Month: October 2015

Law Enforcement And Security Provision Are Separate Jobs

Whenever you make a critical statement about a police officer it’s only a matter of time before some neocon piece of shit wishes ill on you. “I hope a burglar breaks into your home and shoot your family!” “I hope a rapist rapes your wife and daughter in front of you!” “I hope you get into a car accident!” The implication is anybody critical of police deserves the consequences of not having police. It’s an implication that can only be made by people who have fell for an all too common trap: the assumption that law enforcement and security provision are the same.

To illustrate this fact let’s consider a scenario that frequently plays out on roadways: a car accident. I’m using this scenario, in part, because it’s one where all three common public safety personnel; fire fighters, ambulance crews, and police officers; respond. The primary task of fire fighters is the make the scene as safe as possible and to rescue any trapped occupants from vehicles. Ambulance crews are primarily concerned with the medical needs of the individuals involved in the accident. But the primary purpose of police is to determine who broke which laws so they can be cited.

In this scenario the fire fighters and ambulance crews are providing security services. Police are providing law enforcement services. The first two are primarily concerned with the wellbeing of the individuals involved in the accident whereas the last one is primarily concerned with the profits of the State.

Did one driver run a red light? Neither the fire fighters or ambulance crews concern themselves with such matters (and if they do they’re powerless to do anything about it). Police officers, on the other hand, care very much because running a red light is against the law and therefore a citation can be issued to the driver who did it. As a quick aside a byproduct of raising revenue is the generation of a report that insurance agencies will use to determine who was at fault and therefore liable (except in states like Minnesota that have no-fault insurance) but that’s not the primary task of the police and culpability an easily be determined by a party that isn’t a law enforcer.

When somebody speaks out against law enforcement they’re not usually speaking out against security provision. Unfortunately the two have been merged into a single job and this merger has existed long enough where a lot of people mistakenly believe they cannot exist separately. But we see the fact these two jobs are not dependent on one another everyday. In fact a lot of businesses hire security providers that aren’t law enforcers.

Consider a loss prevention specialist. Their job is to prevent the theft of goods. One way they often go about doing this is placing a guard at the front of a store. The guard serves two purposes: to be a psychological deterrent to thieves and to prevent thieves from leaving the building with stolen merchandise. Loss prevention specialists aren’t concerned with whether you pay your taxes, smoke cannabis, or otherwise break any laws.

Some businesses even hire armed security providers. These providers are generally tasked with protecting people and high value property. Armed security can often be found at high risk businesses such as banks or driving and guarding armored trucks filled with cash. A lot of hospitals also hire armed security personnel to, in part, escort doctors and nurses to their vehicles because their shifts often end at oh dark thirty, which is when the risk of being attacked is notably high. But again, the armed security providers aren’t concerned with whether you pirated music, violated the sugar tariff, or did some other unlawful activity.

If you’re unsure if a particular task falls under law enforcement or security let me give you a general rule of thumb. Tasks involving protecting people or property from harm generally fall under security whereas tasks involving the threat or use of force against people whose only crime is violating a government decree falls under law enforcement. The former can be done without the latter as demonstrated by the existence of fire fighters, medical personnel, and private security guards. That being the case it is possible to criticize law enforcement without criticizing security.

Only In A Socialist Paradise

A lot of soft socialists (my name for your typical socialist who is too timid to just go full socialist) cite Nordic countries as being a veritable paradise. Free healthcare! Free education! Free everything! All of this comes at a cost though. The most notable is positively brutal personal income tax rates. A lesser considered but more insidious cost is ridiculous economic controls. Where else but a socialist paradise could you find police being tasked with wielding State violence against people who sell pizza too cheaply?

The new campaign, which is being publicised on police social media accounts, asks people to inform officers if they spot a pizza on sale for under six euros (£4.50), national broadcaster Yle reports. “Unless a pizza is on temporary sale there is no way a legitimate establishment can offer pizza for less than six euros,” Det Insp Minna Immonen of the Uusimaa police department is quoted as saying. Police are trying to crack down on the “grey economy”, which costs the country millions of euros in lost tax revenue each year. They also want people to make sure they get a receipt for their pizzas, regardless of value.

