German Court Rules Police Use of Crime-Fighting Software is Unlawful (reuters.com) 43
Police use of automated data analysis to prevent crime in some German states was unconstitutional, a top German court said on Thursday, ruling in favour of critics of software provided by the CIA-backed Palantir. From a report: Provisions regulating the use of the technology in Hesse and Hamburg violate the right to informational self-determination, a statement from the constitutional court said. Hesse has been given a Sept. 30 deadline to rewrite its provisions, while legislation in Hamburg -- where the technology was not yet in use -- was nullified. "Given the particularly broad wording of the powers, in terms of both the data and the methods concerned, the grounds for interference fall far short of the constitutionally required threshold of an identifiable danger," the court said. However, court president Stephan Harbarth said states had the option "of shaping the legal basis for further processing of stored data files in a constitutional manner."
Does anybody else feel (Score:4)
I don't think any tools that are "CIA grade" should be in the hands of law enforcement. WTF are we doing?
Re:Does anybody else feel (Score:5, Insightful)
I don't think any tools that are "CIA grade" should be in the hands of law enforcement. WTF are we doing?
Where were you when law enforcement was getting armored troop carriers to ensure their SWAT team is literally more armed than an SF team going into battle?
The time to be concerned about WTF we are "doing" with law enforcement, was a decade ago.
Re:Does anybody else feel (Score:5, Informative)
First, I'm old enough to remember this. [wikipedia.org]
The SWAT team also commandeered an armored car to evacuate the wounded. Several officers additionally equipped themselves with AR-15s and other semi-automatic rifles from a nearby firearms dealer. The incident sparked debate on the need for patrol officers to upgrade their firepower in preparation for similar situations in the future.
So your epoch in time is 25 years ago and I'm all for SWAT teams having whatever they need to protect the public since by definition they are under civilian authority. The exceptions of this would be old sheriff Joe showing off [duckduckgo.com] and mercilessly beating of a man to death in the street [tennessean.com], but that didn't require a Howitzer.
Then again the rise of SWAT teams came about after the SLA shootout [youtube.com] ironically, in LA as well. Both events were covered by live TV news coverage. So one incident begat SWAT and the other begat the wide deployment of ex-military hardware to local law enforcement.
The CIA it seems doesn't answer to anybody, including Congress because they're too chicken shit to do anything about it.
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I'm all for SWAT teams having whatever they need to protect the public since by definition they are under civilian authority.
So it's OK if the cops abuse power as long as it's rubberstamped by government? Civilian authority is now going to somehow prevent SWAT team members from throwing flashbangs into cribs with babies in them?
The CIA it seems doesn't answer to anybody, including Congress because they're too chicken shit to do anything about it.
Or because they want them to continue doing what they're doing.
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If the local voters are fine with it, and they have the correct controls in place to authorize the use of that force, then yes. That's called democracy and I'm not here to solve policing and the abusive use of force. With more body cams, squad unit cameras, and cell phones capturing events there are not many places for bad actors on both sides of the law to hide anymore.
As for your second point, stop voting for retards that promise you security while eroding your freedom. If you can figure out how to make
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it's OK if the cops abuse power as long as it's rubberstamped by government?
If the local voters are fine with it, and they have the correct controls in place to authorize the use of that force, then yes.
Wow?
That's called democracy and I'm not here to solve policing and the abusive use of force.
So as long as the majority wants to have people oppressed, that's okay with you? I'm not intrigued by your ideas, which are rented, and I do not want to subscribe to your newsletter.
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Wow?
That's how it works now if you have some ideal way to prevent anarchy way. We also have courts which also have a say in the process as well and although it's imperfect, it's our system. We don't have to agree with everything it does, but for those things we don't agree with we have recourse, except if you don't want an experimental vaccine injected into you. Then we'll just cancel you by having you fired, preventing you from going to church, or taking away your business. The feds will throw a few bucks at you for your "inconvenience" afterward. Oh and back to TFA, we have the CIA distributing their tools to local law enforcement.
This is what happens when you have a Federal Gov't able to run up trillion-dollar deficits whenever they want, the money never really gets accounted for.
But complaining about it does nothing, what are your suggestions other than "Wow?"
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But complaining about it does nothing, what are your suggestions other than "Wow?"
