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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 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.
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.
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.
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.