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Federal Judge Approves Warrantless, Covert Video Surveillance
Penurious Penguin writes "Your curtilage may be your castle, but 'open fields' are open game for law-enforcement and surveillance technology. Whether 'No Trespassing' signs are present or not, your private property is public for the law, with or without a warrant. What the police cannot do, their cameras can — without warrant or court oversight. An article at CNET recounts a case involving the DEA, a federal judge, and two defendants (since charged) who were subjected to video surveillance on private property without a warrant. Presumably, the 4th Amendment suffers an obscure form of agoraphobia further elucidated in the article."
Its ok guys just re-elect Obama 2012.
so, tell me, romney fans, you think things would IMPROVE if that assclown gets in?
really?
funny how you'll throw insults at obama but you are strangely silent about the other guy. who, most believe, will CRUSH whatever civil liberties are still left hanging by a thread.
--
"It is now safe to switch off your computer."
"Callahan based his reasoning on a 1984 Supreme Court case called Oliver v. United States, in which a majority of the justices said that "open fields" could be searched without warrants because they're not covered by the Fourth Amendment. What lawyers call "curtilage," on the other hand, meaning the land immediately surrounding a residence, still has greater privacy protections."
Judging from your previous comments it should be no surprise that your karma is even worse than mine! Please, troll harder.
rules and laws are for regular people.
don't you know the drill by now?
cops get away with murder.
literally.
and judges are fine with that. almost always. its the 'brotherhood of crime fighters' that keeps them all in alignment.
they have lost their souls and simply keep their brotherhood going.
--
"It is now safe to switch off your computer."
You can't blame them for not publicly criticizing his expansion and entrenchment of the surveillance society. After all, he does boast (through approved, high-level leaks) of maintaining a personal "kill list".
Does this square with your expectations?
Yep. All politicians will do anything "for the children" or "to fight terrorists", and will consistently give money back to their friends. Obama is no different there.
So, with that in mind, you need try to position yourself to get the handout otherwise you're just paying in for others. So, ask yourself, who's group of friends are you most likely to belong to?
As the article explains: open fields, even when attached to homes, aren't normally covered by the 4th Amendment, because they're not in the plain-terms of the language. The 4th Amendment doesn't protect all property, but rather just the enumerated properties and spaces. Curtilage - the land immediately attached to a home - is sometimes covered, but separate fields such as these aren't.
Does this square with your expectations?
From the article:
Callahan based his reasoning on a 1984 Supreme Court case called Oliver v. United States, in which a majority of the justices said that "open fields" could be searched without warrants because they're not covered by the Fourth Amendment. What lawyers call "curtilage," on the other hand, meaning the land immediately surrounding a residence, still has greater privacy protections.
Right because Obama is reviewing all those district judgements personally and he went back in time and presided over the 1984 case.
And so the flamewar begins, starting with the stupids.
Why do I consider politics is an absurd waste of time? See above.
Although I can understand the confusion because they have the same policies.
By "most believe", I assume you mean your lefty buddies.
So, when a psycho decides a buxom babe secretly, subconsciously, loves him and he engages in covert video surveillance without a warrant, is he no more guilty of "stalking" than is a "law"-enforcement officer engaging in covert video surveillance without a warrent?
Seastead this.
I'm hardly a Romney fan, but the I would still answer unequivocally yes.
Go visit your local high school and sit in on a civics class. The head of the executive branch has nothing to do with the decision of someone in the judicial branch. Obama didn't make a cameo appearance in the courtroom. Aside from a judge appointed by the president, you'd have to be a complete idiot to blame the executive office for something a judge decided to do in his own courtroom.
On January 23, 2002, Griesbach was nominated by President George W. Bush to a seat on the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Wisconsin. This was a new seat created by 114 Stat. 2762.
source.
Again, here we lose our Constitutional Liberties because of Republicans wanting to legislate social behavior.
Small Government indeed! Freedom indeed! - remember that Teabaggers the next time you put your ridiculous Founding Father costume on!
And if we consider all the billions and billions of dollars going down the drain because of this asinine "War on Drugs" and other "Wars on ....", we would be MUCH closer to balancing our budget and solving real problems - like the Medicare going bust in about 7 - 10 years. The Baby Boomers started hitting 65 THIS YEAR and they're signing up for Medicare.
Hell, he'd probably violate the War Powers Act to launch an aggressive war of regime change against the leader of an oil-exporting Muslim country. He might even start killing American citizens with drone bombers. We can't afford a butcher like that in the White House.
So it's okay for Obama to do something wrong if the other guy would, too? That sounds like it could go downhill fast. Oh, wait.
Happy Halloween from your spoooky friends at the United States government!
They should, and they should have to pay a fine and be fired or face long term suspension. But they won't. But the evidence should still not be thrown out. Telling me something doesn't exist because of a bureaucratic rule is stupid. However letting the law enforcement officers who broke the law by trespassing keep their jobs and not be punished is also stupid. Firing them is a better solution to these kinds of issues than throwing out evidence. If cops know they'll lose their jobs, they won't do this, so no illegal search. As it is they'll keep trying and getting away with it a lot because the only ones punished when they are caught is society; not them nor the criminals. This throw out the evidence solution is a lose lose lose proposition for everyone though. Society is punished, the cops who broke the law aren't, and the criminals aren't either. Evidence no matter how it is found should still be admissible. It is just an extension of 'all data wants to be free'.
-- I ignore anonymous replies to my comments and postings.
So tell me Obama and Romney fans: does this square with your expectations? Oh wait, Romney hasn't been elected. So tell me Obama and Bush fans: does this square with your expectations?
From what I understand, planes and satellites are commonly used to examine private property for evidence of, say, pot production. This can be used as cause to get a warrant for a raid. Is this either logically or legally different?
Does this square with your expectations?
About what I'd expect, considering he was appointed by Bush. According to Wikipedia:
Griesbach was nominated by President George W. Bush
First poster never mentioned Romney. You did. You're assuming a dichotomy where there need be done. Multiply that across 95% of voters, and it's unsurprisng nothing ever improves.
We the people deserve every last thing we get.
Number of times I've copypasted this here today and it still be on topic: 1
Support the EFF and Creative Commons. The war is coming, and they're supporting you...
You guys sometimes have good points and all; no one wants someone spying on them - right? But people would probably listen to you a bit more if you explained how *communities* can both protect the rights of innocent people, as well as deal with potential threats to life and liberty.
A lot of the things you are for and against sound great in theory, but not so much when it comes out that the person next door to you has been quietly collecting explosives for the last decade. Or has a long record of molesting children.
Without referencing the government or law enforcement; how is the individual going to protect themselves and their families against those who would do them harm? It seems that the only things you agree with are reactive, and not protective. I personally would find little solace in the conviction of someone who murdered my family. I'd rather prevent it from happening.
Can any of you who vigorously push for "freedom" tell me how your efforts will directly help to make things safer for my family?
Because *that* is my goal. If it is not yours, please care to share how we differ.
Humor from a Genetically Molested Mind
It's the trespassing. They have to do that to get the cameras there. So now it's legal for authorities to trespass on private land at will? If I caught someone trespassing on property I own, now what? Can I still charge them with trespassing or will they just say "Nope, sorry, was installing a camera"? What happens if plainclothes detectives are on my property trespassing without a warrant, I encounter them and feel threatened and I shoot one in self defense? If I find a camera on my property is it now mine to keep?
I can totally see cameras *outside* the property pointed in as OK, but *on* the property?
Anyone care to explain where, precisely, the above amendment specifies that it only applies to indoor, private property?
Now that the SCOTUS has decided your property is now public and thus available to police scrutiny without warrant, is there still anyone stupid enough to think this won't eventually creep past the threshold and into your home?
An enigma, wrapped in a riddle, shrouded in bacon and cheese
If so, is it ok to use advanced signal processing technology to covertly and without a warrant see as well as listen through the walls of a home that has EM emanating from a wifi router in the house?
If so, is it ok to use EM emanating from the police car radio, incidental to routine police communications to covertly and without a warrant see as well as listen through the walls of a home?
If so, is it ok to deliberately project EM from the police car --- say in the form of a simple flashlight -- onto the private property to get a better look?
Am I now, by asking these questions, suspect?
Seastead this.
Do you own the photons that come from space and bounce off you before entering a public area? Not saying I agree with this decision, but I dont see it as a 4th amendment issue anymore then someone on the street overhearing what you are doing inside your house.
"Have you ever thought about just turning off the TV, sitting down with your kids, and hitting them?"
If video surveillance doesn't require a warrant, what's to stop the police from using a helicopter based drone from flying in through an open window?
The worst part about the judges is that most of them are former prosecutors. Most cases I've paid any attention to where the cop is on trial, the cop will waive his right to a jury and we end up with the cop, the prosecutor, and the former prosecutor all deciding what to do. I've come to the conclusion that there is a communal right to a jury trial. For serious crimes where the accused wants to waive their right to a jury, there should be some publicly elected official that has to approve the request, my theory being that the politician will not want to create a powerful weapon against him- or herself in the next election. Thus, the police will be less likely to commit such heinous crimes.
I once took an excursion to Reddit, and later HN. Unlimited up/down voting sucks when dealing with a hive-mind.
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0104114/
They pretty much walked us step by step how it works. Then built a story on that...
The best part is that it will soon (if not already) illegal for YOU to watch THEM. That is.. they can watch you but you can't watch them...
What would really happen is when police are sure you are a criminal they will accept losing their jobs to catch you. This means nothing would change. Evidence collected illegally must be tossed out, or they will continue to collect evidence that way. Ideally it would be tossed out and the officers responsible would be reprimanded or fired.
Washington State law has specific constitutional protections for privacy and audio/video recordings.
We were the state that doesn't allow GPS tracking without a warrant, no matter what the other states do.
So, don't believe the feds.
-- Tigger warning: This post may contain tiggers! --
They want the filming of the police openly with your phone to be illegal, but placing hidden cameras on private property to film civilians to be legal? Oh what a brave new world it is in this year of 1984.
I used to admire you guys for your Constitutional protections and strict rules on what the government can and can't do.
Now you're a bunch of pussies who accept this level of government intrusion. At every step, you're leading the charge into a surveillance society and Big Brother.
Now the rest of us are fucked.
Start using some of those guns you're so famous for. Your decline into a police state is appalling.
"CNET has learned that U.S. District Judge William Griesbach ruled that it was reasonable for Drug Enforcement Administration agents to enter rural property without permission -- and without a warrant -- to install multiple "covert digital surveillance cameras" in hopes of uncovering evidence that 30 to 40 marijuana plants were being grown."
"Two defendants in the case, Manuel Mendoza and Marco Magana of Green Bay, Wis., have been charged with federal drug crimes after DEA agent Steven Curran claimed to have discovered more than 1,000 marijuana plants grown on the property, and face possible life imprisonment and fines of up to $10 million."
Life in prison for growing plants, fuck our legal system.
I can work out for myself what the decision implies, thanks. I don't know to which TFS gives the bigger insult -- to the integrity of Slashdot, or to its readers' intelligence.
[Sir Garlon] is the marvellest knight that is now living, for he destroyeth many good knights, for he goeth invisible.
As the article explains: open fields, even when attached to homes, aren't normally covered by the 4th Amendment, because they're not in the plain-terms of the language. The 4th Amendment doesn't protect all property, but rather just the enumerated properties and spaces. Curtilage - the land immediately attached to a home - is sometimes covered, but separate fields such as these aren't.
The article itself is very odd. For example they open with:
Police are allowed in some circumstances to install hidden surveillance cameras on private property without obtaining a search warrant, a federal judge said yesterday.
[emphasis mine] Despite the fact that I can't find any reference to this in any of the quotes or any of the links in their article. In fact, the quote I can find in the article says:
"Placing a video camera in a location that allows law enforcement to record activities outside of a home and beyond protected curtilage does not violate the Fourth Amendment," Justice Department prosecutors James Santelle and William Lipscomb told Callahan.
My interpretation of this is that they think they can set up video cameras on public property to record activity on your personal property. Still not a great thing to have happen but not as bad as them installing something on your property without you knowing. Can anyone find where they explain further if the devices themselves were installed on the defendant's property?
My work here is dung.
The summary is blatantly biased.
Now I realize that many Slashdot readers are rusted-on libertarians, but let's at least try and maintain the illusion of impartiality?
How we differ: you're scared of boogeymen and think totalitarianism will keep you safe.
Because the needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few.
