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They tell us over and over again that we should have no expectation of privacy or not being filmed in public. Well, IMO they should not have any expectation of

They tell us over and over again that we should have no expectation of privacy or not being filmed in public. Well, IMO they should not have any expectation of privacy or not being filmed when on private property and conducting the work _that we pay for_. They work for us.

bestouff 7mo ago
> They work for us. Ooh sweet summer child.
- gonnagetbanned 7mo ago
  well, to be fair, there are a higher-than-average number of business owners on here, so they really might work for them
  - cucumber3732842 7mo ago
    Only insofar as those business interests align with the government's interests. The police get paid by and do the bidding of the government. They work for the government. While you can screech about the degree of overlap between government interests and big business interests, and it absolutely is something worth screeching about, acting as though they are one in the same is counterproductive to understanding either.
    - notlenin 7mo ago
      yes. It is also worth noting that in some cases, government and business owners have diametrically opposed interests - namely governments can nationalize companies (and if I'm not mistaken, some governments, like the Nazis, did, or would use the threat of nationalization to make business owners do their bidding with no regard for the interest of the business owner)
- schiffern 7mo ago
  Cynicism is very cooler-than-thou, but it's not because we don't know better. It's because we do know how the system fails, and holding power accountable to those high aspirations is the only thing that pushes back the equilibrium.
- hbn 7mo ago
  It's logistically a fact. Their paycheck comes from taxpayers. If you believe they're doing a bad job it's unrelated.
  - deleted 7mo ago
    [deleted]
  - notlenin 7mo ago
    er... if you'll excuse me confirming the "HN is the 'well actually capital of the internet' stereotype"... If you look throughout history, you'll see that before the advent of what we'd call 'modern states', most people who got their paycheck from 'taxpayers' did not see themselves as working for said 'taxpayers'. Example: Pharaonic Egypt. Alexander's Empire, Bourbon France, Tsarist Russia, or more generally any kingdom, empire or any sort of duchy/earldom/county/etc where you have someone (the King, Tsar, Emperor, Duke, etc), whose job it is to lord over the peasants and take a cut of their work, not because they are an elected public servant doing the will of The People, but because they believe God Almighty has decreed that living off the wealth of others, and occasionally wasting large amounts of that wealth on building palaces or waging costly wars is what they were born to do. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Divine_right_of_kings https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Divine_right_of_kings as such, if you view the modern state as "basically an oligarchy masquerading as a democracy", then the police are not in fact working for 'Joe Taxpayer', but are just playing the same role that medival knights played for the Kings of France - they are the armed force of the extractive state, whose job it is to keep the peasants in line via violence so that they can continue to live off the fruits of peasant labor.
- maerF0x0 7mo ago
  I understand what you're saying, but I was speaking in the ideal or purpose, rather than the defacto/pragmatic.
ykl 7mo ago
That is not just your opinion, that is the opinion of multiple United States Court of Appeals circuits in many many cases, and by its declining to overturn these cases, that is also the opinion of the United States Supreme Court. The United States is a common law country, so really what that means is that your opinion is actually not an opinion at all; you have simply stated the established law of the land.
avs733 7mo ago
and I imagine that if the INVERSE of this case had come up, the police suing for defamation would have been protected by qualified immunity so no lawsuit would have been possible. The police being able to leverage civil law against citizens to control their behavior in ways that citizens cannot leverage against cannot to comment on the abuse of power is entirely unacceptable no matter what our laws and judiciary chose to allow.
borski 7mo ago
That is, in fact, what the law says and what the courts have agreed with multiple times.
Henchman21 7mo ago
> They work for us. Who are you trying to kid? Sorry this obviously got under my skin a bit, but it is standing legal doctrine that the police don't even have to protect us. Work for us? They extort money from municipalities all over the nation and call it a "budget". They straight up steal from us through "civil forfeiture". They are assumed innocent in court, even when demonstrably guilty of breaking our laws. They most certainly do not "work for us" unless you specifically are one of the 0.01% Edit: I see this is discussed further down. I absolutely get the point being made, I just cannot let it slide. Enough internet for today.

