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Pinellas Puts Facial Recognition in Patrol Cars
Isomorphic writes "Despite criticism by rights-advocates, the meltdown of a similar system used by the nearby Tampa Police (previous /. story here),
and a zero-hit two-year track record, the Pinellas County Sheriff's Office is putting facial recognition systems into 50 patrol cars. Even more ridiculous is the claim that the system is voluntary."
With Law enforcement demanding more and more tools, and tools that are more and more bigbrotherish each time, how long until we actually have laws that say people who mindlessly use tools without using their heads do jailtime equivalent to the judicial error they cause? (You accuse wrongfully someone of second degree murder because you didn't do a proper investigation, you do second degree murder time). Oh, and let's put it in the books that if a police union(or police department) tries to cover up something like this, not only do they commit a felony, but they share the punishment too.
Maybe this way everyone will be happy. We'll be giving law enforcement tools, but they'll actually be afraid of using them(and messing up). Fear of messing up seems to be underrepresented IMHO.
What would probably make people safer is if they took that money and applied to hiring a neighborhood officer who walked the area and actually knew and talked to the people in his area.
When something that is proven not to work keeps getting bought by a govt agency:
* It's not their money. It's yours.
* someone is doing someone else a favor, or cashing in.
Follow the money.
For every annoying gentoo user, are three even more annoying anti-gentoo crybabies. Take Yosh from #Gimp for example.
You have the right to wear this burka, if you choose not to wear this burka you will have facial recognition software troll through our database.
Degaussing scares the bad magnetism out of the monitor and fills it with good karma.
Grant any power to government in order to control your neighbors, and that same power will be used to control YOU.
....yet.
In order to be free, you must guarantee the freedom of the least desirable member of society as well. Anything else is tyranny. If you don't think it is tyranny, it's only because your particular choices which define freedom for YOU haven't been restricted
Liberty is not safe, it is not comfortable, it is not easy.
Slavery is very safe, and very easy. Just relax and give in. Do as you're told. Step out of the car and identify yourself when told. All very easy.
Bob-
The Ludwig von Mises Institute. The reasoning individuals economics
In Soviet UK, that's called "Neighbourhood Watch Area", yellow & bright stickers. You can't move your house without some nosy neighbour disturbing you (been there, done that).
I was under the impression that Community-based policing meant:
How does this piece of expensive tripe do any of that?
Sheriff Everett Rice on Wednesday said his deputies are not [*] being instructed to search for criminals and that the photos would be taken only if there was "cause to arrest." ... ...
Deputies are not [*] supposed to use the technology to take random pictures of people in public, said Rice.
"We don't [*] force people," he added.
* = yet
<grrr>
This is like searching your car. They have no probable cause, so they have to ask:
"Mind if I search your car?"
"You may not."
"Refusal is probable cause that you're hiding something. Step out of the car and put your hands on the hood." They then search your car.
If you don't like it, take it up with the judge (who happens to work for the same people the police do, and is rated by CONVICTIONS).
Bob-
The Ludwig von Mises Institute. The reasoning individuals economics
The small airport at which the system is operating has never identified a wanted criminal. The system at the sherrif's office is much more useful and is used during booking during which matches occur every day.
Lasers Controlled Games!
...let them stay home? We've got automated radar guns, automated facial recognition, biometrics... Hell we could just give the cops pagers that go off when the computers are finished doing their jobs for them so they could show up to make the actual arrest. The rest of the time they could just sit in their Barca-loungers and we'll just mail them checks for doing nothing.
This is different from welfare... how??
They will never stop until somebody makes the
This article used the phrase, "Officers should not . . ." far too often for my comfort. The point of legal safeguards on the police and judicial proceedings is to prevent abuses from occurring in the first place. I don't trust the police to use the system in the way the article says it was intended without real protection, as opposed to the toothless policy that seems to be in place.
Even scarier than the facial identification scernario, the article contained the following tidbit:
I can't wait until digital camera "photos" of "evidence" that forensic investigators don't find interesting begin to show up in court. I will be very curious to see how the chain of evidence is preserved for a digital image, and to hear why the trained forensic investigators didn't see fit to take normal photos themselves.OK, now I'm gonna go put on my tin foil hat and shudder in the corner for a while.
Moving your house can cause great commotion, tear up the street, and bring down power lines if it's not done right. Not to mention that you can bring down property values if you leave the foundation behind.
In Japan it is common to wear a surgical-style face mask when one has a flu. Muslim women wear scarves over heads. Various cultures have various accepted ways to cover one's face. Why not pick and use some of them as a stopgap countermeasure?
Of course, unless it's a house-on-wheels
Why is the sheriff doing a street gang symbol with his right hand? Is he hiding behind is badge to sell crack on the street? That looks fishy to me.
I grew up there, and hated it.
(a) Had an incident in high-school, where they tried to prosecute me for a mis-configured Novell network, which had user-specific data written to a shared drive, not he user's "home" directory. Any user saving their settings would over-write the global configuration, and thus make it look like someone was circumventing the network.
I was read my Miranda rights, etc. And questioned with trick questions, as they were not willing to do the research to actually find the real culprit (or bug, in this case.)
(b) There was a call in my neighborhood, whereas the PCSO was responding to a domestic abuse complaint. I was stopped--by the responding officer--that wanted to know what I had in my pocket! (Meanwhile, the woman took the abuse, while the cop was questioning me...I did hear that actual abuse was going on, 'cause I walked by the house!)
(c) My first ticket: Got stopped for having brights on, as I lost a head-light. Spent 2 hours there, while they questioned me about everything that was irrelevant. Had my car searched, was threatened, and pretty much abused. And they threw the book at me, with no warning or whatever, charging me with the maximum possible.
(d) Also got busted for a stop-sign I didn't run. The cop was in a place, not in plain view of the intersection. He stopped me for going through it...and I wish I had a video camera running at the time.
Needless to say, I left that ___hole county, and went to Manatee, just to the south. (MUCH BETTER).
The only cop that knocked on my door wanted to save a neighbor's boat, and needed someone to identify the owner.
The only tickets (1), I recieved: a warning not to make a wrong turn at a certain spot on the road. No questions, no grilling, no non-sense, no threats...just a better place to live...
And, GOD the TRAFFIC in Pinellas!