This, incidentally, is why we're supposed to have an impartial justice system. Because those that have been trespassed against cannot punish justly with a dispassionate view. It sucks that a maniac can blow up a building or emotionally scar a bunch of kids, but an all-seeing eye that intrudes upon 100% of the people to save considerably fewer victims is worse.
Actually...
A former Ottawa Hills police officer was sentenced to 10 years in prison Monday for the shooting of a motorcyclist during a May, 2009, traffic stop.
Thomas White, 27, was convicted May 14 in Lucas County Common Pleas Court of felonious assault with a gun specification for the shooting of Michael McCloskey, Jr. A jury deliberated for about six hours after a week-long trial before reaching a verdict.
Mr. McCloskey, 25, was paralyzed from the waist down after being shot in the back while stopped on his motorcycle at Indian Road and Central Avenue. The incident was recorded on the dashboard camera in White's patrol vehicle and played for the jury.
The fact is that bad cops are brought to justice. But don't let the fact's obscure your irrational hatred of authority.
Eh, it also sends and even stronger message that short term thinking and planning is paramount to keeping their job... and the person who has not been doing the job can always make up numbers about how they would have done it so much better. I do not think that making the 'now now now' society even more so is all that good of an idea.
I have something logical to offer, we know some things with Romney will get worse. Is that tradeoff worth it to everyone?
The judge had no choice. There was video of him cheating on his wife with a pig.
For all intensive purposes, "whom" is no longer a word. That begs the question, "who cares"?
How is this any different than if a police officer goes on to your property, roots around in your garbage can and finds that you're dealing crack or leading an underage prostitution ring? The evidence in the above cases would be thrown out because courts have consistently said that while the police can go through your garbage IF the can is at the curb, they cannot walk on to your property to get to it.
This seems to be the same thing. They came on to private property to search for evidence with the only difference being they used a camera instead of their hands.
We will bankrupt ourselves in the vain search for absolute security. -- Dwight D. Eisenhower
If a private citizen had trespassed on someone else's private property to install cameras and record others' activities on the property without their consent, they would be asked to destroy the recordings (including any copies) as a simple matter of restitution for the trespass. Police acting without a warrant are no different in this regard than any private citizen, and the information they collect through trespass should not be treated any differently just because they want to claim it as "evidence".
"The state is that great fiction by which everyone tries to live at the expense of everyone else." - Bastiat
I'm hardly a Romney fan, but the I would still answer unequivocally yes.
No. Romney is a Republican. Republicans have no problem destroying our Civil Liberties and taking away our Constitutional Rights for false wars (War on Drugs) and to legislate religious values (another violation of our Constitution) like forcing the hangups about gays as mentioned in this Iron Age book of myths (Bible) - and using Taxpayer Money to enforce religious values.
At least the Democrats are a bit more up front about ripping us off: "Yep, we're gonna tax you more to pay for this shit."
Reps: "Smaller government and no taxes!" Then they borrow and spend like drunken sailors on shore leave after a year at sea.
Dems: Cash and carry.
Reps: Borrow and spend. or have you forgotten (or the usual uninformed Fox News watching Republican) the complete mess the Republicans created from 2002 - 2008?!
THEY got us on this road to financial ruin!
I hope someone will soon put to the legal test the assertion that what this allows police to do without a warrant can be done by any citizen, including by any citizen towards the police. This may help to support the rights of citizens to record police officers while they are on duty. Hey, if any property that doesn't have a building on it is fair game for surveillance, by anyone, it opens up opportunity for all of the citizenry. Not saying I like this, but maybe there is a positive side to it.
Light cup, beer drink, thin so chain, neck turtle fat, man I won't say it again
America, rolled D20 for her Constitution. Alas, government has permanently cursed you, and now your Constitution is only a 4.
Read a bit of the SCOTUS decision on Oliver v. United States (1984) and tell me how this breaks new ground. I was getting my dander up, too, and then I realized this kind of thing was decided 28 years ago. If you want the cops to get a warrant, grow your MJ indoors or in the "curtilage" behind a tall fence (and hope they're not using aircraft).
"Who controls the past controls the future. Who controls the present controls the past." -- George Orwell
No, but at least the media would bitch about it and point every single instance out to blame Romney on. (Kind of like when gas was $2.50 and every day there were 5 new articles on how bad gas prices were. It reached $4+ and scant one or two articles for the whole month.)
Good effort, but I'm afraid it's going to go right over the head of the apologists.
"Somebody has to do something. It's just incredibly pathetic it has to be us."
--- Jerry Garcia
Wow, you found a rare instance. They getaway with murder all the time, they shot a guy I knew and killed him in a botched swat sting. Nothing happened to the cops, they were just disbanded and sent elsewhere.
A guy was shot here in merrit island about a month ago because the cops went to the wrong persons apartment and started banging on the door like crazy, the guy came to the door with a handgun and one of the cops unloaded on him... Nothings going to happen. Basically the cop is going to get a paid vacation.
U.S. Attorney James Santelle, who argued that warrantless surveillance cameras on private property "does not violate the Fourth Amendment."
Well, Mr. U.S. Attorney James Santelle, I'll be over at your house in a few minutes with my camera to start recording what you do on your property.
Telling me something doesn't exist because of a bureaucratic rule is stupid
No it isn't. Thought process now:
We can't (insert evil method here) because it won't be admissible.
Thought process without rule:
We might get a slap on the wrist for (insert evil method here) but we'll get the bad guy.
See the difference? Not having the "bureaucratic rule" in place is objectively favorable to (insert evil method here).
For all intensive purposes, "whom" is no longer a word. That begs the question, "who cares"?
Not to interrupt the flame war in progress, but these guys didn't own the land:
At least, according to the gubb-mint lawyers.
I don't know how this is different from having the police fly over in a plane to observe these guys.
>> but an all-seeing eye that intrudes upon 100% of the people to save considerably fewer victims is worse
I see where someone would feel that way, but I doubt that those who have been victims of violent crime would agree. If you are saying that by supporting your cause, I would be voluntarily help to create a situation where my family is less safe; then that is something that is a non-starter for me.
The extreme end of the social liberties spectrum does not seem to have any alternatives that still hold the safety of the community first and foremost.
Again, please enlighten me if I am missing the point here. And please address your comments to the questions I am asking in these two posts; I am very familiar with the arguments against internet control, surveillance, etc. Please do not restate what is on the pages of slashdot on nearly a daily basis.
Humor from a Genetically Molested Mind
Just like when a non police officer takes pictures of private property in "open air", it is not illegal for them to do so. This goes BOTH ways.
We can take pictures out in the public on private property, the same liberties are given to the police. (now this can be bad, with drones taking pictures and never "landing" on private property without a warrant)
But if the law goes one way, it goes the other.
And this is why we have warrants.
The question isn't whether or not police should be able to gather this kind of evidence ever, it's whether police should be able to gather it without a warrant. If you have enough evidence to convince a judge, then hey, you can go look. If you don't... why was that you thought you should be able to? It's a terribly high standard of oversite, but it does provide some check
First of all it wasn't even their land. Second it was farm fields away from the house. This was the equivalent of someone complaining about a lack of privacy in a shopping mall parking lot. I'm a pretty strong believer in supporting all 10 rights in the bill of rights, but this has nothing to do with that at all....
False equivalency. The Obama / Holder justice department has cracked down on pot 4 times as hard as Bush ever did, even conducting twice as many raids on medical marijuana facilities in 4 years than Bush did in 8. And this from the President that promised (as a candidate) to leave them alone.
"Somebody has to do something. It's just incredibly pathetic it has to be us."
--- Jerry Garcia
Wi-fi signal detector - $200
Scanning your property once a week for signals - 1 Hour
Finding a warrantless wi-fi camera and placing it in front of a continuous loop of hardcore German scat porn. - Priceless
Some things money can't buy. For everything else, there is the smug satisfaction of sticking it to the cops.
sudo make me a sandwich
Exception that proves the rule.
Interesting; I didn't catch that and I actually RTFA. So were Mendoza and Magana trespassing themselves?
Wearing pants should always be optional.
But people would probably listen to you a bit more if you explained how *communities* can both protect the rights of innocent people, as well as deal with potential threats to life and liberty.
This is a very strange question, as the article is about police actions in "the war on drugs", which is not a case of police dealing with a potential threat to life and liberty. It is, rather, a case of the police being a potential threat to life and liberty.
So first off, many if not most civil libertarians would agree that legalization of most drugs and medicalization of drug adiction would do a great deal to protect communities from abuse of power by police.
Then you go off on completely unrelated matters, to do with actual crimes--murder and child molestation--that have nothing whatsoever to do with the war on drugs. Again, this is weird. Why are you bringing these crimes up in this context? Have civil libertarianss been calling for repeal of laws againsts murder or child abuse? If so, where? I've seen civil libertarians argue for the protection of the legal rights of accused murderers or child abusers, but never seen them call for a repeal of the laws against such things.
That said, knowing who your neighbours are and being involved in your community are two of the biggest things you can do to protect yourself from the harms you seem concerned with.
The data are clear that greater police powers, longer sentences and harsher punishments do not generally result in lower crime rates, so obviously no one who cares about reducing crime would be advocating such things. More integrated communities of involved individuals do reduce crime, so that is the obvious place to start.
Blasphemy is a human right. Blasphemophobia kills.
Time to dig a moat around my entire property and fill it with angry, half-starved alligators.
Uh Oh! Cameras everywhere. Quick, how do I look?
First unarmed, then armed. Mission creep is too profitable to ignore
Well Obama wants more Government. The judge is a democrat. ROmeny for more state control. SO this would obiously would be overturned in another state. The idiots judges would be out of a job cause if Romney gets in you can almost be sure pot could be legalized in a state, same with imigration and other state matters enough with cookie cutter gov it allows for this BS. Romney Bush.
.... "Get the f*** out of my country you f***ing a**hole."
When you see a police badge you should assume that you are facing a criminal. Protect yourself by whatever means necessary.
"... 'open fields' are open game for law-enforcement and surveillance technology. Whether 'No Trespassing' signs are present or not, your private property is public for the law, with or without a warrant. What the police cannot do, their cameras can — without warrant or court oversight."
:P
Aren't you glad it is an Election Year and you can vote out all the long-term politicians? After all, they are the ones who are destroying the prinicipals and rights of the people in the Republic. Problem is most people will just re-elect them. So, at what point will it be too much for "We, The People" and a reboot of America happens?
Just curious, 50 days left.
Agrisea Tsunami - Epyc Servers... https://agrisea.net/products
New Flash!
Federal Court approves of installing cameras inside your house.
A warrant will only need to be obtained if you are seen doing something illegal inside your house.
Democrats? Cash and carry? Put down the crack pipe. They are cash, cash, cash, make it rain, cash, cash, cash, and oh yeah... more cash. And it all comes out of your pocket because you don't need it any more. We need to give it to these lazy good for nothing freeloaders over here who are our constituents, because we know how to take care of them better than they do themselves.
Both parties are to blame.
Exception that proves the rule.
So your argument is that 'Obama is bad, but the other guy is worse?' That's shitty and depressing.
how do those who vigorously defend civil liberties propose the community should protect themselves?
We have a constitutional amendment for that...
A well regulated militia being necessary to the security of a free state, the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed.
Every time I start to have faith in humanity, I ruin it by driving to work between 7 and 8 am.
Easy solution. Legalize drugs and the police will have no business snooping around open fields.
Can any of you who vigorously push for "freedom" tell me how your efforts will directly help to make things safer for my family?
Your children will become adults some day. If you care about their safety, you should ensure that they are not persecuted by their government for their personal life choices that don't harm anyone else. The only threat to your family discussed in the article is the police.
Give me Classic Slashdot or give me death!
If you can read this, you are in range.
'The tyrant will always find pretext for his tyranny.' - Aesop's Fables
No, life in prison for knowingly and deliberately being a [Jew, Hispanic, Muslim, Black, Homosexual, member of a political party that isn't Democrat or Republican]. The stupidity of the law doesn't change the illegality of breaking it. If you don't like the law, "fuck our legal" system is just a juvenile way of whining about it. If more people dislike the law than like the law, the next one will be redacted due to national security. If it isn't, well, [you are a minority, poor, not well connected] and them's the breaks.
No wonder why the world hates us.
#1 Put up 10 ft walls around your Property (With a Gate)
#2 Buy a gun (or 4)
#3 Make sure EVERYONE(even little johnny and little sarah) in your household knows how to use and maintain the weapon without endagering anyone it's not meant to.
#4 Make sure everyone in the family has an understanding of self defence and knows what to do in an "Ut-oh" situation.
