Slashdot Mirror
Woman With Police-Monitoring Blog Arrested
Kris Thalamus writes "The Washington Post reports that a Virginia woman is being held in custody by police who allege that information she posted on her blog puts members of the Jefferson area drug enforcement task force at risk. 'In a nearly year-long barrage of blog posts, she published snapshots she took in public of many or most of the task force's officers; detailed their comings and goings by following them in her car; mused about their habits and looks; hinted that she may have had a personal relationship with one of them; and, in one instance, reported that she had tipped off a local newspaper about their movements. Predictably, this annoyed law enforcement officials, who, it's fair to guess, comprised much of her readership before her arrest. But what seems to have sent them over the edge — and skewed their judgment — is Ms. Strom's decision to post the name and address of one of the officers with a street-view photo of his house. All this information was publicly available, including the photograph, which Ms. Strom gleaned from municipal records.'"
If she hadn't done anything wrong.
1st post!
Yeah, it's publicly available. But what she did sounds a lot like stalking to me, which unless I'm mistaken IS illegal.
We have seen this many times in the past, and no doubt we will see it into the future.
The system is flawed, but the flaw is supposed to be secret because it is readily used by law enforcement and the like to violate the privacy of individuals. If it were public knowledge that we could access public records for such things, the laws might need to be changed and inadvertently protect the people from abuse by government and we just can't have that.
I'd say: "If they have nothing to hide, they have nothing to fear".
Funny how law enforcement always trots out that line, but goes ballistic when the people apply it to them instead.
Mart
"I know I will be modded down for this": where's the option '-1, Asking for it'?
While it's quite possible that this lady has done nothing legally wrong, I'm afraid she's going to find herself in a similar legal boat as the guys from TPB. Her blog serves no purpose but to obstruct and foil the operations of police activity, not to mention puts the lives of these police officers in jeopardy. It's hard to think what her motive could be.
Another similar case was the website which listed the names and home and office addresses of abortionists. Just for informational purposes, of course... But some lunatics went out and killed several of those doctors. The website was held accountable for incitement.
This website is, in its own way, inciteful.
If Big Brother is watching us; and she's watching Big Brother; then who's watching her!
Oh. yeah... We are.
Nice little infinite loop ya got there.
I have so many pig jokes that I want to post on every police story that rears its head on slashdot, but I'm afraid of being arrested because of the militaristic approach to law enforcement in this country.
On the other hand ... this lady sounds like she's got mental problems.
Did she do it to annoy them or was there a point to her outing these people as members of the task force? What good does it do to single out a police officer by posting his private address with pictures of his home? I could understand publishing pictures or other records of actual transgressions, but just stalking the police doesn't seem right.
This just another case of rights vs responsibilites. I don't think she has done anything wrong per se but she has acted in an irresponsible manner. These police officers deal, on a day to day basis, with people that range from mostly harmless to exceedingly dangerous. Posting their movements, home addresses and other information all on one place, I would argue, diminishes their safety. The information might have been publicly available but there was a certain amount of affort required to collect it. I would imagine a large number of the people these police officers interact with couldn't be bothered to put in that effort themselves but if it's as easy as just going to a blog maybe they would do something.
In an ideal world the police would have been allowed to just go round to her and ask her to act more responsibly. Let her have her blog just make the infromation a little less specific and perhaps throw in some dummy data for good measure.
I used to have a better sig but it broke.
One of the peculiar things about gathering intelligence on someone or a group is that most of the information you need is not secret. It's right there out in the open.
This is a classic example of what happens when someone gathers public data and then uses it. The Police are upset because they didn't take precautions and they never thought anyone would be so obsessive about their identities and behaviors. This is exactly the same reason that so many police are scared of trunk-tracking scanners. They would like to think their communications amongst their group is private.
If the police are truly interested in maintaining a deep cover, they should do it with full legal backing and not make any half assed efforts, hoping that nobody will bother to track them down.
My guess is that this woman will beat the charge and teach cops across the nation an important lesson: The public is watching.
Nearly fifty percent of all graduates come from the bottom half of the class!
It's one thing when people want to give away the last shreds of their own privacy by blogging and posting everything they do and everywhere they go on sites like Facebook and Twitter. However when you start screwing with other people's privacy - or worse yet with law enforcement who are trying to protect a community - you certainly deserve to be locked up. Our privacy is one of the fundamental rights this country is based on. We should be protecting that right, not screwing it up.
Funny : not that long ago a judge allowed the putting of tracking-devices on a car without a warrant with as reasoning that such a tracking-device would not gather any more data than could be gotten by any member of the public by simply watching (and no doubt following) the car itself.
Now some member of the public is doing exactly that to the police, but suddenly it is something that should be disallowed ?
And before someone brings it up : Have those officers done anything to hide their identity while doing their (high-profile!) jobs (indicating their wish to remain secretive) ?
Using your logic, it should be OK for any ordinary citizen to be stalked in a similar manner both while on the job and off.
I'm sure you wouldn't mind a bit if she followed your every move at work, at home, while spending time with your family...and then posting this information online.
Why is it OK when its a police officer?
When the boot is on the other foot.
"The average reporter we talk to is 27 years old......They literally know nothing." - Ben Rhodes
People should really consider that this particular section of policing involves dealing with some of the most hard-ass nutters that there are, and that the people they are working to put away don't give a crap about *your* rights. Has she done anything illegal? Not really. Is it irresponsible? Yeah probably. Does she have *way* too much time on her hands? Definitely...
It's certainly okay when it's, say, a Senator. Our legal system seems to think it's okay when it's Michael Jackson.
The police, as public servants who wield a great deal of power in a rather unique way (the sanctioned use of violence), probably fall somewhere in between senators and Joe Schmoe.
... to make a public judgment on her?
Or is there more to the story?
What is it that motivated her to do this...... in her words, not the media or law enforcement, but her words.
What did they or some officer of the law really do to her that she would put forth such effort?
People don't do things without reason. Considering she has a teenage daughter..... and her focus was the drug task force?????
What kind of mother do you suppose she is?
pointing out police stupidity" - Police Chief Clancey Wiggum, Springfield at least in regards to being able to not only spot and photograph supposed to be undercover policemen but also pointing out that his cover is so flimsey that she can find out where he lives! That's just diabolical!
She's been arrested, but what has she done that is supposedly against the law?
Former wife of Kevin Strom, once director of white nationalist group National Vanguard.
I believe this is her pro-nationalist writing.
Here's her SPLC profile.
I realize our society prejudges any person of nationalist (black power/white power) inclinations, but I think if we have "freedom" it includes the freedom to disagree with diversity.
Most senators and Michael Jackson wouldn't pass the background check to be a cop, anyway.
Quite frankly, anyone who stalks Michael Jackson (before or after his demise) has enough issues already.
In Soviet England, police stalk YOU.
It seems there are reasonable case to be made on both sides of that. But never mind the morality of it for a moment. Anything you do that might be contentious should be done through one (or ideally more) anonymizer proxies. Ideally not even done from your own network connection; use a public one that hundreds of people use, *and* go through anonymizers in multiple countries.
Doing something that's very foreseeable as pissing off powerful people in a way that's traceable back to you is, well, just stupid.
It should be okay for any citizen to stalk another, on or off the job, given that it is seems to be okay for the government to stalk any citizen.
Folks, whether you like her blog or not, and whether you think the cops are over reacting or not, one thing is for sure. If she's following officers and photographing them, that sure sounds like stalking to me. I bet each and every one of you who is voicing support for her would feel differently if someone were following you around with a camera.
I want a new quote. One that won't spill. One that don't cost too much. Or come in a pill.
FYI most police home addresses are NOT public record. So, she actually may actually have done something wrong. Also keep in mind what a drug task force does and why it may be important to keep their identities unknown.
The article says this woman has a young daughter, does she not feel any shame in the danger she may be putting these police officers children in by making their personal information so easily accessible?
It's not about hiding something... As someone who has three family members in law enforcement, I can tell you, without a shred of doubt, that she has put these peoples families in danger.
The Washington Post reports that a Virginia woman is being held in custody by police who allege that information she posted on her blog puts members of the Jefferson area drug enforcement task force at risk.
Actually, it is the existence of a 'drug enforcement task force' that puts the members of the police department at risk...
They have a lot to hide, and for legitimate reason. Undercover officers face the possibility of violent death on a daily basis, and avoiding that chance comes down to keeping their real identity and their assumed identity separate. This woman is clearly trying to put the police and, by posting address information, their families in danger. She can post what bullshit she wants about public information, free speech, etc., the point of her blog is simply and obviously the harassment and endangerment of cops. She should be forcibly moved to a high-crime area and forced to fend for herself.
I prefer rogues to imbeciles because they sometimes take a rest.
Nope.
Police are the government. They retain their arrest powers even when off duty -- in truth, they are never off the job.
We have the absolute right to monitor and comment on how the government does its job. If such scrutiny makes it harder for the government to do some things, maybe that's because those are things it shouldn't be doing.
Tom Swiss | the infamous tms | my blog
You cannot wash away blood with blood
Law Enforcement Officers acting under color of law have absolutely zero expectation of privacy, and there's nothing illegal about documenting the activities of the police and publishing them for public review.
If the police don't want to end up with their photographs on the web, then they shouldn't go outside.
always remember that...
Homo Sapiens Americanus--A documentary in p
Because the fascist dickhead gets paid by us? (Maybe you didn't know that taxes, which come from the people, fund the police ?)
Guns don't kill people; Physics kills people! - John Lithgow as Dick Solomon on Third Rock From The Sun
I see a lot of the posts here as being the classic one sided view. End up with drug dealers on your street harassing your right to a safe community who will you call? You'll call the police. But of course most people want some magical force to come protect them but get upset when certain additional rights are required by that force to do its job properly. A police officer's family is just as vulnerable as yours and in my opinion that information should be protected. We unfortunately don't have laws in this country to affect irresponsible but legal activities so this situation provides a catch 22.
Yes, I know all the 'freedom of speech' people will outcry on this but in reality that is in some ways a imperfect idea. Yes freedom of speech is highly important in a free society, however there are limits to it if you wish to also have a stable community. These officers choose to do this job and deal daily with all the crap the rest of us like to pretend doesn't exist. They do this as a career choice, no one made them. In a case like this I have no problems cutting them some slack to protect their and their family's safety interests. If this means letting them find some law to use to stop a wack-job jeopardizing their safety and ability to do their job efficiently, so be it. It's an imperfect world. It would be FAR more imperfect if you didn't have someone to police the rules.
Play me online? Well you know that I'll beat you. If I ever meet you I'll "/sbin/shutdown -h now" you. -Weird Al, kinda.
The police, as public servants
That's all you need to say. They work for us. Period.
Every time I start to have faith in humanity, I ruin it by driving to work between 7 and 8 am.
"End up with drug dealers on your street harassing your right to a safe community"
How many times have drug dealers kicked in your door at 3AM and killed your pets?
Cops are now more destructive than the drug dealers they seek.
I am the unwilling control for my Origin.
Story says she wants "an all white nation". That should be enough to tell you that her elevator is stuck in the basement. I'd put her in a 96 hour Psych hold and let the doctors even out her meds!
That maybe this particular individual happens to be an undercover drug agent? And maybe she could be putting his life in danger now... Oh and for those less informed obstruction of justice is a crime... My rant is done...
but who watches the watchmen!
Why is it OK when its a police officer?
The point is that it's NOT OK (which is what the GP was saying).
The police already have near-ubiquitous tracking of the plebs (license plates, cell phones, 'net access, crime/speed/toll/stoplight cameras, bank statements). All that information is being tracked all the time automatically (it's just a matter of filtering and storage which moore's law will fix)
It's just interesting to see the law enforcement reaction when the tables are turned.
So many of the police-state arguments that the purveyors of the same tactics don't like being at the receiving end of:
"If you have nothing to hide, you have nothing to fear..."
"You don't have an inherent right to privacy..."
"There's no such thing as privacy in public areas..."
It seems when a private citizen tracks a small group of people it's "stalking", when large groups of government officials track the entire population it's just fine.
In the USA it's not just an "idea" - it's the absolute black letter law of the land.
If you want to make changes then modify the constitution via the legally established method.
WRONG. "Every man for himself" is preferable to a group of armed thugs that can make up whatever rules they feel like to enforce upon the populace while at the same time ignoring any rules that apply to themselves.
-Marcie
"Have you heard of some type of thing?" -- anon
End up with drug dealers on your street harassing your right to a safe community who will you call?
If you really want the drug dealers off the street, put them in stores.
Give me Classic Slashdot or give me death!
Regardless of the relationship between the involved parties (whether an officer investigating a woman without a warrant, or a woman investigating a policeman without a warrant), following someone, gathering information about them, then posting that information in a public place with the intent to complicate or endanger their life is harassment. It's usually just called "stalking."
She posted the location of that officer's home with the full knowledge that it could endanger his life. Also, she "detailed their comings and goings by following them in her car; mused about their habits and looks; [and] hinted that she may have had a personal relationship with one of them."
She was a stalker, simply put.
Yes, her speech is protected, but when she's actively attempting to endanger the lives of those officers, it crosses the line. And you can't tell me that posting the home address, photo of that home, and personal details of an officer isn't a move that will obviously endanger the policeman's life, and the lives of his family. If this were done to anyone, it would be dangerous.
Ironically enough your name is very fitting.
His name is BadAnalogyGuy. Was it a particularly good analogy?
"Why is it OK when its a police officer?"
Because our money pays for their work - we are their employer and as their employer we should have every right to monitor them to ensure they do the job we pay them to do, and to ensure they perform that job PROPERLY. Police are PUBLIC SERVANTS - they are not entitled to the level of privacy a normal citizen would expect, BECAUSE THEY ARE NOW A PUBLIC FIGURE. This means they are absolutely fair game for newspapers and independent published papers.
And when it's a matter of public record which is in the public domain - they have no reasonable expectation of privacy of that information, which includes court records available through a simple FOIA request.
Still waiting on Serviscope_minor to wake up to fucking reality and realize that Jessica Price isn't going to fuck him.
I'd say: "If they have nothing to hide, they have nothing to fear".
That's retarded by any standard. In this case, they do have something to hide. That's the very nature of narcotics enforcement, where being discovered can be fatal. If any of these cops are hurt or killed due to the information on her blog, she should be prosecuted as an accessory to whatever crime is committed.
The law enforcement officers KNEW they had a family when they signed up for this job.
This is why most civilian and military police action that involves heavy risk, is often done by people with no family, or SUFFICIENT barriers are put into place to conceal their identity. The poor decisions by the officers, as well as the department as a whole as it relates to assessment of risk, is the only thing that can put these officers, or their families at risk.
"They retain their arrest powers even when off duty -- in truth, they are never off the job. "
Any reasonable citizen of this country has those same arrest powers - Citizen's Arrest.
Still waiting on Serviscope_minor to wake up to fucking reality and realize that Jessica Price isn't going to fuck him.
After doing some looking around, it strikes me that the woman is an obsessive stalker with a personal grudge against (and past inter-personal involvement) with a police force.
This doesn't have any of the hallmarks of the typical corrupt police arrest story. It looks rather like a badge groupie generated some kind of love/sex related drama and when things got too hot for the object/s of her passion, found herself on the wrong side of some story. When she started to make noise and become embarrassing, all of her various 'friends' on the force probably rejected her, taking the side of their co-worker because of the strong code of brotherhood among police. So now she's feeling personally jilted, bitter and enraged and is trying to take revenge on an entire police division. It sounds like she is serving a selfish personal agenda rather than striving toward any kind of high-minded socio-political goal.
But that's just my take on the situation. It may be totally unfair, but until I see some information to the contrary, that's the theory I'm going with. When it comes to these things, the tiresome reality in hand is very often the result of predictable sex and self-preservation based emotional responses.
-FL
As someone who has a relative working as a state trooper - BULLSHIT. You sign up for the job KNOWING THE RISKS TO YOURSELF AND YOUR FAMILY. The moment you make an arrest and the media puts your face on TV, you've just made yourself a potential target. Hell the moment you piss off the wrong person you've just made yourself a target, media exposure or not.
Still waiting on Serviscope_minor to wake up to fucking reality and realize that Jessica Price isn't going to fuck him.
It's not about hiding something... As someone who has three family members in law enforcement, I can tell you, without a shred of doubt, that she has put these peoples families in danger.
