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Facebook Won't Take Down Undercover Cop Page In Australia
New submitter jaa101 writes "Facebook has refused a request from Australian police to take down a page with details of undercover police vehicles saying it cannot stop people taking photos in public places. The original story is paywalled and it doesn't give a link to the relevant page which seems to be here . This page for the state of Victoria has 12000 likes but a similar page for the state of Queensland has over 34000, and there are other Australian pages too."
If the police are being outed undercover then don't whine when crime occurs.
If "Law Enforcement" didn't regularly abuse their sweeping privileges, maybe this wouldn't even have come up?
If you want news from today, you have to come back tomorrow.
...if you've done nothing wrong, you have nothing to fear. Are they now saying that information can be misused by wrong-doers, and that privacy actually has a value?
Science is all about firing a drunk pig out of a cannon just to see what happens.
There isn't really any problem here, this is just the Vic Police overreacting. The vehicles are 100% obviously cop cars, with exactly the same antenna and will always have some form of lightbar inside or outside the vehicle. Anyone who can't spot an undercover cop in Australia needs their eyes checked.
Anonymous Coward
Unmarked != undercover... or is that what Aussies call their unmarked cars?
Everyone is neglecting the fact that this isn't about outing police officers who are undercover. It's about outing unmarked police cars, which serve no purpose other than to try to catch people for traffic violations and in fact are going to be worse at deterring crime than a marked police vehicle, since the sight of a cop car is a powerful deterrent. It's not like undercover cops drive unmarked cop cars with light bars and antennas; that would be a dead giveaway. Frankly, I like police vehicles to be visible so that I can find them in the event of an emergency if I need help. I care far less about fining the people who are driving 5 miles per hour over the speed limit.
Fear the penguin.
The list of people following the page is a good list of possible suspects. The police should be thankful of Facebook for doing their job for them.
They are outing undercover police cars, not the police themselves. Big difference. Given the many makes and models they use and how common those vehicle types are on the roads, a public database is not going to put a dent in any undercover operation at all.
These aren't fucking undercover. They're unmarked. And there's a huge fucking difference. And you're a fucking idiot.
Seems it aint so easy to do the same in the YouEssay -- at least not with an actual officer: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/10/16/melissa-walthall-texas-undercover-cop-facebook-arrest_n_1970479.html
So far, two people have been caged for that.
Forward! -- Emperor Norton, 2012
Yeah this is usually the case, criminals already know what the make and model of the unmarked cars are.
Sucks when the law works against you, doesn't it?
Good for facebook - teach these little hitlers that society works both ways. Being a part of the executive doesn't provide you with special privilege.
I want to delete my account but Slashdot doesn't allow it.
No no, they don't don't ;)
If you find a single biped not abusing sweeping privileges, please check for a pulse...
Happiness in intelligent people is the rarest thing I know.
Ernest Hemingway
If you find a single biped not abusing sweeping privileges, please check for a pulse...
My wife gave me Sweeping Privileges, but I declined. Also, I am not Marty Feldman.
If you want news from today, you have to come back tomorrow.
Yes they are not "undercover" as such but just unmarked or covert cars. The are generally easy to spot unless they are behind you. New South Wales Police are even taking advantage of this with a special batch of 50 highway cars highly marked and extremely visible from the rear, but almost covert from the front. They even have photos of their covert cars on their own Facebook pages. http://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.420791607956995.85178.217834118252746&type=3
Don't tailgate - the end is near!
If you think an unmarked police car's primary purpose is catching people "driving 5 mph over the speed limit" then you've been listening to too much reactionary "why don't they go after real criminals?!" and "don't they have anything better to do?!" arguments, usually heavily promoted by people who have been caught breaking the law for 'trivial' reasons like speeding.
Unmarked cars *are* used for "better things" than catching speeding motorists (even ones doing a mere 5 over - no cop stops you for 5 over, especially not an unmarked unit, you also get a 10% leeway to account for speedometer inaccuracy so the only time that "5 over" would be even close to something you could be pulled for would be in a 30 mph zone) - they're used primarily in the investigation and containment of stolen cars and for major crimes involving motor vehicles such as drugs, burglaries, etc.
They certainly do stop ordinary motorists if something flags you to them (impaired driving, excessive speed, tax/insurance issues etc) but they're not there to "catch you out" - you make it sound like it's some trick to make you break the law when you think they're not looking.
I know for a fact that Cheshire Police in the UK doesn't care if you know what unmarked cars they use - I have seen them personally show large, unobscured photographs of them with number plates showing clearly in public settings - because they're not designed to trick you, they're designed to be less visible than a panda car so they can tail suspect vehicles more easily, and your "5 over" driver is not such a motorist.