#5 Pray that it's enough, because it is more safety and peace of mind than the government will EVER provide for you and in fact the government is more likely to take it all away.
Not very constructive.. But, then again, I am not in a constructive mood.
Just want to say this is shit in my opinion and before long our homes won't be out of bounds to this big brother police state mindset.
Where are my liberties? In the democratic toilet apparently...
1. Ignore victimless crimes
2. Foster a sense of self-responsibility. Many ways to do this; many societies have done it successfully (even some - GASP - religious societies have managed to do it; religion is harmless if the populace truly uses it for the good of society).
3. Assume innocence until guilt is proven.
4. Punish proven guilt according to the crime.
Not that that is even an exhaustive list.
Just remember. If the police are allowed to do something without a warrant, *SO IS ANYBODY ELSE*.
One last thing:
#6 Know your neighbors and know them well.
I was speaking on the subject in a general manner, not on this particular article.
The reason I brought up molestation and murder is that I believe that many of the things which civil libertarians push would result in more of this sort of crime happening. For instance, if true internet "freedom" was achieved, then the guy next door who might otherwise have been busted for downloading child pornography, will not to be found out to be a dangerous pedophile until after he gets *caught* molesting a child.
By making child pornography a "victim-less" offense (arguments for this have appear countless times on slashdot), you remove the opportunity to catch a pedophile *before* he ruins a child's life. The fact that he would have to break the law to satisfy his sexual proclivities sets up a character test - it shows that he values the gratification of his sexual desires over conforming to the law. It's a test.
There are many people out there who do not like a particular law, yet because they are a member of society, they obey it nonetheless. This fact alone says that there is something different about someone who is not able to resist temptation despite the risk to his life and liberty. They have already shown that, unlike a normal person, they are willing to break the law for their own purposes.
I want those people to be given opportunities to expose themselves - and if everyone's WiFi is unsecured (as many on this site argued the merits of in the last day), then there is no way to identify those with dangerous proclivities *before* they destroy others with them.
Humor from a Genetically Molested Mind
Two issues with your theoretical argument:
Children should not be armed. Therefore being properly armed as an adult can only serve as a punishment for the offender, not a preventative.
and
There is wide-spread misunderstanding of the last four words of your quote. I don't know about you, but I can tell you that my rights to protect myself (and my family) is severely infringed - just as soon as I leave my property.
Humor from a Genetically Molested Mind
Well, you move your community to a nanny state. Us true US patriots do not want the nanny state. We protect our family with common sense and intuition. If you can't tell that your neighbor is a child molester or a bomb collector, then you should be living in a nanny state. I, personally, can tell a lot by someone by just looking at them.
tl;dr: You trade safety if you want to live in a free society. It's always been that way.
PS: The sex offender registry is un-American and flies in the face of many constitutional rights. I have 3 daughters. I'm also proud to be a US patriot.
Some bad cops are brought to justice. Especially the ones whose incidents can't be spun into something noble or righteous, or just swept under the table.
Not all cops are bad people, but it's a far cry to say that all or even most bad cops are actually brought to justice for their massive perversion of the law.
One exception doesn't prove the rule. It doesn't take long to find many examples of obvious situations where a cop should be in jail but never makes it that far.
????
Dude. Obama was elected in November 2008, and took office on schedule in early 2009.
Personally, I'm fine with laws that enforce seatbelt usage, but there is a line to be drawn. The potential for abuse for such a system is just too great.
Losing human life is tragic, but losing a part of your own life due to the liberties taken away by surveillance can potentially add up to more than a single human life lost. Quality of life is important when considering that a life was saved. On the extreme end, saving a life only to have them in a persistent vegetative state is not a net gain. Being constantly surveilled is way further down on the spectrum, but it does reduce quality of life. I'd rather be free and lose a couple years of my life than to live long as a slave.
By the way, if you watch TV, there's a show on now called Person of Interest that follows the story of a computer system equivalent of an all-seeing eye. The number of safeguards it had to have in order to be ethical were unbelievable. In this story, the computer basically doesn't allow root access to anyone - it's a locked black box that processes the data and makes decisions from that.
And even on top of that, in the case of the war on drugs, what's so hard about getting a warrant for those cameras?
U.S. district judge sided with the Justice Department to rule that it was reasonable for DEA agents to enter a property without permission or a warrant to install multiple “covert digital surveillance cameras.”
The Justice department...
The Department is led by the Attorney General, who is nominated by the President and confirmed by the Senate and is a member of the Cabinet. The current Attorney General is Eric Holder.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Department_of_Justice There would be no case here if the Obama administration had not brought one. Not defending republicans here, they are just as bad as democrats. But seriously, stop defending them like they were a friend of the people.
I should have made it more clear in the post you replied to that I was not specifically referencing the article. So, with that in mind, can you address my post again? Remember, I'm looking for concrete answers, not theoretical generalities.
I think it is a given that parents should strive to make sure their children are good citizens and do knowingly harm others. Nothing I said is referencing that - it is about OTHER people. How do I protect my family (within the framework of the changes you would like to see in the laws) proactively? And I mean without moving my family into the wilderness or otherwise removing them from society.
I understand that there is no way to guarantee the safety of anyone, but there is such a thing as making sure that the odds favor life and safety - and not the opposite.
Humor from a Genetically Molested Mind
My goal is to have a safe environment for myself and my family to live in.
This is my goal as well. I want your family, and every family to be secure against abuses of power by police.
I'd like to think that the other side cares enough about my family (even if only in the abstract) that they would not push their ideas without thought to how it would negatively affect people.
I would too. Have you thought about how allowing the police to walk through my property without a warrant or any sort of probable cause might negatively affect my safety?
I am not willing to trade abstract ideas of freedom for the lives of my family.
I think you already are making such a trade. Specifically, you're exchanging the security of your family against government aggression for the authoritarian ideal that law is right because its the law and every law breaker is a bad person.
In my experience, I have found very few instances where an individual vehemently was against a particular law, when they were not already breaking that law, or intended to. I would like to protect my family from these people.
Why do you assume that because someone is breaking a law that they are a threat to your family?
Give me Classic Slashdot or give me death!
And that has what exactly to do with the topic at hand?
Why would it be destroyed. You better cite something to make that point. I think there is something that says that if a criminal discovers something during a crime it can be used. Only police are excluded.
-- I ignore anonymous replies to my comments and postings.
Everyone wants to video tape cops, but no one wants to be video taped, themselves. This is an especially rare moment, when I'll point out society's own hypocrisy.
Philosophies aside, the point remains: People want to be allowed to point a video camera at whatever they want, including cops, but they don't want to be subject to the same scrutiny as private civilian citizens. Mostly it's silly to me because, if cops aren't permitted to police the use of cameras on themselves, then how can they police a private citizen using a camera to record another private citizen? Does that make sense?
Considering that Romney adamantly follows a religion which considers caffeine to be intolerable.
I live in Illinois, which is a 2-party state when it comes to AUDIO recording. Which means both the recorder AND the recordee must be aware a recording is taking place.
Let's say these cameras have microphones. And since these cameras are placed WITHOUT a warrant, the police get no special protection (ability to wiretap). So would the cops be guilty of wiretapping by recording audio without my consent without a warrant?
With the first link, the chain is forged.
So, my three year old son should be hidden behind walls and trained in the use of firearms. And this is preferable than the proactive identification of likely threats?
I think that if this is the outcome of your side "winning" the debate; I don't see the value in that outcome.
Please give me something I can use; the occasional inconvenience to the innocent person is not enough for me to vote for the removal of every law and method of detection that serves as a tripwire to identify those who value their own aberrant desires over that of the safety of the innocent.
Not to interrupt the flame war in progress, but these guys didn't own the land:
At least, according to the gubb-mint lawyers.
I don't know how this is different from having the police fly over in a plane to observe these guys.
From TFA:
That being said, courts have usually said that the 4th Amendment only applies where there is a reasonable expectation of privacy. Typically that means nothing done outdoors is considered private.
Cheers,
Dave
They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither safety nor liberty.
Ben
Insert dogmatic thinking. Oh you've already done that. Sorry.
-- I ignore anonymous replies to my comments and postings.
1) Pedophiles feel that the creation and possession of child pornography is a victim-less crime; people who have children fall on the other side. Who gets to decide what is and is not a victim-less crime? And if the is agreement amongst the community that a particular law is needed to protect the community; what possible positive outcome would result in making the detection of those breaking that law impossible?
2) That sounds great, and I doubt anyone would disagree. But the defeat of the laws that are currently opposed by those on your side of things would not in any way bring that about. Thus, any such effort would only go towards removing the barriers to criminal behavior. Hope is not a plan. How would the defeat of a particular odious (to you) law make my family safer from those who intend evil upon the person of another? Without magic or wishful thinking. Any strategy that ignore human behavior will not get very far with me.
3) Again, a great principle. But if the person the state contends has committed horrible crimes against the community is able to leave the jurisdiction at will (because he has not been proven guilty), then I fail to see how that makes the world a safer place.
4) Again, we agree. But your contention in point #3 makes the process untenable.
I'm glad you're sticking with this discussion, despite the undeserved downmods. The concrete answer you want is "warrants".
How do I protect my family (within the framework of the changes you would like to see in the laws) proactively?
When you have evidence of wrong doing (actual wrong doing, not violation of sumptuary laws), you give that evidence to police who take it to a judge who signs a warrant.
Or do you mean "proactively" as in "fishing expedition"? If you do, my argument is that fishing expeditions make your family less safe. There are so many laws on the books that everyone is violating some of them. Any contact a citizen has with law enforcement has the potential to have very negative consequences for that citizen and his family. Remember, in the eyes of the police and our justice system, even a wrongful arrest and conviction is considered a win. The police are not your friends.
I understand that there is no way to guarantee the safety of anyone, but there is such a thing as making sure that the odds favor life and safety - and not the opposite.
Yes, there has to be a balance. If police were able to enter your property whenver they wanted, they would be a threat to your family. If police could never enter anyones property, then common criminals would be a greater threat than they are now. This is why we have warrants and rules for evidence.
Now I'll turn your question back around at you. How can I protect my family against abusive law enforcement, proactively? And I mean without moving my family into the wilderness or otherwise removing them from society.
Give me Classic Slashdot or give me death!
Of course the victims of violent crime wouldn't agree. Issues of public policy hurt some and help others. It's supposed to be a balance about helping the most while hurting the few. But those people would ask that all people, victims or otherwise, sacrifice their liberties so that a minority can feel safer.
You're operating under a premise that the safety of the community is first and foremost to society. It isn't. You propose that the extreme end of the social liberties spectrum doesn't do it, but it isn't today and the opposite end of a liberty-extreme doesn't do it either. A completely totalitarian society just shifts fear from a distributed, countable, but unknown, number of people into a distributed, countable, but only partially known and entirely unaccountable government.
In other words, your family may* be safe from being raped and murdered by strangers and having that horrific story in the paper, but they won't be safe from being raped and murdered by hired hands employed by appointees from a figurehead and their history will be erased and the paper will be censored from reporting about it.
* selection of the word "may" is deliberate. The Supreme Court ruled that the police have no specific duty to rescue you from crime.
I would welcome any workable solution that provides the psychic insight that you describe. Since no one has come up with a viable way to do that, I would prefer a system where there are laws that if broken, it helps identify potentially dangerous people before that potential is realized. This is what the laws against the possession of child pornography provide - an opportunity to identify those who consider the gratification of their sexual desires to be more important than not breaking a law. Remove those sorts of tests, and you lose the ability to *prevent* harm to the innocent.
As for the sex offender registry; you lose certain rights once you commit harm to others. No one gets on that list without being convicted (with representation and due process) of breaking a law. So, it seems that it is entirely voluntary whether to risk being put on that list.
I don't think it should be a secret if someone has been convicted of causing harm to another. Referencing the statistics on this page: http://bjs.ojp.usdoj.gov/index.cfm?ty=tp&tid=17
I don't think it is a good idea to remove the ability of the government to detect crimes which are proven to be precursors of more serious crimes. If it is agreed that the personal safety of the individual is the most important thing a government can work towards, then any moment which whose goal is to impair that process can be considered something which reduces the safety of the individual.
Owning a gun is sometimes the only protection against a single wolf; but in the world I see that would come about if you got what you want, there would be thousands of wolves - many of them invisible. I'm literally an expert shot, but I don't like my odds in that scenario.
It's countermeasure time! I'm thinking 1.2kW of microwave energy directed at a CCD will cause some interesting effects. Just design your emitter to emit a warning tone and then fry away.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Department_of_Justice There would be no case here if the Obama administration had not brought one..