You've heard all of the suggestions before. One of them is to stop sending police to do jobs they shouldn't be doing. Another one is for SWAT teams to stop treating the people they are there to apprehend like enemies in a war. The people they're there to arrest are innocent until proven guilty, and therefore among the people the police are supposed to serve, not execute. The police are supposed to use only necessary force, remember? SWATting wouldn't even be a threat if cops didn't sometimes show up and kil
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I'm not sure where law enforcement doesn't have a role in laws being violated. We just had a cop sentenced for killing a woman in her home, that's wrong and justice is done but that won't bring the woman back. The focus on the police should be intense and appropriate for the community they serve. SWAT is a tool, it's not the right tool for everything and they need appropriate control on them before acting. I also don't want thugs ransacking my local Walgreens because what they take doesn't add up to some ma
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I'm not sure where law enforcement doesn't have a role in laws being violated.
Anywhere outside of their training, like mental health crises. In the cases where the subject is potentially violent, then perhaps there should be a team of cops and a crisis coordinator. Just letting the cops operate on their OR isn't working.
I also don't want thugs ransacking my local Walgreens because what they take doesn't add up to some magic number either.
Well, I have two things to say about that. One is that that's how it is now. It's actually cheaper on average to just let them steal than to enforce preventing it. That's why we have armed guards on armored trucks, but not at Walgreens. You will literally pay less ove
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Your vision is just that a vision and IMO don't think it'll ever come to pass. Why? There will always be people who don't want to create and work for things but rather destroy and take.
Good luck solving that oh and that world hunger thing needs attention too.
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Your vision is just that a vision and IMO don't think it'll ever come to pass. Why? There will always be people who don't want to create and work for things but rather destroy and take.
Yes, we call them "billionaires". Look at how ol' Warry Buffet just looted a shitload of money from the railroads refusing to let employees get sick without notice, or to spend adequately on brakes. If I don't maintain the brakes on my car and have a chemical spill as a result, I'm gonna be charged with reckless endangerment by the municipality that has to clean it up, and face personal consequences. When the railroads do it the company gets a handslap fine, and the CEOs get a big fat bonus, or at the very
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Ok so now you're bringing non-sequitur crap into the discussion. The reason that railroads are heavily regulated (CFR 49, a very fat book) is precisely because of the needs that evolved as railroads evolved. As for rolling stock, every piece of rolling stock, every 92 days must go through an inspection. That means the locomotives, the cars, all of it. The railroad must certify to the FRA in terms of documentation that the 92-day inspection was done, what issues were found if any and what was the remediation
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Ok so now you're bringing non-sequitur crap into the discussion.
Your lack of imagination and resulting inability to see the connection doesn't mean there isn't one.
The reason that railroads are heavily regulated (CFR 49, a very fat book) is precisely because of the needs that evolved as railroads evolved.
And yet they're not regulated effectively.
As for rolling stock, every piece of rolling stock, every 92 days must go through an inspection.
The car that caused the derailment in Palestine, OH failed an inspection and then rolled anyway.
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If the local voters are fine with it, and they have the correct controls in place to authorize the use of that force, then yes. That's called democracy
No, that's call delusional.
Go ahead. Find me one voter in a county who has first-hand knowledge of the weapons of war re-appropriation plans and budgets. Local voters are "fine" with a LOT of shit because they don't know about it. Like settlements stemming from sexual assault accusations against LEOs or wrongful death lawsuits stemming from SWATTING gone bad.
If voters knew, they would NOT be fine with it. That is why this information is kept hidden.
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Thanks for confirming that voters aren't well-informed.
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Thanks for confirming that voters aren't well-informed.
Oh Great Wise and Powerful Voter...lend us your infinite wisdom on the topic. Prove how well-informed us voters can be. I'm certain weapons of war are "necessary" for civilian streets about as much as I'm certain all that shit that will never get used also "needs" to be upgraded every few years too.
After all, those who have admitted that whole "serve and protect" line is bullshit, really needs all that to (not) really serve or protect you.
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That's why I carry.
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The SWAT team also commandeered an armored car to evacuate the wounded. Several officers additionally equipped themselves with AR-15s and other semi-automatic rifles from a nearby firearms dealer. The incident sparked debate on the need for patrol officers to upgrade their firepower in preparation for similar situations in the future.
