their guns at me and detaining me just for visiting a convenience store that had recently been robbed. I shudder to think about what would have occurred if I were black.