Bullshit. This ruling isn't even between the DEA cops and the accused. This case is one to determine if the evidence is usable in court, nothing else. That means it is between the accused and the law, in this case Judge Griesbach. The two accused have not been found guilty yet, as far as I can tell. If you wish to be dogmatic and overly specific, at least aim your ire in the right direction.
The fact that he would have to break the law to satisfy his sexual proclivities sets up a character test - it shows that he values the gratification of his sexual desires over conforming to the law.
Everyone should value the gratification of their sexual desires over conforming to the law. What you shouldn't do is value the gratification of your sexual desires over the consent of your partner.
You could use this argument to support bans on interracial marriage, masturbation, anal sex, and adultery. Do you really think that if we passed a law against masturbation that every well adjusted citizen would stop masturbating? Do you think that every citizen who failed to resist the temptation to masturbate is too dangerous to walk the streets?
There are many people out there who do not like a particular law, yet because they are a member of society, they obey it nonetheless. This fact alone says that there is something different about someone who is not able to resist temptation despite the risk to his life and liberty. They have already shown that, unlike a normal person, they are willing to break the law for their own purposes.
When a law is unjust, a man of good character will break it. The only thing accomplished by abdicating your own conscience to the government is that you become a more effective tool for injustice. I could go on at length on this issue, but I think it would be more efficient all around if I just linked you to Thoreau's Civil Disobedience.
Give me Classic Slashdot or give me death!
I see where someone would feel that way, but I doubt that those who have been victims of violent crime would agree.
What about those who have been victims of mass incarceration?
The extreme end of the social liberties spectrum does not seem to have any alternatives that still hold the safety of the community first and foremost.
You're absolutely wrong on this. Safety of the community is absolutely the goal of social liberty. If you can be taken from your home and thrown in a cage for personal choices you've made that don't affect anyone else, how safe are you really?
Give me Classic Slashdot or give me death!
>> >>My goal is to have a safe environment for myself and my family to live in.
>> This is my goal as well. I want your family, and every family to be secure against abuses of power by police [reason.com].
Your answer does not address my concern at all. I do not differentiate whether harm befalls one of my loved one by whether they are with the police or not. I don't know what it is like where you live, but I assure you that while you can never guarantee the actions of anyone but yourself, the greater danger of physical harm to my family is not from the police. I cannot see the percentage in it for me or my family to concentrate on the extremely low chance that a police agency would cause physical harm to my family, over those who already have a track record of harming others.
There were 1,246,248 violent crime reported in the USA in 2010: http://www.fbi.gov/news/stories/2011/september/crime_091911/crime_091911
How many reports of PHYSICAL harm by the police against individuals who were complete bystanders were reported in 2010? And I mean that those who incurred harm by police after someone called the police on them should be excluded from that number. Because that is the scenario you seem to be describing. In my experience, cops on drop what they are doing and "infringe on someone" when a crime has been reported. I've never had a cop randomly come to my house and start looking for crimes. But I *have* been a victim of violent crime on more than one occasion. So, the level of threat you ascribe to the police is not something that I have seen in my near half century of living in the US (as well as other parts of the world).
Without depending on the spontaneous changing of human nature, how is hampering the ability of the police to prevent crimes going to reduce the number of violent crimes? That is my goal, if it is not yours, please drop the farce and just admit it that this is less important than some of your other goals.
Well, at least if this happened under Romney there would be more outcry from the left. As it stands, the left is sitting back and letting the current administration rape our civil liberties because it's our guy doing it.
Fuck you and your family.
What on earth are you talking about? The DEA is run by the Executive branch, the Justice Department is as well... This would not be a case at all, if the Obama administration had not already approved the agents to use the cameras and the justice department hadn't decided to present that evidence and argue for its constitutionality. If Obama thought this was wrong he could tell Eric Holder to drop this case, and it would have been over before it even got to the judge. Are you really that dedicated to your party that you're completely blind to reality?
I am not speaking of fishing expeditions. I mean specifically the decriminalization of behaviors that are clear indicators of the willingness and proclivity to commit harm against others. If society decides collectively that a particular behavior of one individual is a direct threat to the personal safety of other individuals; then I cannot see how the removal of law enforcement to detect that same behavior is constructive in any way.
If the downloading of child pornography is made to be undetectable, then there is no way to detect potentially dangerous pedophiles. There certainly may have been some instance where a pedophile had never downloaded child porn before molesting a child; but the overwhelming number of those convicted of molesting a child had previously engaged in a escalating pattern of behavior that ended with the offense against the person of a child. That and the egregiously high recidivism rate of those who assault children make identifying these people of paramount importance - if your highest goal is to prevent harm to the defenseless and innocent. If your goals are different in priority, it would make your arguments more applicable.
>> How can I protect my family against abusive law enforcement, proactively?
>> And I mean without moving my family into the wilderness or otherwise removing them from society.
There is no absolute protection from the actions other may choose to take; but you can play the percentages by doing what you can to restrict the ability of those who have already shown they are willing to harm others, while not restricting those whose job it is to make sure it doesn't happen.
I have had bullets wiz by me when I passed a crack house, but not yet when passing a police station. Would you have me ignore my life experience?
From the article, the private activity being spied upon was growing marijuana.
He effected a bored affect.
I don't see anyone here stopping you from wiring up your house with a bazillion cameras and putting it all on the interent for the world to watch and record and make it widely known. I don't think anyone would bother your family if they thought the whole world was watching. Maybe not foolproof but it would certainly reduce the chances of someone harming your family.
Just don't accidently wire up mine....
You HAVE taken this first step to protect your family that doesn't require the rest of us to change anything, RIGHT?
The question I have is, if the government agents in question had to engage in illegal trespassing in order to place the cameras, wouldn't any surveillance collected from such cameras be fruit of the poisonous tree?
Now, if they didn't have to trespass in order to place the cameras, it's a different story.
:(){
I recently sat through jury selection as a potential juror.
Both the prosecutor and the defense lawyer asked questions openly of us all. The defense lawyer also singled out any peace officers (Border Patrol, ICE and county Sheriffs as they stated) and asked them a very specific question--"Would you, as a peace officer, take the word of another officer over that of any other person?". All five answered that, yes, they would take the word of an officer over that of anyone else.
That, for me, was the American Justice system in a nutshell. At least they were honest about it. Doesn't mean I have to like it, but it pretty much reinforced my own opinion that as long as an officer is testifying, the accused will NOT get a fair trial. Everyone seems to accept the testimony of an officer as somehow more "truthful" when in reality they are people just like the rest of us and just as likely to lie when it suits them.
Interestingly, of the forty people being considered for that case, five were peace officers. With that many potential jurors being essentially employees "for the prosecution", I am beginning to think that peace officers should be kept off of juries out of respect for potential "conflicts of interests" and an apparently inherent bias that is admittedly present in these officers.
What it all boils down to, for me, is this--If it becomes a matter of your word against that of a peace officer, you lose by default, more so if a peace officer happens to be on the jury. That is NOT justice.
If your goal is to reduce the quanitative threat to life and liberty, then any focus on the police as opposed to the known criminal is not playing the percentages. It may be popular amongst some groups to celebrate bad behavior by the weakest of those appointed to protect us; but there are no numbers out there that show that removing the ability to track known offenders will help people to be safer overall. It simply does not make sense in the real world.
If I am choosing whether to vote on a law that would remove the ability to track known offenders, I'm certainly not going to let the specious theoretical risk of my municipality becoming police state stand in the way of stopping those who have already shown they are dangerous. How would that make sense?
Are those the odds you want to play with your loved ones? When it comes down to it, that's what you are asking people to rise up against.
So, with the rise in unmanned aerial vehicle systems, all with cameras taking video constantly, you private residence itself is subject to video recording, all the time...
you can play the percentages by doing what you can to restrict the ability of those who have already shown they are willing to harm others
That's exactly what I'm doing when I restrict the power of police. The police enforce the law, whether it's good or bad law. If it's bad law, it does harm and the police are willing to do that harm.
I have had bullets wiz by me when I passed a crack house, but not yet when passing a police station. Would you have me ignore my life experience?
And I've never been assaulted, but I'm threatened every time I encounter a cop. What's the difference between you and me? Nothing but a different choice of recreational activity.
Your arguments make sense if we can guarantee that there will never be any bad laws or bad cops. But we can't, and that's why we have privacy, freedom of expression, and due process. Yes, some bad people will do some bad things, but on the whole we come out ahead. There are no holocausts or purges in societies that jealously guard their civil liberties.
Give me Classic Slashdot or give me death!
How many people were killed under communist governments again? Give the authorities enough power and no oversight and people that have done no wrong will be come statistics. This SAF-T world that you seek doesn't exist, and things surely will get worse by giving a group absolute power.
My guess is you're a middle class white guy, try being a minority for a while and your rosy outlook on law enforcement may change.
The fact is that bad cops are brought to justice. But don't let the fact's obscure your irrational hatred of authority.
Irrational??
"What the American public doesn't know is what makes them the American public." -Ray Zalinsky (Tommy Boy)
>> When a law is unjust, a man of good character will break it.
Those are the words of a poet, and they sound good. I'm pretty sure that the laws that he was speaking of did not involve properly handling of violent offenders. So, you using his words as an argument against me (where I am only talking about crimes committed by one person against another) would not meet with Mr. Thoreau's approval. I was thoroughly taught all aspects of Mr. Thoreau's theories in school; I don't remember him turning a blind eye to the violent. Any citations to the contrary would be welcome. Although, it would be silly to think that anyone is going to let the words of a long-dead poet change their vote on laws which will with certainty create a more directly dangerous situation for their family and community.
>> Everyone should value the gratification of their sexual desires over conforming to the law.
"Everyone" would necessarily include adults who are neurologically able to only be fully gratified by the molestation of those unable to consent. Was this an omission on your part, or an inconvenient truth?
As for your arguments pertaining to masturbation and other forms of consensual behavior, even in places where it is illegal, it would not involve someone forcing this behavior on other unwilling persons. I cannot imagine that you are unable to discern the difference between laws that are aimed a stopping direct harm committed by one person against another and laws that seek to invade a person's private lives. I don't think that there should be laws restricting the actions of consensual adults in their relations with each other. But I do support the strict ban on child pornography. It has been shown, over and over again, that those who are willing to break the one law to gratify themselves, with break another. And if you want to leave your child with a previous offender to prove me wrong - well, go for it. I like to play the percentages where my family's safety is concerned. I'm guessing that when away from the internet, you do the same.
Your unfortunate problem is you only have your life experience to draw from. Take a year of to study history of law enforcement and the history of crime. You may learn it's impossible to prevent harm to the defenseless. You may also learn that giving any group power with no oversight and penalties for wrong doing will cause them to cause far more harm then they fix. Smoking weed isn't an indicator of how willing one is to commit a crime against another, along with any number of other 'crimes' as they are labeled these days. From everything you've said, it seems that you think that punishing 'thought crime' should be legal.
A lot of the things you are for and against sound great in theory, but not so much when it comes out that the person next door to you has been quietly collecting explosives for the last decade. Or has a long record of molesting children.
Without referencing the government or law enforcement; how is the individual going to protect themselves and their families against those who would do them harm? It seems that the only things you agree with are reactive, and not protective
Well I guess I've got civil libertarian trends, so I'll take a shot.
Cellphones to call 911 is the obvious answer but you're excluding law enforcement so I guess that's out. Past that I'd say door locks, dogs, and shotguns.
Why exactly are you excluding law enforcement? Because I believe in civil liberties? Please. I really do want the cops to bust down doors and catch the bad guys, but I want them to have a warrant to do so. We have checks and balances here for a reason. They can't throw a black hood over anyone they suspect, and I can't do anything illegal without being fined or getting thrown in jail. Yay social contract!
Also, why do you think the person next door has been collecting explosive? If you have a reason to suspect that, I imagine a judge would most certainly give out a search warrant.
If someone has a long record of molesting children... I imagine he's a convict of some sort and isn't allowed to be around kids. Short of killing him or keeping him in prison forever there's really no guaranteed solution of what to do with ex-cons. It's a known problem. He's probably on parole, but still, I wouldn't let your children go over there. What more do you want?
I'd rather prevent it from happening.
But tearing down civil liberties and giving the cops the authority to spy on you won't help with that. Cops are a reactionary force themselves. Someone calls them they respond. If they can arrest someone from the evidence left behind, you could say they prevented all sorts of future crimes the guy might have committed. Maybe, sorta, kinda. But the only time the cops are proactive is when they can hand out a ticket and collect a fine. You know, speeding tickets. Soooo, it appears that you're the one trying to beef up reactionary forces that will seek vengeance for your murdered family.
