6 ms·

It should really not be possible for a single anonymous phone call to dispatch a heavily armed response team to break down someone's door. Aside from that, peo

It should really not be possible for a single anonymous phone call to dispatch a heavily armed response team to break down someone's door. Aside from that, people who do so are despicable. 20 years is a light sentence. Taking money to put people in situations that could easily become deadly.

Affric 2y ago
If one were to believe there are actors in our society bad enough to justify a service existing then one would also have to believe there are actors bad enough to abuse that service with a view to kill anyone. It’s paradoxical that such a thing exists.
- llamaimperative 2y ago
  Or you just believe (correctly, so far) there are far more instances that warrant it than there are people abusing it
  - Affric 2y ago
    A service where four counts of this offence can be committed before any action is taken?
dmix 2y ago
I'm sure a lot of consideration was put into how to deal with this problem. It's probably not cheap or easy running specialized SWAT teams for calls and there's nothing police would hate more than being taken advantage of by criminals. But they seem to have decided this is the least bad option. They have a duty to respond to serious phone calls about armed situations. The main issue is the insecurity of the old telecom system where spoofing is so easy. But we're heavily invested in it as a society.
- BLKNSLVR 2y ago
  Those two things should not exist in combination. One must not result in, or be able to cause, the other. Let's say we have to deal with the fact that they do co-exist and interact. Maybe there should be additional protection and safeguards, and if there are some (which there probably are), don't stop there until the percentage of illegitimate calls is below a certain threshold. And maybe it is already below a certain threshold, and I'm getting all hot under the collar about an incredibly rare scenario. Maybe it's better than it was. 20-year sentences should go part-way to reducing the frequency. I'm mostly on the side of "letting a guilty person walk free is better than imprisoning (or arresting or shooting to death or even just violating the freedoms of) an innocent person".
- bigiain 2y ago
  > The main issue is the insecurity of the old telecom system where spoofing is so easy. I disagree. The main issue is qualified immunity. The phone companies never killed anybody in a SWAT raid. The phone companies never claimed to be building a "secure telecom system", nobody ever offered to pay for them to ensure high grade authentication and integrity checking of phone calls. And the cops know that. And don't care. They are the people showing uo with military weapons to people's homes. It's their responsibility to know and understand the reliability of the information they're acting on, and the ease with which the phone system can be made to show them misleading information. Cops with guns and police unions and qualified immunity who now they're never going to be held accountable for killing people based on false information are the problem, not the phone system.
  - deleted 2y ago
    [deleted]
aorloff 2y ago
Anonymous being the key word here
bigiain 2y ago
It wouldn't be a problem, if the "heavily armed response team" was properly held to account when they killed innocent people. Cops kill people on the basis of ludicrous anonymous phone call because they know they'll get away with it when it turns out to be false. And they like it that way. There needs to be a few very public cases of entire SWAT teams getting 20 year sentences. ACAB
- Loughla 2y ago
  While the acab is kind of rough, I'm absolutely with you on police accountability. If there was open and honest accountability, I don't think people would have as many problems with the police. The issue is that police operate in extremely high pressure novel situations all the time. Training only goes so far. After that, you're investigating mistakes versus violent intent. I'm not sure that's easy to do, and I'm certain the public would never accept the finding that a police officer made an honest mistake, and won't be punished, but somebody got killed.
  - rendall 2y ago
    > The issue is that police operate in extremely high pressure novel situations all the time. In the US, police officer does not even rise to top 10 most dangerous jobs. Groundskeeper is a more dangerous job than being a cop. The lack of training and toxic culture of policing is far more dangerous to cops than criminals are. The average US citizen simply does not, and should not, trust the average cop.
    - potato3732842 2y ago
      >In the US, police officer does not even rise to top 10 most dangerous jobs. Which is really impressive for how much time cops spend standing on the side of highways.
    - slothtrop 2y ago
      Danger =/= high stress/pressure situations
rgmerk 2y ago
To be ever so slightly sympathetic to American cops, unlike just about anywhere else in the developed world, it is plausible that the person behind the door is armed with anything up to an automatic rifle, and any random person they stop may be carrying a concealed firearm. Given that, if I was busting down doors in the US, I’d want to be armed to the teeth, equipped with the best body armour money can buy, and wouldn’t waste a lot of time on niceties until I was sure that nobody was going to attempt to kill me. Blame the Second Amendment as currently interpreted.
- GuestFAUniverse 2y ago
  Simple solution: only allow weapons that existed during the creation of the Second Amendment.
  - maxwell 2y ago
    And the First should only cover religions, forms of speech, printing technologies, venues of public assembly, and petitioning grievances that existed before it was "created"?
    - larkost 2y ago
      The argument that the grandparent is making is that the U.S. Supreme Court recently created legal president that only restrictions on firearms that have similar laws that were enforced during the creation of the Second Amendment can be considered constitutional under the Second Amendment. The argument that that means only firearms similar to those available at the time of the passing the Second Amendment sounds largely similar to the thinking. And be careful about brining the First Amendment into that... the First Amendment as it was understood by its creators was not about your write to say anything you wanted without government response, it was about your right to publish your own newspaper (or broadsheet/advertisement) without the government issuing you a license or collecting a tax (both of which the colonial government did). The second amendment was ratified in 1791, and just 7 years later (1978) the Alien and Sedition Acts were ratified by congress, in large part other silence critics of the federal government by making it illegal to say "false, scandalous, and malicious" about it (with the exception of about the Vice-President). And it was absolutely used as a political tool, and this was approved of by the Supreme Court at the time. So I don't think that anyone really wants this horrible president that the modern Supreme Court has yoked us with. Unfortunately, given the election results, it appears we are going to be subject to these horrible ideas for a whole generation.

