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Boston Police Stop Scanning Registration Plates, For Now
Ars Technica reports that after journalists gained access to a database readout showing a sample of the data gathered by the 14 registration plate scanners that had been in use by the Boston police and analyzed some of that data with embarrassing results, the police force has announced it will suspend use of the scanners indefinitely. Among other things, the data dump (which was not quite as thoroughly scrubbed as the police department had intended it to be) showed that a stolen motorcycle was detected by the cameras 59 times and red-flagged, but evidently no action was taken to recover it.
Hm.
A stolen motorcycle? Ain't nobody got time for that. Citizen, we have more important issues than a stolen motorcycle. Now, stop hitting my club with your head!
I could have told you that based on how they handle, or don't, the guys who go racing up and down the highway at 100+MPH and who obstruct highway traffic to do their tricks.
It's pathetic, not to mention a menace.
I do not ride a motorcycle, but I've had friends that do, and as they explained to me once, you can pretty easily avoid the police on one in a lot of situations.
From TFA:
One Harley Davidson motorcycle that had been reported stolen passed license plate scanners a total of 59 times between Oct. 19, 2012, and March 13, 2013. It was often recorded on sequential days or multiple times in a single day, all by the same scanner and almost always within the same half-hour span in the early evening.
The issue here is not cyclists driving like assholes.
The title of the ARS blog article does not say they will stop scanning plates. It says: Boston Police indefinitely suspends license plate reader program.
Suspending the LPR program doesn't mean all that much. Which program exactly? Are there any other programs that use LPR data? Will the cameras be turned off? Will the cameras be removed? Or, will the stolen vehicle reports be discontinued while the tracking database continues to be silently populated/
After all, the Boston Marathon bombing was only like yesterday. The citizenry of Boston must be protected. There still lots of use in that old saw to justify the "need" for LPR everywhere. After all, if you've done nothing wrong, why would this bother you?
No, it's cyclists getting their bikes stolen like assholes!
They sure do. Like preventing the Mooninites from bombing the subway.
Or closing down the entire city, costing untold billions of dollars is lost productivity, to fail to catch an unarmed, injured teenager. One that they had literally been flat-out told was planning a terrorist attack prior to said attack, but was entirely ignored until after they caught him and realized they'd been told to watch out for him. That's Boston Strong.
don't forget the time they shutdown the city over a sponge bob square pants lite brite.
Anyway the license plate scanners are not going to work. There was this news report about some precocious teens, taking a picture of the license plate of a teacher they did not like, printing it, pasting it over their own number plates and went through several red-light cameras and triggered a number of tickets for that poor teacher. So it ain't gonna work. Criminals are two steps ahead of the cops, they will easy mark some sap and pass the blame on them, use these cameras to create iron-clad alibi etc. Glad it is gone.
sed -e 's/Chuck Norris/Rajnikant/g' joke > fact
If the records were publicly available, people would see that the majority of stolen items/vehicles are not found unless they are in a vehicle stopped for a traffic violation or an actual stolen vehicle has been stopped. Last year there was a group of people that was stealing stuff out of peoples cards in a near by neighborhood. They pilfered stuff from cars for a month until they got pulled over because their inspection sticker expired. Successful criminals keep their cars clean, insured, up to date, and drive slow.
Having to work for a living is the root of all evil.
Why release any data not associated with a wanted vehicle? On the other hand, it seems like it could do a great job finding wanted vehicles... Stolen cars, Amber Alerts, bail jumpers, and wanted felons.. Only when you use it for misdemeanor offenses does it seem to suggest a civil liberties problem. (Say you get pulled over.. turns out your tags was incorrectly reported stolen.. the issue is cleared up and your tags are cleared from the watch list.. probable cause and no real harm done... ) A little law and order targeting felons is something most people can support.