How is the individual going to protect themselves and their families against those who would (falsely) accuse them of wrong-doing? Because that's a subset of "do harm". Especially if they have the power to sic the cops on you and have them spy on you.
Does this square with your expectations?
I can't speak for Obama fans, but as a liberal, yes, this squares with my expectations—both Obama and Romney are authoritarians.
Thank you, Edward Snowden.
"Arguments from authority are worthless." —Carl Sagan
Could hardly be worse. Worth giving him a try.
That's probably the dumbest argument I've seen for a few weeks. The courts were deciding whether or not what the DEA was doing is illegal. The important part of that is the DEA works for the president. Something you would have learned in that civics class you want me to take.
So the judge is representing the government in this case? That's kind of odd.
In this instance, isn't it pretty simple? At the moment the pot grower forces someone to smoke pot against their will (the point at which an actual victim exists and there is at least some sort of reason to have a law) the involuntary smoker should pull out their gun and then either arrest the poisoner. (That word ought to tell you that the same strategies we use for draino, ought to work great for pot.) If the poisoner don't submit to the threat of violence, then shoot them repeatedly in the head and chest until they're dead, and then one or two more times just to make sure. Or if the victim is unarmed, run away. Or survive the ordeal somehow (good news: pot smoking won't kill you; it doesn't need nearly as much regulation as draino), but then go running to the cops and tell them what happened, after escape.
All reasonably-defined crimes involve some sort of interaction between people, where at least one of the parties hasn't consented. That's always going to open the door to some sort of traditional evidence-gathering (even if it's just a statement from the victim about what happened). As long as your laws aren't insane, you'll almost never need to invade innocent peoples' privacy in order to enforce them.
And let's remember: you can always break these possibly-over-restrictive rules, if you have a persuasive reason. Bounce your reason off a judge, just to get a basic sanity and fairness check. If you're not totally full of shit, the judge is going to say ok. The system has a way of handling exceptions; people thought of that centuries ago.
Interesting. How can the government legislate that you are not allowed to fence in your property? Is that a wild-west must allow cattle and livestock to graze on all open property and all open property must remain as open property sort of thing? Are you not even allowed to fence immediately around your domicile/curtilage?
There is the small problem that police officers, by definition of the job, mostly interact with scum. I'm pretty anti-cop, but it's hardly unusual that they think more highly of a "brother officer" than of some random member of the public (who will, for their own very good reasons, usually want to end any interaction with said officer as quickly as possible and by saying as little as possible).
This is pretty common across professions. I'm a doctor, and (e.g.) if another doctor tells me some patient is a drug seeker, I'm almost certainly going to believe them unless I have some serious reason to doubt them (it's her ex-husband, his former neighbor that he hates, etc.). By contrast, I'm expected by the DEA and my state medical board to be suspicious of patients and can get in significant trouble up to and including federal prison if I'm not sufficiently circumspect.
He can't be forced to quarter troops (eg agents of the government.) The argument that a surveillance camera is an extension of an officer of the law is how red light camera photos are being upheld. You could use the same argument against placing cameras on a person's property.
Interesting. How can the government legislate that you are not allowed to fence in your property?
Local ordinance; "fences must not extend beyond the back 3/4 of the structure to which they are attached."
Are you not even allowed to fence immediately around your domicile/curtilage?
I can fence my backyard, but not the front.
Is that a wild-west must allow cattle and livestock to graze on all open property and all open property must remain as open property sort of thing?
Ooh, interesting variable - hadn't considered that.. I know there are still places in TX and OK where "cattle drive" laws do still exist, so that is indeed a valid point! Kudos.
An enigma, wrapped in a riddle, shrouded in bacon and cheese
Safety of the community is absolutely the goal of social liberty. If you can be taken from your home and thrown in a cage for personal choices you've made that don't affect anyone else, how safe are you really?
You are not very safe at all, especially if you are, for example, caught distributing child pornography electonically. This may be one of the "personal choices you've made that don't affect anyone else", but you are still going to be thrown in jail for it, and rightfully so.
If you are a minority, you are still much more likely to be a victim of violence at the hands of another member of your minority than you are at the hands of the cops. This is the point he was making. If you think it is false, please try to find some statistics to back it up.
Yeah the individual judges on lower courts can say stuff like this:
"The Supreme Court has upheld the use of technology as a substitute for ordinary police surveillance," Callahan wrote.
but look at the grilling law enforcement got today from SCOTUS on just this very topic involving some 12 lbs of Merry Juana and a drug sniffing dog who was (legally) at the front door of the private residence. IT doesn't seem to be going so well for law enforcement.
Hey,. I have a idea. Why not have special rules for TERRORIST activity and any pot or dead bodies discovered are just inadmissible. Somewhere some part of what we have has to be made less than textbook perfect. Do you want that less than perfection to come at the cost of a terrorist attack, or a pot grower / criminal-->other and your civil liberties? I say let the criminal->other get away with it and nail the terrorist. It's not an easy decision but we don't get to pick and choose what we decide between.
Neat little trick you pulled there. Using the phrasing "if the Obama administration [...]" is a rhetorical slight of hand which allows you to attach Obama's name to a case he has, in all likelihood, never heard of, not even once. Obama thought nothing about this case because he's had exactly zero involvement in anyway. You think the President has time (or should take time) to consider every single case the goes across a Justice Department desk? If you actually understood US civics, you'd know that the President gives general guidance to the Justice Department about what cases to pursue.
There won't be any cameras left.
Of course there might also be traps set in the tall grass, of the sort which will
destroy the tendons of a fascist fuck who trespasses on my land.
Ohh, I can hardly wait, this is going to be FUN.
"There is the small problem that police officers, by definition of the job, mostly interact with scum."
It is not a small problem--it is a huge problem when we are being treated as "scum", as you put it. Because that is exactly what is happening--peace officers have to assume that everyone is the same scum and act accordingly.
You yourself state that you "have" to apply some measure of circumspection, yet I just witnessed 5 peace officers clearly state that they would not be doing so in the courtroom if they were assigned as jurors, that they would automatically believe another peace officer over anyone else. That is not circumspection, that is bias.
What I would have liked to hear was something along the lines of "I would apply what personal experience and wisdom I have acquired over the years to be impartial and fair.", but that isn't even remotely what they stated. Only one officer hesitated--the others were obviously secure in the idea that peace officers are more truthful then anyone else.
The same could be said about you--the only difference between you and your patients is an education, yet you are given the responsibility of judging truthfulness on the part of those same patients. What makes you more trust-worthy? I recently had a doctor lie to me (and my daughter) when he bluntly stated that the methamphetamine he wanted to prescribe my daughter was not addictive. So much for doctors being different (or more truthful) then the rest of us.
My point is that people do not really understand how much of a disadvantage defendants and suspects are subjected to when they enter the "Justice" system.
"they are just as bad as democrats"
See, I don't buy this. Whenever an (R) does something bad, it is incontrovertible proof that they are uniquely and wholly evil. When a (D) does something bad, both parties are the same and the other side is no better.
Start watching for this phenomenon, you'll begin to see it everywhere.
Shutting down free speech with violence isn't fighting fascism. It IS fascism!
I can't speak to your personal experience, but I do not agree at all. And I am not talking about "human life" as a abstraction. I'm talking about my family.
I really can't comment of that TV show; but I don't see how it is applicable in the real world.
Some people don't understand because they can't. Some people don't understand because they don't want to. Anachragnome doesn't want to understand your argument. Although there are a lot of liberal people here who think they are open minded, in truth most are just as dogmatic as arch republicans.
-- I ignore anonymous replies to my comments and postings.
Allow me to act the part of the brother officer, if you will, and suggest that the conversation you and that doctor had was possibly a product of differing definitions.
When most people ask, "is this addictive?", what they mean is, "will I become physically dependent on this medication?" or "will I become a junkie if I use this even once?". In that case, properly prescribed methamphetamine is actually a pretty low-risk drug. Further, most doctors are steeped in the logic of the DSM-IV, even if they're not psychiatrists. For that, see here and notice that "addiction" doesn't appear - there are substance abuse and dependence, but "addiction" is a popular term that doesn't really have a good home in medicine. There are all sorts of drugs that cause tolerance to their effects and physical withdrawal symptoms if abruptly stopped but that have no abuse liability because they won't get you high (drugs for high blood pressure are a great example - beta blockers, ACE inhibitors, angiotensin receptor blockers, clonidine all do it). Conversely, even a drug that could be abused is not necessarily "addictive" in the casual sense that many people mean - I've seen plenty of people who abused benzodiazepines (Xanax, Valium, etc.), but taking one or two here or there is harmless. I took one during a recent trip so I could sleep on a long flight. I didn't get high; I just went straight the hell to sleep and woke up six hours later.
In short, I suspect that the question being answered in the doctor's mind wasn't the one you asked in yours. That's not your fault - as you point out, we are supposed to be the experts - but I hope this helps explain it from the other side of the white coat.
I don't think doctors are more truthful than anyone else on a personal level, but the eternal fear of lawsuits is a strong discipline on professional misbehavior. That's one difference between us and cops: we are ultimately accountable to a system of which we are not a component part
Anyway, totally agree about our "justice" system. Tremendously biased in all the wrong ways - you know, you have to make quota on arrests, arresting white kids generates too much paperwork, so you arrest black kids, but not the hardcore thugs/gang members, because those guys are dangerous, just the dumb teenager smoking weed on the street because he thinks it looks cool. Screws up a lot of people's lives to have that sort of thing on their record - especially the people who are most likely to think that smoking weed in public is a cool idea, because blue-collar jobs often discriminate heavily against anyone with a substance record. (Except painting. Maybe the fumes make it better?)
Can any of you who vigorously push for "freedom" tell me how your efforts will directly help to make things safer for my family?
Why, yes... of course I can. If you want them protected, build a jail and throw them in there.
But don't ask me to do the same... my family will be quite all right unprotected.
Questions raise, answers kill. Raise questions to stay alive.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BART_Police_shooting_of_Oscar_Grant
Officer murdered an unarmed man who was face down and handcuffed. With dozens of cameras recording it. He served seven and a half months.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fatal_police_shooting_of_Joseph_Erin_Hamley
Officer murdered an unarmed handicapped man who was on the ground, again with multiple recordings. He served 54 days.
Doug Zerby (google it)
Summarily executed (shot 21 times) with no warning for holding up a garden hose.
Hell, half of this list is filled with officers either walking completely or serving minimal time: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_cases_of_police_brutality_in_the_United_States
"The worst part about the judges is that most of them are former prosecutors."
Isn't that a major conflict of interest. Well among the others, ie judges and lawyers in the same club(legal), guaranteeing more laws and decisions supporting laws regardless of common sense, etc.
You guys sometimes have good points and all; no one wants someone spying on them - right? But people would probably listen to you a bit more if you explained how *communities* can both protect the rights of innocent people, as well as deal with potential threats to life and liberty.
What matters: that communities protect us? Or that we are protected?
1. Learn how to handle yourself.
2. Get a gun, learn how to handle it, and keep it with you.
You've just done more to protect yourself than a community ever can, because when a "potential threat to life and liberty" reveals itself, an agent of the community is not likely to be at hand, but you will be.
Yes, it's far from foolproof -- if you're overwhelmed by surprise or by superior force, your gun won't help much -- but then, neither will some cop warrantlessly surveilling a drug operation, which seems to be what you're defending.
Bottom line: communities are damn near worthless at protecting you, and granting the state ludicrous warrantless police powers doesn't make them better at it.
I should have made it more clear in the post you replied to that I was not specifically referencing the article. So, with that in mind, can you address my post again? Remember, I'm looking for concrete answers, not theoretical generalities.
I think it is a given that parents should strive to make sure their children are good citizens and do knowingly harm others. Nothing I said is referencing that - it is about OTHER people. How do I protect my family (within the framework of the changes you would like to see in the laws) proactively? And I mean without moving my family into the wilderness or otherwise removing them from society.
I understand that there is no way to guarantee the safety of anyone, but there is such a thing as making sure that the odds favor life and safety - and not the opposite.
Freedom isn't necessarily safe.
The same concepts and ideals that allow you to spout off about how the crazies are determined to molest, torture and kill your babies includes the idea that one's personal space is sacrosanct. That's why we used to require warrants for searches and surveillance back in the soi-distant past.
