Tag: Your Government Doesn’t Love You

The Double Edged Sword of Body Cameras

As the public’s trust in law enforcers diminished demands were made to monitor working police officers. These demands resulted in calls for making officers wear body cameras that recorded their actions while they worked. In response many law enforcement agencies started buying body cameras and issuing them to the police. This satiated many peoples’ demands for police monitoring but some of us pointed out the limited utility of body cameras due to the fact that the departments usually controlled the footage. So long as body camera footage isn’t made available to the public in some manner it’s far too easy for departments to make any footage that incriminates their officers disappear down a memory hole.

Since no standards exist regarding the availability of police body camera footage states, counties, and cities are making up their own rules as they go. Locally a Hennepin County judge recently ruled that police body camera footage is off limits to the public:

So Hennepin prosecutors met with the chief judge and representatives of the Hennepin Public Defender’s Office, which handles 45,000 cases a year. The result was Bernhardson’s order, which asserts that prosecutors and defense attorneys have to follow the guidelines of the law, which save for “certain narrow exceptions,” classifies body camera video as off-limits to the public.

As the article points out, there are some difficult privacy questions regarding police body camera footage. However, body cameras are of limited use if such footage is classified as off-limits to the public. Under such a system body cameras allow law enforcers to use the footage as evidence against the people they arrest but don’t allow the public to use the footage to hold bad law enforcers accountable.

This lopsided policy shouldn’t surprise anybody. Law enforcement departments wouldn’t willingly adopt body cameras if they could realistically be used to hold officers accountable. But they would jump at the chance to use such devices to prosecute more people because then body cameras are a revenue generator instead of a liability. The State, having an interest in appeasing its revenue generators, has been more than happy to give law enforcers a ruleset that gives them the benefits of body cameras without the pesky downsides.

What does this mean for the general public? It means everybody should record, and preferably livestream, every police encounter they are either a party to or come across.

The Privacy Arms Race

Big Brother is watching. Many people have been defeated by the constant improvements in government surveillance. Instead of fighting they lie themselves into complacency by claiming that they have nothing to hide. Don’t allow yourself to fall into that trap. Privacy is an arms race. As surveillance technology improves so do countermeasures:

The use of facial recognition software for commercial purposes is becoming more common, but, as Amazon scans faces in its physical shop and Facebook searches photos of users to add tags to, those concerned about their privacy are fighting back.

Berlin-based artist and technologist Adam Harvey aims to overwhelm and confuse these systems by presenting them with thousands of false hits so they can’t tell which faces are real.

The Hyperface project involves printing patterns on to clothing or textiles, which then appear to have eyes, mouths and other features that a computer can interpret as a face.

Camouflage is older than humans. In fact, much of what we know about camouflage comes from our observations of animals. As predators improved so did the camouflage of prey. To win against the predatory State we must constantly improve our defenses. Against surveillance one of the best defenses is camouflage.

I admire people like Adam Harvey because they’re on the front lines. Will their plans work? Only time will tell. But I’ll take somebody who is trying to fight the good fight and fails over somebody who has rolled over and surrendered to the State any day.

Toothless Ethics Body Rendered… Toothless

Today’s Two Minutes Outrage is brought to you by the United States House of Representatives. Two days ago the House voted to “gut” the Office of Congressional Ethics:

Republicans in the US House of Representatives have voted to weaken the body that investigates claims of misconduct against members of Congress.

The independent Office of Congressional Ethics would come under control of a House committee, if it goes ahead.

And the Two Minutes Outrage commenced. As it common, public outrage was quickly followed by a return to the status quo.

I put the word “gut” in quotes for a reason. When I saw the Two Minutes Outrage begin I asked a question that seemed obvious to me, what exactly has the Office of Congressional Ethics accomplished. Nobody who was flipping out about the vote seemed to be able to answer my straight forward question, which lead me to believe they were only flipping out because the office had “ethics” in the name.

Wikipedia is usually a good source for finding an organization’s accomplishments so I headed there. Did I find a long list of cases where the Office of Congressional Ethics punished members of Congress for acting unethically? No. But I did find a possible reason why the office didn’t have a long list of accomplishments to its name:

The OCE lacks subpoena power and must complete each review in a relatively short period of time—approximately three months at most. The OCE review process requires approval of the board at each step. In order to open a preliminary review, lasting no longer than 30 days, there must be “reasonable cause to believe allegations,” according to the OCE.[3] In order to proceed to a second phase, or further review, there must be “probable cause to believe allegations.”[3] The second phase must be completed within 45 days, with the possibility of a 14-day extension.[4] Following completion of the second-phase review, the OCE board votes to refer a matter to the House Ethics Committee with a recommendation for or against further review by the committee. The recommendation comes in the form of a report which must be released to the public, unless the OCE recommendation was against further review.

