Slack Removed a Blog Post Showing How Police Use its Tech (vice.com) 58
Slack recently deleted one of the company's own blog posts that explained how a local police department used the chat platform to share intelligence. From a report: The move came after some Black Slack employees flagged the blog post years ago, one employee suggested on Twitter. Slack removed the post in the past few days in the wake of widespread protests about police brutality after a white police officer killed unarmed Black man George Floyd. "These days, the Hartford Police Department's intelligence sharing is primarily coordinated over Slack with more than 450 investigators and officers from all over the state, "the blog post read, referring to Hartford, Connecticut, according to archived and cached versions viewed by Motherboard. The post explained how the police department used Slack to post updates in a #department-wide channel, and use other channels such as #narcotics, #crimes, and #BOLO (be on the lookout). Sometimes the officers used Slack to track specific crimes, such as ATM robberies, the post added. The Slack team hosted over 450 members across 75 agencies and states, according to the post.
Re:Not all cops are bad (Score:5, Insightful)
For taking a job, where you are supplied a gun, and often military grade equipment. Where you job is suppose to Serve and Protect the Public. There seems a lot of effort around keeping things secrete. The good cops should all be reporting the bad cops. Governor and Mayors should fire the bad cops, even if they are doing stuff off duty that can show that their attitudes and actions may not lead them to properly serve and protect the pubic.
Too many people decide to become cops, so they can bust some heads. Not to serve the community.
The Police need to be very open in what they are doing. If there are some things that need to be quite, such as an investigation, after it is over all the info should be released.
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The people I know who've become cops did so out of a desire to protect and serve. I have a nephew who started out as an educator and then decided to become a DC cop after the shooting of Michael Brown in Ferguson because he wanted to make a difference. But it's incredibly hard to make a difference; you're just a cog in a giant gear train and that gear train is full of sand.
I believe there are good apples and bad apples in the police, but it's a much *nicer* job for the bad apples.
What's more the problem is
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I am not saying you are wrong. The Majority can be there for the right reasons. But there are too many bad cops, even if they are in the minority.
White kids in adolescence and early teens are Taught Sex Ed. from their parents.
Black Kids and other minorities get the Sex Talk, and what to do when you are pulled over by a police speech.
The problem is large enough that this needs to be a thing.
The white guy who gets pulled over for running the red light, can argue with the cop that it was yellow. Normally th
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I think people going in with a racist or authoritarian leaning are a problem, but I think the problem is worse than that.
Police -- regardless of their predisposition -- are caught up in a situation where increasingly they look less like a modern "police by consent" organization and more like an occupying army. It almost doesn't matter if you're not personally racist; you're bound to start feeling like the people you serve are the enemy.
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You know the other part of that expression? The whole thing is "One bad apple spoils the whole barrel". Since there's apparently a general agreement as to the fact of there being quite a lot of bad apples in the US police... My conclusion is: The "Thin Blue Line" is a spoiled barrel.
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sometimes you can't tell though. Is a good cop the guy who goes into the snake's pit of dangerous criminality and comes out with the murderer? Is he still good if he ends up getting shot at and shoots back?
Is the cop who restrains a suspect high on drugs and has to use mroe force that he'd have to with a non-violent arrest and end up injuring the guy a bad cop, or one who is doing a tough job with no support?
Its easy to be an armchair detective, quite another when you're up against a 800lb murder suspect wh
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The problem is I don't have the information to be an armchair detective.
But more to the point. When something goes wrong, we as a public needs to know how and why it went wrong.
Police with turned off body camera, or dashboard cameras that seem unusually non-reliable.
We get a White Supremacist cop and we see that he pushing his agenda on minorities he needs to go, and perhaps to jail.
We see a bust go wrong, but all the procedures were taken place, then we can look at how the procedures failed and make it be
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1) The first two sentences are, in effect, a non-sequitur. If it said, "For taking a job, where you are supplied a gun, and often military grade equipment because your job is suppose to Serve and Protect the Public" it would be more correct for the sake of the statement but I'd argue it's still a fallac
I am paying their salary, shouldn't I know (Score:2)
The police are government officials being paid form my Tax money.
I feel that I should have the right to know what and how they are dealing with my money.
