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At this point, making it easier for law enforcement to discover crime probably harms more people than it helps. Here's a thought experiment: What if law enforc

by ggreer 13y ago

At this point, making it easier for law enforcement to discover crime probably harms more people than it helps. Here's a thought experiment: What if law enforcement was perfect? That is, every time someone broke a law, the state knew and could arrest them. Let's also assume this technology somehow disallowed even the slightest peek into an individual's legal private life. After a week under such a system, we'd all likely be jailed. There are so many laws; so many unjust laws, that we're all criminals. Giving law enforcement more tools just puts the DA in a position of greater power.

tptacek 13y ago
That's where HN and I part ways. I understand that HN generally believes that the police are a force for evil. Lots of smart people who know more than I do about criminal justice agree. On the other hand, I tend to believe that crime victimizes far more people than law enforcement does, and that not only is it not a bad idea to make LEOs more efficient using technology and better intelligence (though not foreign surveillance intelligence!), but that it is a moral imperative for society to do so. Where we can probably join up again in principle is that our specific criminal enforcement priorities make this whole thing way more fraught than it should be. I agree that criminal charges are an instrument of institutional racism, and I agree that drug prohibition is harming society far more than drugs themselves do. I don't buy the "we're all criminals" line at all. And yeah, I read Silverglate's book.
- Semiapies 13y ago
  Given that crime is at a low of several decades, what exactly do you think society has a "moral imperative" to do to make law enforcement more "efficient"? What problem do you really have with the NSA's involvement, or is it just that you think such eavesdropping should be done by domestic-focused agencies?
  - tptacek 13y ago
    Crime is at a low relative to a spectacular peak of crime so high that it challenged the safety of privileged rich white people in major cities. It remains a scourge of the underprivileged. It's not just that I think "eavesdropping should be done by domestic agencies", but also that I think eavesdropping should be done under the aegis it has always supposedly been done under, one that acknowledges that eavesdropping is the most intrusive investigatory act the government can engage in, that monitors the private thoughts of individuals and in many cases causes defendants to effectively testify against themselves. It would be difficult for a domestic law enforcement agency to build anything resembling the infrastructure NSA has built, for exactly that reason: the cost/benefit ratio just couldn't ever work out. That's why NSA/FBI "fusion" is so scary to me; it repurposes an infrastructure that has a workable cost/benefit because it's budgeted for in a military context. That's what I mean by incentive problems. But once again: "parallel construction" isn't new. It's also what happens when highly-placed criminal informants help make cases against organized criminals; to use the CI themselves as part of the chain of evidence would be to risk losing that CI. I'm not sure how much the practice bothers me in this context. And, like I said: other parts of the "parallel construction" story bother me a lot more than the NSA evidence; for instance, our new unelected canine prosecutors.
    - leekleak 13y ago
      > "parallel construction" isn't new. It's also what happens when highly-placed criminal informants help make cases against organized criminals; to use the CI themselves as part of the chain of evidence would be to risk losing that CI. The difference is that the use of informants to generate investigatory leads is constitutionally unproblematic. There is no constitutional right to not be ratted out by an associate. On the other hand, there is a constitutional right to the privacy of ones telecommunications. Therefore, using investigatory leads that are the product of illegal surveillance is constitutionally problematic, because of the fruit of the poisonous tree doctrine. A failure to inform the defendant of how the investigation began deprives him of his ability to argue that the evidence against should be suppressed because it was obtained directly or indirectly as the fruit of an illegal search (wiretap).
      - 13y ago
- rhizome 13y ago
  I think there's a nuance here that the uneven application of law enforcement calls into question of what is considered a crime. It speaks to the discourse that the cops-are/n't-evil argument operates within and allows cops to still be just doing their job. Law enforcement (not simply officers) is a double-edged sword the same way SEO is.
- eruditely 13y ago
  I understand you will probably protest to me calling you out, but you almost certainly are from an extremely privileged lifestyle and probably cannot understand how drug convictions ruin lives and families.
- jerf 13y ago
  The question of whether "we're all criminals" isn't a political statement, it's a question of whether or not there are laws that we are more-or-less objectively violating without intent or knowledge. I have to say "more or less objectively" because if you take the hard-line stance of "you haven't violated the law until you've been convicted" you can skate away from the problem, but most people will still agree that we can reasonably talk about a law being violated even it has never resulted in a conviction. It's either true or it isn't. It's arguably worse that nobody even quite knows whether we're all committing felonies than knowing the answer for sure. We shouldn't even be having a "debate", it should be readily obvious. This shit happens: http://www.cbn.com/cbnnews/us/2012/September/Orchid-Kingpin-Mistake-Lands-Elderly-Gardener-in-Prison/ http://www.cbn.com/cbnnews/us/2012/September/Orchid-Kingpin-... Yes, it's one anecdote, but it happens.
- jmccree 13y ago
  I'm curious why you don't buy the "we're all criminals" line? Since the federal government cannot even produce the number of current federal crimes, it's at least fair to say none of us can possibly know that we're not criminals. I have a pretty good memory, but I can't even remember all the criminal offenses in my city's municipal code, much less the state and federal codes and statues. I'm sure I've broken enough laws to rack up at least a 100 years of sentences if every infraction was automatically prosecuted with the maximum sentence.

