Posted by jhonovich 1 day ago
We can pay the regular fees that advertisers pay to have billboards up.
And if we're not allowed to do that, why is Flock?
second - five eyes (i think?) treaties allow tons of mass surveillance, the only rule is that you can't spy on your own country, but trading the data is above board
Again, I'm surprised by how many people don't realize that it's legal to film people in public.
That said, warrants protect law enforcement like searching someone's house. It seems that some less intrusive powers like running someone's plate has been given to the police with lower controls.
And it makes sense right? If every judge needed to approve every potential plate check, it might be too much for daily operations.
So option A, push towards everything being protected under warrants.
Sure, option B, how about protection mechanisms that sit somewhere in the middle? For example, what if some powers were audited (sounds like they are logged already) on a probabilistic basis. What if judges could inspect some fraction of searches after the fact, and ask for justification afterwards. Of course this would have no effect on the actual search, but it would have long term effects on future searches.
Even if 1% of lesser searches are audited, I'm sure most policemen would be much more weary about using them for personal matters like stalking women.
The other side of it, though, is enforcement, and to me this seems like what's mostly lacking. It remains to be seen what will happen with this case but the article mentions a variety of actions over a period of time
1. he tracked six separate people
2. he ran license plates for these people 140 times
2. he searched the database while off duty
3. he called the ex-boyfriend
4. he said "This is the only time I'm going to be nice about this" which pretty clearly is threatening statement
For this he was charged with. . . two Illinois class-3 felonies, which from what I see online means each charge can get you 2-5 years in prison. So he's looking at 10 years max, if he gets convicted with the charges as they stand.
What each individual misuse of the tracking was charged as a separate offense? What if the standard of proof for officer misconduct was drastically lowered, so that, for instance, they could be fired or incur significant financial penalties with a much quicker process? And if the full criminal process does go through, as far as I'm concerned, a police officer who misuses their position in this manner should probably be wearing an ankle monitor for the rest of their life and/or have to register in a manner similar to sex offenders. We are way too lenient with the punishments for misuse of authority.