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You have the right to know where they spend their money. You don't have the right to know their live, in action, policing tactics for many reasons not the least of which is ensuring that criminals don't know their tactics.
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While I don't think there is a need for total transparency, for the reasons you mention, better oversight of the tactics employed wouldn't hurt. I read through some of the court transcripts from the Baltimore police corruption hearing, and this was quite illuminating. One of the tactics they employed was to look for groups of black men congregating in public, then to drive quickly at them with their police car before hitting the brakes and popping the doors open, and waiting to see which ones would make a r
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Good question, I don't recall off the top of my head, and don't recall if this was ever elaborated in the transcripts. I suspect, however, that you are correct in your guess, otherwise I doubt it would have persisted for as long as it did.
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Security through obscurity! The mantra of slashdot.
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Never underestimate the value of security through obscurity. Avoidance is the key factor in reducing the probability aspect of risk.
Never overestimate the value of security through obscurity. Avoidance without a mitigation plan greatly increases the severity aspect of risk.
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Absolutely you should have the right to know. However, I believe this is more about the current environment and companies are ashamed to say they enable law enforcement to be bigger pieces of shit than normal.
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I don't think people are unless the craziest of the crazy will blame Slack for having the Police as a customer. Even for the most fervent people who are against police brutality, still know there is a need of a police in society. But the debate is what the Police do and how and why is the real problem.
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Remember when several large companies experienced walk outs and demands to stop doing business with ICE when more round ups were occuring?
Re: I am paying their salary, shouldn't I know (Score:2)
So What? (Score:2, Insightful)
Honestly, what is being implied here? That the police ought NOT to coordinate their work? That's asinine. That they shouldn't be using what, computers and stuff? Good grief.
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No what is being states, is how they do their work, is trying to be kept secret. Because they have a lot of dirty laundry that doesn't want to be shown.
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No what is being states, is how they do their work, is trying to be kept secret. Because they have a lot of dirty laundry that doesn't want to be shown.
When your garage gets broken into and some beat cop has to come out and take the report from you, you want him to submit via carrier pigeon?
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Because they have a lot of dirty laundry that doesn't want to be shown.
Because your name might come up as person of interest in an investigation. And even after having been cleared (or worse yet, providing useful information to the police) some parties out there in the public manage to get hold of that.
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No what is being states, is how they do their work, is trying to be kept secret. Because they have a lot of dirty laundry that doesn't want to be shown.
That statement is also incorrect. It might be one thing if the police department had deleted the post, although I'm not certain that there couldn't be an OpSec reason for doing so.
In this case, Slack deleted the post. All that means is that they're protecting their brand from being associated with the Police, presumably for financial/PR reasons.
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It doesn't have to make sense, cuz RACISM!
We're in hysterical mode right now where everyone is tripping over each other trying to prove how supportive they are. Hell, I'm posting this anonymously because I don't want to get screamed at. We all must wear the ribbon. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]
You're not wrong but as someone who isn't caught up in the group think the emails from coworkers and massive over the top virtue signaling are interesting to watch. It must be a bit how truly brainwashed people, constantly looking to one up each other in 'how much they have to learn about racism' and 'how to be a better ally'. It really is a bit fascinating if you take a step back and just observe. You're remarks about all thinking going being tossed couldn't be more accurate. I will never understand th
Re: So What? (Score:2)
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You gave away your problem with the phrase virtue signaling. Let's look at that a moment, shall we? You are complaining about people doing something good, and the phrase is saying they only do this for the reason that the get a personal benefit for it, in this case showing they're in the 'in group'. This reflects more on you than them, you see. It means you not only think that people can't do something just because they're good people, but you lack the moral foundation to even comprehend the idea that good people might do good things because they're good if there isn't personal benefit.
It really reflects more on you than them.
What is 'good' about saying that they will read some books that describe racism (usually from very racist people BTW)? Talk is cheap. You're assuming that they are doing something good, I'm saying that actions speak louder than words and their actions don't seem helpful to what should be the goal: treating all employees fairly and without regard to race. I agree that good people do the right thing because it's the right thing, and often I live up to that. I just don't think that prioritizing people by r
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I see no reason to object to the use of slack, providing that a few conditions are met: The record of all conversations must be unalterable, it must be made available to any defendant upon appropriate legal order, and it must be subject to any state records-keeping laws. I do not know if that was the case in this instance.