by ggreer 13y ago

tptacek 13y ago

That's where HN and I part ways. I understand that HN generally believes that the police are a force for evil. Lots of smart people who know more than I do about criminal justice agree. On the other hand, I tend to believe that crime victimizes far more people than law enforcement does, and that not only is it not a bad idea to make LEOs more efficient using technology and better intelligence (though not foreign surveillance intelligence!), but that it is a moral imperative for society to do so. Where we can probably join up again in principle is that our specific criminal enforcement priorities make this whole thing way more fraught than it should be. I agree that criminal charges are an instrument of institutional racism, and I agree that drug prohibition is harming society far more than drugs themselves do. I don't buy the "we're all criminals" line at all. And yeah, I read Silverglate's book.

Semiapies 13y ago
Given that crime is at a low of several decades, what exactly do you think society has a "moral imperative" to do to make law enforcement more "efficient"? What problem do you really have with the NSA's involvement, or is it just that you think such eavesdropping should be done by domestic-focused agencies?
- tptacek 13y ago
  Crime is at a low relative to a spectacular peak of crime so high that it challenged the safety of privileged rich white people in major cities. It remains a scourge of the underprivileged. It's not just that I think "eavesdropping should be done by domestic agencies", but also that I think eavesdropping should be done under the aegis it has always supposedly been done under, one that acknowledges that eavesdropping is the most intrusive investigatory act the government can engage in, that monitors the private thoughts of individuals and in many cases causes defendants to effectively testify against themselves. It would be difficult for a domestic law enforcement agency to build anything resembling the infrastructure NSA has built, for exactly that reason: the cost/benefit ratio just couldn't ever work out. That's why NSA/FBI "fusion" is so scary to me; it repurposes an infrastructure that has a workable cost/benefit because it's budgeted for in a military context. That's what I mean by incentive problems. But once again: "parallel construction" isn't new. It's also what happens when highly-placed criminal informants help make cases against organized criminals; to use the CI themselves as part of the chain of evidence would be to risk losing that CI. I'm not sure how much the practice bothers me in this context. And, like I said: other parts of the "parallel construction" story bother me a lot more than the NSA evidence; for instance, our new unelected canine prosecutors.
  - leekleak 13y ago
    > "parallel construction" isn't new. It's also what happens when highly-placed criminal informants help make cases against organized criminals; to use the CI themselves as part of the chain of evidence would be to risk losing that CI. The difference is that the use of informants to generate investigatory leads is constitutionally unproblematic. There is no constitutional right to not be ratted out by an associate. On the other hand, there is a constitutional right to the privacy of ones telecommunications. Therefore, using investigatory leads that are the product of illegal surveillance is constitutionally problematic, because of the fruit of the poisonous tree doctrine. A failure to inform the defendant of how the investigation began deprives him of his ability to argue that the evidence against should be suppressed because it was obtained directly or indirectly as the fruit of an illegal search (wiretap).
    - 13y ago
rhizome 13y ago
I think there's a nuance here that the uneven application of law enforcement calls into question of what is considered a crime. It speaks to the discourse that the cops-are/n't-evil argument operates within and allows cops to still be just doing their job. Law enforcement (not simply officers) is a double-edged sword the same way SEO is.
eruditely 13y ago
I understand you will probably protest to me calling you out, but you almost certainly are from an extremely privileged lifestyle and probably cannot understand how drug convictions ruin lives and families.
jerf 13y ago
The question of whether "we're all criminals" isn't a political statement, it's a question of whether or not there are laws that we are more-or-less objectively violating without intent or knowledge. I have to say "more or less objectively" because if you take the hard-line stance of "you haven't violated the law until you've been convicted" you can skate away from the problem, but most people will still agree that we can reasonably talk about a law being violated even it has never resulted in a conviction. It's either true or it isn't. It's arguably worse that nobody even quite knows whether we're all committing felonies than knowing the answer for sure. We shouldn't even be having a "debate", it should be readily obvious. This shit happens: http://www.cbn.com/cbnnews/us/2012/September/Orchid-Kingpin-Mistake-Lands-Elderly-Gardener-in-Prison/ http://www.cbn.com/cbnnews/us/2012/September/Orchid-Kingpin-... Yes, it's one anecdote, but it happens.
jmccree 13y ago
I'm curious why you don't buy the "we're all criminals" line? Since the federal government cannot even produce the number of current federal crimes, it's at least fair to say none of us can possibly know that we're not criminals. I have a pretty good memory, but I can't even remember all the criminal offenses in my city's municipal code, much less the state and federal codes and statues. I'm sure I've broken enough laws to rack up at least a 100 years of sentences if every infraction was automatically prosecuted with the maximum sentence.