Your family's safety is the responsibility of your family (one shared, hopefully, by your community), not society. Society's responsibility is preserving and protecting our way of life. It's failing miserably, thanks in no small part to selfish, frightened people like yourself and selfish, greedy "people" that make up the "security" (police/intelligence/military/prison, or as I like to call it, PIMP complex) infrastructure.
Why are you asking us to tell you how to keep your family safe? It seems to me like you're either trolling or have such an inflated ego that you think that we should all give up the liberty at the heart of the ideals our nation of laws was founded upon. When you use police techniques that violate the spirit, and often, the letter of our highest law, you risk the entire republic.
You say those who don't obey the law must be removed from society because they're eventually going to be a danger to that society (and what that really means is you think they might be a danger to you or your family, as you clearly have no respect for our society, or the ideals it was founded upon).
Our ideals (many of which are codified in the US constitution and its amendments) say that we have the right to be secure in our persons, homes and property; that negating that security may only be done when there is "probable cause" and that law enforcement must obtain consent (a warrant) from an impartial arbiter (a judge) to vet said "probable cause." They also say that we are innocent until proven guilty -- so that the burden of proof (and "probable cause") is on law enforcement to breach those security rights.
The fact that those rights have been slowly whittled down by unconstitutional legislation and a "law and order" (read fascist) judiciary, doesn't make those rights invalid. Rather it's our job as citizens, members of our communities and our society to police the police, so to speak.
Yes, the ideals of a nation of laws, upon which our society was founded, makes it harder for law enforcement to identify and hold accountable those who violate those laws. That's the price we have to pay to make our society work.
Protect your family. Do all you can to keep them safe. However, while setting up audio and video surveillance without due process may make you *feel* safer, it actually makes you less safe. That's because now you don't just have to worry about the law breakers, you have to worry about the law *enforcers* as well.
I welcome your comments.
No, no, you're not thinking; you're just being logical. --Niels Bohr
If the downloading of child pornography is made to be undetectable, then there is no way to detect potentially dangerous pedophiles. There certainly may have been some instance where a pedophile had never downloaded child porn before molesting a child; but the overwhelming number of those convicted of molesting a child had previously engaged in a escalating pattern of behavior that ended with the offense against the person of a child.
[emphasis added]
Citations please. Especially data on the percentage of those who have viewed (intentionally or unintentionally) CP that, at some point after that, actually molest a child.
No, no, you're not thinking; you're just being logical. --Niels Bohr
I was speaking on the subject in a general manner, not on this particular article.
The reason I brought up molestation and murder is that I believe that many of the things which civil libertarians push would result in more of this sort of crime happening. For instance, if true internet "freedom" was achieved, then the guy next door who might otherwise have been busted for downloading child pornography, will not to be found out to be a dangerous pedophile until after he gets *caught* molesting a child.
Except the guys who get busted for simple possession of CP (not distribution or production) mostly AREN'T "dangerous pedophiles". Often, they're the worst stereotype of basement-dwelling loners who are too asocial to get out where kids actually are.* The professional producers behind most of the content take ridiculously serious measures to avoid being caught, and as a result almost never get caught under possession laws, but only by infiltration efforts.
Since YOU'RE supporting criminalization of a victimless possession offense on the grounds that some portion of those offenders would, if not stopped, eventually commit a real crime against an innocent child, I think the burden of proof is on YOU to show that the futurecrime stopped is more than the portion of actual, ongoing CP production that could be stopped if consumers didn't have to hide from the law (which would make tracking and infiltrating the producers much easier). This point could go either way, but without evidence, the default is "no ban".
You'll also have to confront academic research (a good starting point would be Dr. Milton Diamond's review) which shows liberalization of porn laws and increased availability of porn correlates with decreased sexual violence, and that this also holds true (in the limited cases where it's been tried: Denmark, Japan, and the Czech Republic) for legalization of CP and reduction in child sexual abuse/molestation.
To recap:
1) The people your policy stops and the people you say you want to stop are largely, though not entirely, disjoint sets.
2) Your policy interferes with police work, possibly costing you more potentially stopped crimes than the intersection of sets in 1).
3) Everything we know empirically about the relationship of porn and crime says your policy is increasing child sex abuse.
So how's that "make things safer for my family"? Let me guess, you know intuitively that porn begets rape, and intuition trumps empiricism? Sorry, I'm going with science on this.
* Note that these people clearly do need help, and I'd not be unsympathetic to the idea of prohibiting CP to "catch" them, except that they don't get meaningful psychological help, and they do get a few years rubbing elbows with violent criminals (and possibly anal rape), which seems likely to increase their odds of committing an actual child-harming crime after they get out.
By making child pornography a "victim-less" offense (arguments for this have appear countless times on slashdot), you remove the opportunity to catch a pedophile *before* he ruins a child's life. The fact that he would have to break the law to satisfy his sexual proclivities sets up a character test - it shows that he values the gratification of his sexual desires over conforming to the law. It's a test.
There are many people out there who do not like a particular law, yet because they are a member of society, they obey it nonetheless. This fact alone says that there is something different about someone who is not able to resist temptation despite the risk to his life and liberty. They have already shown that, unlike a normal person, they are willing to break the law for their own purposes.
I break the speed limit sometimes, which shows that I value the gratification of my desires (significantly less strong than sexual de
..especially pertinent since TFA is, at its roots, about the DEA going after marijuana growers.
This is the administration that blew off the petition to legalize marijuana, after creating the system to petition them under the blatantly false promise that the people actually matter.
The difference between Bush and Obama is that when Bush did shit like this, the media crucified him, so Bush didnt pull shit like this very often.
"His name was James Damore."
FOr those of you that actually believe we live (U.S) is a free country, this shit has been going on since (really just carried over ) we broke off from the British Empire. Again same old crap, and voting does not do a damn thing to fix it. SO you want live and pretend you are in a free country and we stopped communism, we are communists, just becuase we do not fit the US governments interpretation of Russia's and China's rules, does not mean we avoided being a different or hybrid communism.
How do you propose the community protect themselves from those who (claim to) protect them?
"Cursed is he who rises early in the morning..." Isiah 5:11
Failing to put limits on the use of force by government agents does not make your family more safe. Quite the contrary. Government agents have the authority to use violence to accomplish their lawful tasks; This fact requires that they be bound by narrow limits on that authority and strict accountability for their use of that authority.
When you say that civil libertarians don't hold the safety of the community first and foremost, you are getting it exactly backwards because you fail to recognize the more serious threat to the safety of the community.
"Cursed is he who rises early in the morning..." Isiah 5:11
>> What about those who have been victims of mass incarceration?
No instance of this has happened in any community I have lived in during my lifetime. The theoretical possibility of the mass conviction of completely innocent people for child pornography or molestation does not justify my support of laws making it impossible to detect child pornography.
Unless you can point to specific instances, where in the last 20 years, this has happened in the United States. I will continue to support and argue for laws restricting the ability of pedophiles to gratify themselves in a consequence-free environment.
>> If you can be taken from your home and thrown in a cage for personal choices you've made that don't affect anyone else, how safe are you really?
There is no place where I have lived (and that includes ten US states and various places overseas) where the risk of this happening (by action of law enforcement) is even a tiny percentage of it happening by those who wish to hurt others. Do you really want me to ignore a lifetime of personal observation and experience for the specious risk that supporting laws that protect the whole from the diseased will bring about an Orwellian police state? I remind you that 1984 was a fictional novel - not an accurate report of actual happenings. While a compelling book (and one of my favorites), there was nothing in it that made me discard my common sense.
>> You HAVE taken this first step to protect your family that doesn't require the rest of us to change anything, RIGHT?
What changes am I asking for? I was specifically commenting on the "movement" by privacy advocates. SO, it seems to me that the ones asking for change should be willing to both justify their requests, as well as fully justify and explain how what they want is better.
SO, the burden is not on me.
Yeah, thanks for being honest. I suspect this is the real opinion of those who claim they want freedom - when they really just don't anyone every finding out about their * predilections*.
You're the only person talking about child pornography. I'm talking about the very real fact that we have over 2 million people in prison in this country. That's mass incarceration. We're not talking about a "specious risk". We live in that Orwellian police state. That's reality.
Give me Classic Slashdot or give me death!
What is this obsession you have with child pornography? You realize that prosecuting child pornography is a very, very small part of the business of law enforcement? Right?
Give me Classic Slashdot or give me death!
None of your answers really address my concern: The stripping away of the ability for law enforcement to detect aberrant behavior BEFORE it gets to the point of violence against another.
>> Also, why do you think the person next door has been collecting explosive?
I don't, but if the guy next door to me starts purchasing large amounts of explosives over the internet; I don't want to find out about it after he has used it. I want someone knocking on his door and asking questions. The same for pedophiles; it is rare in the extreme for an adult to molest a child and have that be his first illegal act relating to children. Remove the ability of the police to detect and track the downloading of child porn, and you then lose the early warning opportunity that a arrest for this behavior would provide. Considering the recidivism rate for this sort of offender, early identification of pedophiles is paramount - if protecting the sanctity of the individual is your first goal.
I am speaking directly to violent crime, and I come from the position where I would rather have it not happen, than there to be efficient processes *after* it happens.
I think that various "freedom for all" types actually just want their aberrant behavior either made to be legal, or to prevent police from detecting it. And they changes they want to bring about will necessarily make preventing crime of all sorts much more difficult. And they don't provide solutions to the issues facing non-aberrant people: how to protect their family from those who wish them harm.
So, I understand that you are trying to move this to a subject that you feel is a winner for you; but you are not addressing my point.
Yes, that seems to be the real agenda. This is why you guys never get anywhere; you wrap what you want in words like freedom and anti-censorship - but you just want to strip away any chance that any of your own aberrant behavior goes unnoticed.
All this would be fine if your goals were the same as non-aberrant persons - protecting yourself and your loved one from criminal violent behavior. But your goal of changing the world to suit *you* overrides that.
The dishonesty is what gets me - this is why you guys try to keep these discussions theoretical - because that is the only place in the US that has a police state - in your own minds.
As for protecting your own - I believe in that. I can easily protect my family from the wolf I know is there, but people like you want to bring about a situation where there are thousands of invisible wolves out there - all so that your * predilections* can be catered to.
Nice.
A gun is a great way to protect the integrity of your home. So, that's all you got? Have you really thought out what your personal desire to avoid scrutiny could bring about?
How is my owning a gun going to help if a couple of nuts in my kid's school decide to blow it up? Without the ability to tag in real time the ordering of quantities of bomb-making parts by police agencies, how could my owning a gun PREVENT my kid dying in a massacre at his school?
Why would you ask me to support your need to hide your currently-illegal behavior, when it directly impacts the safety of my children? When you say that police cannot generically sift through e-mail to detect known patterns that reliably predict violent behavior, is it because you don't want anyone to know about your she-male porn habit? Because, your need to keep your perversion from ever being even anonymously detected - it should result in removing the ability of the police to act proactively for ALL crimes?
That is the end result of the changes that people like yourself are fighting for. Well, I cannot support your preference for anonymity over the safety of my family. No matter the flowery words or dire warnings of a scary police state suddenly taking over.
Two issues with your theoretical argument:
Children should not be armed.
So you are going to allow your kids to go running around without parental guidance?
>> I welcome your comments
I doubt that.
All your flowery language will not distract me from the non-theoretical point: Your desire for anonymity does not give me reason to support changing EXISTING law. Yes, *I* am not the one asking for the current laws be changed - you are. Thus, even though you couch your arguments in lots of scary sounding words, you offer nothing for those whose goal is to live a happy life with their family.
I want you to be anonymous as well; but the way you want it to happen will strip away the ability of police agencies to prevent violent crime. For no other reason than your personal comfort.
Again, I am not the one asking that the current laws be changed - YOU and your ilk are. If you are honest in what you want, all you have to do is to convince the majority of the populace that the ability to keep illegal activities secret (to satisfy the needs of the aberrant) is more important than allowing police to detect and follow up on known patterns of behavior that reliably predict violent acts. Which won't get you very far - if you are honest.
Which is why we have all this talk of police states and people getting rounded up because they have the wrong eye color or whatever.
Fine, you have your goals. But don't expect the people whose personal goal is to live in peace and be safe from completely predictable violent acts to support you.
And people like you, ASD folks with odd habits and predilections; I'm sorry that there are things you do and needs you have that you'd rather not be known (even if it is only "known" in the macro sense), but you are a tiny minority. And what you want to CHANGE is at cross-purposes with the huge majority of people out there.
That's reality - unless you and yours are able to come up with a compromise that addresses the goals of both. Which is what I am asking you to provide. If you cannot provide anything other than vague warnings of the horrible things that *could* happen, even though it has not happened in the over 200 years this country has existed, then you are not going to get anywhere with thinking people.