Wow. Those guys really should have been more careful about their cover then, unless they just don't give a damn about their families. Because it seems like their plan was to hope that no one would know how to use a computer, or a phonebook, or the library, or the county records. And their bosses should hang their heads in shame.
Now you seem to imply, when you write about the danger to the families, that there are actual people who might to actual physical harm to these folks. If true, that's pretty serious. Serious enough, that safeguards other than just relying on the ethics of a person with a lot of free time are needed. Because if there really are such people who would harm these guys' families, then you probably can't just rely on personal ethics or even laws against posting information to stop them.
Of course, this is probably just BS, I don't believe you about the danger.
I am not a crackpot.
Most senators and Michael Jackson wouldn't pass the background check to be a cop, anyway.
There are senators who played football in college.
I am not a crackpot.
End up with drug dealers on your street harassing your right to a safe community who will you call?
I would call the meat wagon to remove their bodies. My neighbors and I are all armed citizens. I would be harassed once and only once.
"The average reporter we talk to is 27 years old......They literally know nothing." - Ben Rhodes
"She should be forcibly moved to a high-crime area and forced to fend for herself."
Ah, how ignorant you are of our Constitution and Bill of Rights. You WERE born yesterday, I can tell.
Still waiting on Serviscope_minor to wake up to fucking reality and realize that Jessica Price isn't going to fuck him.
Law enforcement personnel always have to hide behind a mask in a nanny-state. When free citizens elect their protectors, who are part of their community, the protectors are valued neighbors who in turn expect and generally receive the support of the other members of the community (Posse in the old sense).
When the law enforcement are hired guns (Her blog at http://iheartejade.blogspot.com, expresses the view that the task force is "nothing more than a group of arrogant thugs.") who have to wear masks and hide themselves for fear of retribution, you need laws like anti-harassment one.
It should not be a crime to annoy the cops, and while her posting of the home address of the officer was absolutely inappropriate, it certainly doesn't justify a "raid". They could have sent 2 officers to calmly go inform her that she was under arrest, and they didn't need to go with a felony charge.
This free citizen of the US and mother has been in jail a month and likely to remain much longer. If convicted, she'll likely serve prison time. If the ACLU gets invovled they'll probably get the whole mess overturned as unconstitutional, but at tremendous cost to the TAXPAYERS and with much jail-time for the citizen. This situation was allowed to get out of hand by incompetent management who do indeed have at least some "arrogant thugs" overstepping their authority.
Note: How exactly is an individual free citizen supposed to bring to light the abuses of the police if free speech rights are denied? Her actions are PRECISELY the reason that the free speech right was identfied. To allow citizens to SPEAK OUT about the percieved abuses of power by government entities.
Senators, rock stars, movie stars, etc, are public figures and in the public eye. You give up a lot of privacy when you become a public figure (i.e. the paparazzi are allowed to follow you). That goes along with the job description. And, you enter those professions knowing this to be the case. Police officers, while public servants, are typically not public figures.
What this woman did was stalk with intent to harass a police officer.
She identified officers involved in the various task forces.
She directly and indirectly placed those officers and their families in jeopardy.
She reduced the effectiveness of law enforcement in that town.
She should rot in jail.
They're also citizens, just like anyone else. This is stalking, plain and simple.
You assume that what they state is what they actually believe is. That would be purely trough coincidence.
They know exactly, that that is just a lie to get to what they want.
But hey, my sig says it all: It's not about what you have to hide. It's about what they want to find.
Combine that with Cardinal Richelieu's (of inquisition infame) statement of needing seven lines from the finest man, to find something to hang him, and you got to the core of the problem.
Point is: There is no such thing as freedom or fair law. We still live with the law of the jungle. It's just hidden better. But the strongest people still make the laws.
Nowadays the strongest person does not even need to have any real strength. They found out that it's enough if people *believe* they were stronger.
Like a government: Those some thousands or tenthousands of people could not withstand hundreds of millions of people. Ever. But they still are the strongest in the people's minds.
Any sufficiently advanced intelligence is indistinguishable from stupidity.
Oh so you're a big fan of slavery then, are ya? As long as they work for you, their lives are yours to do with as you please. If only those damn northern states hadn't messed things up for you ....
You don't get it, do you?
Apart from the fact that police officers are public officials, and thus have a lesser expectation of privacy, it is entirely my point that neither side should willy-nilly invade someone's privacy. Yet law enforcement clamours for nothing but far-reaching invasive powers, while not granting the people one iota of transparency. That's rank hypocrisy.
Mart
"I know I will be modded down for this": where's the option '-1, Asking for it'?
And so do I. Doesn't stop the fascist dickheads to claim the power to track my every move. Don't like it? Stop playing Gestapo on your citizens.
Mart
"I know I will be modded down for this": where's the option '-1, Asking for it'?
Why is it ok for them to put your mug shot up when you are arrested and charged with a crime? You have not been convicted but they trash your privacy anyway.
If posting someone's home address does not endanger your life, can we post yours. For that matter, how come you are using an alias instead of your real name?
If you are going to have a right to privacy, it has to apply to everyone.
This is my sig.
This woman is clearly trying to put the police and, by posting address information, their families in danger.
People who commit certain crimes are put on the 'sex offenders' list, which provides to the public the person's name and address -- which by your logic puts their families in danger. And this goes on for years after the person has paid their debt to society.
You may say that the public's need to know about potentially dangerous sex offenders in their area outweighs their right to privacy. Well, to me the public's need to know about potentially corrupt and dangerous police in their area outweighs their right to privacy. If they don't like it, they can quit.
Actually, for the sake of accuracy I should point out that there is a difference between the two. Citizens can only perform an arrest for a crime which they have personally observed, while police can perform arrests based purely on suspicion.
But yeah, that doesn't make the original argument any less silly. I suppose firefighters are never off duty either, since they always have the ability to fight fires. And let's not forget computer programmers! Ludicrous.
Do you believe that your boss has the right to track your every move once you clock out for the day? No? Then why do you think we have the right to do the same to off-duty police officers?
While the woman from TFA may not have exclusively done off-duty stalking, how is digging up and posting where an officer lives (complete with pictures and map coordinates) anything more than off-duty stalking of said officer?
"I'm not sure I like the fugnutish tone you used in your post!" -RogL (608926)-
There's an enormous amount of information that is nominally in the public domain in most first-world countries. Telephone directories, electoral roll records, births/marriage/death registration, driver licensing and vehicle registration records, land ownership records, company registration documents are all frequently at least partially open to the public.
However, they're seldom gathered together in an easy to assimilate form - maybe that's because the government is running 20 years behind the private sector, maybe that's because they'd far rather sell the information than let it go for free. You have to go to some effort to join the dots.
But what if you didn't? How would those on here who say "You have no privacy. Get used to it." on here feel if you could punch someone's name into Google and reliably get back their home phone number, address, the make, model and registration number of their car, how much they bought their last house for, the names of their parents, spouse and children?
More to the point, how long would such a service work before the government stepped in to "close it down" (read: Close it to the public. You don't think they'd let a tool like that go, do you?)
I've had a word with your boss, and he's very pleased to hear that you feel this way. He's assured me that you will immediately be placed under 24/7 surveillance, with all your private details posted to a blog. After all, your direct supervisor, the CEO of the company, and all of the shareholders all need to monitor your every move in order to make sure you're doing your job. That's a perfectly normal proposition, right?
Pretty much the conclusion drawn by the Washington Post:
This reminds me of the Bernie S. case. The victim of a number of mind-boggling coincidences, Bernie (real name Ed Cummings) ended up being viciously assaulted during a five-year term in federal prison for the crimes of possessing some 6.5 MHz phone crystals and - apparently - four photographs of secret service agents, including one who was picking his nose:
Source: underground-online
This woman went a lot further than showing some unflattering photos at a meeting of communications enthusiasts, but her only "crime" seems to have been to embarrass the police, and expose the ineffectiveness of their drug task force. I have a feeling the force is going to be tasked with finding something incriminating enough in her files or on her hard drive to send her away for a long time.
I don't care why you're posting AC
honestly, lets just say the truth. This woman is a complete idiot who is after attention. What did she think would happen when she was out stalking cops? Would you do that while in your right mind? Of course not. You don't f**k with the police if you have any sense at all. Who cares if the information is publicly available, it's just common sense not to use it in this way.
Here's a hint: "Think of the Children!" is the new way to instantly lose political arguments.
it's okay to post about an undercover cop just because he works for you?
Hell..he wont be working for you long...you just killed him.
"But of course most people want some magical force to come protect them " Actually you are the one who wants a magical force to protect you. It's a utopian view in the face of dystopia to rely on the police and the state to "protect" you, while clearly they don't work and more importantly they are a bigger danger then what they are supposed to fight. Police officers harass more people then any criminal does. They are a beast that asks three people sacrificed for every one they save, not at all a base for stability. It would be much better if people relied on privatised security systems and the state would step aside. It's an imperfect world, but it would be FAR less imperfect if we didn't have people violently coercing others.
Princess Leia: The more you tighten your grip, Tarkin, the more star systems will slip through your fingers
I've been following this story for a few years, or rather following it as it developed.
Her ex-husband is Kevin Strom, a prominent white nationalist and white supremacist* who was arrested for possession of child pornography and beating his wife (while threatening worse if she testified against him) a couple of years ago. He'd been stalking a ten-year-old girl, regularly cruising by her house, giving her gifts, sending her love letters, and proposing to her. (The kid's parents were none too thrilled.) It turned out, bizarrely, that none of that is illegal -- but possession of child pornography landed him in prison for a couple of years. He was released earlier this year. He was also, incidentally, an inveterate troll of one of my blogs, so I've got a special dislike for the guy.
Anyhow, Elisha is every bit as much of a racist as Strom, only she's also a feminist, which means that racists think she's scum, meaning that basically everybody hates her. Based on her blog entries, commenters on my blog have come to the conclusion that she was having an affair with one or more of these police officers. To my knowledge, she's never had any interaction with JADEâ"that is, neither she nor her husband have been busted for drug possession by them. So her interest in them appears to be romantic. Spurned, she's started stalking them, and expanded her interest to include all members of JADE.
What I can't shed any light on is whether or not this arrest is appropriate. I've been involved in a couple of high-profile bloggers' free expression cases (as a defendant in both cases), and though you'd think I'd rush to defend somebody in her positionâ"cretin though she may beâ"I just don't think it's cut-and-dry enough. The fact that she's putting this stuff on a blog seems to be irrelevant, by which I mean it's not a special form of expression here. She's not acting in the manner of a journalist, by which I mean that there is no goal to her coverage, no public interest being served, no story being pieced together. She's simply taking private information about private individuals who happen to work for the local government (albeit in a very private capacity) and making it public.
The question here is simply, I think, whether stalking laws are meant to cover people who are public employees. If a racist who advocates violent rebellion against black Americans starts following the a black secretary who works in the county office building, documenting her every move publicly, can the police intervene? Or is that his right, because she's opted out of a right to privacy by working for a government agency? There is a legitimate argument to be made that it is his right, in order to be consistent with what is to be expected for more prominent public employees. But a foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of small minds, after all, so maybe we should put less thought into being consistent and more into protecting our citizens. I'm not being vague to be cute -- I really don't know what's right here.
* I regret that covering these nutcases involves learning things like that there's a difference between being a white nationalist and a white supremacist.
I totally agree.
The police are doing a job, which is required by law. The are the investigative and enforcement branch of the legal system.
I have been known to dig up personal information on people using publicly available information. When I do it, it's usually either to find someone (say, a family member or friend) that has been out of contact for a while. Many times, when I dig for information, it's requested by the person who I'm digging the information up on, because they're curious to what I can find. It's usually a friend, so I already have a good basis to start with. That doesn't get published, and that's a long stretch from digging for information on an entire group of individuals, and then potentially putting them in harms way.
Someone else used the example of abortion clinic doctors, and it's terrible result.
She wasn't just doing a bit of research. She was stalking. I think it's sad that stalking laws needed to be created, but it's good that they are on the books now.
If someone made a profile on me, my movements, and other assorted data. Say even a small segment of the population wanted to cause me harm (which I don't believe there is), then it could be hazardous to me and my health.
In her case, what if I happened to be friends with one of the officers, and had been spotted going in and out of the police station, which put me on her list? I could be a target for some twisted revenge situation, simply for being in the wrong places at the right times. When I was in high school, I had a friend who worked in local law enforcement in a minor capacity. I did show up at the police station occasionally. That could have potentially put me on her list as an undercover officer, and my family and myself could be at risk of retaliation by any segment of the population who may have a grudge against law enforcement.
Reading the article, it says that she was charged with only a single charge of harassment. They were being nice. They didn't throw the book at her. I'm sure she could have been hit with a whole stack of charges. That was just a friendly warning, "Stop it.", which I'm sure was not the first warning she got. Hopefully she'll oblige, and start behaving like a normal person again.
And people wonder why I use an alias exclusively on the Internet. :) Because there are enough nutjobs out there, that when they begin searching for information on me they'll find a little truth and a lot of disinformation, intentionally put out there. Law enforcement (local through federal) have enough information to find me at any time, so it's not that I'm running from them. I'm just avoiding the nutjobs with a blog. :)
I will admit, there are some less than friendly people working in law enforcement. There are some amazingly great people working there too. I once lived next door to an officer like that. If she had made friends, rather than enemies, with those officers, she would have likely been way more comfortable with her life.
Serious? Seriousness is well above my pay grade.
Dude, I wasn't serious about that forcible moving part. Relax. My point was that her perspective on police operations might change if she needed them to keep crackheads from robbing her house while meth-addicted hookers give $20 blowjobs on her front lawn.
I can quote the Constitution and Bill of Rights all day long. Her Consitutional right to free speech is limited when it puts others' lives in jeopardy, like yelling "fire" in a theater.
Of course regarding relocation, the Constitution does grant powers of eminent domain to the government, so theoretically they could force her off her property. (All joking aside for a moment, recent eminent domain takings and court decisions have been absurdly anti-citizen). However, I don't think they have any say where she ends up after that. Unless, of course, she ends up being a guest of the state.
I prefer rogues to imbeciles because they sometimes take a rest.
You're comparing the inquisition to the modern justice system? Have you been smoking crack?
Well if you're defining your concept of fairness from the point-of-view of the criminal, then yea, no law can ever be fair. However, that is a completely asinine way of judging fairness.
Except that you're creating a false division. You're pretending to be living under some oppressive dictatorship, where it's possible to draw clear lines between "us" and "the", and incite the crowds to rise up against their oppressors. And while I'm sure that drama-queens like yourself get a huge kick out of pretending to be the leaders of the revolution, the fact of the matter is that WE ARE the government, and we're not going to rise up against ourselves.
Did the cops paste your face, address, home, and other information on a web site in a way that might get your head blown off by a cocaine dealer? I didn't think so. Your comparison isn't apples to apples.
I prefer rogues to imbeciles because they sometimes take a rest.
Perhaps it is the officers who chose a dangerous job that put themselves in danger.......
Good-bye
Well, to me the public's need to know about potentially corrupt and dangerous police in their area outweighs their right to privacy. If they don't like it, they can quit.
She has evidence these guys are corrupt and dangerous? That might be worth seeing. Of course, there's nothing in her blogs I saw that would indicate that's the case. She's a nutcase who follows cops in her spare time and takes pictures of them doing nothing special. On the other hand, her blog has every indication that she is trying to aggravate them and expose them to danger. She is part crazy, part malicious.
I prefer rogues to imbeciles because they sometimes take a rest.
This post isn't trolling. Obama admitted in his book "Dreams From My Father" that he had used both cocaine and pot. That would disqualify him from any security clearance.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/01/02/AR2007010201359_pf.html
They don't work for us, they work for the city that employed them. We may pay their salaries through taxes but we have absolutely no control over them, we cannot direct their investigations, we cannot dictate their patrol routs, we do not approve or disprove their hiring, raises, performance reviews, benefits package, vacations time or anything of the sort. Their work does have the public interest in mind but that doesn't mean they work for us. You certainly wouldn't think walmart employees work for you just because your puchases pay a portion of their salaries would you.
The city doesn't even work for you. They work for the city. The only control you have is your vote on a few elected officials who you hope will have your interest in mind when making decisions. However, there is nothing forcing them to hold your interest or even protect them.