Police reaction to speeding in the UK and US is often quite different. The last time I took the wheel in the UK I made a 220 km journey, over mostly M roads, in an hour and got no tickets despite passing several marked police cars. I presume it's because I always stayed left except to pass, was diligent about signaling and generally being polite in my driving behavior aside from the speed.
In contrast, a co-worker of mine received a ticket for 2 mph over the limit last year in the US.
But the fact of the matter is that the focus of the police should be on preventing crime, not on increasing revenue. A clearly marked police car is the most effective thing there is for ensuring that everyone around is driving safely. You stick a cop car in the road and people will drive quite carefully. Unmarked cars are specifically meant to not be observed by people so that they will commit crimes in front of them and thus get ticketed, crimes that potentially would not have been committed if the car had been clearly visible. To me, this is like making the argument that police officers shouldn't wear uniforms so that muggers will beat up people in front of them and get caught, rather than the beatings never happening in the first place. I understand and respect that you can make an argument both ways here, that there is the potential for the mugger to commit crimes later, etc. but in my personal opinion, it is of dubious morality to allow people to be injured today in hopes of avoiding injuring people tomorrow. When I'm being assaulted, I want to be able to look around and run to the nearest cop car, not to miss it 'cause it's unmarked.
Ultimately, my complaint is that the motorists who get "caught" by unmarked cars who wouldn't by marked cars are the 5-10 over motorists. If someone is truly driving dangerously, they're not going to stop because of a marked car. If you're driving 100 on the freeway, you can't slow down fast enough upon seeing a cop car to not get caught. If you're driving drunk, you can't magically sober up because you saw a cop. The people get caught by unmarked cars rather than marked ones are the 5 over motorists, so I fail to see how they provide sufficiently valuable service to outweigh the crimes they fail to prevent.
Anyways, it's all anecdotal, and there are arguments for both sides. YMMV.
Fear the penguin.
It's nice that you've completely ignored the article in question, so I'll try and clarify.
This article is about Australian unmarked police cars, whose only purpose pretty much is to pull over speeding cars.
Because any police car can pull over any car for a random alcohol or drug test, they don't need to be in an unmarked car or have reason (ie, impaired driving). They're legally entitled to do it to anyone, any time, if they are driving a car.
Because in Australia there are no tax/insurance issues, because that's covered by the road authority and police have no authority to even ask you about it.
Because in most states of Australia there is no 10% leeway any more, it's a fixed leeway. You can and do get fined for being 5km/h over the signed limit. I once got fined for being 5km/h over because the road change from a 60 zone to a 50 zone and the unmarked police car behind me thought I didn't adjust me speed fast enough.
In Australia the unmarked cars really are there to catch people speeding, it's their primary purpose.
So perhaps you should pay attention to the context of the story, especially when every other reason you've listed as a purpose for unmarked police cars do not exist in Australia.
The thin blue line should be thinner around consensual crime, and around extracting cash from motorists by parking themselves on mis-zoned "speeding hotspots", and thicker around thefts and violent crime.
The police near us regularly set up speed traps along a six-lane, divided road zoned at 60kmh (it was zoned thus 20 years ago, when it was just a two-lane road, and hasn't been changed as the road's grown) or just before the onramp to the freeway, where the speed limit changes from 60kmh to 110kmh over a few hundred metres.
Meanwhile, when some friends of ours were robbed, the police just told them to call their insurance company, and check out the local pawn shops.
Just because you're paranoid doesn't mean there isn't an invisible demon about to eat your face
Additionally, due to inaccuracies in speedometers and poor reaction times (e.g. to changing slopes of hills), it's impossible to drive at or under 60 without having your speedo sitting more like 53-55, in which case you will in fact be driving dangerously by going significantly slower than the flow of traffic. The problem with speed limits/speeding is that speeding is not inherently dangerous (at reasonable speeds; certainly driving 150 is). Rather, moving at a significantly different speed than the flow of traffic is dangerous. I am in fact putting myself and those around me in more danger by driving at 60 if everyone around me is going 75 than by driving 75 with them. The answer certainly isn't to abolish speed limits, but the point is that strict enforcement of speed limits increases revenue, not safety.
Fear the penguin.
I should actually add a little more to that and point out that I have seen (and also been subject to, but did not speed up) unmarked police cars tailgating on freeways in an attempt to make people speed up to just over the limit and pull them over.
That's not only fairly dangerous, but should say a little more about the intent of the cars when they resort to such tactics.
My g/f turned to me on the way to bed last week and told me that she would do anything that I wanted. I asked her to paint the living room and for some reason she got upset and she never did paint the living room. Women!!!
I love stacking my barbecues in the shed at the end of summer - you can't beat a bit of grill on grill action.
