US police contracts and private forum posts dumped online A data dump covering hundreds of police contracts and thousands of private forum posts by US law enforcement officers has been posted online. The 273MB zip file contains a large number of Word documents and two database backups of the forum and main website of the Fraternal Order of Police (FOP), American's largest police …
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Who conducts private business over a web forum anyway? …. MooJohn
Most everyone working in the clearly deeper fields and darker bright areas of webs weaving Sublime Internet Networks, MooJohn, is an educated guess based upon nothing more ethereal than published hearsay and panicking desperate reaction to changed memes and means in the way of doing great and good things in these/those changed postmodern times with more magic places and spaces.
About 1/4 of the American police officers do have an attitute issue and no less than 10% are dirty Cops. 1/3 of them adore violence to resolve problems they hired tfor by the tax payers. Travellers from western EU, Japan, Taiwan, Singapore, Canada...immediately will see the higher differences compare to their home. I think US Cops definitely need some deep meditation and reform in order to regain the trusts from fellas Americans.
You missed a big one...
While most cops are generally good, 99+% of them will actively or passively participate in cover-ups of their "brother" officer's criminal activities.
Any few that do go thru channels with complaints, will be filtered by that same ratio again and again at every level. Those very few that pursue it all the way will be ostracized and drummed out of the service.
It's been quite a serious issue. The only thing that's causing fractures in the 'Blue Wall of Cover-up' is the proliferation of public video of events. Makes the old way very dangerous. That's a good thing.
Leadership need to severely punish any (even passive) participation in cover-ups. Immediate dismissal for failure to report. Unions won't like this. They'd prefer the old corrupt ways, covering-up criminal actions of their members. Pathetic.
It is _not_ illegal. It's legal in every state.
Every so often, state politicians try to create laws that make it illegal, but those laws get challenged and struck down as unconstitutional.
In some states audio recording is illegal without consent of all parties, but most require only the consent of one party.
What you _can't_ do is interfere with the police doing their work so people filming may have to make sure their recording shows that they maintained a reasonable distance.
Everything you said can be considered libel and slander. You have no proof except your own supposition.
Perhaps, those who believe they can disobey the directions of a police officer or that they could just run away and not suffer any consequences should follow your advice as well.
You probably misread these comments. Among IT folks, prevailing interest is to have privacy for everyone. With a (somewhat naïve) hope that everyone would like to play by the same book and would respect the privacy of others.
That's clearly not the case for the law enforcement and secret services. High-ranking officials are rather constantly banging on the notion that privacy serves no other purpose than providing a cover for nefarious people. Which is akin to throwing the baby out with the bathwater, if you ask me.
Anyhow, if that "nothing to hide, nothing to fear" mantra is repeated endlessly, it is only natural that people will want to put it to the test. Should it become apparent that these mockers of privacy are using double standards, you'll witness a good deal of schadenfreude. As you just did.
Schadenfreude is a rather nasty emotion, of course, but quite frequently it's a normal response to seeing an even nastier mindset going down in flames.
I tend to agree with your unexpressed concern - yes, it's not fair to 'punish' big and diverse group of people for words and actions of their head honchos. Too much collateral damage. Not to mention that collective responsibility is never just, it's a leftover from tribal societies.
If some specific individuals leading the crusade against constitutional rights would see their dirty laundry out in the open...that'd be much more fitting.
OTOH, those big honchos don't seem to have any qualms about invading the life of millions to catch few perpetrators. Where's the fairness in that.
In the US, both organisations and individuals are protected by the Constitution, specifically by the Fourth Amendment, A government agency would not be permitted to access the information released (as described int the article) without a warrant. It is not clear why a non-government organization, although not constrained by the Fourth Amendment, should be given a pass when it does so. That is not, of course, entirely applicable to someone who receives and releases the information without actually committing CFAA violations.
These constitutional and legal protections apply to all, including criminals and criminal organizations, and even those who might be seen as "leading the crusade against constitutional rights ." The presumption that some individuals and organizations are entitled to less consideration than other under the Constitution and laws has no place in the US, and I suspect that, with allowance for constitutional differences, it also has no place in the UK.
However much some executive branch officials (in the US that applies to both federal and state/local officials, who operate with considerable independence), the constraints operate with considerable effectiveness for several reasons. In the first place, the relevant executive branch official largely share the underlying belief system and accept their legitimacy. Secondly, they know that when they do not, the results are quite likely to be challenged in and rejected by a court where they are offered as possible evidence, along with any other facts they can be seen to have led to. In short, executive branch officials (i. e., police officers and prosecutors) have to live with them; it does not matter whether they like that.
My original point, though, was that it is unseemly, perhaps even hypocritical, to celebrate privacy breaches committed against those one dislikes and condemn it when done against those one favors or innocent bystanders.
Big corps have (forever) been pushing to bust up unions and privatize whatever they can get thier grubby little capitalist hands on, and I can see this as a possible inroad to find weaknesses, perhaps a little "thought policing"(sic). Organizations can generally only "whittle down" competing organizations one member at a time, and I wonder if this also exposes some undercover *workers. That would be sad, but any assumption that (any) organizations are without corruption is even sadder.
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