Facebook Won't Take Down Undercover Cop Page In Australia 254
New submitter jaa101 writes "Facebook has refused a request from Australian police to take down a page with details of undercover police vehicles saying it cannot stop people taking photos in public places. The original story is paywalled and it doesn't give a link to the relevant page which seems to be here . This page for the state of Victoria has 12000 likes but a similar page for the state of Queensland has over 34000, and there are other Australian pages too."
Re:Don't complain about crime then (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Undercover? (Score:4, Informative)
Re:can facebook face a accessory to murder change (Score:2, Informative)
These aren't fucking undercover. They're unmarked. And there's a huge fucking difference. And you're a fucking idiot.
Re:Don't complain about crime then (Score:2, Informative)
Police reaction to speeding in the UK and US is often quite different. The last time I took the wheel in the UK I made a 220 km journey, over mostly M roads, in an hour and got no tickets despite passing several marked police cars. I presume it's because I always stayed left except to pass, was diligent about signaling and generally being polite in my driving behavior aside from the speed.
In contrast, a co-worker of mine received a ticket for 2 mph over the limit last year in the US.
Re:Don't complain about crime then (Score:5, Informative)
But the fact of the matter is that the focus of the police should be on preventing crime, not on increasing revenue. A clearly marked police car is the most effective thing there is for ensuring that everyone around is driving safely. You stick a cop car in the road and people will drive quite carefully. Unmarked cars are specifically meant to not be observed by people so that they will commit crimes in front of them and thus get ticketed, crimes that potentially would not have been committed if the car had been clearly visible. To me, this is like making the argument that police officers shouldn't wear uniforms so that muggers will beat up people in front of them and get caught, rather than the beatings never happening in the first place. I understand and respect that you can make an argument both ways here, that there is the potential for the mugger to commit crimes later, etc. but in my personal opinion, it is of dubious morality to allow people to be injured today in hopes of avoiding injuring people tomorrow. When I'm being assaulted, I want to be able to look around and run to the nearest cop car, not to miss it 'cause it's unmarked.
Ultimately, my complaint is that the motorists who get "caught" by unmarked cars who wouldn't by marked cars are the 5-10 over motorists. If someone is truly driving dangerously, they're not going to stop because of a marked car. If you're driving 100 on the freeway, you can't slow down fast enough upon seeing a cop car to not get caught. If you're driving drunk, you can't magically sober up because you saw a cop. The people get caught by unmarked cars rather than marked ones are the 5 over motorists, so I fail to see how they provide sufficiently valuable service to outweigh the crimes they fail to prevent.
Anyways, it's all anecdotal, and there are arguments for both sides. YMMV.
Re:Don't complain about crime then (Score:5, Informative)
It's nice that you've completely ignored the article in question, so I'll try and clarify.
This article is about Australian unmarked police cars, whose only purpose pretty much is to pull over speeding cars.
Because any police car can pull over any car for a random alcohol or drug test, they don't need to be in an unmarked car or have reason (ie, impaired driving). They're legally entitled to do it to anyone, any time, if they are driving a car.
Because in Australia there are no tax/insurance issues, because that's covered by the road authority and police have no authority to even ask you about it.
Because in most states of Australia there is no 10% leeway any more, it's a fixed leeway. You can and do get fined for being 5km/h over the signed limit. I once got fined for being 5km/h over because the road change from a 60 zone to a 50 zone and the unmarked police car behind me thought I didn't adjust me speed fast enough.
In Australia the unmarked cars really are there to catch people speeding, it's their primary purpose.
So perhaps you should pay attention to the context of the story, especially when every other reason you've listed as a purpose for unmarked police cars do not exist in Australia.
Re:Don't complain about crime then (Score:5, Informative)
I should actually add a little more to that and point out that I have seen (and also been subject to, but did not speed up) unmarked police cars tailgating on freeways in an attempt to make people speed up to just over the limit and pull them over.
That's not only fairly dangerous, but should say a little more about the intent of the cars when they resort to such tactics.
Re:Don't complain about crime then (Score:4, Informative)
Indeed, one is a unit of distance and one is a unit of speed. To convert, you take the 220 km travel distance, and you divide it by the 1 hour that the poster claimed it took him to make this trip. 220 km / 1 hour = 220 kph.
That being said, I don't see how your comment relates to the post you replied to.
Re:Don't complain about crime then (Score:4, Informative)