No subpoena power, a short period of time to perform a full investigation, and no power to punish those found to be acting unethically? It’s almost like Congress made this office!

Oh, that’s right, it did.

The office was created in March 2008, supposedly as a response to what Nancy Pelosi (and she would know) called a “culture of corruption.” In other words, the Office of Congressional Ethics was created by the House of Representatives in response to a previous Two Minutes Outrage. The House of Representatives created a toothless office and told the public that the new office would fight corruption in Washington. For some reason the public believed the politicians when they said that they would police themselves.

In conclusion, everybody who flipped out about this was doing so because the word “ethics” in the title of the Office of Congressional Ethics gave them the warm fuzzies. Had the office been gutted nothing would have changed because the office didn’t actually have any power to change anything.

What Ignoring the Problem Gets You

What happens when you ignore a problem for an entire year? The problem doesn’t go away:

Despite ongoing national scrutiny of police tactics, the number of fatal shootings by officers in 2016 remained virtually unchanged from last year when nearly 1,000 people were killed by police.

Through Thursday, law enforcement officers fatally shot 957 people in 2016 — close to three each day — down slightly from 2015 when 991 people were shot to death by officers, according to an ongoing project by The Washington Post to track the number of fatal shootings by police.

The Post, for two years in a row, has documented more than twice the number of fatal shootings recorded by the FBI annually on average.

Why hasn’t anything been done to reduce the number of people being shot by police? Because the politicians rely on the police to be revenue generators and too many people worship the police as heroes.

I’ve written a lot about how being revenue generators makes politicians wary of curtailing bad law enforcement behavior. To summarize that point, the politicians don’t want to risk upsetting their biggest revenue generators because they might generate less revenue. If police officers are punished for shooting an innocent person during a no-knock raid they might be less inclined to go on the next no-knock drug raid and that would cut into the State’s civil forfeiture profits.

Hero worship is another problem. Whenever an individual rises to the status of hero they get a tremendous amount of leeway. Obviously bad behavior is explained away by the hero’s worshippers. After all, the individual is a hero and therefore can do no wrong. Ever since 9/11 law enforcers have been elevated from civil servants to heroes.

We see this come into play whenever an officer is in the news for doing something questionable or outright terrible. Cop apologists crawl out of the woodwork and find any excuse to justify the officer’s actions. Did the officer shoot a carry permit holder during an otherwise routine traffic stop? While the carry permit indicates that the victim wasn’t a felon or domestic abuser the cop apologists will still cite mundane nonsense like traffic citations as justification for the officer’s actions.

This hero worship also influences the actions of those who are tasked with holding law enforcers accountable. No politician, even a lowly municipal one, wants to be the person known for going against a hero. It’s bad for their public image and reelection efforts. So most of them are willing to turn a blind eye towards any issues involving law enforcers.

I imagine 2017 will also see approximately 1,000 people killed by police. Until law enforcers stop being revenue generators and stop being viewed as heroes the motivation to curtail their bad behavior won’t exist.

Officers You Don’t Want

The city council member in St. Paul is worried. The council recently voted to make the whole cycle of “We investigated ourselves and found that we did nothing wrong.” cycle more difficult by remove two officers from its Police Civilian Review Commission. Because of that vote the member is now concerned that many officers will vacate the force:

Some St. Paul city leaders are a little concerned they might see a larger than normal exodus of veteran police officers in 2017.

One city council member told 5 EYEWITNESS NEWS morale in the St. Paul Police Department (SPPD) is the lowest he remembers in his 20 years as a member of the city council.

“Police on the street are disappointed and dismayed by the recent city council vote to strip two police officers from the city’s Police Civilian Review Commission, because they see it as the council not having their back and not supporting them when they put on bullet-proof vests to go to work everyday”, said City Council member, Dan Bostrom, who is a retired SPPD officer and was first elected to the city council in 1996.

Not surprisingly, the council member in question is a retired police officer.