The officers certainly deserve to have their privacy respected and their identities protected, but I'm not sure that translates to them having the right to have their privacy respected and identities protected.
Say a drug dealer is having a conversation with someone who is unaware of their illegal activities, and that someone mentions that they saw the new guy in the bar at a police station wearing a uniform, and the dealer later kills the officer; is the casual friend of the drug dealer on the hook for revealing the identity of the officer?
That example is horribly contrived, but horribly contrived things actually happen in a world with millions of people in it, so there is good reason to write laws quite carefully.
Nerd rage is the funniest rage.
This post isn't trolling. Obama admitted in his book "Dreams From My Father" that he had used both cocaine and pot. That would disqualify him from any security clearance.
Actually, it doesn't. Failing to disclose it could.
I'm a consultant - I convert gibberish into cash-flow.
Off duty police officers also retain protections against their own violations of law and lawsuits to which an ordinary citizen doesn't.
If the playing field was level, I would understand but they are not the same. And yes, if an off duty fireman runs into a building that's on fire to save someone just like anyone else can do, they still retain their protections against lawsuits and personal liability and so on which ordinary people do not have. Well, at least in states without a "Good Samaritan" law.
"They retain their arrest powers even when off duty -- in truth, they are never off the job. "
Any reasonable citizen of this country has those same arrest powers - Citizen's Arrest.
Except a citizen that performs a "Citizen's Arrest" potentially open themselves to civil and criminal charges; they don't enjoy many of the protections that a police officer has when carrying out their official duties.
You could, for example face assault charges if you try to use force in making your arrest; and civil liability if you arrest the wrong person.
I'm a consultant - I convert gibberish into cash-flow.
The purpose it serves is to express her freedom of speech.
Freedom of Speech in the American context has its roots in the desire for unconstrained political debate.
That is why Norman Rockwell chose the New England town meeting as his example. Freedom of Speech, The Saturday Evening Post, February 20, 1943
The geek needs to remember as well the elemental power of Rockwell's image of the rest, peace and security we all need and hope to find at home and in our family: Freedom from Fear
That too is precious - and it cannot be sustained if those who protect it live in fear themselves.
Something you are forgetting is police officers serve the public and are on public payroll, thus their jobs are public information and so is what they do. You are trying to compare a civil servant to a civilian.
The civil servant is by definition a civilian.
One of the most singular and characteristic features of American democracy is that the military does not have general police powers.
To take an absolutist view of free speech has important and dangerous consequences.
It doesn't end the world of secrets.
It simply drives it deeper underground - where the rules can be enforced outside the law.
The geek doesn't get an "open" police force. What he gets is the night rider. The vigilante. The death squad.
The police, as public servants
That's all you need to say. They work for us. Period.
No it isn't. "They work for us" is never an excuse to jeopardize the safety of anybody.
I have no sympathy for this woman. Regardless of the letter of the law, she's out there antagonizing the police, who are presumably trying to do their job. Police get paid crap to do a job that's far more dangerous than the jobs most of us do. I don't always agree 100% with the law or how police go about doing their job. I'm glad someone was filming Rodney King getting the crap beaten out of him. These things must come to light.
On the other hand, an ongoing campaign of harassing the police should not go unchallenged. She's endangering people who already do a dangerous job, and for that alone, she ought to go to jail.Even if this information is already publicly available, she's clearly collecting and organizing it with the intent of harassment.
It's easy to sit around and complain about the cops, up to the point where you get in trouble and the police save your butt. I've been in that position and I'll never forget it. Does that mean I'm always a 100% law-abiding citizen? Of course not. But I never forget that these guys do a dangerous job for a pittance and that I wouldn't be willing to do it myself. So the last thing I think they deserve is to have some jerk adding further danger to their lives.
If your undercover identity can be broken by a civilian with no special training and no access to non-public information, you're doing it wrong.
Let's compare it to Valerie Plame. She wasn't outed by any counter intelligence agencies, nor by publicly available information. She was outed by someone decided to leak classified information. This despite her using her maiden name.
We are not their employer. Stop with that nonsense. They are employees of the city, state, or government and in some cases private companies contracted by those. You have no responsibilities over them as an employer would have, they have no responsibilities to you either. Their responsibilities are to the entity that employs them (*city) and the laws.
Yes, they do tax you, they do take this tax money to pay for the police equipment, salaries, buildings and so on. That doesn't make you their employer.
Now, we so have a right to monitor them because it is monitoring where public monies are being spent and a direct action of government. In my city, there is a law that says the law enforcement and public employees have to live within their own jurisdiction. So knowing where a cop lives might be of a public interest. All that makes it a matter of public interest and should make it news worthy to a degree well above tabloid journalism and their tracking of hollywood stars and such. While I wouldn't want someone doing that to me, I wouldn't want someone locked up for doing it if I have a public job either.
BTW, public servant is not someone who serves the public. It's a distinction between the private and public sectors of jobs that are often duplicated because of government service. A public servant is nothing more then a person working in the public service which has no default obligation to the people.
She was stalking and identifying members of a drug task force. We all know what's going in northern Mexico(and spilling over into places like Phoenix). These drug cartels have branches extending all the way to the East Coast and up through Canada. There is no reason that the violence we are seeing cant spill over into more of our cities. She is not only putting these officers at risk, she is putting these officers' families at risk. These people will kill their own buddies if it helps them amke more money, so you know they have no problem with taking out a cop's wife and daughter to get him off their back.
The only thing necessary for evil to triumph is for it to be pitted against a slightly greater evil
Cocaine and pot...I think our last president was totally into that as well, if I recall.
Good. Cheap. Fast. Pick Two.
We have the absolute right to monitor and comment on how the government does its job. If such scrutiny makes it harder for the government to do some things, maybe that's because those are things it shouldn't be doing.
Hint: "Who watches the watchmen?" is meant to be a paradox: if you think "we do!" is an answer, then you're missing the point of the question.
In a survey of 100 programmers, 111111 thought that duck-typing was a good idea.
Just because singular pieces of information are public doesn't make it acceptable to publish the collection.
It wasn't long ago that reverse-telephone directories were illegal. Not that you couldn't take an ordinary phone book and reverse it yourself, just that it couldn't be published that way. It wasn't until enough people did it themselves that the "Purple Pages" because legal.
Collections can be entities of themselves. In this case, sure, a criminal could get all of that information piece-meal. But in that amount of time, it would have been worth less, if not worthless. But to have it all readily available as a detailed collection is another story. In fact, it's a news story, and is the entire purpose of journalism. Your typical news source doesn't report on many private things. Nearly all news stories in any medium report simple public knowledge.
"This company revealed this product today and this show", "This city spent this money on this expense", "This person said this", "This fire destroyed this building", and so on.
But with the typical "it's public so it's fine" logic, you don't need any of that, because it's all public information that you could have witnessed or investigated or interviewed yourself. Except you could never follow that many things on your own. The fact that others have collected it for you, and published it as a collection of information, is the value that you obtain.
This is the same case. The collected information here is of danger, even though the piece-meal information is not.
Not to mention, just as a side note, that police really should be made an exception when it comes to publicizing information about them. Anyone who's daily occupation involves risking their life for my benefit deserves otherwise unreasonable favours from me.
Because in their professional capacity the police are agents of the state. My employer is not the state.
When you choose to seek the power that the police (or elected officials, for that matter) wield, you forfeit the right to be treated as a regular Joe Citizen.
"You can either have software quality or you can have pointer arithmetic, but you cannot have both at the same time."
It is where I work, company policy is very invasive. For example, because I drive a company vehicle, I'm required to report any accidents or traffic violations in which I'm involved, including those which occur off-duty in my personal vehicle. Employees failing to disclose such incidents are subject to discipline, up to and including termination. There is no freedom when you work for the private sector.
This isn't the sig you're looking for... Move along.
You watch to many movies. The likelihood of an officer being harmed outside of physical assault when their identity is discovered is no more then when they are conducting the opperation. In most cases, people are aware of the increased penalties if they know it is a police officer and that actually makes them safer then they already were.
What this is about is the police's effectiveness in committing the narcotics surveillance and potential for future arrest. What most criminals do when they know their is a cop looking at them, is run and attempt to cover their tracks by destroying evidence. The cop is outed everytime he makes an arrest because he has to testify at the trial and anyone connected will know he is a cop (or a stool pidgin). That exposure has not resulted in more cops being killed or harmed, it just keeps it the same.
Firefighters do not have the ability to strip a citizen of their rights.
Police do, and their ability to strip a citizen of their rights doesn't go away when they are off-duty (please don't bring up "citizen's arrest," people, it is a largely ignored concept for a reason). They are entrusted with large responsibilities, so the case for monitoring them is vastly different from that of a regular citizen.
"You can either have software quality or you can have pointer arithmetic, but you cannot have both at the same time."
It's certainly okay when it's, say, a Senator.
I'd imagine a Senator is much different. They always have the power to influence and be influenced on how the law is written. Police never have this power; they only have the power to use the law that Senators of all sorts create. When it comes to creating laws, police tend to have about as much power as any other special interest group.
The *article* even says these addresses are public record. Dumbfuck.
-Clio
Karma: Bad (mostly from not giving a fuck)
Blog: http://clintjcl.wordpress.com
No, they are not "just like anyone else." When you are entrusted by the state with abilities that a normal citizen does not have, you willingly put yourself under the microscope.
The same goes for elected officials.
"You can either have software quality or you can have pointer arithmetic, but you cannot have both at the same time."
Nah, for him it was coke and alcohol.
No doubt it would be only once... because in revenge they would torch your house, rape your wife and bled you to death instead of just harassing. 'Armed citizen', yeah, any drug gang member is quaking in his boots already. Why so may morons think their guns make them Dirty Harry incarnation?
Most fragile ego known to man: a cop in the United States.
They also get to be around guns and bullets a large portion of their day, especially when they're undercover infiltrating any sort of crime ring. Their job is definitely dangerous, and it can't be forgotten. They need some protection in their personal lives, unless you want them to not have one.
No, we don't. Are you one of the misguided people who believe the military should announce battle plans to the world before they are carried out? Should the DEA hold a press conference to let us know the details of the multi-million dollar drug ring they are about to bust? That anyone who wants it should be able to get information on what secret defense projects we are working on? Information is valuable, and some information loses value when shared, while others gain value, the trick is being able to recognize which is which. There are certainly some areas where total transparency should be enforced, areas where security and safety would not be compromised, but to demand the information when its dissemination could lead to someone getting hurt or worse, is tantamount to injuring the person yourself.
From what I've seen of the blog in question, there is nothing in the blog to constitute stalking, since all information presented is a matter of public record, it is merely consolidated into a single location for easy access. I cannot say what her actions were outside the blog, if she was calling officers or showing up at their houses when they were off duty to press them about work related subjects, then that is harassment, but providing access to publicly available information is not. While true that some of the information released was of a sensitive nature, and should not, in good concience, have been posted, it was still publicly available. Maybe it is time for the police department to take a closer look at its own data retention policies to ensure that critically sensitive information about ongoing operations is not released until the operation has concluded, excepting valid FOIA requests.
Ignorance is Bliss -- And the Opposite is True -- Genius is Madness
Because freedom of speech only applies to people I agree with!
-Clio
Karma: Bad (mostly from not giving a fuck)
Blog: http://clintjcl.wordpress.com
I'd say that our relationship to police is that of a shareholder to a department of a company.
Clearly this woman is crazy and has devoted her life to stalking/monitoring the police - she claims to have had personal relationships with several officers who have never even met her. She is delusional. This is no different from a crazed fan stalking members of a band.
This has nothing to do with the effectiveness of law enforcement or privacy. Just a crazy person.
No, we are not the government. That's grade school level naive idealism. Some animals really are more equal than others in our system... and as in Animal Farm, that includes pigs.
Actually, she was outed by someone who put two and two together and simply asked a public question to a public official who was drunk at the time. Robert Novack asked who joe Wilson was and how he got to do the africa trip that let him publicly speak against the administration. Richard Armatage, a registered democrat said his wife got him the job and was in the CIA. The rest was put together by Wilson's own website claiming to be married to Plame (using her married name) with photos of vacations and so on.
That was not a case of leaked classified information and was the result of both publicly availible information, a release of government information which was more or less a rumor, and someone putting two and two together. It was exactly what you say it wasn't. Her classified status and so on is nothing but ancillary to the situation.
Well they would, more or less, if he was caught peeing in a park, or had consentual sex when he was 15.
They made choices on their own to do the work they do. No one forced them, no one lied to them, no one held a gun to their heads. They are not special in any way above and beyond the normal citizen. They need no special treatment that oridinary citizens require.
I too am around guns and bullets every day. My life is pretty dangerous at times. The only protection I get is the laws that might be violated and my ability to defend myself. Cops deserve no more protections then ordinary people, they are not royalty even though they act like it. As long as they retain their status and ability to do more then regular people when no on duty, they are effectivly on duty as far as I'm concerned.
... potentially corrupt and dangerous police in their area outweighs their right to privacy. If they don't like it, they can quit.
Just to be technically correct here, all police officers are potentially corrupt and dangerous, just as any other citizen.
good thing there is privacy laws outside the USA... here in EU the police have to ask for your permission before running your plate number...
If some random woman can find all this information, then the problem is not the woman, or what she did, it is the indisputable fact that this information is available. If she can find this information, then a highly skilled elite hacker/investigator in the employ of the Angels (or any organized crime or terror group) could uncover the same information. The problem is that the cops don't have good security. Aside from this, you can bet that organized crime already knows all this stuff. The most common method is to buy off or blackmail an employee of the police force who has access to this same information. I can assure you that this is almost certainly the case at most, if not all major to mid-level police departments. Picking on this woman makes no sense, it will do nothing to protect information that is already available, and it only gives the cop a false sense of security if they think, little Dutch boys that they are, that they have "plugged a leak" and are now secure. Security is the biggest illusion in the world. We never had it, and we never will. What we can have is an open and free society, and these cops are working hard to destroy that.
If your "boss" (either directly or by way of security clearance indirectly) is the U.S. Government, your boss is already following you around covertly taking pictures of you both at work and in your private life and for the same reasons that the article claims this lady was doing so with respect to those cops -- to verify whether you have sufficient integrity to be trusted with the privileged information or position you have been given.
If she really is just trying to answer the age-old question "Quis custodiet ipsos custodes?" then nothing she was reported as doing was wrong.
WRONG. "Every man for himself" is preferable to a group of armed thugs that can make up whatever rules they feel like to enforce upon the populace while at the same time ignoring any rules that apply to themselves.
Does anyone build roads, schools or hospitals in this "every man for himself" paradise of yours?
Government is the result of many people living together being "civilized." It reflects the people it governs; in a democratic system that means the people run the government-- practicality dictates employees, volunteers and representatives because the mob can not equally do everything for many reasons.
The city IS forced to serve the public's interests; not you individually, an average of the group's interests and the system by which that averaging occurs greatly influences how it works--- how the citizens participate and how much they can THINK being the largest factor. Corporate hijacking of the system is a function of the flawed system (which will never be perfect; it runs on humans) and LARGELY the citizens themselves who must fire the traitors who serve another master. If the public doesn't do its job the system can't save them and neither can good public servants who'd likely not stick around for long. Furthermore, dictators are essentially elected by the inability of the people to collectively overcome them.
The point behind a democratic system was to civilize the process of violent revolution that ALWAYS has and will be required. It also lowers the bar for kicking the bums out; but it also lowers the VALUE of transition. There is less cost involved; therefore, less value.
Public servants are NOT normal citizens! They should not be entitled to all our rights; just as the military takes away many basic rights from those public servants. As far as I'm concerned, it should be so bad that they have trouble finding people who want the jobs! As for police, we have a constant surplus where I live doing other jobs because there isn't enough work--- and we require college degrees and they still have waiting lists. Politicians are far far worse-- they should practically have their own reality show with a camera permanently bolted on their heads! (well, almost that severe-- they should never be allowed to work again; I'm sick of these former officials being loophole lawyer "consultants" and lobbyists its like their job was about setting up deals for later if not while they are in office.)