So your epoch in time is 25 years ago and I'm all for SWAT teams having whatever they need to protect the public since by definition they are under civilian authority.
And "civilian authority" translated to thousands of "extra" weapons that never made it to a battlefield gobbled up by law enforcement agencies that are abusing one or two incidents that happened decades ago to justify billions in taxpayer dollars being diverted from the battlefield to your local neighborhood street. All while a government works tirelessly to disarm citizens. Oh, the police simply stopped responding to reports of petty theft? Tell me again how you feel safer as they demonize the very weap
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The civilian authority in some cities told their law enforcement to stand down. It works both ways, including law enforcement shutting down businesses during CV19.
Again, who votes these idiots into their roles of authority, people get the government they deserve. If you vote for morons who are more concerned with painting words on street vs. an increased crime rate, maybe you should vote the dumbasses out of office?
The effects of the past two years are being felt in cities where their leadership failed and
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In the referenced shootout, the police fired 650 rounds at just two people.
They don't need more firepower, they need better aim.
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There's no substitute for marksmanship skills [youtube.com]
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Hey, remember THREE decades ago when the FBI forced every mail provider to install Carnivore?
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> I don't think any tools that are "CIA grade" should be in the hands of law enforcement. WTF are we doing?
What if the laws were all moral and common sense?
Ah - ha!
Too general to comment but (Score:3, Insightful)
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I canâ(TM)t imagine how data analysis could be bad at all even if automated.
It's called systemic bias.
There one corner that drug dealers always use, why not monitor that corner?
If you could have a omniscient computer that knew where all the drug deals were happening, then you could do that without bias. But since you don't, and the system depends on the data you feed into it, it's GIGO. The system is only going to tell you how to find more of what you've already found. So if you ("hypothetically") have a bias against black people in policing, the system is going to wind up with data that reflects that bias.
Another problem is that policing isn't even inten
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That's one take. I'd bet it's outweighed by time theft (by employees), if it were actually possible to have invisible people sitting around with stopwatches counting whenever somebody is not productively working. But the only response I ever saw online to the "quiet quitting" trend (be it real or imagined) was approval, in that employees are entitled to do whatever they can get away with. So I guess what's good for the goose is good for the gander
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the only response I ever saw online to the "quiet quitting" trend (be it real or imagined) was approval, in that employees are entitled to do whatever they can get away with.
The only response you should see to people doing the work they're paid to do and not more is approval, because doing more is the real "time theft". If the company wants you to do more, they can pay more. When I heard "quiet quitting" I thought it must surely mean that people were doing less than they were paid to do, but not more; but no, corporations were literally complaining that people weren't doing more than they were paid to do. Now I forget, what do you call it when people are forced to work without
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let's say what somebody's job expectation is to work on a never-ending backlog of tasks for 8 hours per day, but they find they can accomplish enough in 5 to not get fired and so they do that instead. How quickly would you apply the term "theft" to that?
If their job is to do as many as possible during the course of the day, then as long as they are getting their breaks and such, they should work throughout the course of the day. However, they should also be working at a sustainable pace and for a sustainable number of hours, so their job won't cause burnout. Otherwise their employer has a bad plan, and they shouldn't have to suffer for it.
Mod parent up (Score:2)
Yep
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It is mostly searching police databases, but one of those includes details of victims, witnesses and people who reported crimes. Critics argued there was too much danger of innocent citizens being targeted by police (e.g. because of crimes they had happened to have witnessed / reported in the past). The court was not against this type of software in general, just this specific example. It came up with some guidelines for future data analysis tools to follow.
"Crime-fighting software"? (Score:4, Interesting)
No doubt German criminals will rejoice (Score:2)
As the clued up ones continue to use the latest software available.
Whilst law enforcement should always be rigorously controlled, denying them tools that they may need is absurd.
Perhaps German police shouldn't be allowed guns either in case they hurt someone?
Good luck joining 5-eyes, Germany (Score:2)
They'll have to change this if they ever wanted to join 5 eyes. Letting their citizens be spied on is pretty much the entire purpose of that club!
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> They'll have to change this if they ever wanted to join 5 eyes
After Leaky Joe blew up the Nordstream Pipline?
Not going to happen.