Review bodies aren’t supposed to have the backs of or support the individuals they’re tasked with reviewing. They’re supposed to be a third-party that can perform a more impartial review when complaints are made against the individuals they’re tasked with reviewing. Judges doesn’t ask juries to have the backs of defendants. Electrical inspectors aren’t told to have the backs of the electricians whose work they’re tasked with inspecting. Medical review boards aren’t told to have the backs of doctors they’re tasked with reviewing. So why is a civilian review body tasked with reviewing complaints against police officers expected to have the backs of those police officers?

I would argue that any officer who leaves a department because the review body overseeing that department doesn’t have the officers’ backs is somebody who shouldn’t be a police officer. If an officer is afraid of a more impartial review of their behavior then they are probably aware that their behavior is at least questionable if not obviously corrupt.

Capitalism Versus Socialism

One of the biggest criticisms socialists make against capitalism is that under capitalism a poor individual may starve. But under socialism a poor individual… may starve:

PUERTO CABELLO, Venezuela (AP) – When hunger drew tens of thousands of Venezuelans to the streets last summer in protest, President Nicolas Maduro turned to the military to manage the country’s diminished food supply, putting generals in charge of everything from butter to rice.

But instead of fighting hunger, the military is making money from it, an Associated Press investigation shows. That’s what grocer Jose Campos found when he ran out of pantry staples this year. In the middle of the night, he would travel to an illegal market run by the military to buy corn flour – at 100 times the government-set price.

Queue all of the socialists claiming Venezuela isn’t real socialism. But the military is part of the State and therefore it having a “legitimate” monopoly on food distribution most certainly is socialism.

Scarcity is a law of nature. Because of that, no system can guarantee that every individual will receive everything they need to survive. Socialists claim that they can overcome this rule of nature but socialists countries have been proving them wrong time and again.

The difference between capitalism and socialism is how wealth is distributed. Under capitalism wealth is distributed by one’s ability to serve the market. If you are able to serve the market successfully you can obtain wealth. Under socialism wealth is distributed by one’s favor with the State. If you can curry favor with the State you can obtain wealth.

Neither system can prevent starvation or nefarious people from obtaining wealth. But the former relies on pleasing the masses whereas the latter relies on pleasing the elites in power. To me it seems rather obvious which is more ripe for abuse.

The Biggest Threat to Free Markets are Successful Entrepreneurs

Everybody loves freedom so long as it’s the right kind of freedom. Neoconservatives love freedom right up until somebody wants to marry somebody of the same sex. Neoliberals love freedom right up until somebody wants to buy a firearm. Statist libertarians love freedom right up until somebody wants to opt out of paying taxes to fund the military national defense force appointed by the duly elected representatives of the Very Small Government. Likewise, a lot of people love free markets until they fail to serve the market. When that happens those people turn into big government twats:

With competition so fierce and profit margins so small — roughly 2.7 per cent on average — the role Quebec’s highly interventionist government should play in one of the province’s most dynamic industries remains a source of contention.

The debate is not new and was rekindled earlier this year when Carlos Ferreira, owner of a well-known eatery, said Montreal should impose quotas in neighbourhoods to limit competition and help struggling legacy restaurants stay in business.

“I don’t believe in the free market anymore,” Ferreira said at the time. “We have to protect the good restaurants.”

And by “good restaurants” he means his restaurant.

Although I won’t claim that Quebec’s restaurant scene is currently a free market, the market was free enough that the barrier to entry was low enough for Ferreira to enter. Now, like most established corporations, he’s finding that the pressures of continuously appealing to the market tiresome and wants the State to step in to protect him and his interest at the expense of everybody.

I say the expense of everybody because as things currently stand consumers have all of the power. If a restaurant starts serving shitty food consumers can go to a competing restaurant. New restaurants have to attract customers and that means appealing to consumers. What Ferreira wants is to restrict those consumer’s choices and therefore limit the power they have.

This is nothing new. The biggest threat to free markets are successful entrepreneurs because they’re the ones that throw money at politicians to get laws passed that hinder their competitors.

Another Violent Cop Reinstated

The State has many redundancies to protect its people from justice. Take police unions, for example. When a police officer steps out of line so egregiously that their department actually fires them the police unions are quick to move in and get the officer reinstated:

A Richfield police officer who was seen on video striking a Somali-American teenager in the fall of 2015 must be reinstated to the force, an independent arbitrator said Wednesday, and police officials in the first-ring suburb aren’t happy about that.