Democracy Now! - uncensored, anti-establishment news
If such scrutiny makes it harder for the government to do some things, maybe that's because those are things it shouldn't be doing
Of course, sometimes the government might just scrutinize those who do the scrutinizing... maybe we ought to see what happens when we send your comments to flag@whitehouse.gov
Would you be outraged if your boss tracked your every move, posted your life's details on the internet, and otherwise did what this woman has done to the police? I think you would be incensed and probably 1) call the police and file charges and 2) call a lawyer and sue. So, if you would be moved to act against your boss if he/she did what this woman has done, why are you defending what she's done?
In addition, the police officer is protected from a mistaken arrest--the citizen is not. If you conduct a citizen's arrest, you MUST be right, or there will be consequences.
C//
Actually, it does. The frequency of use is a determining factor. It's clear that he used drugs for 3 or 4 years so I'm sure he far surpassed the official limit.
I was going to mod you up for this comment. spot on.
but then you had to go and ruin it. sigh.
Who said anything about paradise? I said it is the lesser of two evils. If we are going to be ruled by armed gangs, then drop the pretense and stop pretending the armed gang is a legitimate government.
Since we're talking about the police, I believe that confusing the police with the military is at the root of many of our society's ills.
And I believe that even the military's ability to force information to be kept secret should be strictly limited, that classification should only be allowed for fixed periods of up to maybe 20 years or so, and that the government has no legitimate authority to force silence on people who come into possession of "classified" information and have not agreed to keep it secret. That's a violation of the First Amendment.
I believe that the DEA should be disbanded and that the federal government should stop trying to tell people what they can do with their own bodies. As I said, if scrutiny makes it harder for the government to do some things, maybe that's because those are things it shouldn't be doing.
I believe that the more information available, the less likely things like Iran-Contra and Abu Ghraib and Gitmo are. Technical and operational details might be redacted, but in general yes, we the people should be able to get almost all information on what is being done in the name of defending us.
Tom Swiss | the infamous tms | my blog
You cannot wash away blood with blood
The only control you have is your vote on a few elected officials who you hope will have your interest in mind when making decisions. However, there is nothing forcing them to hold your interest or even protect them.
A local city which I cover at length on my website due to their poor decisions on a variety of matters, including public safety staffing and funding, is one which I should highlight here based on what you say above. Because this particular city has decided that funding a $20 million public arts center, which is losing money like you cannot believe due to poor third party management, they have decided to cut back on public safety funding and have watched as crime (of many different types) has skyrocketed. Now, based on their poor decisions and the public disapproval, brought to light by those that frequent my site--including the city staff and councilmembers themselves, they have started to pay attention to what is being said outside of their little black hole.
So, even though you claim that the only way you can influence the way things are handled in your city is through your vote (which was true in year's past), it's no longer true. The news media has moved away, in droves--probably due to their own funding issues and lack of staffing, from investigative reporting to fluff created by the PR machines inside cities themselves. It's now up to the public to replace what should be considered a failure of traditional media's mandate to bring attention and force change before election years.
Thankfully, at least in a small part, it has been working so far.
I'd say: "If they have nothing to hide, they have nothing to fear".
Tell that to the Jews pre-Nazi Germany. Even innocent looking information, in the hands of the wrong person, can be used for harm. It's not hard to imagine how it may be used against undercover cops.
Do you believe that your boss has the right to track your every move once you clock out for the day?
Does it really matter what the average person believes? Companies do it all the time and it gets worse with the current economic climate.
Companies issue cell and smart phones to be answered 24/7, replete with GPS. Some try to tell you if you can smoke, what kinds of food you should eat and how much you should exercise (and how). You'll need to submit to random drug tests. Or lie detector tests. Certainly credit score reviews. And the hits go on...
So while they might not being tracking your every move, give them time. They are already doing the next best thing.
Leave the gun, take the cannolis.
the converse is not necessarily true. as a series 6/63/66/7 registered representative (licensed to sell financial products and offer investment advice), one can be held liable for saying something to someone that isn't a client or on their "off time". if you saw your stock broker or insurance agent at a grocery store and he mentioned something about another company being insolvent, how would that effect your feelings about that other company? your agent?
the positions of these public servants are titles that they wear all the time. like it or not, these jobs aren't just jobs, if they aren't comfortable with it, they should leave the position.
It's necessary. Cops, especially undercover cops, are some of the most criminally bent people out there. They protect certain drug gangs and act as enforcers against their opposition. They engage in burglaries and assassinations. They run shakedown scams against petty dealers. They infiltrate legitimate non violent political organizations and try to foment violence at demonstrations (that's about as mean and rotten and crooked as it gets IMO). And EVERY cop out there knows that the drug business wouldn't even be possible without corrupt cops, judges and high level bureaucrats, and it goes right to the top of the federal government in certain agencies.
And whenever they get caught, they are always so quick to say "oh, just a few bad apples", etc. Bullshit. Google has thousands of hits on police corruption. Today..a few good apples in whole barrels of rotten ones. The US is this freeking close to second and third world status when it comes to this, complete with death squads and "disappearing" squads. When they start covering their faces and making it illegal to get pictures and they cover their badges and just mumble "security" for everything they do..you are that close.
I've known and interacted with a *lot* of cops because of a previous job which I won't ge into. After awhile they sort of forget you aren't a cop and let their guard down and speak to you just like they speak to their fellow cops, or they aren't as careful and you can overhear their conversations with each other. Damn SCARIEST crap you will ever hear, unless you have lived someplace with an active war going on and the local warlord turns his cops loose on the people. We are *that* close to that now.
They are not your friend, they have no interest in following any laws themselves, they really are out to get all they can and to hell with any constitution or "laws", and will use every tactic they can come up with to protect their criminal guild, their gang, because it is them versus everyone else and you are just a target and a resource to exploit. You are the enemy, it is that simple. If you aren't a cop, you are the enemy.
There's a few that are honest and so on, I've met them too, but they are an extreme minority. Most who start honest and want to stay honest quit and get out of that work as soon as they find out how bad it really is, and how it really is has nothing to do with this public picture they try to project. It is way closer to paramilitary robbery and death squads now than it is to the "officer friendly" crap they claim in public all the time.
Want to make the drug scene less violent? That's so easy it's ridiculous. Get rid of the stupid anti drug laws and admit reality. You wouldn't even need "undercover drug warriors" then. Once the huge illegal cash profits are removed, the crime and violence drops way down. This was proven back during Prohibition, completely 100% proven, and we had the same rise of corrupt violent cops back then, protecting the big bootleggers. Exactly the same.
But you won't see the cop gangs wanting that, because they profit from it in huge sums of cash (look at what they drive and where they live, then look up local pay scales..see anything screwy there? Completely blatant that most are on the take) plus they get to be violence addicts legally (most have a natural bully instinct, you'd have to be blind to not see this) and get away with it.
Now I am the first one to say that theoretically we need cops, but I also will say we do not need the way that system is now.
Right now, to help reform all of this we need two things badly: the federal government needs to really enforce the illegal immigration laws on the books, including the provisions of fining the employers. And we need to decriminalize drugs, at least have them be legal and under some similar regulations as alcohol. That would do more to help to bring policing back to community policing than anything else. Well, three things, we need to abandon the concept of police as military, starting with their military styled ranking system and conduct. Cops are NOT the military and even letting them get close to being the military is a terrible and harmful idea.
Her ex-husband is Kevin Strom, a prominent white nationalist and white supremacist* who was arrested [slashdot.org] for possession of child pornography
I heard she was having sex with aliens. Saw it on the news and everything.
Yes we do. In that we are different than the rest of the world. The government has no fucking reason to do all the things it does and I for one support, welcome and endorse total surveillance of all public officials and officers in an effort to undo the unconstitutional over-reach since the New Deal to today.
Frankly, I view most police officers today as jack-boot thugs who have a long way to go in proving to me that they perform the long-forgotten function of peace officer instead of law enforcement officer. In the modern day world people see the two expressions as synoymous, and they are not.
A lot of you won't consider this to be relevant to anything but after sifting through her blog a bit, though lacking important collateral information to declare an amateur diagnosis, it seems very probable to me that this woman suffers (Charlottesville's law enforcement suffers I should say...) from at least one untreated mood and/or personality disorder including, possibly, something as colorful as erotomania which is secondary to major mood disorders like bipolar which she may also have (type one specifically) or perhaps something milder like conduct disorder -- but that wouldn't explain this extreme fixation on law enforcement -- and being naughty. The blog, from what I've skimmed, doesn't seem to have a mission of either vilifying police or praising them. Actually it may not be too great a stretch as identifying this blog as being her way of flirting with these men. The other explanation I can think of is that she had a very traumatic event in her earlier years with someone in a position of authority which screwed her up. Made her screws loose rather. Not saying she's completely delusional and psychotic, but she could be close.
I should note that it is common for people with mood disorders that break through into psychotic territory often have an elevated fascination as they grow more manic with law enforcement (but usually with the feds, not small town police officers). This manifests in a variety of forms including thinking the cops or CIA agents are out to get you or that you're a member of the secret service doing Good. And right here it could be manifesting itself in the form of a weird blog which is a nuisance, a sign of disrespect and potentially a reckless exposure to danger for these cops. Putting all privacy issues and whether or not cops are evil people who need to be monitored on this woman's blog aside, I believe that their arresting her, assuming she only gets a wrist slap at worst, may be a good thing for her as it is now much easier to incarcerate her involuntarily into a psychiatric facility. I know saying that sort of thing doesn't go well over here but think of it this way -- if she does in fact have an organic psychological malfunction that is degenerating over time, just like sociopaths torturing cats when they were children, as she grows bored of just doing this low-level borderline-illegal not-that-bad-but-weird stuff, it could get worse for her targets and herself. Get her in a hospital and accurately diagnose her with something, now the woman, especially if she has friends and family near by, might start seeing a psychiatrist and taking the right meds to make her happy so she can blog about ... hmm ... why she hates her meds and shrinks.
To offer my own opinion a little sharply here, unless corruption and abuse of power is so clearly pervasive in a city or small town's police department, men and women of law enforcement, along with firefighters and paramedics and mass transit workers, should be afforded more respect than this and it would be right if people when reading about this in the Charlottesville Daily Sun or Slashdot would lay off on the idealism and agree that this is just too much, the blog, and that the judge and DA feels like they have more public support to shut the site down and try to snap some sense into her, demand she sees a shrink/psychiatrist/both, whatever.
It's just too difficult to dismiss this behavior as a result of benign eccentricity; rather, one or more psychological diseases at play. And trying to treat diseases, barring any religious or evolutionary concerns you may have, is a good thing.
That's it I'm done.
Calling out bogus battery capacity claims.
I can confirm that you can get a security clearance with both pot and cocaine drug use in your history. I stopped using 3 years prior to applying for "clearance required" job.
In my clearance application, I explained the use of each substance. After 8 months of background checking, my clearance came thru. I worked in that environment for the next 8 years before moving into the private sector.
Actually, it does. The frequency of use is a determining factor. It's clear that he used drugs for 3 or 4 years so I'm sure he far surpassed the official limit.
Two points:
1. The OP stated:
This post isn't trolling. Obama admitted in his book "Dreams From My Father" that he had used both cocaine and pot. That would disqualify him from any security clearance.
Which is not true, as I pointed out since use is not an automatic disqualifier; a point on which we seem to agree.
2. Reference your comment: True, but duration (3 - 4 years) is not frequency - how often within that duration is also a factor; as is how long since the last use.
The bottom line is that it is the totality of use that is the determining factor; not simply use as the OP suggested.
I'm a consultant - I convert gibberish into cash-flow.
The police, as public servants
That's all you need to say. They work for us. Period.
Not 24/7 they don't. If your justification for surveillance is that we're writing their paychecks then the surveillance shouldn't extend any further than the paycheck does.
Actually, the question of whether they're a 'public figure' as that term of art is used in publicity and privacy law is a question for a court, not one of opinion.
While I personally think that police acting in the course of their duties are subject to higher public scrutiny than the general public, I think the case is less clear once they take off their uniform.
(Disclaimer: If you think this is legal advice, you and Slashdot deserve each other.)
The first causes delusions of grandeur, the second causes impaired judgment?
Sounds about accurate to me.
Over a million people in prison for drugs or drug related offences in America. It is an inquisition. What's "just" about having 2.3 million people in prison, which is NUMERICALLY more than either China or Russia, the former, and soon to be again, paragons of evil (to misguided Americans). Are you smoking crack?
This lady has performed a valuable service. We now know who watches the watchmen.
So it's OK to put someone's family at risk because of a decision that person made, even if their family didn't?
I don't think I want to live in your world.
If you disagree, post your argument. (-1, Overrated) isn't your personal censorship tool for views you don't like.
Recommend she draw a direct parallel of her behavior to the currently acceptable Paparazzi behavior.
Most government jobs do not require security clearance. For example, most jobs within the PTO, FDA, DOT, FCC, and FTC do not require security clearance. And to up the ante, I know that at least FDA auditors are badge carrying officers of the law, and I also know that they are not tracked in their personal lives.
I see the glass as full with a FoS of 2.
Because they're fucking pigs, not real people. FUCK THE POLICE.
This post was brought to you by the teenage pot smokers of America and the NWA.
I don't think your website is the sole reason. What is the reason is that people agree with you and your website is influencing their votes which is the same as using your vote.
Of course I didn't mean the speech to others wasn't a valid was to address grievances but the end effect is still the vote. You either vote them out or scare them enough with the potential that they do something about it. You can't however demand them to do anything they don't want to. The best you can do is vote them out of office. There might be an exception to some of that in which a law or charter somewhere gives more rights or specified a certain action they are not taking and a court could compel it. But in the end, it's generally your vote (and your influence on others with their vote).
You watch too many movies yourself. Life is not Dirty Harry, most criminals, are much less organized than you seem to think.
Umm no, the City Councilmembers changing their tone has nothing to do w/them agreeing with me--because they don't. They just know that someone is paying attention, including those that voted them in, and they are concerned about FUTURE votes for sure but it's a lot quicker turn around to have stuff happen now than 2 to 4 years from now.
What the hell does slavery have to do with this? They are paid well, can leave whenever they like, and they have total freedom of choice here. If you don't like being watched by the citizens that employ you, feel free to become a private citizen. Until that point, you are a public official, a servant to the people. Nobody is putting a chain on them.
Every time I start to have faith in humanity, I ruin it by driving to work between 7 and 8 am.
No, I agree with you. But, I think you missed my point. If Obama was as disillusioned as he claimed, there's a very good chance he surpassed the limits. If I recall correctly, no 'hard' substance use (such as cocaine--anything harder than marijuana really) is permitted at all and marijuana use must be limited to 10 occurrences or less. I'm pretty sure Obama would fail on both of those counts.
So you are attributing a camera to a weapon?
Every time I start to have faith in humanity, I ruin it by driving to work between 7 and 8 am.
Hold it. Stop and consider the implications of this case beyond the character of this woman and the role of the police.
We are losing the perpetual battle for privacy between ordinary citizens and the government. Our privacy rights have been unstrategically based on reasonable expectations. Every day the expectations erode, therefore we slide down the slippery slope and reasonably expect less privacy every day.
Our only chance of detente between us and big brother is to retain the right for citizens to spy on government just as much as they spy on us. According to Moore's Law, some day surveillance cameras will be smaller than grains of pollen and proportionately cheap. We can release them into the atmosphere by the trillions. It is vital that citizens have just as much right to monitor them as the government does.
I think that EFF should rush to defend every citizen prosecuted for spying on government, regardless of the circumstances. It is a vital tactic in the struggle to protect your privacy.
There's a difference between the public and private sector. If you don't feel like being photographed, scrutinized, and watched... feel free to join the private sector. I suggest you stay away from Hollywood jobs because people are crazy stupid for "star" information and will pay people to violate this private sector right.
Every time I start to have faith in humanity, I ruin it by driving to work between 7 and 8 am.
Cops don't make it into the top ten, they don't even make it into the top 20. You want a dangerous job? Go fish. Literally. Or try logging, or being a cabbie, those are dangerous. Driving around while heavily armed and wearing ballistic vests, with dozens of similarly equipped confreres a radio call away, is hardly "dangerous" -- hundreds of phony, "I love the police, because they keep me safe from legions of zombies", police shows aside. http://www.forbes.com/2008/08/25/dangerous-jobs-fishing-lead-careers-cx_mk_0825danger.html http://money.msn.com/content/invest/extra/P63405.asp http://socyberty.com/work/ten-most-dangerous-jobs-in-america/ About 60 police officers are killed every year in America, and the number is dropping. Astoundingly none of those deaths have been attributed to blogs! http://www.usatoday.com/news/nation/2006-10-30-police-killings_x.htm So please stop telling us how fraking dangerous it is to be a cop.