Affric 2y ago

If one were to believe there are actors in our society bad enough to justify a service existing then one would also have to believe there are actors bad enough to abuse that service with a view to kill anyone. It’s paradoxical that such a thing exists.

llamaimperative 2y ago
Or you just believe (correctly, so far) there are far more instances that warrant it than there are people abusing it
- Affric 2y ago
  A service where four counts of this offence can be committed before any action is taken?

dmix 2y ago

I'm sure a lot of consideration was put into how to deal with this problem. It's probably not cheap or easy running specialized SWAT teams for calls and there's nothing police would hate more than being taken advantage of by criminals. But they seem to have decided this is the least bad option. They have a duty to respond to serious phone calls about armed situations. The main issue is the insecurity of the old telecom system where spoofing is so easy. But we're heavily invested in it as a society.

BLKNSLVR 2y ago
Those two things should not exist in combination. One must not result in, or be able to cause, the other. Let's say we have to deal with the fact that they do co-exist and interact. Maybe there should be additional protection and safeguards, and if there are some (which there probably are), don't stop there until the percentage of illegitimate calls is below a certain threshold. And maybe it is already below a certain threshold, and I'm getting all hot under the collar about an incredibly rare scenario. Maybe it's better than it was. 20-year sentences should go part-way to reducing the frequency. I'm mostly on the side of "letting a guilty person walk free is better than imprisoning (or arresting or shooting to death or even just violating the freedoms of) an innocent person".
bigiain 2y ago
> The main issue is the insecurity of the old telecom system where spoofing is so easy. I disagree. The main issue is qualified immunity. The phone companies never killed anybody in a SWAT raid. The phone companies never claimed to be building a "secure telecom system", nobody ever offered to pay for them to ensure high grade authentication and integrity checking of phone calls. And the cops know that. And don't care. They are the people showing uo with military weapons to people's homes. It's their responsibility to know and understand the reliability of the information they're acting on, and the ease with which the phone system can be made to show them misleading information. Cops with guns and police unions and qualified immunity who now they're never going to be held accountable for killing people based on false information are the problem, not the phone system.
- deleted 2y ago
  [deleted]

aorloff 2y ago

Anonymous being the key word here

bigiain 2y ago

It wouldn't be a problem, if the "heavily armed response team" was properly held to account when they killed innocent people. Cops kill people on the basis of ludicrous anonymous phone call because they know they'll get away with it when it turns out to be false. And they like it that way. There needs to be a few very public cases of entire SWAT teams getting 20 year sentences. ACAB

Loughla 2y ago
While the acab is kind of rough, I'm absolutely with you on police accountability. If there was open and honest accountability, I don't think people would have as many problems with the police. The issue is that police operate in extremely high pressure novel situations all the time. Training only goes so far. After that, you're investigating mistakes versus violent intent. I'm not sure that's easy to do, and I'm certain the public would never accept the finding that a police officer made an honest mistake, and won't be punished, but somebody got killed.
- rendall 2y ago
  > The issue is that police operate in extremely high pressure novel situations all the time. In the US, police officer does not even rise to top 10 most dangerous jobs. Groundskeeper is a more dangerous job than being a cop. The lack of training and toxic culture of policing is far more dangerous to cops than criminals are. The average US citizen simply does not, and should not, trust the average cop.
  - potato3732842 2y ago
    >In the US, police officer does not even rise to top 10 most dangerous jobs. Which is really impressive for how much time cops spend standing on the side of highways.
  - slothtrop 2y ago
    Danger =/= high stress/pressure situations

rgmerk 2y ago

To be ever so slightly sympathetic to American cops, unlike just about anywhere else in the developed world, it is plausible that the person behind the door is armed with anything up to an automatic rifle, and any random person they stop may be carrying a concealed firearm. Given that, if I was busting down doors in the US, I’d want to be armed to the teeth, equipped with the best body armour money can buy, and wouldn’t waste a lot of time on niceties until I was sure that nobody was going to attempt to kill me. Blame the Second Amendment as currently interpreted.

GuestFAUniverse 2y ago
Simple solution: only allow weapons that existed during the creation of the Second Amendment.
- maxwell 2y ago
  And the First should only cover religions, forms of speech, printing technologies, venues of public assembly, and petitioning grievances that existed before it was "created"?
  - larkost 2y ago
    The argument that the grandparent is making is that the U.S. Supreme Court recently created legal president that only restrictions on firearms that have similar laws that were enforced during the creation of the Second Amendment can be considered constitutional under the Second Amendment. The argument that that means only firearms similar to those available at the time of the passing the Second Amendment sounds largely similar to the thinking. And be careful about brining the First Amendment into that... the First Amendment as it was understood by its creators was not about your write to say anything you wanted without government response, it was about your right to publish your own newspaper (or broadsheet/advertisement) without the government issuing you a license or collecting a tax (both of which the colonial government did). The second amendment was ratified in 1791, and just 7 years later (1978) the Alien and Sedition Acts were ratified by congress, in large part other silence critics of the federal government by making it illegal to say "false, scandalous, and malicious" about it (with the exception of about the Vice-President). And it was absolutely used as a political tool, and this was approved of by the Supreme Court at the time. So I don't think that anyone really wants this horrible president that the modern Supreme Court has yoked us with. Unfortunately, given the election results, it appears we are going to be subject to these horrible ideas for a whole generation.