bestouff 7mo ago

> They work for us. Ooh sweet summer child.

gonnagetbanned 7mo ago
well, to be fair, there are a higher-than-average number of business owners on here, so they really might work for them
- cucumber3732842 7mo ago
  Only insofar as those business interests align with the government's interests. The police get paid by and do the bidding of the government. They work for the government. While you can screech about the degree of overlap between government interests and big business interests, and it absolutely is something worth screeching about, acting as though they are one in the same is counterproductive to understanding either.
  - notlenin 7mo ago
    yes. It is also worth noting that in some cases, government and business owners have diametrically opposed interests - namely governments can nationalize companies (and if I'm not mistaken, some governments, like the Nazis, did, or would use the threat of nationalization to make business owners do their bidding with no regard for the interest of the business owner)
schiffern 7mo ago
Cynicism is very cooler-than-thou, but it's not because we don't know better. It's because we do know how the system fails, and holding power accountable to those high aspirations is the only thing that pushes back the equilibrium.
hbn 7mo ago
It's logistically a fact. Their paycheck comes from taxpayers. If you believe they're doing a bad job it's unrelated.
- deleted 7mo ago
  [deleted]
- notlenin 7mo ago
  er... if you'll excuse me confirming the "HN is the 'well actually capital of the internet' stereotype"... If you look throughout history, you'll see that before the advent of what we'd call 'modern states', most people who got their paycheck from 'taxpayers' did not see themselves as working for said 'taxpayers'. Example: Pharaonic Egypt. Alexander's Empire, Bourbon France, Tsarist Russia, or more generally any kingdom, empire or any sort of duchy/earldom/county/etc where you have someone (the King, Tsar, Emperor, Duke, etc), whose job it is to lord over the peasants and take a cut of their work, not because they are an elected public servant doing the will of The People, but because they believe God Almighty has decreed that living off the wealth of others, and occasionally wasting large amounts of that wealth on building palaces or waging costly wars is what they were born to do. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Divine_right_of_kings https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Divine_right_of_kings as such, if you view the modern state as "basically an oligarchy masquerading as a democracy", then the police are not in fact working for 'Joe Taxpayer', but are just playing the same role that medival knights played for the Kings of France - they are the armed force of the extractive state, whose job it is to keep the peasants in line via violence so that they can continue to live off the fruits of peasant labor.
maerF0x0 7mo ago
I understand what you're saying, but I was speaking in the ideal or purpose, rather than the defacto/pragmatic.

ykl 7mo ago

That is not just your opinion, that is the opinion of multiple United States Court of Appeals circuits in many many cases, and by its declining to overturn these cases, that is also the opinion of the United States Supreme Court. The United States is a common law country, so really what that means is that your opinion is actually not an opinion at all; you have simply stated the established law of the land.

avs733 7mo ago

and I imagine that if the INVERSE of this case had come up, the police suing for defamation would have been protected by qualified immunity so no lawsuit would have been possible. The police being able to leverage civil law against citizens to control their behavior in ways that citizens cannot leverage against cannot to comment on the abuse of power is entirely unacceptable no matter what our laws and judiciary chose to allow.

borski 7mo ago

That is, in fact, what the law says and what the courts have agreed with multiple times.

Henchman21 7mo ago

> They work for us. Who are you trying to kid? Sorry this obviously got under my skin a bit, but it is standing legal doctrine that the police don't even have to protect us. Work for us? They extort money from municipalities all over the nation and call it a "budget". They straight up steal from us through "civil forfeiture". They are assumed innocent in court, even when demonstrably guilty of breaking our laws. They most certainly do not "work for us" unless you specifically are one of the 0.01% Edit: I see this is discussed further down. I absolutely get the point being made, I just cannot let it slide. Enough internet for today.