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NYPD To Identify 'Deranged' Gunmen Through Internet Chatter
Hugh Pickens writes "Michael Wilson writes in the NY Times that top intelligence officials in the New York Police Department are looking for ways to target 'apolitical or deranged killers before they become active shooters' using techniques similar to those being used to spot terrorists' chatter online. The techniques would include 'cyber-searches of language that mass-casualty shooters have used in e-mails and Internet postings,' says Police Commissioner Raymond W. Kelly. 'The goal would be to identify the shooter in cyberspace, engage him there and intervene, possibly using an undercover to get close, and take him into custody or otherwise disrupt his plans.' There are also plans to send officers to Newtown and to scenes of other mass shootings to collect information says the department's chief spokesman Paul. J. Browne adding that potential tactics include creating an algorithm that would search online 'for terms used by active shooters in the past that may be an indicator of future intentions.' The NYPD's counter-terrorism division released a report last year, 'Active Shooter (PDF),' after studying 202 mass shooting incidents. 'So, we think this is another logical step,' says Kelly."
Beat that.
Seastead this.
what they should be doing is improving mental health services. Both the Colorado movie killer and Virginia Tech Killer had been identified with mental illness with red flags. A good system would have gotten them help. And for people that refuse mental health help there are only two options, institutionalization or they do what they want. There should be something like child protective services for people that refuse mental health help with red flags to keep track of them and make sure they get help.
Didn't the latest crazed gunman have almost no Internet presence at all? If this is just an excuse to more closely monitor people online, it's a pretty transparent one.
We have to sacrifice our rights and live in a police state, because that is the "price to protect us from three or four crazy lunatics that we'll never actually be able to protect society from, anyway" because it's going to "save so many innocent people (presumably, children)".
With this sort of math, we need to be sacrificing a lot more rights and liberties across the board for every other thing which results in more deaths than school shootings (in other words - EVERYTHING INCLUDING JAY WALKING). After all, if every life has a precious cost associated with its lost that is of such intense value to society that all of society must make sacrifices that are most "sacred" to the foundation and existence of our entire society (the Constitution), then why focus on the random unavoidable nutjobs that conduct "mass" shootings? What about seat-belts? What about parents who drink or smoke and put children at risk? What about mothers who bring questionable "step-dads" into the family? What about jay-walking? What about soda? What about sports? What about lighters, pocket knives, stairways, sidewalks, and bicycles?
If the important thing is the value of a life, then why is the life of someone shot by a nutjob more valuable than that of someone who is killed through any other accident or negligence or criminal act? Especially when those things happen far more frequently?
The secret key here is that: Yes, bad shit will happen to people and that is the cost of enjoying a free life and society. Bad shit doesn't go away just because government clamps down on society. The only thing lost there is your freedom. You *gain* nothing. And all in the effort to do the impossible -- protect every last human being from unpredictable freak occurrences. Crazy shit that pops out of the brush and happens. And it will always happen. And we will always be shocked (that's the nature of it being a FREAK occurrence).
I can guarantee you a great deal of safety and security. Just let me lock you in an underground bunker and control everything you consume and everything you do. It won't be enjoyable and it won't be a life worth having lived, but you'll probably live longer than being out in the big scary world with all sorts of awful things that can happen to you, including being t-boned in an intersection by a guy running a red-light or a nutjob in the office that loses his shit when he's fired and brings a firearm to work. :)