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by matheusmoreira 1012 days ago
Even if you committed a crime, police should not be able to find out about it through illegal means. Police should not be allowed to run SIGINT operations on citizens. They should not even have that capability. Why is it normal for police to have these literal spy movie technologies?
2 comments
atoav 1012 days ago
Because in the typical American mind a thee-not-me-mentality is very prevalent. They are the sole protagonists of their own lives and they believe they have invincible plot armor like the protagonists in the action movies.

That means people believe the police having Gestapo-capabilities will only ever hurt others (who must then have deserved it!) and never them.

That a free democracy is a finely balanced system between the power of the people and the powers of the three branches isn't something they ever consider. That capabilities can breed their own perverse incentives and a culture of disservice is a few complexity levels further up the tree still.

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t0bia_s 1012 days ago
Because people generally wants rulers above them. It is a state doctrine that tells you it is for your protection.

But if someone stole your bike, usually police wont find it.

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TeMPOraL 1009 days ago
> But if someone stole your bike, usually police wont find it.

That is a "we're not in a post-scarcity society" problem - stolen bikes tend to be below the cut-off point of cases the police can afford to take on. It's not like they have nothing more important to do.

Unfortunately, there aren't many good solutions to this, and the most direct one involves giving even more spy movie tech to the police, so that bike theft case can be solved with a click of a button - but we probably wouldn't want to live in a world where police can actually do that.

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t0bia_s 1009 days ago
Oh they definitely have tools to find who stole bike in city where CTTV is on every corner.
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TeMPOraL 1009 days ago
There may be a camera on every corner, but I bet half of these cameras are fake, and most of the rest are privately owned, therefore a huge hassle to get footage from.
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red-iron-pine 1011 days ago
the police absolutely found my bike. it had a tracker on it and very distinctive paint.

if you go to them and say "my bike is gone" they'll ask what details you can provide. if the answer is "none" then they're not going to try that hard. hundreds of other missing goods cases too, and many of those could be more than your bike, and have actual leads.

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