Uhh.. Hey, dumbfuck -- 2002 - 2008 was Obama you idiot.
The irony! It burns!
And I have cows. They can try to put a camera on my place... but this is likely to happen:
A DEA officer stops at a ranch in Texas, and talks with an old rancher. He tells the rancher, “I need to inspect your ranch for illegally grown drugs.” The rancher says, “Okay, but do not go in that field over there,” as he points out the location. The DEA officer verbally explodes saying, “Mister, I have the authority of the Federal Government with me.” Reaching into his rear pants pocket, he removes his badge and proudly displays it to the rancher. “See this badge? This badge means I am allowed to go wherever I wish, on any land. No questions asked or answers given. Have I made myself clear? Do you understand?”
The rancher nods politely, apologizes, and goes about his chores.
A short time later, the old rancher hears loud screams and sees the DEA officer running for his life chased by the rancher’s big Santa Gertrudis bull! With every step the bull is gaining ground on the officer, and it seems likely that he’ll get gored before he reaches safety. The officer is clearly terrified. The rancher throws down his tools, runs to the fence and yells at the top of his lungs...
“Your badge. Show him your BADGE!”
=================
Unix is very user friendly, it's just picky about who its friends are.
You are trying to position me as someone who is asking for changes in existing law - which is not accurate in any way. I am specifically referring to the unending string of cherry picked stories showing existing law enforcement in the worst light possible; all in the purpose of trying to create a up swell of popular opinion designed to change current law.
So, most of what you wrote is entirely non-applicable to my question. The argument you chose to present is clearly something that you feel more comfortable with - but that's the problem, you feel more comfortable because it is relating to theory. As soon as the discussion turns to real-world outcomes of the CHANGES that you are your ilk are pushing for, all your arguments fall apart.
And while it is theoretically possible that a pedophile's first aberrant act might be to molest a child; what are the chances of that? That a particular individual is attracted to children is not, and should not be illegal. And no one has every been arrested for that. What they are arrested for is committing illegal acts to gratify that desire; which proves that they are willing to break the law to gratify their own abnormal needs. That is where it always starts.
By making child port legal, OR by removing the ability of police agencies to detect illegal behavior, you are creating a situation where a pedophile (who has already shown that he is willing to break the law for his own needs) will never be detected before they commit an outrageous crime against a child.
If the changes you want might possibly erode current circumstance; it is your responsibility to provide alternative ways of protecting people - as part of the proposal. None of this "just change it" and see what happens.
As for guns (your next argument), I have them and I am expert in their use. So this is a great way to protect my family in manner situations in my home. And many people on your political spectrum (I think I can assume you are not a conservative) vote in droves for politicians who believe that there should be no private gun ownership at all. So, when you vote for one of these guys, because you think that they will bring about the changes in the law you are asking for, they are also likely to support many other laws that will strip the ability of the individual to protect themselves - all the while, the changes YOU want will strip the ability of law enforcement to protect anyone on a proactive basis.
So, your personal goal of being completely free of anonymous notice, conflicts with my goal of maximizing the chances that my family will live long, happy lives.
I see no opportunity to bridge our goals, as they seem to be mutually exclusive - in practice. This is why I am asking that you provide alternatives that will allow us both to have what we want. So far, you have simply defended your wants with theoretical arguments, whereas you have yet to provide a known workable solution that satisfies both.
Without evidence to the contrary, I can only assume that you favor your wants, over my (and the massive majority of the community) needs.
I am not proposing changes to current law. The burden of proof falls on those who are proposing radical change. As far as I can see, there already exist avenues for addressing police abuses (which are incredibly rare compared to violent crime statistics). If you feel that those avenues are inadequate for your needs, then I submit that is still preferable to creating a dangerous environment for no other reason than to satisfy your need to have your actions unscrutinized.
I'm sorry, but your arguments only hold water in a theoretical world that does not exist. In the world I live in, the threat of violence from the police is minuscule compared to the threat of violence by other citizens.
The vast majority of violent crimes are committed by individuals who have a long record of being on the wrong side of the law. Certain types of likely future human behavior is extremely predictable based on past behavior; I am not willing to support any CHANGES in current law which make it easier for these people to remain undetected by police agencies.
You are responsible to present a path that meets both of goals - thus far, when prompted, none of the many people arguing your side have done so. It always ends with them finally admitting that my family's safety does not supersede their wants.
So, that seems to be that.
Humor from a Genetically Molested Mind
So your argument is that 'Obama is bad, but the other guy is worse?' That's shitty and depressing.
That's modern American politics...
"What the American public doesn't know is what makes them the American public." -Ray Zalinsky (Tommy Boy)
>> you are getting it exactly backwards because you fail to recognize the more serious threat to the safety of the communit
Based on my nearly 50 years of real-world experience, the most serious threat to my family is violent criminal behavior. So, you are trying to convince me that police being allowed to do their jobs represents a more direct threat to my family's safety?
I'm sorry, but extraordinary claims require extraordinary proof. What non-theoretical proof do you have that CURRENT law will have to be changed; where if it isn't, the people paid by the community to protect them will become the highest percentage threat of violence to law-abiding citizens?
Humor from a Genetically Molested Mind
My job makes it hard for me to accompany them to school. Part of what CURRENT law provides is a early warning system to detect patterns of behavior by deranged children. You know, like purchasing bomb parts over the internet and the like. Or like the processes that are CURRENTLY in place to allow schools the vetting process they need to make sure they don't hire pedophiles who have already run afoul of the law.
I personally believe that any teacher who wishes to, be allowed under their 2nd amendment rights to protect themselves and the children in their charge. I'm guessing that you might agree with that.
However, the people that you vote for are vehemently against this - and all gun rights. All because they say the right thing that makes it seem like they support your wishes.
They don't - liberalism only "works" (in a short term way) when the government can compel it's citizens to act against their and their family's best interests. This makes anyone who supports politicians who wish to move us towards socialism a bit of a fool, since your cry of freedom and anonymity is at cross-purposes of the only way of compelling the general public to behave in ways that defy normal human behavior.
I already know the knee-jerk propaganda reply to that, so why not actually think about the end result of your wants, and see for yourself how they would not meet the needs of the huge majority. Unless you think you can convince people that CURRENT law needs to be changed, and that the hamstringing of law enforcement to protect those who do not wish their predilections to be noticed, if even in an anonymous way, is a net benefit to the community.
So, that's all you have to do.
Humor from a Genetically Molested Mind
>> I welcome your comments
I doubt that.
Thank you for your comments. They're much appreciated. Hopefully we can have a productive discussion.
All your flowery language will not distract me from the non-theoretical point: Your desire for anonymity does not give me reason to support changing EXISTING law. Yes, *I* am not the one asking for the current laws be changed - you are. Thus, even though you couch your arguments in lots of scary sounding words, you offer nothing for those whose goal is to live a happy life with their family.
I never said I wanted to change existing laws. Please show me where I said that. The closest thing to changing laws in my post was:
The fact that those rights have been slowly whittled down by unconstitutional legislation and a "law and order" (read fascist) judiciary, doesn't make those rights invalid. Rather it's our job as citizens, members of our communities and our society to police the police, so to speak.
is there something wrong with wanting to preserve the constitutional rights and liberty that our ancestors risked their lives to create for themselves and bequeathed to us?
I want you to be anonymous as well; but the way you want it to happen will strip away the ability of police agencies to prevent violent crime. For no other reason than your personal comfort.
I'm not sure I mentioned anything about anonymity (you're the one who's posting as an AC) or my personal comfort. Nor was that implied. I'm not against law enforcement's ability to investigate crime. I'm against law enforcement (or anyone else, for that matter) violating our highest law (the constitution). Are you against the US constitution? Specific sections or amendments? What specifically do you think should be changed? There are mechanisms (the amendment process) to change the constitution. If Congress and 2/3 of the state legislatures say it needs to change, then we change it.
Again, I am not the one asking that the current laws be changed - YOU and your ilk are. If you are honest in what you want, all you have to do is to convince the majority of the populace that the ability to keep illegal activities secret (to satisfy the needs of the aberrant) is more important than allowing police to detect and follow up on known patterns of behavior that reliably predict violent acts. Which won't get you very far - if you are honest.
I'm not asking for current laws to be changed. I'm demanding that our government abide by our laws.
The constitution does not say that we have rights and liberties unless the police say otherwise. It sounds to me like you don't respect our system or our society. You certainly don't seem to understand (or just don't like) the concepts and ideals embodied in our Constitution.
Which is why we have all this talk of police states and people getting rounded up because they have the wrong eye color or whatever.
Fine, you have your goals. But don't expect the people whose personal goal is to live in peace and be safe from completely predictable violent acts to support you.
My goals include living a good life and doing so ethically and without harming or infringing on the rights of others as guaranteed by our highest law. Not sure what other goals you're referring to. I have career goals and life goals which really aren't any of your business. I have no desire to negatively impact anyone. I just feel strongly that we should hold those who have been given positions of trust and authority to the standards *explicitly* defined by our highest law. What's wrong with that?
And people like you, ASD folks with odd habits and predilections; I'm sorry that there are things you do and needs you have that you'd rather not be known (even if it is only "known" in the macro sense), but you are a tiny minority. And what you want to CH
No, no, you're not thinking; you're just being logical. --Niels Bohr
my concern: The stripping away of the ability for law enforcement to detect aberrant behavior BEFORE it gets to the point of violence against another.
Cops fundamentally don't do that. They don't do it now, and won't do it if we gave them all the authority in the world. Did you not read my 2nd to last paragraph?
if the guy next door to me starts purchasing large amounts of explosives over the internet
BAM, instant warrant. No problem. No need to give extra authority to cops.
The same for pedophiles
You know? I'm ok with people on parole for sexual crimes to have their internet logs double-checked by their parole officer. Ex-cons really do have less rights than the upstanding citizens.
Also: How is the individual going to protect themselves and their families against those who would (falsely) accuse them of wrong-doing?
A gun is a great way to protect the integrity of your home. So, that's all you got? Have you really thought out what your personal desire to avoid scrutiny could bring about?
How is my owning a gun going to help if a couple of nuts in my kid's school decide to blow it up? Without the ability to tag in real time the ordering of quantities of bomb-making parts by police agencies, how could my owning a gun PREVENT my kid dying in a massacre at his school?
It won't. Neither will Judge Dredd, much less a cop with whatever limits of authority you propose.
Proactive just DOESN'T WORK in law enforcement (in general), because there's too many innocent civilians with too diverse of behaviour, creating an insurmountable false-positive problem for IDing the enemy.
To use your example: Fertilizer in garden quantities is legal and many people have legitimate uses. A jerry can of diesel is legal and many people have legitimate uses. Hauling in anyone who purchases either or both for questioning means hauling in thousands of people gardening for each one plotting a bomb. Maybe we could live with the cost of this if it worked, but with so much noise to signal, there's just no feasible way to pick that one (who will also have a legitimate ostensible use) out of the crowd. And EVEN IF IT WORKED (say the cops are fucking psychics), it would only work until would-be school bombers heard about all the arrests from purchasing supplies, and decided to burgle garages and garden sheds for their ANFO supplies instead.
The only really effective ways to reduce crime involve reducing the incentive -- wfhether by directly reducing it, or adding a negative incentive deterrence. Don't know why some kid might WANT to blow up your school, but it's a safe bet it originates witth some mental health issue. Address that, or they'll just find a way to get past any hurdle you can impose to the crime itself. Of course, good luck having a teacher catch mental illness in one of thirty children -- parents have to be involved and seek treatment if their kid is abnormal....
On that note, if you care so much about the minuscule risk (literally million-to-one against) your kids getting blown up at school... stop passing the buck to the government, church, or whoever runs your school -- homeschooling's not just for religious nutbars. Then you can interpose yourself and your weapon (the only ones you can trust) between them and harm. Yes, that takes hard work, and difficult scheduling between your and your spouse's work hours, but it practically eliminates the risk, whereas the easy choice of handing more power to the police does fuck-all but make you FEEL safe because your kids' safety is someone else's problem. As a bonus, they'll even get a better education.
There's nothing particularly extraordinary about the notion that arming people and authorizing them to initiate the use of force in order to investigate crime is fraught with risk and the fourth amendment is not new law. The kind of surveillance state you are proposing is something recent technological developments make possible, not some long established fact of life that civil libertarians would like to undo.
"Cursed is he who rises early in the morning..." Isiah 5:11
You're misunderstanding him, as I suspect he wants you to.