Officer Nate Kinsey had been fired by the city of Richfield. Instead, the arbitrator said, he will serve a three-day suspension and again be a member of the department.

And what was the union’s justification for pushing for the officer’s reinstatement? Well, you see, he was such a good boy:

“[He] is held in high regard by his fellow officers and supervisors and is known for his honesty, commitment, and dedication,” said Sean Gormley, executive director of Law Enforcement Labor Services. “The incident in question demonstrates the challenges officers face on a regular basis. [It] also illustrates the pitfalls of jumping to conclusions based on partial video and audio recordings.

Challenges officers face on a regular basis, like having to ask the union to get them reinstated after getting caught on camera striking somebody without cause.

The people of Richfield can look forward to this officer protecting and serving the shit out of them again.

To Protect and Serve the Shit Out of You

Cop apologists often say that the proper place to fight back against a bad officer is in a court. But what if the bad officer is threatening to put two bullets in the back of your skull? That’s a question the people of Brooklyn Center, Minnesota should be asking themselves right now:

In a three-paragraph statement issued Wednesday afternoon, Gannon said his department was alerted to the Facebook video capturing the Tuesday encounter between the officer and the suspect in the parking lot of Wal-Mart at 1200 Shingle Creek Crossing.

[…]

In the 61-second video, shot about 2:20 p.m. from behind a car in the lot, the officer approached a vehicle and ordered Foye-Finch to get down on the ground as he exited out a passenger-side door.

“Don’t move,” the officer told Foye-Finch, who appears to be facedown on the pavement.

“Don’t reach for anything!” the officer yelled, his gun still trained on the man, who appeared compliant during the entire time of the video being record. “You wanna get shot? Don’t reach for anything. Don’t move. I’ll put two in the back of your head if you move again, you understand me? Don’t move.”

According to Chief Tim Gannon the suspect had been evading law enforcers. This is probably the part cop apologists will latch onto but they’ll then ignore the part where Gannon said that “threatening language is never appropriate or acceptable.”

In the video the suspect seems to be lying facedown on the pavement. Even though he appears to be complying with the officer the officer doesn’t appear to be entirely satisfied and is threatening to perform a summary execution. My question is whether or not one should consider this a self-defense situation.

While the aggressor had a badge he was expressing a willingness to exceed his authority by murdering the suspect. The officer also had the means to go through with his threat. In this case the officer didn’t go through with the threat but there was no way for the suspect to know that he wouldn’t. I would argue that had the suspect defended himself he would have been well within his rights. I’m sure somebody will accuse me of simply hating cops but I believe I justified my conclusion in a way that would still show the situation to be self-defense if the aggressor wasn’t a cop. There’s little ground, regardless of who the aggressor was, to claim that the suspect didn’t have a reasonable belief that his life was in immediate danger.

If a law enforcer is beating you to death or threatening to kill you even if you complied with their commands, you may not live long enough to face them in court. That being the case, telling people that the proper place to deal with a bad officer is in a court is often not realistic advice.

Just a Slight Shortfall

What happens when a business makes more monetary promises than it can fulfill? Its assets are liquidated so that the proceeds can go towards paying off some of those promises. What happens when a government makes more monetary promises than it can fulfill? That seems like an important question to ask right now:

You can look at the financial health of Social Security in many ways.

[…]

Despite the huge numbers, there’s even a less generous way of looking at the fiscal shortfall.

A projection, known as the “infinite horizon,” takes into account all the program’s future liabilities, even those beyond the 75-year period that Social Security actuaries typically use in their calculations.

Under the infinite horizon, Social Security will have $32.1 trillion in unfunded liabilities by 2090, $6.3 trillion more than last year’s projection. (See the chart below.)

Social Security was sold as a safety net that would guarantee that retirees would have money even after they were no longer working. But like all government schemes, Social Security was just another mechanism to expropriate wealth from the people for the benefit of the State. The scheme was originally quite simple. Today’s valued dollars would be taken by the State so it could use them as it pleased and then returned at a future date after inflation had devalued those dollars significantly. But the scheme quickly became more complicated.

Since 1982 Social Security has been paying out more than it has been bringing in. This deficit, often referred to by cute names such as unfunded obligations or unfunded liabilities, is slated to ballon to $32.1 trillion by 2090. To put that in perspective, the current national debt is hovering near $20 trillion.

If Social Security (or the United States government for that matter) was a business it would be forced to file bankruptcy as there is no realistic way that it will ever be able to repay its debts.