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In case you were looking for the necessary plea "for the children!" it was here: "God forbid if the day came that a child is abducted from that mall," he says.

by hvs 13y ago

In case you were looking for the necessary plea "for the children!" it was here: "God forbid if the day came that a child is abducted from that mall," he says. "We would have that tool available to us, to look at that data and see if we can't find a possible suspect vehicle."

joering2 13y ago
Of course. And fast forward 100 years from now when public is smart enough to call this BS and after spending trillions of tax payers dollars on programs like this one, the last resort would be something like this: "God forbids all those reports of people being abducted by aliens were real, we would have a tool to analyze the data from an alien abduction and like 44th President said once hundred years ago: if it saves one life, then it was worth it!"
- pstuart 13y ago
  The public will likely never be smart enough.
  - CodeMage 13y ago
    Ah, the good old "people are stupid" saying. http://dreamcafe.com/2013/06/18/people-are-stupid/ http://dreamcafe.com/2013/06/18/people-are-stupid/
    - pstuart 13y ago
      Well your example was stupid. There are always exceptions, but "the public" as a whole is stupid. Why do you think election campaigns run on negative advertising instead of talking policy? http://boxofficemojo.com/yearly/chart/?yr=2012 http://boxofficemojo.com/yearly/chart/?yr=2012 "Lincoln" was #13. Here, let me rub your face in the stupidity: apparently almost half the United States population believes in ghosts and does not believe in evolution: http://www.cbsnews.com/2100-500160_162-994766.html http://www.cbsnews.com/2100-500160_162-994766.html I'm in no way coming from a position of intellectual superiority, rather from observational despair.
mtgx 13y ago
They always pick fringe cases that know the public would like, even if it's used for completely different things 99.9% of the time.
rayiner 13y ago
It's hilarious, because kids don't actually ever get kidnapped in the U.S. (by strangers). Thank you Anderson Cooper (http://www.cnn.com/CNN/Programs/anderson.cooper.360/blog/2007/01/raw-data-kidnapping-statistics.html http://www.cnn.com/CNN/Programs/anderson.cooper.360/blog/200...). > Despite these huge numbers, very few children are victims of the kinds of crimes that so-often lead local and national news reports. According to NCMEC, just 115 children are the victims of what most people think of as "stereotypical" kidnapping, which the center characterizes thusly: "These crimes involve someone the child does not know or someone of slight acquaintance, who holds the child overnight, transports the child 50 miles or more, kills the child, demands ransom, or intends to keep the child permanently." My mom is absolutely freaked out about our wife and I living in the city, because someone might kidnap our daughter. Because a crowded apartment building where hundreds of people can hear a child cry for help is so much less safe than an out-of-the-way suburban house when it comes to a crime that never happens.
- 3825 13y ago
  I think what follows immediately deserves to be noted here as well. 115 is a very small number by itself but then over half of them return. >Of these 115 incidents, 57 percent ended with the return of the child. The other 43 percent had a less happy outcome.
  - anigbrowl 13y ago
    You seem to be assuming the return is voluntary and not the result of police activity. 115 incidents is not that many in the context of the whole population, but that's not going to be much comfort to you if it's one of your family members that goes missing, is it?
    - minimize_me 13y ago
      We should mandate subdermal GPS tags for everyone. Think of the children.
- qq66 13y ago
  If the harm that a person suffers from their child being kidnapped and murdered is negative infinity, then even the smallest probability of it happening makes their expected harm from kidnapping negative infinity.
bradbatt 13y ago
"We would have that tool available to us, to look at that data and see if we can't find a possible suspect vehicle." The concept of collecting and storing all sorts of data and information on everyone just in case someone bad does something is a flawed one. The government is collecting all phone call information, numbers, location, duration, along with SMS, email, and who knows what else on everybody in order to have that data "just in case" a terrorist attack happens, so they can (possibly) track down the perpetrators. Now we have police collecting license plate data, along with GPS coordinates, video and still cameras mounted all over cities that can easily allow for facial recognition, combined with the tracking of your phone as mentioned above. It's not a stretch to assume that if the government (NSA/CIA/FBI) wants to know where you are at any given moment, they know. All this "just in case" one of the infinitesimally unlikely events such as a terrorist attack or kidnapping occurs. For the children. And because terrorism. The potential for abuse is huge and the cost/benefit is not even close to worth it—unless the stated purpose for collecting the data is not the real one.
- mabhatter 13y ago
  85% of what people do is habit. So when they have a large set like this "habit" starts excluding people very quickly as they are just driving to common places. So if you are tracking somebody you dont know fleeing, they stick out in the numbers quickly... If you are tracking somebody you do know you can guess where they might be. Kidnappers and bank robbers aren't that smart when looking for hiding places, and you probably already have them tracked going there. To a certain extent, all it really does is SUGGEST you belong or don't belong in any given location. There might be a murder in an alley, but data shows you go to a comic book store blocks away every week so you probably aren't involved. Generally the data is going to clear more people than it makes guilty. Of course I'm a huge fan of Numb3rs and Criminal Minds that show this kind of stuff being used properly by honest people... Emphasis on HONEST people.