So do you have some kind of personal thing against straw men, or is it just a general hatred without reason?
Your sig sucks and so does mine. Now watch my videos.
Government agents such as police officers should be allowed to function in private to protect their personal lives and family.
Certainly it should be true for officers going under cover. Actually, all officers should have the option of concealing their idenity even when they're just on patrol. Masks would be a good way to do it. In a short time, the drug violence in South America will consume us as well. Police officers are our first line of defense and our greatest heros. I don't know about you but I'm glad our government is out there combating these bad guys.
The largest street gang in America: http://vids.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=vids.individual&videoid=54162036
I don't know how many you would want to put in. They take a lot of space. What with the large coats, bling and Cadillacs, well, putting them all in storage is pretty big deal.
err, wait...
Not funny, just stupid. When people use it to justify government activity they are misunderstanding the constitution, which exhaustively and explicitly enumerates the powers of government rather than the rights of citizens. They even added an amendment so the slow witted would pick up on that. So, the government must prove that any powers it exercises are both legal and necessary.
How is it exactly that this fallacious notion is somehow valid, when applied to individuals?
Hmm... is someone employed in law enforcement perhaps?
I don't think the government should be allowed to keep any secrets from us. Undercover cops, intelligence, obama's new "open" posting of blacked out paperwork - its all ridiculous. Why aren't we allowed to know about it? Because they don't think it would be a good idea, but they can't tell us why, because that would also be a bad idea. I understand it would be more difficult to run military operations, etc without secrecy, however secrecy just leads to abuse of power.
It was a paradox to anti-democrats like Plato.
"We do!" is the answer for those of us who believe that democracy (in some form) is the answer to problems of authority.
Tom Swiss | the infamous tms | my blog
You cannot wash away blood with blood
As someone who has 57 family members in law enforcement, I can tell you, without a shred of doubt, that she has NOT put these peoples families in danger. See how stupid you sound?
Funny how, if you advocate the police and their safety , one gets marked as a troll. Sad.
If this woman can collect and repost this information from public sources, then what's to stop a criminal from searching the same databases as she did? Nothing- in fact, the smart criminals do that already.
Republican leadership = Idiocracy
This is publicly available information to start with, and, according to someone in the know, the town is very small, and the officers are quite brazen about being "undercover cops" to the point where her disclosure came as no surprise to anyone in town. For a longer discussion, try this:
http://opencarry.mywowbb.com/forum54/29292.html
The contest for ages has been to rescue liberty from the grasp of executive power. -- Daniel Webster
She watches the watchmen.
Seriously, though, I find it hard to come down on either side of this argument. On the one hand, I think that with the kind of power they wield and the protections they benefit from, police should be closely monitored. I don't think it's unreasonable to expect that someone who enforces the law for a living be able to demonstrate that they live within it and apply it honestly and impartially when they do. This woman posted this website in what seems to be the most petty way possible for the most petty motivations possible. On the other hand, I have to wonder what kind of effect this has on the cops whose information was posted. I'm not a psychologist, but if I knew that somebody was posting my personal information and pictures and such online, I'd get kinda paranoid and I might not behave in the most rational manner possible. Multiply that with the kind of concerns and fears police face every day, and that's a recipe for police who might otherwise be responsible, honest cops shooting first and asking questions later. A sense of self-preservation doesn't cease to exist just because you carry a gun or wear a kevlar vest.
This sig is false.
So what if the precise name for what a lot of who-really-cares TLAs require post-9/11 is an SF-85 ("Position of Public Trust") instead of an SF-86 (security clearance) -- the investigations they do are the same (as Secret). There's an inverted value system somewhere if "badge carrying officers of the law" are subject to less tracking of their personal lives than are the I/T guys who program or manage the systems that track vacationers from Europe, etc.
http://hspd12jpl.org/ has detail on just one example where who-really-cares TLAs (OK, four-letter agency in that case) are doing exactly this kind of digging in employee's personal lives.
Now we know.
SHE watches them.
; )
Even when you're not working? She followed these guys around both on and off duty. Something tells me that makes a pretty big difference.
Quite the opposite. He is saying that the cop's reaction to being stalked reveals that they themselves don't actually believe "If they have nothing to hide, they have nothing to fear".
In this world, there is a lot of information, publicly available. Further, there is a lot of information available that when processed by usually quite simple means, generates other new information that the spook houses of the world (and a much watered-down version the FBI/National Police, and even more watered-down local-cop-shop) don't want you to have or know about. Occasionally, they will do something stupid like this. Arresting a woman for posting public information. They did wrong. Public information is public information. If they are so worried about public information spreading out, then either make it private, or get a different job where you can hide under a rock. Very often police enjoy the uniform because they feel they can get away with things they would not -as individuals- get away with. Is similar to being in the army, or in a gang (or a corporation). The re-posting of this public information only excites them because its a collection, which has been processed. They did wrong by arresting her. They violated her constitutional rights. I know in the modern USA, there is little in the constitution that the government won't trample over, (moreso in the GW Bush era), but a spade should be called a spade.
The city government is of, by, and for the people. The police work for the people collectively. The city government's right to exists at all is directly proportional to how well it serves the people. If the people collectively call for an officer's dismissal, he should be dismissed (and often will be). That is the founding principle of the U.S.
If I own enough stock in Walmart, the employee DOES work for me. If stockholders representing a majority tell the CEO "either Joebob Smith at the Podunk store goes or you go", guess what happens!
A big problem with government is that the people employed in it tend to forget who (collectively) works for who (collectively).
No. Worse. The cops, corporations, the municipality and the State share my information with people who might one day bust down my front door and gun me down as a terrorist. And if they turn out to be wrong (almost 100% sure, because I am not a terrorist), they have the full protection of the State and get off scott-free.
Far fetched? It almost happened to four Moroccan families in Amsterdam, because a disgruntled family member fingered them as potential terrorists.
So please fuck off with your authoritarian bullshit. My uncle was decorated for helping shoot people like you, and I am damn proud of him.
Mart
"I know I will be modded down for this": where's the option '-1, Asking for it'?
seriously let this woman go jade team take a spoon and eat my ass! police have been bullying us for years we must stop this! i went to an ice cream social event at my local zoo last night was fucking a blast till we saw atleast 50 armed guards and police.... we immediately felt scared and me and my wife wanted to leave asap. we paid to have fun not feel like we are prisoners of the empire and being closely watched over by storm troopers. from my own personal experiences with my local PD, wife and i were drinking one night years ago, a joke i made pissed her off and after about an hour of yelling and each of us breaking a lamp (after we threw the lamps on the ground we started laughing cleaned up the mess and went to bed lol) at about 4am our house was surrounded they tried to smash our door in which only caused the door to be jammed and not open... mind you this is end of feburary they dragged my wife out of the house no shoes no underwear just some sweat pants and a shirt me they beat down threw me on the ground kicked me down 3 stairs and dragged me to the street and made me sit on the cold ground i was in shorts and a tank top..... the whole ordeal has made us move to another town im to the point now if i see police i nearly piss myself me and my wife dont leave much any more and try to avoid going back to our home town unless needed. worst part is after what we went through the police charged us with resisting arrest cause we didnt answer the door fast enough sorry dick heads but we were sleeping...
Visit my Forums?
"We do!" is the answer for those of us who believe that democracy (in some form) is the answer to problems of authority.
Please let me know when someone starts one of these "democracies" that solve all the problems of authority - they sound great, but I don't think I've ever encountered one.
In a survey of 100 programmers, 111111 thought that duck-typing was a good idea.
Good start for a plotline
DrugLord(Visibly enraged and after snorting five lines of cocaine) - Well, Well, Well, can't talk little man? then, can't play non either. I see you're an officer, ain't it? So, it kill ya, I am taking 5 more years instead of the usual 20 for murder. Me, as a perfectly inteliggent and fully capable senscient being decide that I will not kill you, mr. officer. You know, I am afraid of being in jail!
You are free to look up rates of incarceration and crimes and the demographics involved.
Illegal aliens are off the chart in terms of violent crime, and half (a large figure, most researchers round it off to around one half or even higher) the violent crime goes unreported inside their own communities, so the official figures are skewed to the lower end. They are some of the worst sort imaginable and prey not only the citizenry at large but especially on their own people, inside their own communities, which is just heinous, because they kinow those folks are reluctant to go to the authorities, making them easier targets for robberies and extortion, etc..
And they come here because back in their own country it became too dangerous for them to hang around, their justice system is rather less friendly then ours, and they know that because the US has a joke immigration system that they can come here easily and illegally and continue their crime careers with much less hassle or risk.
It isn't all just "poor campesinos coming for honest work", there are hundreds of thousands of violent human predators who come to the US because they see a huge target rich area to exploit. Illegal alien criminal gangs (hispanic, asian, russian, etc) make a joke of that "islamic terrorism" nonsense they push at the federal level as being such a huge threat.
Hundreds of thousands-I am being literal, there are hundreds of thousands of illegal alien gang bangers in the US now, and are way over represented in the prison population because of their crimes- versus maybe a few dozen islamic "terrorists" they have captured, and there are verified multiples of hundreds of thousands of crimes from murder and gang rape and human trafficking and so on down associated with the illegal aliens. Way higher than the rest of the population as a percentage. Just go look it up, find your own links, do your own research.
If you have ever lived in an area that transitioned in a short time frame of a few years from zero or not many illegal aliens to them becoming a significant minority or even a majority you would have seen this first hand. The crime rates just shoot through the roof. Sorry if that isn't politically correct, but it is the cold hard truth, exactly the same as my outlining the consequences of making alcohol illegal created more crime and problems than it solved.
If you live and have lived in an area that has always had a lot of illegal aliens, you might think your local crime rate is "normal" across the land..it isn't. Most of the US where illegal aliens aren't present in huge numbers does not suffer the same crime rates, and this is just pure data. Not to say there is "no" crime, just much less, especially violent crimes.
How is that relevant? Does playing football disqualify you from becoming a cop or do college football players have background checks? Not really sure what you're trying to say.
"linux is just DOS with a UNIX like syntax" -- Galactic Dominator (944134)
The police, as public servants
That's all you need to say. They work for us. Period.
what about their significant others and family? By putting a police officers family address up on your blog you are making him vulnerable to the elements he is trying to protect the neighborhood from. Now the unsavory elements can put pressure on him to act in a corrupt manner by putting his family in danger.
If a journalist had done this, there would not be an issue. The difference is that this lone individual is a lot easier to make an example of than a newspaper or television station with very good lawyers on retention. If you go out into the public, no matter who you are, there are assumed risks. The police are not allowed to censor, and they are especially not allowed to arrest someone behaving in this fashion. When they do, it's an abuse of their power because they know they can't prosecute for a crime, it's simple intimidation by the state. This constitutes prior restraint, and these issues were dealt with in England a long time ago when the government attempted to force publications to purchase a stamp before they could publish, effectively prohibiting what they could publish. Oh yeah! Happened in the colonies too! Remember that whole stamp tax for broadsheet paper fiasco? It's in your history books. This matter was also resolved with the Pentagon Papers, showing that media outlets can in fact publish classified documents if they get their hands on them. If you want to say that this was not a media outlet, then you're opening up a whole can of worms because the last thing that needs to be decided by the supreme court is what a journalist is. In other words, the more you define something wtihin the law, the more you restrict it. Transparency is what keeps a government accountable to the public. It might hurt your feelings knowing someone can gather and publish information about you, but these are public officials, they are not entitled to privacy guarantees under federal law. State law might be different, but that can be argued through. Now private individuals, that's another matter, and go Google up "Strict Scrutiny" if you need to understand how that works.
First thing i'll say is this
Violence is the last refuge of the incompetent. Most decent police officers would agree that using violence to exercise the power they wield is very much a last resort. To describe their role in such a simplistic manner is to describe their position in society more in the role of an occupying army, not a public service.
To publicise details of undercover officers in this manner is downright dangerous. to start linking people's addresses to their 'day jobs' is outrageous. DO NOT forget that police officers are citizens too
because if she had a legit beef with them, she could have joined her local independent (citizen) police review board and made constructive observations/complaints.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-Dik-mgCDcg
But if she's outing the real names of undercover agents etc, she's not only putting the officers themselves are risk, but also their families etc.
Stalking is NOT cool, regardless of who is doing it and who it is being done to. As somebody who's had a stalker-ex I can attest that it's a pretty scary thing as you can never really tell how far an obsessive person will go.
Here's a different thought: That being the case, maybe it's the very concept of narcotics enforcement that's at fault??
~REZ~ #43301. Who'd fake being me anyway?
Slap that something and make it go away! The Undercover "off-duty" cops aren't going to go punch a clock before they apprehend you, and possibly abuse you and/or your rights. There's no difference. They choose to be the cops; they choose to be public figures .
Guns don't kill people; Physics kills people! - John Lithgow as Dick Solomon on Third Rock From The Sun
obscurity with secrecy... a key isn't secure because the pins are obscured they key is secure because the combination to flip the pins correctly is secret...someone actively sought to hide that information rather than that information being hard to "decipher" While these cops' jobs may be obscure to assist them with LYING to potential criminals, the fact that all their information is public makes it pointedly NOT secret and --thus in the long run and in the age of the internet --makes the obscurity pointless. Point in fact: it is impossible for police to use true secrecy to hide their identities because they are PUBLIC SERVANTS! The best they can hope for is obscurity and if that fails the next logical step is leave the job...your cover is blown.
Oh so you're a big fan of slavery then, are ya? As long as they work for you, their lives are yours to do with as you please. If only those damn northern states hadn't messed things up for you ....
Uh, slaves were not paid and were not free to quit whenever they felt like it.
Right, partly by police union contract, and partly by dint of the Blue Code of Silence. Also, in many jurisdictions, off-duty officers retain their powers of arrest and weapon-carry privileges, wherein mistakes made have the same immunity as on-duty officers.
But when it comes to non-duty-related violations of law, officers still have far more protection against interrogation and prosecution than the average citizen. Check out Injustice Everywhere, a site which tracks crimes committed by on-and-off duty cops.
Current example up on their home page, a Shreveport LA cop beats the living shit out of an unruly (but controllable) DUI suspect, ending with her on the floor in a pool of her own blood.
The cop turned off the state-mandated video evidence system several times, to prevent having his beatings of the suspect, Angela Garbarino, captured.
He was fired for falsifying the report (not for beating the suspect), only to be reinstated with full back-pay - because, his lawyers claimed, *his* rights as a cop had been violated. The point being that cops have a completely different set of rights than ordinary citizens.
O lord, bless this thy holy hand grenade, that with it thou mayest blow thine enemies to tiny bits, in thy mercy.
I realize I'm off-topic, but ending the drug war is as simple as asking "Why don't we just regulate the legitimate sales of substances that the public wants to buy?" You can still throw dealers who traffic to children in prison. In fact, you'd have so many DEA agents available to do the job (since they would no longer be monitoring adult users) that the problem might be reduced to as near to zero as it ever will be.
Sorry. I live with chronic pain in a state w/o medical marijuana laws. No, I can't move -- there's a recession on.
We now return to our on-topic /. discussion.
You're mixing some things up here though.
Yes, the police have considerable abilities to track citizens. This is a GOOD thing. What's bad is the failure of our laws and Constitution to keep up with a world in which surveillance has become cheap. It's a lot like the breakdown of the old copyright bargain, which depended on copying books being hard to do. Surveillance was expensive in the eighteenth century, and therefore all that was practically necessary is to draw a line around peoples' houses and keep the state out of there. Since that was the place the an hostile state is most interested in, that made casual surveillance a lot less desirable unless there was something likely to result in establishing probable cause.
Think about a cell phone in an eighteenth century context. You now have a lot of your private conversations via a device you carry around with you, not necessarily on private property owned by you or the person you are talking to.
Developments like that make it attractive and practical to intrude on privacy just to satisfy idle curiosity. I've been in situations where as an IT administrator I had private information about celebrities; it would have been really easy if I cared about the people I see in the magazines at the checkout counter to poke around in their private lives.
There are legitimate reasons for government to conduct surveillance of private citizens, but what is really needed is enhanced oversight and accountability, written into the basic law of the land. Surveillance plans and actions should be reviewed, and if nothing like probable cause is found they should be disclosed to the subject.