Indeed, one is a unit of distance and one is a unit of speed. To convert, you take the 220 km travel distance, and you divide it by the 1 hour that the poster claimed it took him to make this trip. 220 km / 1 hour = 220 kph.
That being said, I don't see how your comment relates to the post you replied to.
police ARE government..
have you seen my sig? there are many others like it but none that are the same
My uncle is a cop, and i have been instructed to NEVER stop for an unmarked car. About 6 years ago now there was a big problem with fake police pulling people over and robbing them. My uncle instructed me if I ever try and get stopped by an unmarked car I should drive directly to the station and worry about it when I get there. Under cover, or unmarked cars are the worst thing ever.
have you seen my sig? there are many others like it but none that are the same
I always wondered what would happen if someone on Slashdot got a girlfriend. I guess we know now.
I often don't like the choices people make, but I like the fact that people make choices. That's why I'm a conservative.
Amen brother. The police say that this facebook page is compromising police safety? How do you think people realized it was an unmarked police car? Because it identified itself when it pulled someone over for a bullshit traffic violation. If it's so urgent that the car's identity remain unknown, perhaps they shouldn't blow the cover over meaningless bullshit.
Because the original post said the person had drive 220 km, not that they had driven at 220 km/h. Even British police will pull you over for doing twice the national speed limit - 70mph - regardless of how well you're driving.
Yeah, I had a sig once; I got bored of it.
Respectfully, I suggest you try reading it a little more carefully:
"The last time I took the wheel in the UK I made a 220 km journey, over mostly M roads, in an hour"
If the journey took an hour and the distance was 220km then speed (well, mean speed over the distance) is 220km (which as you say is just under twice the speed limit on the M-roads he mentioned).
Personally I think that's a load of bollocks - you can get away with around 80mph on the motorway (limit is 70) without pissing off the police here in the UK but 137mph? no chance at all - that far in excess of the limit puts at risk of immediate ban and charges of dangerous driving are likely at that point.
Because you shouldn't have to micro-manage your speed. It achieves nothing except:
a)training people to drive along spending 3/4 of their time looking out for speed limit changes and watching the dash, rather than watching the road; and
b) not to use their own judgement when choosing how fast to drive. This becomes important when the speed limit is, in fact, too fast ("I was under the limit, it must have been safe!").
If you can't drive safely while observing the speed limit for the road then you shouldn't be driving a car in the first place. It's hardy "micro-managing" to drive at the speed limit - it's called "driving a car on a public road".
Posted limits also have nothing to do with your own judgement regarding the safe speed to drive. That's irrelevant - the road conditions and local traffic all need to be considered by the driver in question. The posted limit doesn't excuse you for having an at-fault accident when doing less than the sign says. Again, obeying the speed limit absolutely does not remove people's own judgement on what the safe speed it, except that it must be at or below the posted limit. You can drive more slowly as you wish.
If I were in the "fast lane" I would certainly speed up, and move out of the way. If that officer gave me a ticket, I would ask him for his car's unit number and would be at the courthouse that same day with my ticket in hand asking for a subpoena for his police car's video. In most states, a judge would frown upon an officer who endangered someone to issue a speeding ticket. California, and most other states, have a basic speed law providing you with some flexibility on speed limits for anything under 55mph. If you're going faster than that, you could still claim that you saw it was an unmarked officer, and that you thought he was responding to an emergency, and was therefore tailgating you, and you were trying to get out of his way as quickly and safely as possible in order to allow him to provide whatever emergency assistance he was going to offer.
An officer who has resorted to such tactics should have all of his previously issued citations dismissed and refunds granted, as necessary. I guarantee you an officer would not try such a stunt again, as he would likely become unemployed after that.
When I was stationed in Yuma Arizona back in the late70s, I got pulled over for doing ... get this.. 56mph in a 55mph zone.. Since I was in the military, I was able to keep my California license and plates. When the cop walked up to the car, all mirror shades and swagger, and asked me "Do you know how fast you were going?" and I said "Yes, under 55mph".. The guy says "I clocked you at 56..." .. I realized if I called him an idiot, things would not go well for me... So I simply said, "I'll see you in court, Officer".. THEN he looked at the address on my license, which said Yuma, Arizona, and saw my military ID, and realized he WOULD see me in court, since I was not a California tourist who would just pay the fine and skip driving all the way back to Arizona for court. And yes, the judge chewed this cop out quite nicely in open court... Was a joy to behold....
THANK YOU, Edward Snowden!! Americans owe you a debt of gratitude (whether they know it or not..)
What is it they govern? Cops enforce the law they don't create it, sure they are instituted and funded by government, but that doesn't make them the government. Do people really believe every cop agrees with every law they are asked to enforce?
And did you exchange a walk on part in the war for a lead role in a cage? - Pink Floyd.