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When It Comes To Spy Gear, Many Police Ignore Public Records Laws
v3rgEz writes What should take precedence: State public records laws, or contractual agreements between local police, the FBI, and the privately owned Harris Corporation? That's the question being played out across the country, as agencies are strongly divided on releasing much information, if any, on how they're using Stingray technology to collect and monitor phone metadata without judicial oversight.
Illegal terms in a contract are null and void. Any contract requiring illegal activity is not a legal (enforceable) contract. It's sad that police are not experts on the law, it's worse that we have no way to force them to follow/obey the law.
Laws are for the little people.
Don't waste your vote! Vote for whoever you want, unless you live in a swing state it won't matter anyways
How does it feel? A lot of people love it. Particularly bootlicking authoritarians who stick up for the police no matter what. You see illogical, ignorant arguments like "If you have nothing to hide, you have nothing to fear!", "The police have hard jobs, so you must forgive them!", "They should've complied, and then the police wouldn't have used excessive force against them! It's all their fault that the police chose to use an unnecessary amount of force!", "Safety is more important than everyone's freedoms or the constitution, so even if these sweeping powers lead to abuses, I'm all for it as long as they keep us safe.", "A grand majority of police are good guys! Ignore all the so-called 'good cops' who don't take steps to stop the bad ones, and even participate in unconstitutional and unethical activities."
The excuses are truly endless.
This is real life - not Law & Order. The prosecutor can do little if he alienates the police and feds. To that end his ambition will ALWAYS trump the law or his oath.
"Just because they conflict with public record laws doesn't make the terms illegal."
That is *literally* what the word "illegal" means.
Your example is irrelevant because it is a conflict between to contracts, not a contract and a law.
police support the creation and advancement of police states. Also in other news, water is wet.
Nothing to see here folks.
The issue is not with the police, which more often than not support doing away with any pesky human rights and oversight which make it "harder" for them to do their jobs, but with the cowardly sheeple who empower them by happily give up their freedom every time some they hear someone say boo.
Yes terrorism is horrible, but lots of other risks in life are much more deadly, including gun culture, obesity and processed foods industry, poverty, insufficient vaccination and medical treatment, etc. And yet very little is done to address these other issues since steeples don't consider them as scary.
Strange that we were able to defeat the Nazi horrors without having to resort to creating our own police states, in which every citizen is monitored and they activity permanently archived.