The kind of "fairness" where private citizens put the a big red bullseye on cops they don't like isn't a cure, it's spreading the disease. Before it was cops indulging their private interests, after it's everyone. What's more, it is collective punishment. Responsible cops who follow the rules -- or maybe have never even engaged in surveillance -- become targets of anyone who happens to feel hostile towards them, either as individuals or members of the police force.
Post may contain irony: discontinue use if experiencing mood swings, nausea or elevated blood pressure.
This is basically what the police do when they want to stalk a private citizen. They get a warrant from a judge to stalk people.
No they don't, police need a warrant when they search but not to follow.
it appears she may have taken it a bit too far.
I agree but the way they handled it, by arresting her, was going too far too. What she did was legal. Well it may end up in a court where others will decide whether it was legal or illegal. Actually if it were up to me, I might give her a medal, if she was able to identify undercover officers then something's wrong.
Falcon
Should there be a Law?
How is that relevant? Does playing football disqualify you from becoming a cop or do college football players have background checks? Not really sure what you're trying to say.
I find your lack of synthesis disturbing . . .
I am not a crackpot.
There is no freedom when you work for the private sector in the US.
Fixed that for ya. Civilised countries do not allow this kind of excessive power to employers.
a promise nearly impossible to keep, that haunts me to this day. Back when I was young we had D.A.R.E. day and these new COPS came to school with their equipment. They had their weapons and said how they would use them against us. It realy freaked out half the class anyone can be that cruel to anyone outside another's phylosophy. They showed us their cars and they all looked like a tank with a kennel to restrain the passenger. Then there was the Drug Kit. He opened that thing up and said perhaps 30 seconds worth of information for every one of the 50 different drugs in there, and how some of them he bought from the street just 100 yards up the road. It turns out he bought most of all the drugs in that glass box, but for some strange reason the State forgives him from buying a drug so long as he arrests and steals all the property that came in contact with whomever sold him that drug.
That's the same day a friend of mine introduced me to a real police officer called Jack McLamb. Now this guy is a barrel of good apples in a sea of hell. Some of his horror stories were just unbearable, like how for 3 years he was sent to shootouts and denied back-up because he thought he fellow cops wanted the drug dealers and robbers to kill him. He finally left, and went in on a quiet community at the top of a mountain in his same Idaho. Has a radio show I think on World Wide First Amendment Radio (WWFAR.COM), but can't be sure because I haven't heard it for a while.
With the exceptions of Police Officers, Fire Fighters, and Soldiers.
The only thing I find funny about this is that her picture isn't on her own blog.
officers lives are at risk because of her. DEA agents are not normal everyday cops. No one cares about normal everyday cops that just write tickets all day. DEA agents rely on remaining anonymous in order NOT BE KILLED in retaliation by the drug dealers. thats hard to do when a woman follows you around and posts your name and pictures of your house.
the woman is wrong in what she did.
A police officer does not stop being able to restrict your rights by arresting you when he is off-duty. Therefore, they do not have the same privilege of privacy.
"You can either have software quality or you can have pointer arithmetic, but you cannot have both at the same time."
Everyone has things they legitimately want to hide. I think the GP is aware of this, and was simply pointing out the double-standard involved in law enforcement claiming protection for their own secrets while treating any attempt by a private citizen to achieve the same protection of privacy as an admission of guilt.
On the other hand, if one wishes to keep one's information private one must work to ensure that it stays that way. No one--whether private citizen or law enforcement--has any right to prevent others from distributing information once it becomes known.
Finally, if this woman could uncover undercover operatives so easily then how much more readily could the criminals themselves do so? After all, they have much more incentive, and won't bother to restrict themselves to publicly-accessible databases. If anything, she did the police a favor by demonstrating how weak their operational security is. They should be thanking her, not arresting her.
"The state is that great fiction by which everyone tries to live at the expense of everyone else." - Bastiat
Well between Google and a camera on every street corner how am I not being stalked?
I'm perfectly ok with her monitoring the police, and even indicating where they went and approximately when if she wants to. So long as she doesn't break any laws in doing so that's her right and probably a great public service.
Personally identifying the officers involved is probably a little bit of a gray area since it could have a negative impact on legal police investigations, logging that is probably fine, but it's not particularly helpful to make that immediately public, a coded name would probably have been better with the real information saved for if it was necessary. Posting the officer's personal details was however, totally unnecessary, and wrong. Even if he was involved in illegal searches that information is inappropriate. Yes the information was a matter of public record. Yes anyone could have done the same thing. Yes she probably didn't break any laws, but she still shouldn't have done it. The law is not the ultimate guide to right and wrong. Some things which are right are illegal and a whole lot of things which are wrong are legal.
It's perfectly acceptable to monitor the police(so long as you aren't breaking any laws), but the police have a job to do like everyone else, and what they do at work and what they do at home is separate. There is no need to know where this officer lives. It does not serve the public interest, and in context with the activity log it potentially risked harm both to the officer and to anyone else who lived in that house. The fact that it was(probably) legal doesn't defend this woman's actions in the slightest. Legality and Morality are not the same thing.
Then I take it from your tone your a socialist? Cause capitalism has made good girls prostitute and decent men criminals. I think we all live under a form of economic slavery. its just the new religion.. Money will make humans kill each other!!!!
And if I am not mistaken large corporations can do what they want to you and you are screwed. Sounds like slavery to me, don't like it go work at McDonalds or live on the streets. O and by the way you need to give us your log in info for your facebook account as well as pee in this cup, even tho you might do drugs on the weekends we get to tell you how to live.. seems fair.. NOT!
At least for 'secret' clearance, the questionnaire explicitly only cares about the past seven years, so I think he'd be in the clear no matter what the specifics were. Also, the whole argument is ridiculous, because a commander in chief needs access to classified information to fulfill the obligations of his office whether it's a good idea to give it to him or not.
Because police officers are granted special powers over ordinary citizens as well as special protections that ordinary citizens do not enjoy (compare the fates according to the law of a murderer who kills an ordinary citizen to one who kills a police officerâ"and this is before you consider that their well-being will, at several points, be up to the police, and the oversight to ensure that their well-being was properly seen to is generally the job of the police as well.).
Given those privileges and protections, I see no reason why they should, on-duty or off (note that their protections in particular extend to them off-duty, and many of their privileges do as well), be automatically afforded the same protections as ordinary citizens.
Hate to break it to you all but prescription drugs are the #1 drug of choice these days. and kill more than all others combined. Funny how this is perfectly fine? Hmm could it be money, lobbyist's and blatant prostituteing of our country for the highest bidder? Duh!
Specifically No. 1, Part A of Niven's Laws:
1A - Never throw shit at an armed man.
1B - Never stand next to someone who is throwing shit at an armed man.
Myself, I'm following 1B with respect to this woman - whom, in the backstory behind this appears to be quite the nutcase.
You suggested that anyone who works for you abandons their basic human rights. Maybe it's not technically "slavery", but your "we paid for them so we can do whatever the hell we want with them" attitude is certainly evocative of slave-owner mentality.
Luckily for society as a whole, that's not actually how the system works. If it were, we'd have a hell of a time finding people to work in policing.
Crazy is crazy, you don't don't want any of that no matter what the wrapping. Hot 20s something crazy nympho might murder you in your sleep because one night you decided that you were too tired from working late to have 3 hours of sex.
“Common sense is not so common.” — Voltaire
The woman is a stupid fscking bitch and deserves what she got. You don't compromise the operational details of law enforcement with personal details for a hobby.
I don't find that to be particularly invasive. If your job requires you to be a good driver with a valid license, it's completely reasonable for the company to want to keep tabs on your driving record. I worked construction for a while in the past, and we had one employee get his license suspended because of an accumulation of points and not tell anyone. He continued to drive our trucks for quite a while, until he got pulled over by the ministry of transport and ended up costing the company thousands of dollars in fines. Now, if he had been required to report each traffic violation, the bosses would have known that not only was he close to getting his license pulled, but that he was an irresponsible driver who was liable to destroy one of the trucks and/or kill himself and others every time he got behind the wheel. They could have put a stop to it before it became a problem.
On the other hand, if your bosses wanted to put a GPS unit and an always-on camera in your personal vehicle to transmit data to them whenever the vehicle is in motion, then yeah, that would be one hell of an imposition. But what you're describing doesn't seem invasive at all.
If you don't like being watched by the citizens that employ you, feel free to become a private citizen.
Luckily for society as a whole, that's not actually how the system works.
Unluckily for society as a whole, politicians make the laws, the police enforce them, and both can hide behind them.
If it were, we'd have a hell of a time finding people to work in policing.
The good ones that go in to improve society don't need to hide, whereas those who go in to pervert the system need to be watched.
Falcon
Should there be a Law?
Would you be outraged if your boss tracked your every move
There's a huge difference between being privately employed and being a public servant. If you don't like the rules of being a public servant then you're welcome to try to find a private job, or create your own.
if you would be moved to act against your boss if he/she did what this woman has done, why are you defending what she's done?
If I found out after the fact yes I would sue my employers. However if it was a condition of my employment I'd find another job, or create my own, then when other potential employees do the same either the employer will change policies, risk being sued too, or will go out of business.
Nobody is forcing anybody to go into public service.
Falcon
Should there be a Law?
There is a slight difference though -- when LEOs are aquiring this data, they do keep it to themselves. The blogger in question was actively publishing this information. I'm in no way justifying the overreaching data collection that goes on, but it's not like she was keeping a private database for herself.
They also get to be around guns and bullets a large portion of their day, especially when they're undercover infiltrating any sort of crime ring. Their job is definitely dangerous, and it can't be forgotten. They need some protection in their personal lives, unless you want them to not have one.
And what of the rights of the citizens who are paying their salaries? Don't they have the right to not be beat up? As senator now VP Biden, who also backs up the MP/RI-AA mafia, tried to give law enforcement more rights than citizens enjoy.
Falcon
Should there be a Law?
You are conflating law enforcement with the military. They are not the same.
Falcon
Should there be a Law?
As an old fart, let me say "Hey, you meth addicted hookers, get off of my lawn!"
More seriously, I live in one of the 12 states that passed new laws limiting eminent domain after those recent takings you mentioned. For people in any of the other 38 states, how much would you be willing to bet your cops are on average as honest as mine are? (I don't think most in my area are up to the standards that should be met, but I'll predict the ones where eminent domain is less restrained tend to be worse.).
Who is John Cabal?
Do you believe that your boss has the right to track your every move once you clock out for the day? No? Then why do you think we have the right to do the same to off-duty police officers?
My boss doesn't have the same rights and powers that a police officer does. He can't detain me without my permission; he can't seize my property; he can't strip search me, or lock me in prison. Under the right circumstances,a police officer has all those rights, and more; and with that power comes responsibility. A police officer has an implied trust from society than most individuals simply do not have.
It's our job to make sure that trust is not misplaced.
It is the primary duty of all citizens to ensure that the police officers are acting within the laws of the land at all times, under all circumstances. The police have an implied trust; and it is our duty to ensure that such trust is never misplaced; because they are the guardians of our democracy, and our watchers for injustice.
In a democracy, the answer to the age old question is simple. "Who watches the watchers?" We all do.
Grade school idealism may be naive, but so is your high school cynicism. In the real word, "the people" are neither the collective source of our Jeffersonian wisdom nor Orwellian cattle. To grownups life is more nuanced than any simplistic extreme. Our government may not be as responsive as it should be, but pretending that it's totally out of our control is a glib copout.
We are not their employer. Stop with that nonsense. They are employees of the city, state, or government and in some cases private companies contracted by those.
Government, at least of the USA, is supposed to be of, by, and for the people so yes we the people are their employer.
Falcon
Should there be a Law?
"...fascist dickhead..." So... they are leftist socialists who believe in state control of nearly everything but still allow the citizens to retain a few individual and commercial rights? I didn't know you knew all of them so well. Oh, wait, I see... you were insulting them and trying, incorrectly, to associate them with the Conservative portion of American Society... I see. Yeah, sorry, go look up where that really lays on the political spectrum.. about two steps to the right of Stalin is like saying Durbin is two steps Right of Kennedy; it is still far Left.
As to the taxes bit, then since I buy a product from wherever you work, I pay your salary and can dictate to you what you do? Cool! I demand you stop making stupid statements before you embarrass yourself.
The police are doing a job, which is required by law. The are the investigative and enforcement branch of the legal system.
Just like they, law enforcement and politicians, tell us, "if you have nothing to hide, you have nothing to fear". They don't get any sort of passes or get out of jail free cards.
Falcon
Should there be a Law?
You're comparing the inquisition to the modern justice system? Have you been smoking crack?
When it comes to the War on Drugs, it is an inquisition.
Point is: There is no such thing as freedom or fair law
Well if you're defining your concept of fairness from the point-of-view of the criminal, then yea, no law can ever be fair.
Yea, tell all those who were in prison years who the Innocence Project were finally able to clear that the justice system is fair. Tell Steven Barnes, who was convicted of rape, sodomy, and murder in 1989 and cleared in 2009. Or Orlando Boquete who was convicted of attempted sexual battery and burglary in 1983. On 23 May 2006 DNA testing proved he was innocent yet he wasn't released until 22 August 2006. Tell him the justice system is fair.
Is the rest of that a straw man, used to deflect people from the issues?
Falcon
Should there be a Law?
In after Slashdot's resident Assburger Syndromers and their infinite inability to grasp humor rate a sarcastic parody post as Flamebait.
doing something wrong as (sic.) nothing to do at all with being arrested
WOOOOOOOSH!
Well not in Iran obviously! OP probably lives in one of those liberal-democratic countries with all that namby-pamby "rule of law" stuff, where the police actually have to prove you broke the law in court! Maybe even in one where your freedom of conscience and speech are constitutionally protected!! Goddam sissies!!!
So what you're saying is that if a would-be traitor happens to have both the cunningness and the backing (financial and otherwise) to get elected that we should just hand him the keys to the kingdom without a 'vetting process'?
They are held responsible by the people (supposely), but that doesn't mean we are their employers. That kind of communication just muddies the waters..
Have you fscked your local propeller head today?
All publicly available. No big deal.
On the contrary, where I work this is a very big deal. You see in the middle of what, at first glance appears to be a simple dichotomy between public/confidential there lies a large grey area of formally public information which, until the advent of the net search engines, was not readily available.
I work on a website that publishes "public" information. This information is usually associated with people's names and what they would regard as "confidential" information. The reason this information is (at least up till now) public, is not related to the personal nature of the information, and using this information to find out about the individuals concerned is considered a "misuse."
Because Google does not respect our no-robots policy, we have had to block all Google IPs from accessing our servers. Trying to repect both society's right to know and an indvidual's right of confidence can be trickier than drawing a simplistic line in the sand. You see the very real danger is that government will accept this demarcation and decide that this particular type of information really should no longer be on the public side of the line.
Personally I would prefer to see harrassing use of "public" information being punished rather than the scope of what is deemed "secret" to be augmented. YMMV
Throughout human history, the greatest threat to life and liberty has been not terrorism but the power of the state.
I see this sig line of yours, yet I keep reading your posts advocating hiding government. Or at least allowing a veil covering those who work for it.
Falcon
Should there be a Law?
Yeah, and the US attacked itself in Pearl Harbor. Whatever you say, numbnuts. Now, please, go take your meds.
That too is precious - and it cannot be sustained if those who protect it live in fear themselves.
What I fear more than any foreign power or terrorists is government.
Falcon
Should there be a Law?
They are held responsible by the people (supposely), but that doesn't mean we are their employers.
We are the employer, unless we do not have a government of the people, by the people, for the people. Or are you saying they aren't employed by the government? Who then employees them?
Oh, I get it, law enforcement was privatized. Now the employer is Blackwater.
Falcon
Should there be a Law?
just called, and would like to apologise for enabling the entire world population to endanger each others' lives by providing them ready access to information previously more difficult to access.
In addition, you better get pissed at the officer himself, for "posting his name in a public place" himself, namely on his own letterbox. He endangered himself ! Quick ! Lock him up !
Perhaps we really SHOULD post all of the politicians', judges', and law enforcement agents' personal details in the public domain. THEN we might see some of these stupid victimless crimes abolished and a lot less corruption in the circles of power.
