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by yellowapple 1292 days ago
> This is incredibly cool from a maker perspective.

Sophisticated IEDs and weaponized drones are incredibly cool from a maker perspective, too. That doesn't make celebrating them any less reprehensible.

I'm glad you come from a place of sufficient privilege to trust cops to keep you safe. Not all of us are so fortunate.
1 comments
svoncin 1292 days ago
You will hopefully be relieved to learn that TSOs specialise in covert evidence-gathering technologies for serious crime investigations, and are not making machines to blow your legs off or shoot your face in.

They're part of the teams taking down human trafficking rings, violent gangs involved in the drugs trade, terrorist cells, and suchlike. The kind of high impact police work that helps make vulnerable people's lives safer.

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yellowapple 1292 days ago
> They're part of the teams taking down human trafficking rings, violent gangs involved in the drugs trade, terrorist cells, and suchlike.

They're part of the teams surveilling and even outright harassing civilians on mere suspicion of tangential connection to crime - the kind of polie work that makes people's lives vulnerable in the first place.

It shouldn't be surprising that not everyone shares your enthusiasm for the state's goons, no matter how "cool" their goonery-enabling gadgets might be.

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amatecha 1292 days ago
Right - in fact UK police specifically have engaged in seriously unethical behaviour: https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2020/oct/28/secrets-and-...
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svoncin 1292 days ago
That is a very ignorant opinion to be flaunting with such confidence.
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yellowapple 1292 days ago
It's the precise opposite of an ignorant opinion; it's in fact rather well-informed from myself being a former employee of a law enforcement agency. You can parrot copaganda pamphlets all you like, but the idea that police are always the good guys and only spy on the public for the public's good is dangerously naive.
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svoncin 1292 days ago
Really, which country? Presumably not the UK.
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yellowapple 1291 days ago
The power dynamics involved are universal - and as has been linked elsewhere in this thread, the UK is no exception.
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