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They're only popular because people are routinely lied to. We see this same issue time and time again in "free markets". If you tell people this will help stop

They're only popular because people are routinely lied to. We see this same issue time and time again in "free markets". If you tell people this will help stop crime and that's it, everyone and their mama is gonna say yes. If you tell people the truth, that police don't really care to look at the data and this surveillance is going to be used to target innocent people for unrelated "crimes" on the taxpayers dollar, then everyone would say no. This is also why 99% of surveys are broken. You can get people to agree to literally anything if you just lie a little. After all, Adolf Hitler got elected by promising to fix the German economy and, in a way, he did.

tptacek 7mo ago
In what way are voters in these municipalities being lied to? We got logs of all the searches, and incident reports of every time they were used to curb another vehicle. We know how well they did (or didn't, in our case) worked. I don't know what "surveys" have to do with this. Voters voted on it; it was a campaign issue in our trustee election.
- array_key_first 7mo ago
  The lie comes from the intentionality. Voters are told the intention of these tools are to prevent crime, but that's not true. The intention is enrich a select few and expand the surveillance state, chilling dissent and empowering authoritians. Once again, we look at Adolf Hitler. He told voters his intention behind power was helping the German people, but that was not true. That was just a tool he used to grab said power. We see this with a lot of things in the US. The intention behind giving ICE tens of billions of dollars and a license to kill and ignore due process is "your protection". But that's not true. You might say we don't actually know anyone's intention, and that is technically true. But I prefer not to play stupid, and even if you're correct, it's not worth the risk. These things bring huge amounts of risk with them. Even if everyone involved is perfectly benevolent, which I don't think even a child could believe, there's no guarantee it will stay that way. We are building out infrastructure that practically begs to be abused. And when you say it's okay, you're essentially saying you believe everyone will stay good forever. That's quite bold, no? When phrased that way, your position does not seem reasonable. You have to understand, this is how some people see it, and when you understand that perspective, you can understand what you're actually asking for.

tptacek 7mo ago

In what way are voters in these municipalities being lied to? We got logs of all the searches, and incident reports of every time they were used to curb another vehicle. We know how well they did (or didn't, in our case) worked. I don't know what "surveys" have to do with this. Voters voted on it; it was a campaign issue in our trustee election.

array_key_first 7mo ago
The lie comes from the intentionality. Voters are told the intention of these tools are to prevent crime, but that's not true. The intention is enrich a select few and expand the surveillance state, chilling dissent and empowering authoritians. Once again, we look at Adolf Hitler. He told voters his intention behind power was helping the German people, but that was not true. That was just a tool he used to grab said power. We see this with a lot of things in the US. The intention behind giving ICE tens of billions of dollars and a license to kill and ignore due process is "your protection". But that's not true. You might say we don't actually know anyone's intention, and that is technically true. But I prefer not to play stupid, and even if you're correct, it's not worth the risk. These things bring huge amounts of risk with them. Even if everyone involved is perfectly benevolent, which I don't think even a child could believe, there's no guarantee it will stay that way. We are building out infrastructure that practically begs to be abused. And when you say it's okay, you're essentially saying you believe everyone will stay good forever. That's quite bold, no? When phrased that way, your position does not seem reasonable. You have to understand, this is how some people see it, and when you understand that perspective, you can understand what you're actually asking for.