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No, no. What should happen is that those files be written to an unalterable archive, for subpoena at any later date. Wanting transparency means that I want records kept.
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What's being implied here is that Slack no longer feel that police use of their technology is a positive case study that will improve the profile of their company and engender further sales.
Nothing more.
Seems like setting a bad example (Score:3)
A few days ago I was reading an article where a number of retired black baseball players were discussing their experiences with police. They talked about their own expiences as well as how, during their playing days, they would tend to not talk about any bad experiences in the wider clubhouse so as not to cause issues on the field.
One of the guys (Doug Glanville) talked about an experience that happened to him in Connecticut, while he was shoveling snow in his own driveway. But he also talked about his work with a civilian police oversight council for the state, and held it up as a model for addressing these sorts of issues.
I guess I feel like Slack, in taking this action, is painting all police with the same brush. Removing a potentially useful blog post just because it mentioned the police - without there being any apparent actual issue with that blog post - is not helpful. If anything, it might make a police agency that is doing the right thing start to wonder "why are we bothering".
Re:Seems like setting a bad example (Score:4, Interesting)
Removing a potentially useful blog post just because it mentioned the police - without there being any apparent actual issue with that blog post - is not helpful.
This never should have been posted in the first place. Forget police for a moment and consider how badly this might go if Slack described the internal operations of any of its clients in an open forum. Particularly without their permission.
Re:Seems like setting a bad example (Score:4, Interesting)
Your point seems like a good one, and perhaps that was the actual motivation in removing the post. But the story seems to imply that the reason for removing the post was simply because it mentioned that Slack did business with police.
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But the story seems to imply that the reason for removing the post was simply because it mentioned that Slack did business with police.
Yeah. Because the police are on the public's shit list at the moment. But then maybe that's why the blog post was made in the first place.
This would be a pretty sad country to live in if everyone not in the leading parties favor could be set upon by a mob, rallied by special interest groups with their own agenda. I certainly wouldn't want to be a Jewish businessman with a storefront full of big windows in today's atmosphere.
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not the public's shit list, but the SJW one.
Which tends to be someone, just that its the police's turn to be de-platformed and de-funded by the de-intelligent.
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Please today the police can go to court and make the statement "the unarmed person made me fear for my life so I shot them." and get off.
Soooo can I shot an armed person who is approaching me because I am scared for my life, and happens to be a police officer?
No cause, no weapon, no issue and get shot.
WTF SMH
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"the unarmed person made me fear for my life" - Jet Li would like you to know you're a pussy with shit for brains.
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They understandably want to stay far, far away from controversy, especially at a time when government agencies like the DEA have been called into do surveillance of protest organizers.
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On the flip side, the city of Hartford probably doesn't want people hacking into their Slack channel. If they were able to impersonate an officer, they could redirect the police to fake incidents and make looting stores easier. The fact Slack is advertising that they have this site isn't helpful to them right now.
too much 'do something' (Score:3)
Our society is too quick to 'do something' to 'solve problems'. We just grab onto 'something' and run with it, without taking the time to understand if we should do anything at all or if we are doing the right thing.
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I was referring to Slack's actions. But you're right, the police are out of control and have been. How did we get here? We got here from years of 'law and order' and 'do something about crime'. We had lots of extra military gear and we did something, we gave it to police. We've been doing something in the wrong direction for at least 50 years. What we really need to do is undo many of the somethings we already completed. Pulling down (currently) embarrassing blog posts doesn't solve anything or help a
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It's more of a PR move. The police brand is toxic now.
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There's a simple solution that would let people make a real judgement.
Shut down the police for a year or two. Everything. Just have them walk away and say to people "Ok, you've let us know you don't want us and you think we're terrible. Show us how it's done".
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And how does slack removing a blog post help? It doesn't.
Slack was quick to remove this blog post because supporting the police is unpopular at this moment. I think that was a quick action on Slack's part and doesn't help or solve anything. We look bad - 'do something!'.
Yes, we need to address issues with the police - I actually lived through the 90s and I won't forget being on the wrong side of the baton, because young adults out after dark looks like a broken window to a broken windows cop and goddamn
In your court trial you have the right to that inf (Score:2)
In your court trial you have the right to that info!