The Ars T "story" is simply a re-hash of this (from the Boston Globe):
http://www.bostonglobe.com/metro/2013/12/14/boston-police-suspend-use-high-tech-licence-plate-readers-amid-privacy-concerns/B2hy9UIzC7KzebnGyQ0JNM/story.html
If you want news from today, you have to come back tomorrow.
It's even easier on a bicycle. You can hop fences while carrying one, cross woods, swamps, go on roads, sidewalks, through brush. Been there, done that, with cops behind me. A bicycle is pretty much the ultimate tool if you're trying to avoid a small amount of cops.
I seem to remember something about this same department rejecting GPS tracking for officers. Maybe they realized the system was watching them too.
http://boingboing.net/2009/01/06/naughty-speed-camera.html
http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2008/12/dont-like-speed-cameras-use-them-to-punk-your-enemies/
sed -e 's/Chuck Norris/Rajnikant/g' joke > fact
...is money. People, including the police, do what they are incited to do.
The police have very little incentive to go out of their way to recover a stolen bike. They get paid regardless. They DO have some incentive to ensure the safety of large businesses in their area, as a lot of their money depends on the economic conditions created by said businesses. Also, they have some incentive to enforce laws which ensure the continued wealth of already-wealthy people, largely under the same principle but also because such people tend to have a lot of political power and hence influence over the salaries and appointments of the upper echelons of the police force.
Stuff like this is only "embarrassing" because it has the effect of uniting enough not-so-rich people against the current establishment that replacements can actually be made.
These facts are reinforced by the response. Rather than fix the problem by ensuring that the officers do their jobs, they make the evidence go away. Such actions make it crystal-clear who the police serve.
what the problem with police ?
I think I like things the way they are--who knows why you're running from the police? Shooting an unarmed person in the back isn't justified. That simply begs to have corruption run wild. "But he ran!"
You don't think that's ripe for abuse? What happened to proportional force? A car is a deadly weapon if you run--a bicycle is not. I hope you rot in hell, you fascist pig.
They don't actually care about wanting to stop crime. They want to know where everybody is, comes from and went and whom they go to, so that anytime someone annoys them in some way, they have all the material they need to threaten them, "wouldn't want anyone to know" or "anything to happen to..." style, or destroy any credibility of someone testifying against them.
Save for the occasional lone beat-cop who's probably never going to make it past sergeant as a result of actually believing in 'to serve and protect' [and I have met many like this], most of the force is interested in keeping people paying tickets for small infractions and too afraid to act against the abuses dealt to them.
Knowing that a stolen car is driving right there twice a day is of no use to them at all. Knowing which motel a candidate likes to take his little boys to, that gives a bit of leverage.
Guilty until proven innocent!
Ah Boston PD, you show yet again how absolutely crazy you are. The saddest thing of all, suspect that lack of action in regards to stolen vehicles & and the insanely high (99.99%) false positive rate are not the reasons for their "suspending" of the program. All of those hits in the police employee parking lot that they'd rather not address is probably by the far the largest driving factor.
It should be a felony to run from the police, and police should be able to stop a felony in progress with deadly force. Then it'd be much easier to stop you on a bicycle.
In Australia if you run from the cops you stand a very good chance of going to jail under the following legislation , unless you have a very good defense lawyer and even then you are not going to get out of it cheaply. I would assume that many other countries have some sort of legislation like this in place. Of course the method of perusing and capturing a freeing person varies country to country and the police.
There ain't no such thing as proprietary standards only proprietary formats. Standards are by definition open.
Capturing a freeing person? Is that like recapturing slaves?
You'd be pretty fucking sorry if the authorities hadn't put a stop to the Mooninite invasion, pal.
Fucking alien-loving pinko
The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
The problem is that the hell our fascist friend is creating is right here on earth.
The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
Shut down everything
I think Boston is America's Madagascar.
DATABASE WOW WOW
Now look here citizen, you'd be really sorry if Sponge Bob Square pants really was out there bombing the subway! Now stop smearing your blood over my boot!
Excuse me, but please get off my Pennisetum Clandestinum, eh!