He said most child molesters previously looked at kiddie porn; not most people who look at kiddie porn end up molesting kids. His statement is true, but doesn't support his thesis; what he wants you to misunderstand it as supports his thesis, but is not true.
Same as the gateway drug bullshit.
Most murderers have drank alcoholic beverages. But most people who drink do not end up murdering, so that's no argument for prohibition.
You'll also have to confront academic research (a good starting point would be Dr. Milton Diamond's review) which shows liberalization of porn laws and increased availability of porn correlates with decreased sexual violence, and that this also holds true (in the limited cases where it's been tried: Denmark, Japan, and the Czech Republic) for legalization of CP and reduction in child sexual abuse/molestation.
3) Everything we know empirically about the relationship of porn and crime says your policy is increasing child sex abuse.
I note you don't address this at all.
If you can't or won't face the science, and the "known workable solution" that worked in all three cases it's been tried, I see no point to continue this conversation.
You're misunderstanding him, as I suspect he wants you to.
He said most child molesters previously looked at kiddie porn; not most people who look at kiddie porn end up molesting kids. His statement is true, but doesn't support his thesis; what he wants you to misunderstand it as supports his thesis, but is not true.
Same as the gateway drug bullshit.
Most murderers have drank alcoholic beverages. But most people who drink do not end up murdering, so that's no argument for prohibition.
no. I don't misunderstand. I challenged the (I assume other) AC to provide citations for his ridiculous thesis. It's just scaremongering hogwash with no real data to back it up. Which is why we won't hear back from that particular AC with data, because he/she is wrong, just as you say.
Just to clarify my own point of view, I don't advocate for child porn. Every image or video represents the abuse of one or more children. There's no excuse for that. Those who abuse children (sexually or otherwise) should be vigorously prosecuted. However, prosecuting (and then branding for life as a dangerous predator) someone who inadvertently views child porn is wrong.
Even worse, is prosecuting people for having animated depictions or even prose fiction of such stuff.
I can't imagine what I would do if someone abused my child, but it would not be pretty. However, jailing people who stumble on a Traci Lords video online that was made when she was underage (having lied to the producers), is beyond stupid. Then there's the teenager who goes to prison for "possession of CP" and is forever branded a sexual predator because his (also teenage) girlfriend texted him raunchy photos of herself.
I don't have data, but I suspect (please correct me if I'm wrong) that the above are not edge cases where once in a while someone gets swept up in a much larger net of dangerous predators. It seems to me that the dangerous predators once in a while get caught in a much larger net of generally innocent people. It's Bass ackwards, I say.
No, no, you're not thinking; you're just being logical. --Niels Bohr
All this would be fine if your goals were the same as non-aberrant persons - protecting yourself and your loved one from criminal violent behavior. But your goal of changing the world to suit *you* overrides that.
...
As for protecting your own - I believe in that. I can easily protect my family from the wolf I know is there, but people like you want to bring about a situation where there are thousands of invisible wolves out there - all so that your * predilections* can be catered to.
Nice.
So the world is a violent place one needs constant protection to survive... is this what you think?
Let me guess... you live in US?
Questions raise, answers kill. Raise questions to stay alive.
Although this country has been on a downward slope since 911 regarding civil rights, privacy protections of the Constitution, among other things, there is no privacy outside of one's home, or even inside one's home if the windows are open/a window is open. As far as I know that has always been the case, i.e., even private property is not protected unless it's inside and behind closed doors, e.g., no right to privacy if your window is open and your actions are "in plain view."
You have to be almost blind to not notice the exact same behavior in the opposite direction. Observing your country's political fights from the outside, both sides appear almost exactly as bad.
You need to (try to) view things more objectively.
I DO NOT PROPOSE ANY CHANGES TO EXISTING LAW. There, maybe that will help your reading comprehension issue.
Humor from a Genetically Molested Mind
Orwellian? Really? So . . . how many of the 2 million people are completely innocent of the charges they were imprisoned for?
You know, when I vacuum my house I fill up my vacuum cleaner bag *really* quickly. However, my neighbor does not have this problem.
If I used what seems to be your logical process; I would be forced to conclude that either my bags were defective, or that my vacuum was defective.
Instead of the reality, which is that I am a fucking slob and my floor is just WAY dirtier than my neighbors.
So, maybe the numbers you are concerned about have more to do with the actions of the imprisoned people than with some defect in the the process. The cops don't just randomly show up and start arresting people - someone has to call them, a complaint must be filed. They have ample opportunities to present their case.
Just think for a moment - how many consecutive things have to go against someone to land them in prison. When at any point in the process you can stop the process by proving that ANY part of the process is wrong.
If all of this doesn't convince you - then I know what would: forcing you to live in a community inhabited by only those that you yourself (after careful vetting of the record) have concluded were imprisoned improperly. Lets see how fun your life is then. God, I wish I had the power to bring this about - it would be epic.
Just the expression on your face while your throat was being cut by one the animals you released - I would pay a lot to see that.
Humor from a Genetically Molested Mind
I am lower middle class, and at least half of my life I have lived in communities which were more than 50% minorities. And I am not speaking of other countries; I'm talking about the one I live in.
Since this was completely clear in my comments, I can only conclude that you are steering the conversation towards communist countries because you know that your arguments are more applicable there. This is intellectual cowardice.
Address my argument directly, or slink away like a coward. I'm not the one looking to change existing law - you are.
I personally think that you know you are wrong, and that the goals you are pursuing would NOT help the whole. I think you are pushing bad policy for selfish reasons.
Humor from a Genetically Molested Mind
I see that you cannot address my point without showing the dangerous flaws in your goals. This odious and universally hated crime is one of the best ways to show the REAL WORLD DAMAGE that the policies you push will directly facilitate. You, either argue that I'm wrong, and that the weakening of the ability of police agencies to detect this crime would not cause an increase in it - or argue how child pornography is a "victim-less" crime (which I'm guessing is your real opinion).
If you cannot defend your aims; maybe you should reconsider them. I *can* defend my opinion, if you can't - it means *something*.
Humor from a Genetically Molested Mind
I'm not talking about porn. At all. I am referring to a tiny subset of porn - child porn. Pornography that shows children in a sexual fashion.
Are you saying that you have access to statistics which show that those who molest children do not seek to access child pornography?
Please address this specific point, not the straw man argument that you *say* I am making.
I'd love to see how science supports the decriminalization of sexualizing children for no other reason than to gratify the sick needs of a tiny subset of the population.
Humor from a Genetically Molested Mind
Yes, as I stated, I live in the USA. If you don't, then you are not in the group of people I was referring my comments to. Even so, you again avoided following out the consequences of the changes you (not I) propose.
If you do live in a different country - then I would encourage any and all changes in laws that someone like you supports.
Humor from a Genetically Molested Mind
I see now that trying to get autistic people to think in real-life terms is not something that works in this sort of forum. It is certainly possible to (like you) construct a series of demonstrably correct statements that nonetheless are incorrect in total. That is one extremely reliable way to detect someone with ASD - their argument style is to pick at details, hoping to wear down the opponent. All the while concertedly avoiding arguing the actual point. (which in this case related to asking you to honestly consider the real-world results of something you want to change for everyone).
Each time you had the opportunity to discuss the real-world, you emotionally and reflexively swerved into the theoretical. It was an interesting study of aberrant mental processes; very helpful. Thanks for contributing.
My thesis is that as a society/country progresses in civility, that there is a proportional increase in the percentage of inhabitants who suffer from ASD spectrum disorders. This is caused by the increase in opportunity for those who only have the ability to function when protected by a stable class system, and there are ample ways that they can thrive without needing to be a generalist (like non-ASD people).
Of course this has consequences; as soon as you reach a tipping point to where there are enough brain-damaged people to affect how the nation is governed. Then there will be an erosion of whatever it was that led to the rise of the nation in the first place; as non-productive policies are put in place.
Then the nation falls. The protection that civilization provided to the weak-minded collapses, the ASD people shrink in numbers (due to the lack of ability to have the kind of all-around competence that living in chaos requires, as well as their impaired ability to collectively act in constructive ways) to the point where the whole is not dragged down by them anymore. Then the cycle repeats. And yes, I understand that ASD people are the ones who come up with great ideas and inventions. But what percentage of them? Based on my experience, about .01% of ASD people possess specialized skills that enhance their community in ways that keep it strong.
I don't why I'm telling you this; for you to even process this information, you would have to be able to have insight into both the NT and the ASD mind, as well as be willing to evaluate your own worth - not a likely skill for the ASD types out there.
Humor from a Genetically Molested Mind
Yes, as I stated, I live in the USA.
(So long for "the home of the brave"? My apologies, it is not malice... but I really can't resist to point out the growing distance between the ideals and the reality in post 9/11 US).
If you don't, then you are not in the group of people I was referring my comments to. Even so, you again avoided following out the consequences of the changes you (not I) propose.
Mate, for the first 20 years of my life, I grew in one of the East European countries under a communist regime. All the laws were crafted "to protect" the populace against "decadent and rotten capitalism", but I guarantee you that any law system crafted "to protect against X" (replace X with anything, really. Maybe "terrorism"?) will finish in the same sick state of total loss of liberty for the population.
Careful of what you wish for, your wish may be granted. You may finish in a situation in which you are "totally protected" but you are neither safe nor free - with the whole country acting as a jail (and that is the jail I was referring to in my original post).
BTW: I'm quite far from the libertarian mind set, but I concede them a point: freedom cannot be maintained without assuming a good deal of individual responsibility on one's life. Granted, exclusive individual responsibility is not sufficient (that's where I depart at high speed from libertarianism), but it is necessary.
If you do live in a different country - then I would encourage any and all changes in laws that someone like you supports.
So, what exactly makes US so different that it is impossible to achieve what other countries can?
Questions raise, answers kill. Raise questions to stay alive.
>> So, what exactly makes US so different that it is impossible to achieve what other countries can?
You are making an assumption. Other countries dragging themselves down into the cesspool provides great real-world examples of what not to do. Every time a country destroys itself because they decided they could re-invent the governmental wheel, it provides example that the sane can use against the insane in this country.
Ridiculous theories that remain not fully tested, can still influence the weak-minded. I fully support any governmental changes in other countries that do not reconcile *actual* human nature, as opposed to what they think it is (based on their own neurological disorders).
So, go for it. I wish you luck in your quest.
Humor from a Genetically Molested Mind
>> So, what exactly makes US so different that it is impossible to achieve what other countries can?
You are making an assumption.
Assumption which, in your view is...??? (my apologies, I couldn't read it between lines. As such, I can't confirm/adjust/refute your statement).
Other countries dragging themselves down into the cesspool provides great real-world examples of what not to do. Every time a country destroys itself because they decided they could re-invent the governmental wheel, it provides example that the sane can use against the insane in this country.
Is there a single "governmental wheel" - so that, once invented, any other attempts to do it again would be suboptimal?
What is sane and what is insane?
Ridiculous theories that remain not fully tested, can still influence the weak-minded. I fully support any governmental changes in other countries that do not reconcile *actual* human nature, as opposed to what they think it is (based on their own neurological disorders).
I really don't get what you mean by "reconciling actual human nature". What is the "actual human nature"?
Anyway, I have a recommendation for you: Liars and outliers. Speaking for myself, it didn't tell me anything new, but it surely put a good order in the concepts about the pragmatical approach to trust.
(I might be wrong, but... bluntly speaking... I think I detect in you an unbalanced reaction to trust in the human individuals and community, with quite strong reflection on your view about your own/family security... too scared, as it comes to me).
So, go for it. I wish you luck in your quest.
Thanks, I'm wishing the same to you... (again, my gut-feeling is that each of us think the other would need luck more than oneself. I find this an absolutely fascinating thing in life).
Questions raise, answers kill. Raise questions to stay alive.
My source is ars technica (which I quoted above, but got distracted and didn't paste in the URL):
That's at the bottom of the page.
It seems there's some confusion about this issue.
There seems to be some disagreement on this issue.
Whether or not the land was owned/leased seems to be mired in some uncertainty.
This makes sense to me, because if someone could see it in the course of their normal activities, it wouldn't be private anyway. The courts seem to think that what you do inside your own home with shades pulled is private, and that once you go out into the world, you are in public.
I'm not so concerned about this particular issue, because with the low cost and small size of cameras, it's inevitable they will proliferate, especially as wireless access improves. I'm waiting for the first pot field busted because the cops used an algorithm to search YouTube videos for accidental shots of other people's property where suspicious activity or plants could be seen.