There is no legitimate way an establishment can make a profit by selling pizza for less than six euros? Odd. I can think of many. Pizza can, for example, be used as a loss leader at an establishment that makes its real profit from alcohol or cannabis sales (I’m not sure if cannabis is even legal in most Nordic counties but their status as a veritable paradise leads me to believe it must be).

Even more interesting than the idiocy of tasking the police with enforcing this ridiculous restriction is the reason. According to the broadcast the State is merely protecting businesses from themselves (because, apparently, they’re too stupid to know how much they can sell a pizza for and still profit). But the real reason is the loss of plunder from taxes that aren’t stolen.

The cost of free shit is so high that a person can’t even sell a pizza for less than six euros because the State won’t get a big enough cut.

Police Shouldn’t Receive Special Treatment

Being a victim is all the rage these days. Because there is no real war on cops some officers have been posting sob stories of people acting rude to them in what appears to be a pathetic attempt to generate some sympathy. Not too long ago an office whined because a Dunkin’ Donuts employee wrote “#blacklivesmatter” on his coffee cup (which that was certainly unprofessional it was also so minor that I, were I in the officer’s position, would have entirely ignored it). A few days ago a police officer claimed he was told to leave Olive Garden because he was carrying a gun:

The staff at an Olive Garden in Kansas City asked a police officer to leave during his own birthday lunch on Sunday. According to KMBC, officer Michael Holsworth was waiting for his family to arrive at the restaurant, dressed in full uniform and with his gun because he was on duty. While he was sitting inside of the Olive Garden, a staff member allegedly asked him to leave, telling the officer they do “not allow guns inside the restaurant.”

The supposed actions of the Olive Garden employee aren’t really newsworthy to me. In fact they shouldn’t have been an issue to the officer since the employee was “just following orders.” What is newsworthy to me is the general sentiment amongst a lot of conservatives. To them the real problem isn’t the establishment haven’t a gun prohibition but that the gun prohibition was enforced against a man with a shiny liability shield pinned to his chest.

Police officers aren’t special and there’s no reason they should expect special treatment. If Olive Garden has a prohibition against carrying firearms in the restaurant then there is no reason an officer should expect to be exempt from it. There is also no reason anybody else should expect officers to be exempt from it. Enforcing the prohibition against an officer is no different than enforcing it against anybody else.

A large contributor to the breakdown of trust in police officers is the immense amount special treatment they enjoy. When they unlawfully shoot somebody it’s not uncommon for them to be fired and receive no further punishment whereas an average individual will usually find themselves in prison. Officers can kidnap people without facing charges even if the kidnapping is later found to be unwarranted by a court. Civil forfeiture laws allow officers to confiscate anybody’s property so long as they can explain why they thought it could be involved in some way to a drug crime.

Conservatives have been decrying the public’s dwindling trust in law enforcement officers and their response has basically been to get on their hands and knees and lick the boots of officers. That is not an effective way to address the problem. And every instance of outrage over rules being applied to police officers specifically just further erodes the public’s trust.

Libertarianism: Simultaneously Impotent And The Most Dangerous Force On Earth

The best thing about being a libertarian is that you’re simultaneously accused of being completely impotent and the most dangerous force on Earth. Making the situation even better is the fact libertarianism is often blamed for things it has absolutely no part in. Take this recent article by statist economic stooge Will Hutton:

Yet there is a parallel collapse in the economic order that is less conspicuous: the hundreds of billions of dollars fleeing emerging economies, from Brazil to China, don’t come with images of women and children on capsizing boats. Nor do banks that have lent trillions that will never be repaid post gruesome videos. However, this collapse threatens our liberal universe as much as certain responses to the refugees. Capital flight and bank fragility are profound dysfunctions in the way the global economy is now organised that will surface as real-world economic dislocation.

