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Posts
3
Comments
5295
Joined
3 yr. ago

Mama told me not to come.

She said, that ain't the way to have fun.

  • In practice, pretty low! In the vast majority of cases, people are released within a few hours and not sent to one of the larger detention facilities. As much as the news sensationalizes the handful of cases where that doesn't happen, the likelihood is still quite low that I wouldn't get due process.

    If I saw an ICE operation in my neighborhood, I wouldn't be too worried about going up to them and demanding their name and badge number. I'm not going to be "disappeared" or anything like that, especially as a US citizen. The vast majority of those targeted are actually illegal immigrants, and the extras arrested are often obstructing justice in one way or another. If I approach it completely legally, I don't think I'd be falsely accused of something else by those officers.

    Don't get me wrong, I am 100% against what ICE is doing. I think they're being a bit too fast and loose with their information, such that they arrest or detain far too many people without actual cause, and those they do arrest with cause they mistreat. I'm not necessarily against illegal immigrants getting deported, but that should be handled with respect and restraint, at least until we get policy to get these good people on some form of temporary status. If someone currently has work here, there should be a really easy way to get that turned into a legal work visa.

  • I think that privacy invading surveillance systems are primarily useful for furthering authoritarian goals, by intention or not.

    And I disagree. I think this all started when we allowed things like traffic light cameras, speed cameras, and toll cameras to automatically bill based on license plate. I don't think most would consider those to be "primarily useful for furthering authoritarian goals," they're merely there for routine law enforcement with specific goals.

    Flock cameras are basically that same exact system, but instead of only being used when something tangible is triggered (red light, radar, or toll booth motion sensor), they passively collect information. Flock is a private company that sells its surveillance services to cities (and private orgs) to assist with tracking down license plates or alerting when there's a gunshot detection. This is allegedly legal because you don't have any expectation of privacy when you're in public (hence why Ring doorbells are legal), and private companies don't have to follow the same rules as law enforcement. I personally don't think Flock's founders are fascist, they seem to genuinely want to help reduce crime. I worked for a similar company that mostly did perimeter security (i.e. generally only operated on private property), and the founder was absolutely not fascist, but they did want to help reduce crime.

    I personally don't consider either of those systems fascist by nature, but they can be used to achieve fascist goals. Tracking burglars across neighborhoods doesn't sound especially fascist to me, but tracking protestors certainly does. These are very dangerous technologies that can easily be used for fascist purposes, so I think we shouldn't allow them to be used at all, not because they are fascist, but because they can easily be used for fascist ends just by changing conventions around its use.

    I don't think we need to label a system as authoritarian or fascist to oppose them, we just need to point out how easily they can be misused.

  • Every officer has a badge number that uniquely identifies then, and they are legally required to provide that information. When filing a complaint or a lawsuit, you'll provide their name and badge number. If they refuse, you provide as much information as you can (area, time of day, type of vehicle, vehicle number, other officers and badge numbers involved, etc) so they can track the officer down.

    I don't know how ICE works specifically, but many police departments require their officers to carry business cards with that information and hand them out upon request.

    Civilians have a right to verify that the people involved are actually officers and have a right to identify individual offices to report misconduct.

    I don't care if officers wear masks, I only care that they can be uniquely identified.

  • it can no longer be removed by legal means

    It can, it just requires and act of Congress (well, two actually, impeachment and removal), an act by the VP (or maybe the cabinet? I'd need to check), or maybe an act of the Supreme Court to enable lower courts to sentence the president. None of those are currently willing to do so, but that could change after the midterms next year.

    MAGA will no longer allow free elections

    I guess we'll find out next year.

    I think your post is quite paranoid, but we'll see I guess.

  • Eh, I'm fine with them wearing masks. I'm not fine with them breaking the law and not being accountable. If they wear masks (or even if they don't), they need to be ready to show ID and recite their badge number.

  • Well, Halloween just happened, so there are probably convincing costumes available on discount. Just saying...

  • The intention can be fascist, sure, but that doesn't mean the solution is fascist.

    For example, I think it's pretty clear that Lemmy was designed by tankies to create a safe space for tankies (why would the instances the main devs maintain be overly protective of China and Russia if it weren't?), but that doesn't make Lemmy "tankie," it's a software project that can be used by fascists, tankies, commies, anarchists, statists, etc, because it's just a software program.

    Likewise, a surveillance system can be used by a fascist government, private company to protect company secrets, government agency like the Pentagon for internal use, or even private individuals to ID who is at the door. It's only fascist of it's used to further fascist goals, like identifying minorities or protestors. But then, it's still not the software that's fascist, but the whole system, meaning how people use it and the policies in place.

    The chance of a given piece of software being "fascist" is incredibly low, since it would need to act in a fascist way and only a fascist way, or only be useful for fascist ends. Like the fascist LLM example I gave, or a training simulator that is hard-coded to only present fascist ideology.

  • Yup. If someone is abducting someone else and doesn't self-identify, that sounds like an open and shut self-defense case, provided you survive the encounter.

  • That depends on who you ask, but likely the courts would side with a citizen requesting ID. The policy seems to be that they must "when it is practical and safe to do so."

    AFAIK, this issue has not been tried in court though.

  • And if you don't, it's also not that hard with something like Tailscale, and a reverse proxy with a DIY VPN isn't that hard either.

  • At a certain point, we should just arrest the President, Vice President, and cabinet while we work through the paperwork. I don't know much about Chuck Grassley, but he can run things while we get through the trials.

  • Lol. You never know when one might jump out at you from the forest or something. Don't get too close though, just spray and run away.

  • Nice! And it's far less illegal of you happen to go to a national or state park or something. Good idea, I have some bear spray from when I went to Glacier National Park, I'll have to bring them around in case I meet a particularly nasty one.

  • You may also consider carrying a firearm. It's hibernation season, and the bears can get a bit frisky.

  • An ICE officer may ignore evidence of American citizenship—including a birth certificate—if the app says the person is an alien

    Cool, so I guess that means I can ignore evidence of the person/people at the door being law enforcement before enforcing my 2nd Amendment rights and state self-defense laws that also allow me to shoot to protect others.

  • That's the beautiful thing, we just print more so people don't notice how much we actually spend on things. Inflation goes brr, but people blame the corpos.

  • We're working on it, apparently.

  • And flu and cold season. Consider wearing gloves to keep your hands safe from diseases as well. Consider tinted glasses as well to keep the sun out of your eyes, and a hat or hoodie to protect from rain or snow.

    Just basic health things, completely unrelated to cameras or anything.

  • We are though. COVID-19 strains have become endemic, which is the step after pandemic if the disease is not eradicated. So it's like the flu now.