A policeman is special, of course, by virtue of the power granted to him in the execution of his DUTIES to aid, protect and serve the POPULACE.
All too often, those we entrust with power aid, protect and serve THEMSELVES, though bribery, corruption, theft, misdirection, all manner of activities that would be considered heinous crimes if discovered amongst us general riff-raff public.
You start your post with "regardless of the relationship", when that is the key to why she acted as she did. Protect her now. Or you will be the next to cry foul when some "authority" crushes your face under his boot. You don't need to approve of her or her methods, but you better protect her (and your) right to hold the powerful responsible for their actions.
People go on and on about the rights their society gives them without bothering to mention the responsibilities
Society does not give rights, at least not in the USA. Rights are innate, you're born with them. All society is supposed to do is respect those rights, and government is supposed to try to prevent them from being violated.
It's not that far a stretch to say that you have a responsibility to not wander around the President with a loaded gun or put the lives of the families of peace officers in danger.
It is a far stretch. The Second Amendment says nothing about not carrying a firearm when close to the president.
Falcon
Should there be a Law?
Yes inciting to riot is a crime however inciting is not. Beside provoking or stirring up as in "incite to riot" incite as at least two more definitions, "urge on; cause to act" and "give an incentive for action". Or do you want to say that incite to protest is a crime? That what Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi and Martin Luther King, Jr. did was a crime. If so them those laws need to be overturned.
Falcon
Should there be a Law?
I cannot assess the legal situation here, but another aspect of the story is interesting:
Is it that easy for a - maybe crazy - person to gather all that (confidential or not) information about the police/DEA officers than
I think it is rather save to assume that the big time drug dealers/cartels already use the same methods (including honey-trap style personal information gathering etc.) and have most likely a pretty good picture of the law enforcement situation. That does not bode well for the War on Drugs (or whatever it is called...)
I could not disagree with you more if I tried.
In could not disagree with you more if it were a matter of life and death, and with a police state it is.
Police officers, on a daily basis, deal with dangerous threats to their lives. Members of the drug enforcement task force, even more so. Significantly more so. They do this knowingly and willingly and they should be respected for the dangerous jobs they do.
Oh, I respect some police officers, I respect the person not the uniform or badge. What I do not respects, and protest against is any war on liberty, like the War on Drugs. End the war and legalize drugs then those police will not be in a s much danger.
The actions of this woman have put the lives of these officers at risk.
Bullshit!!! These people put themselves in danger. If a private citizen can break the cover of undercover agents then most certainly so can criminals. But that ignores the fact that these people decided to do what they do, nobody put a gub to their heads and said they will be undercover police.
Lest people forget, drug dealers can often be violent and vindictive.
Lest people forget, police can often be violent and vindictive too.
It would be really nice if people remembered that the officers have a right to privacy
If they don't want people watching them then they can stop watching people as well. What's good for the goose is good for the gander. As public servants they are responsible to the people, if they don't want to be under the microscope then they can get a joy in another field, off the public dime.
Falcon
Should there be a Law?
Well, if you watch Desperate Housewives, this woman reminds me of Martha Hupert. A horrible evil person who snoops around other people's business. That woman did not publish the information to expose corruption or abuses of power. She did it solely because she can, because she is so useless otherwise, and it does not matter to her that she put a police officer and his family in danger in exchange for her tiny bit of pleasure. It does not matter that everything she did was legal. She is still a monster.
Some would say we already did, in 2000.
My introverted, 63 year-old, exceedingly shy father recently retired from his job as an organized crime detective. As a child, he never spanked me or my 3 siblings, I can only recall one time he ever yelled at us. He's had poor hearing for decades, talks quietly, and thinks my kids are the greatest thing ever. And you're telling me that you BELIEVE that somebody SHOULD HAVE followed him home and posted pictures of our house? There were actually two kids that lived down the street that he was responsible for sending to jail, and you think it should have been easy for those kids to figure out where he lived and who his family was?
Most officers may be jack-boot thugs. Well, sure... by all means stalk every single office to see if we can catch them up to no good. On the other hand, most kids might be doing drugs. By all means, lets stalk and harass all kids, too. There's a lot of middle-aged white men who are serial killers or rapists. A lot of sysadmins who are or once where crackers. A lot of black people doing crack. Prostitutes are nearly always poor women. Fuck it, let's throw video cameras up on the streets and record everyone... post the names and addresses of everyone and their families, regardless of whether or not they're doing something wrong...
The one before that was too, except he didn't inhale.
Slow down, cowboy! It has been 4 hours since you last posted. You must wait another few hours.
...do you?
This twit posted the name and address of one of the officers, quite possibly placing both himself and his family in mortal danger. Are you people truly so naive as to think that there aren't thugs out there who would just love to dump a truckload of hurt on the cops who busted them in the past?
If that cop's lucky, he'll just come home to a burned-down house. If he's not-so lucky, the house will have burned down while his wife and kids are in it. Or maybe he'll just open his front door one fine morning, and find himself looking down the business end of a sawed-off shotgun. All so this little idiot could get her entertainment, and you people call it free speech.
I can't believe some of you are actually allowed to vote.
Regards;
This post isn't trolling. Obama admitted in his book "Dreams From My Father" that he had used both cocaine and pot. That would disqualify him from any security clearance.
In the interest of fairness, that would also apply to G.W. Bush, correct? Maybe not pot, but he sure did like the booger sugar.
Let me give you a little hint - you can FUCKING TELL they're undercover by counting the number of antennae on the car.
Anyone with half a brain can spot an undercover cop. It's not that hard.
Still waiting on Serviscope_minor to wake up to fucking reality and realize that Jessica Price isn't going to fuck him.
In theory the election is the vetting process for that position.
You are stupid.
Only a jury and judge have the right to remove a person's rights, and only jury, judge, governor, or president have the right to restore a person's rights.
Police can arrest you - not a god damned thing else.
Go back to school.
Still waiting on Serviscope_minor to wake up to fucking reality and realize that Jessica Price isn't going to fuck him.
How does she know who the undercover cops are? Seems to me they must be doing a terrible job if she's able to figure this stuff out.
This reminds me of a story I read as a kid, of a teenager in Paris who was arrested and jailed for watching an unmarked Gestapo building from a cafe across the street.
You already ARE living in my world, fool.
That person made the choice to put themselves and their family in danger by taking such a job.
Your logic fails.
Still waiting on Serviscope_minor to wake up to fucking reality and realize that Jessica Price isn't going to fuck him.
That person made the choice to put themselves and their family in danger by taking such a job.
And exactly how many people do you think will be willing to do dangerous but important jobs if idiots like this blogger woman can arbitrarily make them much more dangerous?
In any case, the family are not the ones doing this job. Only in a really screwed up world is it OK for someone to endanger someone else's family because of the individual's choice of job. The family are people in their own right, you know.
If you disagree, post your argument. (-1, Overrated) isn't your personal censorship tool for views you don't like.
Isn't this what law enforcement is allowed to do already? Do anything with impunity? Why is it okay for a cop to do it and not a citizen?
eom
If they have nothing to hide then what is the problem? Law enforcement seems perfectly willing to use that line on everyone else so they should be comfortable living under the same umbrella.
Yes, I know, the family thing is out of bounds, but the reality is she was arrested because they were trying to intimidate her into stopping everything. Family info or not, they don't want anyone watching them.
Funny all the posts about privacy and stalking and whether the cops were on duty or not when the pictures were taken and freedom of information etc. The cops don't want their information in public because they are almost all crooked and breaking the law 24/7. The cops have a superiority complex and control issues stemming from when they were children and they certainly don't want people checking into their crooked dealings and posting them on web sites out of their control. All of the rest of this defense and denial is just trying to confuse the fact that cops these days are crooked as hell and don't want us seeing their crimes.
I think it's ok -- well, maybe not ok, but "more ok" -- because the cop, by choosing to become a public servant accountable to the people, consented to being watched.
When you become a cop, you are stepping into the limelight. (To some degree; it's easy to exaggerate this. But it certainly applies more to people who work for government, than people who don't work for government.) If that's unappealing, then don't do it.
Society needs to watch and monitor cops, because they're the one part of society that the cops themselves aren't watching. I don't know what this lady did is ok, but I'd sure as hell give her more slack than I give a stalker of ordinary citizens. If there is a cop who is sure he's not being watched, then we have failed.
You just placed it all in one convenient location for a google search. The difference is needing to take the time to research this info vs. someone with a grudge doing a quicky search on Google and finding the name and address and picture of someone from this group. Also I doubt public record says that x officer is part of Jefferson area drug enforcement task force. _Typically_ ---note the word.) details on people dealing with drugs and gangs are kept confidential to avoid retaliation. The info on the people may be public knowledge. But I doubt the two facts are joined together in an easily obtainable fashion that her blog has done. This isn't as cut and dry as this article makes it out to be. I'm all for giving people access to as much data as possible on the net. However if such data puts a person, or a family (Which this could easily do.) in harms way. No. I do believe that people like this serve a vital purpose in society as public watchdogs. But there should be limits, and people should THINK about the consequences of their actions. How could this affect someone? Could this endanger a person? Could I decimate someone's life because of this? The net, with the appropriate viewers, can easily turn into the equivalent of a loaded gun being pointed into an open crowd. Think about what you do before you post something and pull the trigger. Maybe you won't hit anyone. But then again.
Police are NOT the "government". Most are not elected to a position of governing. They are the arm of the STATE (actually "state" with a lower case "S"). That is to say, when the government (i.e. city council and mayor are re-elected periodically) they do not lose their jobs. Their jobs persist through governing administrations. They are public agencies that are GOVERNED by elected officials who ARE the "government". The government makes laws, that state is static and is there to carry out the mandates of the people's representatives. Get it right. The state and it's policing agencies do NOT have the power to harass the Citizenry. They are employees of MUNICIPAL CORPORATIONS (look that term up). Money is collected from taxpayers and channeled through various accounting systems to pay their salaries. They are employees of a municipal corporation which Citizens own shares in, so like a security guard at IBM, you do employ them if you own stock in IBM. Better analogy than the consumer support one before.
A double-standard in a State Code which has not been fully tested in the courts does not justify the violation of the rights of this woman. She posted public information. She was not subject to security provisions. She was not doing so by invading privacy. She did so with public records. She did not threaten anyone. She has been victimized, not the public servants. Who watches the watchmen: This woman does obviously and is a paragon of virtue in our society, not a pariah. She should receive a medal of honor, not the scorn of b-tards.
How is this crazy comment insightful?
Sure we can't directly order this that or the other thing. But it is also possible to get involved in the local government. You can go to the city council meetings and use you 1st amendment right to speak out about things. You can talk directly to these people and suggest action. You can get a petition going with registered voters. You can become friends with the local politicians. There must be at least fifty ways to interact with your local government, and get action. Will it always work? Hell NO! But then, I don't have that level of control over my own family. But we certainly have more control than just our vote.
If you do your duty and go and vote and then leave it at that, you get exactly what you deserve. If you get active in your local government and still don't get the things you want, then that's another thing. Run for office, and become a council member.
Even an average nut job like Palin was able to figure this out. I expect better from so-called Nerds. Local elections are the only ones that you can really do something about correcting mistakes. The amount of effort required, depends on the size of your locale obviously. For my locality it would probably only take 501 people to vote for anyone to get a seat on the council, in an off year.
Furthermore citizens can direct police investigations, to some degree. There is the power of arrest that all citizens retain, except in one state where that right is a bit more restricted (you can arrest, but not move the prisoner, you need to call a local agency to come and pick up). That of course, open the private citizen arresting to possible civil suit should the person get off. There is also the ability to get a Writ of Mandemus from a local court ordering the police to investigate. You can talk directly to the local prosecutor. There are things that can be done, but they require work and the investment of time, away from the computer. Really bad hiring decisions, can be corrected with community involvement. Nothing always works and there are dangers involved with getting involved.
But if you aren't willing to get involved, then you really shouldn't expect them to do what you want them to do. Unless you elect and employ only those with telepathic powers who can, and do, read the minds of their constituents. Not something I want, but to each their own.
Alternatively, if you "know" that involvement is useless in your case due to every official being corrupt, and you don't move away to some better place, then Darwin principles will take care you and you have no more need to worry.
Since we're talking about the police, I believe that confusing the police with the military is at the root of many of our society's ills.
That was simply one of my statements establishing tone, I believe that attempting to divert fom the issue at hand is a major roadblock to good communication.
And I believe that even the military's ability to force information to be kept secret should be strictly limited.
I was referring to before the action is taken, as in the planning stages. Certain technologies should be kept secret for as long as possible to enable defenses to be developed before rogue states or hostile governments get ahold of them.
I believe that the DEA should be disbanded and that the federal government should stop trying to tell people what they can do with their own bodies.
I personally appreciate the DEA busting the meth lab in the apartment next door before they burn down the building, I like knowing they are trying to keep dangerous chemicals like PCP, GHB, MDMA and others out of the hands of people who would abuse them and cause dangerous situations for others. That said, there are certain controlled substances that have no proven medically detrimental side effects, or certainly less so than alchohol or tobacco, which should be legalized and taxed.
I believe that the more information available, the less likely things like Iran-Contra and Abu Ghraib and Gitmo are. Technical and operational details might be redacted, but in general yes, we the people should be able to get almost all information on what is being done in the name of defending us.
And the less likely things like the space program, satellite communications, GPS, nuclear medicine, and numerous other technologies would have been developed.
Ignorance is Bliss -- And the Opposite is True -- Genius is Madness
Not only that, but it's never about YOU thinking you have nothing to hide--it's what THEY think you are hiding.
People never seem to understand that it's about their perception, not yours.
Hence the need for warrants and the right to privacy.
I'm not a public servant, but I'm a wage slave like most people. A cop can quit his job and get another line of work as easily as I can.
Free Martian Whores!
Interesting example. I've heard of people getting fired for indescretion in their private life with little to no repercussion. I've even seen many people defending this position. No, I do not accept your example as valid.
bonus: captcha - vacancy
Right, just legalize and tax it. Never happen, though, because the government hates the competition, and there's too much free loot in civil asset forfeiture.
Or just let the people defend themselves and shoot 'em... no, wait, that means an armed populace and overall crime reduction, and that's bad for the law enforcement business as well...
"They work for us" is never an excuse to jeopardize the safety of anybody.
Tell that to Purina; my grandfather went down a four story elevator shaft in 1959 because they were too cheap to put doors on the elevator. Dozens were burned to death in a chicken plant fire in the '80s because management chained the fire doors shut to keep employees from stealing chicken. At least on that occasion, someone went to prison -- for two years. I'd call it mass murder, apparently killinig your employees IS ok.
Things like that is why OSHA came about.
Free Martian Whores!
Now, please, go take your meds.
This coming from someone that brings up Pearl Harbor in response to a discussion about police oversight...
--Jeremy
Jesus was a liberal
Read her blog. Cops get her wet. Its basically a fan blog for these guys. Her site isn't much different from any of a zilliion fan sites for pop bands or famous actors. Her thing is the cops in her neighborhood, their looks, hair, uniforms, cars, and motorcycles. Given that all the posted information is publicly available, and that these PUBLIC servants do their job under the PUBLIC eye, what's the big deal? The Internet gives the public eye a broader field of vision. So suck it up cops, and learn to do your jobs in the Internet age. This woman has a right express her enthusiasm and interest for the cops in her neighborhood (good or bad) in any way she wants.
And others would say 2008. After all, which one has ties to left-wing extremist ideologues & anti-West/American militant groups?
And you think that some random semi-crazy woman blogger with a police fetish is going to dig up more information than a cocaine cartel would?
--Jeremy
Jesus was a liberal
I'm trying to say that the terminology is confusing. Employer/employee. Police officer is an employee of the city/govt. Police officer does not have an employer/employee relationship with me. Quite the contrary. But the police department is responsible to the public. Trying to fit a square into a round peg is useless and is just an attempt to say "I control them". Not really the case..
Have you fscked your local propeller head today?
I see ... your uncle was decorated for shooting innocent civilians exercising their right to free speech in a public forum? Quite a guy. I can see why a screaming lunatic such as yourself would be proud.
I prefer rogues to imbeciles because they sometimes take a rest.