by hvs 13y ago

joering2 13y ago

Of course. And fast forward 100 years from now when public is smart enough to call this BS and after spending trillions of tax payers dollars on programs like this one, the last resort would be something like this: "God forbids all those reports of people being abducted by aliens were real, we would have a tool to analyze the data from an alien abduction and like 44th President said once hundred years ago: if it saves one life, then it was worth it!"

pstuart 13y ago
The public will likely never be smart enough.
- CodeMage 13y ago
  Ah, the good old "people are stupid" saying. http://dreamcafe.com/2013/06/18/people-are-stupid/ http://dreamcafe.com/2013/06/18/people-are-stupid/
  - pstuart 13y ago
    Well your example was stupid. There are always exceptions, but "the public" as a whole is stupid. Why do you think election campaigns run on negative advertising instead of talking policy? http://boxofficemojo.com/yearly/chart/?yr=2012 http://boxofficemojo.com/yearly/chart/?yr=2012 "Lincoln" was #13. Here, let me rub your face in the stupidity: apparently almost half the United States population believes in ghosts and does not believe in evolution: http://www.cbsnews.com/2100-500160_162-994766.html http://www.cbsnews.com/2100-500160_162-994766.html I'm in no way coming from a position of intellectual superiority, rather from observational despair.

mtgx 13y ago

They always pick fringe cases that know the public would like, even if it's used for completely different things 99.9% of the time.

rayiner 13y ago

It's hilarious, because kids don't actually ever get kidnapped in the U.S. (by strangers). Thank you Anderson Cooper (http://www.cnn.com/CNN/Programs/anderson.cooper.360/blog/2007/01/raw-data-kidnapping-statistics.html http://www.cnn.com/CNN/Programs/anderson.cooper.360/blog/200...). > Despite these huge numbers, very few children are victims of the kinds of crimes that so-often lead local and national news reports. According to NCMEC, just 115 children are the victims of what most people think of as "stereotypical" kidnapping, which the center characterizes thusly: "These crimes involve someone the child does not know or someone of slight acquaintance, who holds the child overnight, transports the child 50 miles or more, kills the child, demands ransom, or intends to keep the child permanently." My mom is absolutely freaked out about our wife and I living in the city, because someone might kidnap our daughter. Because a crowded apartment building where hundreds of people can hear a child cry for help is so much less safe than an out-of-the-way suburban house when it comes to a crime that never happens.

3825 13y ago
I think what follows immediately deserves to be noted here as well. 115 is a very small number by itself but then over half of them return. >Of these 115 incidents, 57 percent ended with the return of the child. The other 43 percent had a less happy outcome.
- anigbrowl 13y ago
  You seem to be assuming the return is voluntary and not the result of police activity. 115 incidents is not that many in the context of the whole population, but that's not going to be much comfort to you if it's one of your family members that goes missing, is it?
  - minimize_me 13y ago
    We should mandate subdermal GPS tags for everyone. Think of the children.
qq66 13y ago
If the harm that a person suffers from their child being kidnapped and murdered is negative infinity, then even the smallest probability of it happening makes their expected harm from kidnapping negative infinity.

bradbatt 13y ago

"We would have that tool available to us, to look at that data and see if we can't find a possible suspect vehicle." The concept of collecting and storing all sorts of data and information on everyone just in case someone bad does something is a flawed one. The government is collecting all phone call information, numbers, location, duration, along with SMS, email, and who knows what else on everybody in order to have that data "just in case" a terrorist attack happens, so they can (possibly) track down the perpetrators. Now we have police collecting license plate data, along with GPS coordinates, video and still cameras mounted all over cities that can easily allow for facial recognition, combined with the tracking of your phone as mentioned above. It's not a stretch to assume that if the government (NSA/CIA/FBI) wants to know where you are at any given moment, they know. All this "just in case" one of the infinitesimally unlikely events such as a terrorist attack or kidnapping occurs. For the children. And because terrorism. The potential for abuse is huge and the cost/benefit is not even close to worth it—unless the stated purpose for collecting the data is not the real one.

mabhatter 13y ago
85% of what people do is habit. So when they have a large set like this "habit" starts excluding people very quickly as they are just driving to common places. So if you are tracking somebody you dont know fleeing, they stick out in the numbers quickly... If you are tracking somebody you do know you can guess where they might be. Kidnappers and bank robbers aren't that smart when looking for hiding places, and you probably already have them tracked going there. To a certain extent, all it really does is SUGGEST you belong or don't belong in any given location. There might be a murder in an alley, but data shows you go to a comic book store blocks away every week so you probably aren't involved. Generally the data is going to clear more people than it makes guilty. Of course I'm a huge fan of Numb3rs and Criminal Minds that show this kind of stuff being used properly by honest people... Emphasis on HONEST people.