So if a cop shows up at the scene of a shooting and is shot by the "alleged suspect", they should die rather than return fire, in case the person shooting at them is innocent?
Learn to love Alaska
If you think a Harley (from TFA) can sustain 100 MPH.
"Anyone who [rips a CD] is probably engaging in copyright infringement." - David O. Carson
Technically it was a mooninite. *Much* more dangerous than a sponge.
I doubt women working on myfreecams lost productivity that day...
Or pursuing?
Who the hell suggested that? You suggested the use of deadly force out of proportion.
Yes, definitely. Because that is the logical conclusion of not executing suspects on sight. Brilliant work, you deserve a prize.
Nobody ever suggested shooting suspects on sight. Perhaps the reason you don't get it is because you knee jerks before you finish reading. Read slower and try again. If fleeing were a felony(and it is in some places) and police are authorized to use deadly force to stop a felony in progress (in some places they are), then a cop can use deadly force. Deadly force doesn't always mean shooting. Ramming a car is deadly force as well, and before even the relatively "safe" PIT maneuver is used, a clear danger is usually documented. The places with liberal deadly force rules often had the cases where a suspect fled and ended up killing someone, but the police couldn't have stopped the future crimes from the criminal without using escalated/deadly force.
Learn to love Alaska
The implication was that the cop should presume innocence, even if witnessing a crime in progress. I just extended that stupid idea a little.
Learn to love Alaska
If fleeing were a felony(and it is in some places)
Lots of things are felonies. Not paying my taxes is a felony. But I don't think it would be justified if I got shot while not paying them.
stopped the future crimes
Laugh Out Loud. I don't think any future crimes that a bike thief can be assumed to commit in the future if not stopped by all means necessary are worth killing him over.
Not paying my taxes is a felony.
False. Since you can't get simple things like that right, how can we believe anything else you say?
Learn to love Alaska
Attempt to evade or defeat tax - Any person who willfully attempts in any manner to evade or defeat any tax imposed by this title or the payment thereof shall, in addition to other penalties provided by law, be guilty of a felony
So there. Now, are you done wasting my fucking time with autistic quibblings over the law (please know that this is not a court and I don't give a shit if you are a lawyer; nor do I care if you can cite some other obscure law that claims otherwise)? Or would you like to continue propping up your quickly failing arguments by calling my credibility into question? Unless you were trying to to resort to legalism in a round-about way....
Also, I'd like to congratulate you on the most textbook example of an ad hominem that I've seen in months! Seriously, that was nice. Usually when people complain about that, it's not really ad hominem because what was actually said was "you're wrong, and that makes you an idiot", but you nailed it perfect with that "you're an idiot, so you're argument is wrong". Bravo.
So there. Now, are you done wasting my fucking time with autistic quibblings over the law
I'll make you a deal. You quit lying. I'll quit pointing it out.
Also, I'd like to congratulate you on the most textbook example of an ad hominem that I've seen in months!
Yes. Most people whine about one when it's just an insult. So rarely do people actually perform a real one. I couldn't let it pass on such an easy target.
Learn to love Alaska
You either know what was meant and have nothing more to say other than meaningless bullshit to evade the issue that you advanced a ridiculous proposal that cops shoot people in the backs; or you are a retard who has nothing more to say.
Either way, I think it's clear that this discussion is over. Go waste someone else's time.
Also note, being "able to" does not constitute a requirement.
Either way, I think it's clear that this discussion is over.
It never started. You thought my idea was stupid. When you enter into a "discussion" with that level of understanding and openness, it's *never* a "discussion." You are the one that killed the discussion by wasting my time. You just didn't expect that I'd be able to respond to your stupid and belittling non-sequitors in an intelligent and logical manner. And I'm wasting your time because you have on self control. You posted it, be responsible for it. Oh no, that's hard. Lets whine that the other guy is stupid and wasting my time.
If you took the time to think before you posted, you'd waste less time.
Learn to love Alaska