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Boston Cops Go Undercover Online To Crack Down on Concerts
Boston Police, according to an article at Slate, are engaging in a strange use of social media to fight crime. Or at least, to stop raucous music from disturbing the city. As the Slate writer says, "While police departments have been using social media to investigate for years, its use in such seemingly trivial crimes would be rather chilling, if these efforts didn’t seem so laughably inept."
OK, I can see why cops go undercover to prevent murders and bank robberies and such, but to head off noise complaints? Is there some reason why simply to responding to noise complaints isn't enough? Are there no longer any murders, rapes, and robberies in Boston to investigate or prevent? What a waste.
Q: What does the "B." in Benoit B. Mandelbrot stand for? A: Benoit B. Mandelbrot
>"loud rock shows can, in fact, be a nuisance to neighbors, as many of the people who put the shows on will admit. "
Of course they are. In fact, to many people (myself included), such noise in a residential area is not a "trivial crime" at all. But why is it necessary to go undercover? Isn't it easier to wait for a noise complaint, then sent units over to wherever it is and start issuing tickets??
If you read the entire article, there's no proof that cops are going undercover. There's only proof that DIY show producers are paranoid. I'm more inclined to believe the latter.
Joseph Elwell.
I think the point is to stop the noise before it starts. Also, there's a reason why these things are kept to strict venues. You get a lot of young, dumb people in one place getting drunk/high and maybe doing dumb things. It's hard to set up checkpoints to check for drunk drivers, for example, when there's 20 little venues all playing.
Basically people in even small groups are known to do dumb stuff that requires a bit of oversight / public safety. It's like Mosh pits. When they first started there was an etiquette and nobody got hurt. Then dumb frat boys started showing up strung out on drugs and beating the crap out of people. No more mosh pits.
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I'm pleased that the Boston PD have a good, solid mission ahead of them. After all, you can only blow up so many Moonites before it just doesn't feel right any more.
Buffoons.
Hoist Number One and Number Six.
Both asking and answering a question in a single sentence; well done sir!
Slashdot social media options: AIM, ICQ, Yahoo, Jabber and Mobile Text. Why no MySpace?
So, let's get this straight: there's no proof that the police are connected to this, just a half-baked assumption based on someone's analysis of a couple two-sentence emails? And the messages aren't even very funny anyway... ("LOL, he used the word concert . What a loser! Must be a cop!")
Slashdot editors, you need to step up your game.
Seems the cops in Boston have a lot of free time these days. Time to save the city some money and reduce the police workforce a bit.
is all they need for most of these cars running around with the stereo playing so loud the trunk appears to be passing wind.
I'm now wondering what sort of live music scene there is in Boston. Sounds healthy if there's a lot of bands setting up on street corners or in parks.
A feeling of having made the same mistake before: Deja Foobar
I doubt cops need a warrant to friend you on Facebook and look through you profile. After all, you had to accept them as a friend. It is the equivalent of inviting a cop into your house and them noticing your pot stash on the living room table.
This. I don't think the story is accurate but sleep deprivation is used as a literal form of torture for good reason, and can have enormous effects on your health, memory, in a wide variety of areas. It's no laughing matter, no matter how much fun the cool kids are having. Wikipedia says:
Generally, sleep deprivation may result in:[5][6]
aching muscles[7]
confusion, memory lapses or loss[6][8]
depression[8]
hallucinations[8]
hand tremors[9]
headaches
malaise
sensitivity to cold
periorbital puffiness, commonly known as "bags under eyes" or eye bags
increased blood pressure[10][11]
increased stress hormone levels[11]
increased risk of diabetes[11]
increased risk of fibromyalgia[12]
irritability[5]
nystagmus (rapid involuntary rhythmic eye movement)[13]
obesity[11]
temper tantrums in children[5]
yawning[5]
symptoms similar to:
Attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD)[5]
Psychosis[14]
Boston PD, continually proving how batshit wacko a police department can be. They've caused a terrorist scare over a bunch of light-bright advertising signs, blown up their own "Department of Transportations" traffic monitors & have a well documented history of arresting/attacking people who legally videotape them.
There's no reason to go undercover or assign police to track social networking. There's already an early warning system for nuisance loud music -- it's called neighbors. If you get a call that someone is playing obnoxiously loud, that's the only clue you need.
It's not raucous if nobody is disturbed. If someone is disturbed, they'll say. What undercover work is necessary here?
Oliver's law of assumed responsibility: If you're seen fixing it, you will be blamed for breaking it.
...not for the cops engaging in pre-crime enforcement, but First Amendment violations related to the ordinance they passed. It's not a noise ordinance as others have been trying to make out, it's a fine for any gathering "which consitutes a violation of law OR [emphasis mine] creates a substantial disturbance of the quiet enjoyment of private or public property in a neighborhood. Behavior constituting a public nuisance includes but is not limited to excessive noise, obstruction of public ways by crowds or vehicles, illegal parking, the service of alcohol to underage persons, fights, and disturbances of the peace."