No, just a civilian. However, I do have 2 cousins in law enforcement, one of whom works undercover. I can say from personal observation that the truth of what they do on a day-in, day-out basis is the exact opposite of the tin-foil hat, anti-cop, authority-paranoia rants that pervade our beloved slashdot. Not to say abuses don't happen, or that all cops are good, but what this woman is doing is begging for trouble. This "secret" info she makes public might just embarrass a few cops, or destroy a sting operation. It might result in a father and husband being shot dead in an ambush. It might result in his kids being shot in a drive-by.
I prefer rogues to imbeciles because they sometimes take a rest.
LOL!
Agreed. Born yesterday in a frickin' barn by the sound of it.
The police. Not even China is immune to CCTV. "Houston's police chief on Wednesday proposed placing surveillance cameras in apartment complexes, downtown streets, shopping malls and even private homes to fight crime during a shortage of police officers."
If you have a shortage of money to hire police officers then you don't have enough money to install CCTV, unless of course you're going to force those who's property the cameras are installed on to pay for them. Even then though you still need to pay people to monitor the output.
Falcon
Should there be a Law?
Those words do not mean what you think they mean. They have no basis in the founding of the country nor any city that I am aware of. The term was first phrased in Lincoln's Gettysburg address and were meant to reflect the founding of the nation.
Wrong. The police work for the city which at one time was formed to take over certain functions that were deems difficult to pursue in a private individual basis. The people can call for the dismissal of an officer but nothing obligates that to happen. And that was the way this country was founded.
No they do not. They work for the company that you have a share or interest in. The only way they would work for you is if you were on the board of directors which means you would actually be working for the company too.
Your right, some have the misconception that they work for the people and that is just wrong. You mentioned the of for and by the people earlier. That does not mean what you think it means. The of the people means that the people in government were locals and not some king an entire ocean away or some company even further away as was with the colonies. The by the people means that we elect officials to represent us and for the people means give them our consent to make decisions for us. It in no way insinuates any obligation to the people outside that which would be needed to get elected.
You must have missed several days in civics class. You must work in government.
I used that particular phrase simply because it was an eloquent and fair summary of the Founding Fathers' philosophical position. Soo phrases such as 'consent of the governed' for example.
PLEASE burn your voter registration card!
And that is all directly related to the vote. It's either you expressing your intent or attempting to influence others with their vote. The threat of the vote is the same as the vote.
And once that happens, you are no longer a private citizen as in the people and are an employee of the city. My point still stands.
And your back to my point of the vote. Nice how you attempt to claim "How is this crazy comment insightful?" when you just agreed with it. Perhaps if you would listen to yourself, Palin wouldn't be as much of a nut job as you think she is.
You are limited to do what they decide to do or what the law dictates. Citizens arrest is something that you do, not the police, I'm not sure what makes you think that your acting like a police in lieu of their actions is telling them what to do.
And that would be the court telling the police what to do, still not quite We the people.
And that would be the prosecutor telling the police what to do. Still not we the people but another city branch.
Listen, no one has said there wasn't other people within the city that you can convince, but in the end, you are not telling anyone to do anything, at best, you are convincing someone that it needs done and they tell them to do it.
I'm not sure anyone said do not get involved. In fact, all that you have mentioned either is directly tied to the vote or
And it seems that everyone here who advocates for their own privacy seem reluctant to grant the same to people who are police.
I prefer rogues to imbeciles because they sometimes take a rest.
That of, by and for, doesn't mean what you think it means. Never did and was never brought up until 100 years after the founding of the country.
Lincoln, when he did his Gettysburg address, he was reflecting on the foundation of the country and what brought us together. The "of the people" refers to being constituted of citizens and not kings or corporations across the ocean or dictators of foreign lands as was the case in the US before our independence. The "by the people" means that we as citizens elect our leaders, they are not instituted by some other government as was the case before our independence. The "for the people" is that we give our representatives the power to represent us and make decisions on our behalf. It is not some obligation for every city employee to do what you demand or in anyway something that makes you their employer.
I'm sorry that you heard a buzz word and were lead to believe something that wasn't true.
Come back to reality. It isn't that hard to do.
Consent of the governed doesn't even mean what you think it means. Obviously is 49% or the people voted for candidate A and 51% voted for candidate B, 49% of the governed would not have given consent. But where consent is given is in the government in which we have and in the system that binds us to the results.
Please open up a history book and get an idea of what the founding fathers were working for.
No. He was part of an organisation which stamped out obedient little Gestapo stormtroopers. Like you.
Mart
"I know I will be modded down for this": where's the option '-1, Asking for it'?
Who watches the watchmen? Don't know. But apparently the watchmen watch whoever watches them.
(-1: Post disagrees with my already-settled worldview) is not a valid mod option.
"They retain their arrest powers even when off duty -- in truth, they are never off the job. "
Any reasonable citizen of this country has those same arrest powers - Citizen's Arrest.
Then why do the police get to carry, and use, their badge while "off duty"?
My long winded response was to your statement that outside of our vote we "have no power over them". Which is simply not true at the local level. we can use other people within the government to force them to do what we want. Provided what we want is appropriate. If you don't think that is power to make them do what we want, I'm not sure I can make you understand why the sky looks blue in the daytime, let alone anything else.
The fact is "we the people" is all about getting people together and doing something, when the person "we the people" have elected/hired to do it doesn't do it. You seem to have some misunderstanding of what "we the people" is all about. And no I don't agree with you, or I wouldn't have wasted the time to respond. You're stating I do based on your misinterpretation of my words doesn't make it so.
The reason we have elected officials is so we are left free to do other things. The reason for our government structure is so we can use one against the other when needed. Hence using the courts against the executive is a totally valid way of telling one branch of government what to do. That is what it was designed for, and until you understand that you won't understand diddly about government. This approach is frequently used by people in the various branches of government. It's just sad that the average American has no grasp of this.
The "of the people" refers to being constituted of citizens and not kings or corporations across the ocean or dictators of foreign lands as was the case in the US before our independence.
Before independence, which was 87 years, "Four score and seven year", before Lincoln's address.
The "by the people" means that we as citizens elect our leaders
George Washington was elected and assumed the office of the president of the USA in 1789, more than 70 years before the Gettysburg Address.
The "for the people" is that we give our representatives the power to represent us and make decisions on our behalf
Again we go back to when Washington was elected and congress was given power to represent us.
All of those "people" existed in 1789. Thomas Jefferson wrote of the right of the people to overthrow government in the "Declaration Of Independence" which was signed in 1776. I can understand if you're not American but if you are then education failed you.
Falcon
Should there be a Law?
Left is right, up is down, etc? You seem to have a habit of redefining words to suit your argument.
As for your example, NO!!! MOST people are still reasonable enough to prefer being governed by the candidate chosen by the majority rather than declaring the government null and void just because their choice wasn't as popular. I never said the consent wasn't occasionally grudging.
Clearly consent of the governed doesn't mean what you think it does.
The Founding Fathers were smart enough to realize that even when that consent is actually withdrawn, government has a habit of not going away. That's why the right to keep and bear arms was enshrined in the Constitution.
Also note that in all that I have said, it doesn't mean that the rights and principles are always properly honored and implemented, just as the law against murder doesn't mean it never happens or even that it is always punished when it does.
13 years off, so, the point still remains. It was well after the founders were dead.
Actually, if you read the Declaration of Independence, it says that when government becomes so bad, there becomes a time to overthrow it.
It's all besides the point. Nothing you have presented disagrees with what I said. At best, there was a 13 year difference in the 100 years which does not disprove anything I said in context.
I can understand how public education has failed you. I can understand how your unwilling to open a history book and instead want to attribute fallacious attributes to something you only think you understand. But if your going to claim I am wrong about something, stick to the point and not a generic number I used to show that the founders weren't even alive when that phrase was uttered.
Just because you go to someone else who is afraid of the vote doesn't mean you made them do anything. It means that the government did because they are the employer. No one said there wasn't any power, it just all runs back to the vote. Everything you mentioned was either directly tied to the vote, or directed by the government.
And it seem that you are the one attempting to redefine things.
Actually, it is you that has the misunderstanding on what "we the people" means. BTW, we elect, we don't hire anyone. Their jobs are to their office they hold, not the people. The people sometimes fall into that category but not always.
And yes, you do agree with me, your just attempting to put labels onto everything and pretend it is separate when it is not. Every thing you mentioned was either directly related to the vote or by convincing another government employee to make it happen. It all comes back to the vote.
I understand plenty about government. But where your failing is the going to the courts is nothing more then getting the government to direct it's employees. You have no power to do that unless you convince someone in the government to do it. Everything that gives you any power over the government is either a law, or directly tied to the vote.
Perhaps you should look into it, instead of reaching for dogma like "self-evident."
I should invite you to learn the history of the enlightenment and the idea that as human beings we have innate rights because we are sorta all children of the Almighty.. but Jefferson summed it up best in the Declaration of Independence:
"We hold these truths to be self-evident... We are endowed by the Creator with certain inalienable rights, that among them are life, liberty and the pursuit of Happiness".
The idea of the Decl of Independence, and the Constitution, is that governments are instituted by the people and are given limited powers by them to secure everyone's rights. The idea of the Constitution is that, if the Constitution does not give the government a right, the government does not have that power.
Indeed, in Jefferson Madison's letters, many people were actually irate that a Bill of Rights existed, because, they were correctly afraid that it would be taken to mean the Bill of Rights were the only "rights" we had. The fact is, if we ripped up the bill of rights, we would still have freedom of the press, freedom of speech, freedom of everything else, from gay marriage to owning guns, simply because the federal government has absolutely no right to make any of those laws whatsover.
This is my sig.
...you would have drug decriminalization.
It was well after the founders were dead.
Ah but Lincoln didn't declare independence or use "the people" first, the Founding Fathers did while they were still alive.
It's all besides the point. Nothing you have presented disagrees with what I said. At best, there was a 13 year difference in the 100 years which does not disprove anything I said in context.
It all disagrees with what you said, which was "That of, by and for, doesn't mean what you think it means. Never did and was never brought up until 100 years after the founding of the country." I realize now that because I did not include that in my reply to that post of yours you may of been confused, and I apologize, but you were in fact wrong when you said the above quote. "The People" was used before Lincoln was even born.
I can understand how public education has failed you
Failed you, in addition/subtraction, history, and vocabulary.
Falcon
Should there be a Law?
Undercover, secret police are incompatible with a free society. Exposing them is our duty. If this had happened in the former Soviet Union and the KGB had been exposed we'd be sending in the Marines.
Face it, we live in a police state and we need to start fighting back.
Would it have been any better if she had the urge to follow bank courier trucks, note their routes, names and home addresses of the drivers? Maybe she could have included how many bags and their apparent load. Pictures of their stops, and notes of visibility at various stops would be useful.
That is obviously terribly dangerous. It would almost definitely lead to courier thefts, and probably shootouts between thieves and the couriers.
I know someone who was a bank courier years ago. They take extreme precautions, including decoy vehicles, and route randomization, but it would still be an extreme risk.
How about truckers who are moving high value cargo? A truck of oranges may not be all that interesting to a criminal, but how about an unmarked truck transporting jewelry, addictive pharmaceuticals, or high dollar electronics?
Regardless of what your job is, let the person do their job. If it's a criminal act (like drug dealing), let the professionals take care of it.
Hell, I knew someone in a call center who was harassed at work and home, because some nutjob thought that they were wronged. If you've worked a call center, I'm sure you've received some of those calls.
It's pretty obvious that the drug dealers, manufacturers, and couriers are the ones who would profit best by the outing of all the officers involved. It's almost asking for them to get dead.
I will be more than happy to argue for the legalization of some currently illegal drugs, BUT since they are not legal at this time, I hold nothing against those who are enforcing such laws. What she has done has put lives in jeopardy. While she may have just seen it as an interesting hobby, that may just lead to a very final conclusion for some of the people she's harassing.
Serious? Seriousness is well above my pay grade.
Wow. Insanely naive and/or horrible indoctrinated. Has no one every told you about the "tyranny of the majority"? Or do you just write such ideas off as anti-democratic?
Do me a couple favours, jeremy:
1. Learn how to use the blockquote tags.
2. Stay out of discussions for which you clearly don't have the required context.
Thanks.
They don't work for us, they work for the city that employed them. We may pay their salaries through taxes but we have absolutely no control over them
Maybe, you have a new and amazing definition for "no power", but in my definition "absolutely no control over them" is equivalent to "no power over them". So yes someone did say we have no power over them and that someone was you.
And again in your last reply you state again that we have no power, only this time you add a bit of a qualifier. I guess my mistake was to paraphrase you. That must be what confused you.
When I added the "elected/hired", it was a reference to the hiring that our elected officials do in our stead. You've apparently never seen a local community band together and demand the firing of an incompetent city employee. So yes, they do work for us and they can be canned bu actions of the citizens.
It all comes back to the vote.
And all the laws that you mentioned in responding to my psots. Not to mention specific things they are required to do because of laws. Also, the courts. It's certainly not perfect, but it's not as bleak as you paint it. It's not all tied directly to the vote for a person. There are also certainly plenty of cases were citizens have raised petitions to add or change or remove laws passed by local officials. There are also cases where citizens have struck down laws through court action. Removed sitting governors by petition. You're either intentionally ignoring all this and lumping it all as tied to a vote for or against an individual candidate. But there is so much more to it than your overly simplistic point of view. BTW, not all judges are elected, so they don't have to fear a vote against them.
You're talking in circles. So, I'll let you chase your tail now, since you obviously can't, or won't, grasp this advanced topic.
And you do not have any control over them. As I said, at best, you can influence someone who does have control over them. You presented nothing that doesn't require convincing someone else who does have power over them to make them do something.
And no, power and control are not the same thing. Lets just stick with the commonly accepted definitions for them. Control is you having the power to direct or determine something over them. Power encompasses a lot more and is the process of controlling. It would be idiotic to claim I said you had no power because I specifically mentioned the vote.
I'm pretty sure you are the one that's confused. See above.
It doesn't matter how many people come together, the answer is still that they do no have to do a damn thing your demanding. The only thing that will bind them is your vote and what that vote means to the public officials who do have the control over them. My point still stands even though your refusing to see it.
Quit being retarded. In everything you brought up. it all points back to a vote or getting another city/government employee to take action on your behalf. A petition does nothing but show how many people believe in a certain way and indicates their vote next chance. Ad for using the courts or some specific law, that is convincing another government agency to control the government. There is no control by you.
You are inflating it to more then what is there. It's probably because you erroneously believe control and power are the same thing. You have absolutely no control over government employees. You have power to influence people who do have control over them. That is not one and the same and it isn't as you are claiming. It's all does to the vote.
Would it have been any better if she had the urge to follow bank courier trucks
That is a straw man, as is the rest.
Falcon
Should there be a Law?
OK, I guess I was wrong about attributing the line above as coming from the USA's Founding Fathers. I could not find a reference of it's use before Lincoln used it in the Gettysburg Address of 1863. I guess I expanded the use of "the people", which was used before and during the Revolution as meaning they have rights including the right to overthrow an overbearing government, to the whole quote.
BTW, to twist the entire idea of self-determination around H.L. Mencken argued it was the Confederates who were fighting for the right to self-determination, without offering evidence or logic.
Falcon
Should there be a Law?
I really think the premise the south held was valid even if I don't agree with the core reasoning behind the actions.
Say here. The South seceded over the issue of states rights which I agree with. What I don't agree with is slavery, thus why I disagree with the H.L. Mencken quote. He's only talking about self determination for those who were free but not for slaves.
To me, in a lot of ways, this is the pivotal point when the US constitution started getting undermined.
In some ways perhaps, though the undermining was accelerated then not started. It was undermined 30 years, rounding, before. The Constitution was undermined after the US Supreme Court ruled against Jackson in the Worcester v. Georgia case in 1832 and Jackson said "John Marshall has made his decision, now let him enforce it!"
If we would have had a constitutional amendment before the civil war the ended slavery instead of a presidential decree, I think things would have been a little different.
An amendment wasn't realistically possible. Hell Thomas Jefferson tried to include Blacks, and Women, in the Declaration of Independence. In early drafts he wrote how everybody had the same rights however because there were Founding Fathers who believed in slavery, and women's rights, objected he had to remove those parts.
However even if it wasn't possible to have an amendment before the Civil War some economists studying the area concluded that because of economics slavery would have ended, it was more expensive to own slaves than it was to pay willing workers a living wage.
Falcon
Should there be a Law?