| HN Mirror

You don't get it. It's not about just the people in power directly. It's about power. Power in the West is very limited, even with high office. That's what they want fixed "because they're powerless". Powerless to fix drugs. To fix youth disturbances. To fix jobs "stolen". To entice their enforcers. To ... It's about letting the people the government employs interfere to an ever larger extent in your life. What you eat. Whether you smoke. Who you're with (contact tracing, except not just for covid-19, but for crimes in general).

The thing is, the powers of the government, in reality, are pitiful. The vast majority of crimes go unsolved. 80% in the best of places. For murders, a little over half (BUT, keep in mind that most murders are passion murders. Unplanned, heat of the moment, at least somewhat unplanned. E.g. someone brings a weapon to extort someone, but ends up killing them not-quite-accidentally-but-certainly-was-trying-to-avoid-it. "Real", planned, thought out murders mostly go unsolved).

Once we start talking theft, solve rates drop below 15%, and drop fast. It's also just not worth it to anyone to pursue those. Not that you get your stuff back if the police does solve the crime so I'm a bit unclear why anyone would want the police to solve most crimes. It doesn't help victims except perhaps in the revenge department.

And of course, this is actual, physical, what some people would call "real" crimes. Many other types of crimes ... An example: when it comes to tax evasion (sales tax evasion in California, for example, which is definitely illegal) they essentially catch 10 culprits per year, no more.

They want their power to actually apply, and ask the police brass how to do that. The answer is predictably: more surveillance, more automated access to private info for the state, more ways to attack individuals, more ways for the police/state to "do something" while avoiding the court system (or going through a court system without any rights for defendants, like youth courts. Did you know, kids can get legally locked up for decennia (yes, plural) for a crime they can prove they didn't commit).

For example, now there's a solid 30-40% of people flouting covid-19 restrictions. But in general people totally disregard most laws most of the time, especially youths (never mind that that's allowed for most laws: as long as there's no damage to anyone you're actually allowed to violate the law, or at least cannot be punished for it).

Everybody in the police force, justice system, FBI, NSA, ... wants these statistics to change drastically. They never do. Everywhere the police steps up enforcement, people immediately want them to stop. So the police brass wants automated enforcement, automated gathering of evidence. They want contact tracing so they can just charge the nearest suspicious individual and have something in court, like location. Or that "the suspect lied" about location to the police, for instance. Never mind that this can be defeated by someone planning a crime with a level of ease that's absurdly low.

They want a spy state so they "solve" crimes (that means they have an arrest, and a conviction, they do NOT mean solve, and certainly do not mean making victims whole, anyone with half a brain knows that criminals as a rule cannot make victims whole, and certainly cannot do so with the american justice system imposed on them).

Furthermore, under the table, they want to present these systems as a reward for their people, the people they hire, people in their department, etc. Ideally just for them to be "cool" (and not, like keeps happening, to enable police officers to stalk and rape their ex-girlfriend for years). They want to use it to get rid of "disturbances" (people that live close to "nice" people who act weird, or are noisy, but within the law, or ...). They want to use it to punish people who don't do things the right way, e.g. making a lot of money without a "proper job".

And of course they want to use this for racist purposes.

Surveillance is just one component of this. They also want ways to convict and lock up people without having to go through proper justice channels, where actual proof is required, and there's 10 layers checking if what people "in power" do is entirely legal. They want protection for themselves, and government itself, against the justice system (just look up damages and punishment for locking someone up with a wrongful conviction ... does that seem reasonable to you? Now compare to a private person imprisoning someone they don't like ...)

These people want power. So their "superiority" cannot be challenged in any way whatsoever, to enforce it using brutal violence. And the big problem always turns out to be the same: they're not actually superior. And then some kid born to a divorced ex-drug addict mother has a commercial success and seriously threatens the "decent" business interests of the local politicians ... Or has a relationship with their daughter "that will destroy her". Or ... That's what power is for.