(note that "quiet enjoyment" is a term of art which doesn't refer specifically to noise)
It's overbroad, it's vague and it implicates the 1st amendment.
The police aren't going to show up and arrest you before you have your party - they're going to show up and tell you that if you have an illegal party, they're going to arrest you before if gets started. What counts as an "illegal" party will vary.
Socialism: a lie told by totalitarians and believed by fools.
It's much safer to use the spies and SWAT team on suburban white kids playing music!
That way you can pretend to be tough without actually being in danger!
Next up on Cops - shooting grandma's dog and throwing her to the floor looking for illegal Canadian pain killers!
Dude, headphones are insufficient (so you don't really go to sleep until you collapse) and they wake you up from the pain after a few hours.
You can't control your reactions to deep bass. It manipulates your body directly. That's why people use it in concerts. It also passes easily through fairly thick walls.
She was like chocolate when she drank... semi-sweet at first and then increasingly bitter.
Nothing new here, I went to college in Boston in the late 80s and both the music scene and the cops were doing the same thing, sans Facebook. The Ska scene was waning but bands like the Bosstones and Bim Skala Bim and Post-punk college bands like Scruffy the Cat and were playing house parties in Allston, Brighton, and Jamaica Plains and warehouse clubs like Paradise and The Rat. Cops were undercover trying to find and bust them for "noise violations" and underage drinking.
Same old same old in a college town... only reason this is news is that the cops are now flailing on Facebook to boot?
If you don't live in Boston then you wouldn't understand why we do the things we do. Have you ever gone driving on the Jamaicaway, walk around Berkley around 3:30pm on a Friday, tried talking to people on the street, parked at an inner city gas station that doesn't even have gas, getting a combo meal at Dunkin Donuts, used the Green Line, get a parking ticket in Beacon Hill for sitting in your car for 3 minutes, or done any of these delightful things in Boston? If you have then you know exactly what I'm talking about. Boston is the city of hate. Everyone from good old Tom Menino down to the foul-mouthed Red Sox fan knows that the primary objective is to maximize annoyance and dysfunction. The police wasting our time and money on this garbage so fits the profile of our fair city that nothing surprises me. If you disagree, then you've never been to the court house in Roxbury or the police station in Jamaica Plain. I can't see how any institutions could be managed worse. Remember the JP clerk that tampered with the evidence of thousands of drug cases? Eh, we'll forget about that. Instead let's try to chum up to some lousy Harvard/young person ideal by using Facebook to do everything. Remember, the crippling failures who are administering essential services in our city are utterly hopeless and need something to distract themselves with, otherwise they'd try to do their job and end up doing more damage. If you've never had a taste of this while living in Boston then clearly you're living under a rock or working for some very insular ultra-elitist academic cell. Say, dood, mind if I come ova to your office and tak about the Patriots? See what I mean?
They left out:
Kids need sleep as much as anyone, they just usually aren't doing anything important enough with their lives yet to miss it. Zing!
Hilarious would be if the officers could somehow apply for the permit for the organizers upon hearing of the event, have a judge sign off on it and show up to the event to scold organizers on not getting the permit, charge the process fees for the permit they processed for them before wishing everyone present a safe and fun night as they leave.
It would take being that renegade non-conformist type up a notch
Asking a 'victim' likely won't get you the most impartial answer, but then again, what is and is not trivial is a subjective matter to begin with. I do consider it trivial enough as to find it ridiculous that they might be using undercover cops to stop things such as this.
Filthy, filthy copyrapists!
Right, arrest you before you can make noise and disturb the peace... before any crime (er, infraction, more likely) is committed. So what someone needs to do is have all the setup for the "illegal party" -- except don't party. Just rig all the props. Then let's see what the cops have to say, not to mention the courts.
~REZ~ #43301. Who'd fake being me anyway?
Well since you have planned and invited many to your event, you have already conspired to commit a crime (which is a crime in itself) they could take you into custody right then. But they don't they let you know that if you do attempt to go forward with this event it will be shut down before it has a chance to happen and you will be arrested. We are not talking about your little party with your friends, we are talking about a full promoted event that serves alcohol without a license and has no age restrictions.
So if you go and announce to a bunch of people that you a putting on a big show just to trap the cops I really doubt your going to get a court to agree that they had no right to investigate and stop you.
Sorry, teleporters just kill you and then make a copy. A perfect, soul-less copy.
Celtics and Red Sox. I hate them. :P
Ant(Dude) @ Quality Foraged Links (AQFL.net) & The Ant Farm (antfarm.ma.cx / antfarm.home.dhs.org).
Well since you have planned and invited many to your event, you have already conspired to commit a crime
inviting people to my house is a crime now?
i spent five minutes thinking and all i got was this crappy sig