4 ms·

I am playing devil's advocate here, but mass surveillance can also save you. Let's say your just broke up with your girlfriend, shortly after, her house get bu

by GuB-42 2mo ago

I am playing devil's advocate here, but mass surveillance can also save you. Let's say your just broke up with your girlfriend, shortly after, her house get burgled and a bunch of jewelry is stolen, including some you gave her when you were together. A surveillance camera catches the burglar, a drug addict with a criminal record, he gets caught, tried and sentenced to 2 years in prison. The kind of case that won't get a news article, you may not even be aware of what happened. Without the surveillance camera, you would be a prime suspect, and even if you don't get convicted in the end, there is a good chance for the police to give you a hard time. Here is the asymmetry, if a surveillance camera prevents a wrongful arrest, no one will notice, because you don't notice things that don't happen. Only wrongful arrests caused by surveillance cameras will be noticed. More surveillance doesn't mean more arrests, trials and convictions. These are limited by the availability of police forces, magistrates and jails respectively. Even with a total surveillance zero privacy dystopia, you can't have more arrests without the means to do so. What will change is on what grounds the arrests are made: video footage, a witness testimony, etc... It doesn't mean I support mass surveillance (I told you I was going to play devil's advocate), but that alone doesn't mean more wrongful arrests as a whole unless something else in the system is promoting wrongful arrests. There are legitimate concerns about Flock that don't involve wrongful arrests, such as misuse of data by operators, like for stalking, data security, which may leak to criminals, and usage for purpose other than law enforcement, like marketing. The fact that it is a private company funded by public money with dubious contracts is another concern.

pixl97 2mo ago
Assuming cops actually present the evidence they have and don't hide it from the defense. The police and DA don't care if they put a guilty or not guilty person in jail, the 'tough on crime' faction that tends to get people elected cares about the number of people thrown in jail. The more the better. Throw 10,000 people in jail, you must be a damned good elected official and you get re-elected. >you can't have more arrests without the means to do so. Not exactly sure what you're trying to say... you can always have more arrests. Make more things crime. Pre-crime, thought crime, speech crime. When you run out of physical space you start stacking the prisoners 10 deep. When that runs out of space you start executing them and putting them in ovens.
- GuB-42 2mo ago
  What I was trying to say is that if no one is available to make an arrest, you can't make an arrest. Why do you think people get away with minor traffic offenses all the time, something right in front of an officer? There simply isn't enough means to deal with these, so they just ignore most of them.
  - pixl97 2mo ago
    I mean, in an electronic prison, you just issue the ticket and wait. Eventually people have to do things like renew licenses and they are arrested there. This is very similar to systems states are using now preventing the renewal of expired things like licenses.
peterlk 2mo ago
This is what the presumption of innocence is supposed to do. If you have an alibi, then big brother doesn’t get involved. These are cultural problems that we do not need big brother’s benevolence to solve for us. We need better cultural systems of accountability; the problem is that those are _way_ harder to build
MSFT_Edging 2mo ago
Police regularly ignore evidence that disproves their claims. They will not prove your innocence for you. It will still be up to you to pay the lawyer 1000s of dollars to do the discovery against flock cameras to attempt to prove your innocence.
- SoftTalker 2mo ago
  You don't have to prove your innocence; innocence is assumed. The prosecution has to prove you guilty, and inform the defense of all the evidence that they have. If they have evidence that exonerates you, they would be stupid to even bring a case to trial as it would be a waste of everyone's time.
  - skinfaxi 2mo ago
    We live in a world where, routinely, police plant evidence and prosecutors fail to bring forth exonerating evidence. They don't have to be stupid when they are being deceptive. Search "Brady violation" on youtube for some examples.
    - SoftTalker 2mo ago
      Of course. Our entire concept of government relies on everyone acting in good faith, even with checks and balances. Reality is often messier.
lesostep 2mo ago
Unless the footage didn't show guys face clearly. Then you get hella hard time because technically it's an evidence and arguing against evidence is always way harder, even if the argument is "if you squint and imagine that this guy wore a wig and painted his face, here's an expert opinion that height and figure difference could be an illusion from camera position". Court almost always defaults to evidence and experts. Or it wasn't a burglary in your girlfriend house, but face/plate-matching algorithms screwed up. It's hard to choose between "police give hard time to victim and victim relatives" and "police randomly decides who fit the bill and get this person sacked"

by GuB-42 2mo ago

pixl97 2mo ago

Assuming cops actually present the evidence they have and don't hide it from the defense. The police and DA don't care if they put a guilty or not guilty person in jail, the 'tough on crime' faction that tends to get people elected cares about the number of people thrown in jail. The more the better. Throw 10,000 people in jail, you must be a damned good elected official and you get re-elected. >you can't have more arrests without the means to do so. Not exactly sure what you're trying to say... you can always have more arrests. Make more things crime. Pre-crime, thought crime, speech crime. When you run out of physical space you start stacking the prisoners 10 deep. When that runs out of space you start executing them and putting them in ovens.

GuB-42 2mo ago
What I was trying to say is that if no one is available to make an arrest, you can't make an arrest. Why do you think people get away with minor traffic offenses all the time, something right in front of an officer? There simply isn't enough means to deal with these, so they just ignore most of them.
- pixl97 2mo ago
  I mean, in an electronic prison, you just issue the ticket and wait. Eventually people have to do things like renew licenses and they are arrested there. This is very similar to systems states are using now preventing the renewal of expired things like licenses.

peterlk 2mo ago

This is what the presumption of innocence is supposed to do. If you have an alibi, then big brother doesn’t get involved. These are cultural problems that we do not need big brother’s benevolence to solve for us. We need better cultural systems of accountability; the problem is that those are _way_ harder to build

MSFT_Edging 2mo ago

Police regularly ignore evidence that disproves their claims. They will not prove your innocence for you. It will still be up to you to pay the lawyer 1000s of dollars to do the discovery against flock cameras to attempt to prove your innocence.

SoftTalker 2mo ago
You don't have to prove your innocence; innocence is assumed. The prosecution has to prove you guilty, and inform the defense of all the evidence that they have. If they have evidence that exonerates you, they would be stupid to even bring a case to trial as it would be a waste of everyone's time.
- skinfaxi 2mo ago
  We live in a world where, routinely, police plant evidence and prosecutors fail to bring forth exonerating evidence. They don't have to be stupid when they are being deceptive. Search "Brady violation" on youtube for some examples.
  - SoftTalker 2mo ago
    Of course. Our entire concept of government relies on everyone acting in good faith, even with checks and balances. Reality is often messier.

lesostep 2mo ago

Unless the footage didn't show guys face clearly. Then you get hella hard time because technically it's an evidence and arguing against evidence is always way harder, even if the argument is "if you squint and imagine that this guy wore a wig and painted his face, here's an expert opinion that height and figure difference could be an illusion from camera position". Court almost always defaults to evidence and experts. Or it wasn't a burglary in your girlfriend house, but face/plate-matching algorithms screwed up. It's hard to choose between "police give hard time to victim and victim relatives" and "police randomly decides who fit the bill and get this person sacked"