The IMF is profoundly concerned, warning at last week’s annual meeting in Peru of $3tn (£1.95tn) of excess credit globally and weakening global economic growth. But while it knows there needs to be an international co-ordinated response, no progress is likely. The grip of libertarian, anti-state philosophies on the dominant Anglo-Saxon political right in the US and UK makes such intervention as probable as a Middle East settlement. Order is crumbling all around and the forces that might save it are politically weak and intellectually ineffective.

We’re seeing signs of the very economic turmoil libertarians have been warning about for decades. This turmoil is the result of unsound monetary practices, namely the reliance on debt instead of wealth for economic activity between nations. No matter how much evidence libertarians point to or how loudly libertarians scream the statists seem entirely unwilling to adjust their monetary policies. Instead they continue trying the same thing — only harder.

So who’s to blame for the current turmoil? Libertarians, of course!

There’s so much to laugh at in this article but the insinuation that libertarian, anti-state philosophies have any kind of old on the political right of the United States (US) or United Kingdoms (UK) is a real gut buster. The political right and left can best be defined as anti-libertarianism. Libertarianism is about individual empowerment at the expense of state power. Strong centralized militaries, militarized domestic police forces, national surveillance apparatuses, fortress-like borders, fiat currency, and other such nonsense the political right has a raging hard-on for are anti-libertarian in nature. Likewise the redistribution of wealth, heavy-handed market controls, widespread censorship, restrictions on voluntary association, almost zealous opposition to self-defense, and other politically left ideas are equally anti-libertarian in nature.

The economic philosophies, which Mr. Hutton claims to be libertarian, of both the US and UK are entirely statist in nature. Libertarians advocate for wealth-based currencies, usually in the form of gold or silver backed warehouse receipts, whereas the US and UK both use fiat currencies that are backed by little more than each nation’s respective capacity for violence against anybody who doesn’t recognize their full faith and credit. Debt, the US and UK’s preferred excuse for printing more worthless paper, is the antithesis of libertarianism’s advocacy of spending within one’s means.

The current economic turmoil is the result of authoritarian, pro-state philosophies. If libertarianism actually had a grip on these nations we almost certainly wouldn’t be facing this economic crisis.

But, of course, libertarianism is the boogeyman of statists everywhere so it must be blamed for all things, whether or not those accusations make sense.

Assange Wins The Waiting Game

After spending three years effectively imprisoning Julian Assange in the Ecuadorian embassy the British police, after spending £11.1 million, have finally called it quits:

Scotland Yard has called off its multimillion pound 24-hour surveillance of the Ecuadorian embassy where Julian Assange has been living for 40 months, having decided the operation is “no longer proportionate”.

The WikiLeaks founder, an Australian national, sought political asylum at the embassy in June 2012 to avoid extradition to Sweden, where prosecutors want to question him over rape allegations. In August they dropped their investigation into two other claims – one of sexual molestation and one of unlawful coercion – because they ran out of time to question him.

Metropolitan police officers have maintained a constant watch of the embassy in Knightsbridge, central London, at a cost of at least £11.1m, according to figures released by Scotland Yard in June.

This doesn’t mean Assange is a free man. British police have stated that they will arrest him if he leaves the embassy. But it’s nice to know that even the State has limits to how much money it’s willing to spend to nab one man whose only crime is leaking its dirty secrets (the rape allegation, due to the lack of any formal charges, still seems more like a play to get Assange into the State’s hands then a concern over an actual crime).

Easy Money

What is the point of periodic vehicle inspections? If you answered, “Safety,” you are a fool. The answer is, “Revenue.”

Bruce Redwine had seen enough. After years of watching a Fairfax County parking enforcement officer slap tickets on his customers’ cars for expired tags or inspection stickers, usually as the cars were awaiting state inspection or repair at his Chantilly shop, he snatched the latest ticket out of Officer Jacquelyn D. Hogue’s hand and added some profane commentary on top.

[…]

They don’t understand why Fairfax police have zealously sought to enforce laws on expired tags or inspections, mainly on drivers who are making the effort to get their cars into compliance, while on private property. Hogue’s appearance in the industrial park often set off a scramble to hide customers’ cars inside the shops, the shop owners said.

You might think this is one of those “isolated incidents” but it’s not. Police are always on the lookout for easy money. Traffic and parking citations are pretty easy but they still require an officer to either stake out piece of road or walk around without any guarantee of revenue. Now they’re beginning to realize that the process can be streamlined by simply staking out inspection and repair businesses because there is a very high probability customers of those places are in violation of the law (since they’re trying to get back into compliance with the law). It’s like shooting fish in a barrel.

Going Medieval On Their Asses

Because I study the use of Japanese swords several of my friends were kind enough to send me this great story about self-defense:

Dolley, standing 5-foot-6, said she immediately attacked, punching him about 10 times and cornering him in her bedroom.

She reached for her gun in a nearby drawer, but she accidentally opened the wrong drawer during the chaos of the moment, so her gun wasn’t there.

She reached for her backup weapon, a Japanese-styled sword called ninjato, which she keeps near her bed. Her intruder crouched in the bedroom as she held him at sword-point until police arrived, she said.

She called 911 and police arrived within two minutes, she said.

Karen Dolley just showed the world how it’s done. When she saw the intruder she didn’t freeze up, which is a common reaction, but immediately attacked. She was following the first rule of a gun fight but having a gun but didn’t open the correct drawer. Again, instead of freezing up, she simply went for the next weapon available to her, a sword.

When you think self-defense Karen is the model you want to follow. Be ready to defend yourself, take the initiative, don’t freeze up, and have a backup plan to your backup plan.

LastPass Sold To LogMeIn

LastPass, a password manager I have been recommending for years due to its ease of use and compatibility with pretty much everything, was bought out by LogMeIn. Based on what I’ve read on Twitter, Ars Technica, and Reddit LogMeIn is not a well liked company. In my experience acquisitions usually end up badly for users of the product being acquired. The fact that LogMeIn is viewed so negatively by a huge portion of the Internet further exacerbates my concerns that his acquisition is not good news for LastPass users.

I believe password managers are one of the easiest ways for the average person to improve their security. Due to this acquisition I can’t as confidently recommend LastPass as I have been previously doing. While I’m not going to go so far as to say you shouldn’t use LastPass, as the future is not known, I want to have other recommendations available if things go south.

To that end I’m going to recommend two products. The first is KeePassX. KeePassX is a free password manager that’s available for Windows, Linux, and OS X. It’s an open source product and seems to be well respected amongst users. Unfortunately syncing isn’t available out of the box (there are ways you can setup syncing though), which limits its utility for people who commonly use multiple devices. For many people this could be seen as a feature though as having your passwords, even in an encrypted formate, stored on a third-party server creates more opportunities for compromise. There also seems to be an absence of decent mobile clients.

The second password manager I’m going to recommend, and it’s the one I’m not using, is 1Password. 1Password was the runner up when I was first choosing a password manager. The two reasons I chose LastPass over it were price, LastPass Premium is much cheaper than 1Password, and the fact 1Password isn’t compatible with Linux. It is, however, compatible with OS X, Windows, iOS, and Android. Since I only use Linux and Windows in virtual machines the fact I don’t have password manager for those platforms isn’t that big of a deal (in fact I’ve never used LastPass on either platform outside of initial testing). 1Password can also sync your passwords across your devices with iCloud, Dropbox, or on your local network (although the last option only works between a single Mac and iOS devices so it’s severely limited). Right now the price is pretty reasonable as the developers are having a 40% off sale that is totally because of Cybersecurity Awareness Month and not at all because LastPass’s customers are pretty unhappy right now (it’s just a coincidence the sale start shortly after the news of LastPass’s acquisition broke).

It’s too early to panic over the LastPass acquisition. LogMeIn is promising to keep LastPass’s currently business model in place although those promises don’t seem to be well received due to the company’s history. I switched immediately because the writing on the wall isn’t to my liking and because I want to be familiar with an alternative in case things go south. If you’re happy with LastPass and the acquisition isn’t a concern for you (and let’s be honestly, it won’t be a concern for anybody for a while as it takes some time for the consequences of company acquisitions to manifest) keep using it.