Though filled with hyperbole and fairly far-fetched (in a slippery slope sort of way), some aspects of 1984 are unnervingly mundane.
Dio is clearly arguing for the installation of viewscreens in people’s homes. Not quite as draconian as the novel, but quite close nonetheless.
They should be voluntarily installed (perhaps with a property tax incentive). Not installing one isn’t a crime per se, but it will get your name added to a list of uncooperative suspects — people who should be looked at first or subject to higher scrutiny whenever a law has been broken. Similarly, they should have a “privacy” button to disable their operation. This too won’t have negative repercussions, save a quick, polite phone call to ensure that everything is OK, to inquire why the viewscreen was disabled, to ask when it will be back on, etc. Until those questions are answered satisfactorily, the same higher scrutiny would apply.
Of course, given the overwhelming amount of incoming data, they won’t be monitored at all times, but everything would be saved for later review if necessary. Because, according to Dio, everyone is a suspect in every unsolved crime, I dare say that “necessary” would constitute investigation into any major felony. I suppose that an email alert could go out giving homeowners 24 hours notice to redact time caught on the viewscreen (in case someone forgot to hit the privacy switch), but of course that last-minute editing would necessarily subject you to the aforementioned higher scrutiny for that case — all other non-redacted footage would be screened a bit more carefully.
The rather unsettling thing is that this is not being absurd. Save some very minor technological hurdles, this is exactly what Dio is arguing for.
The point, as I’ve already said, is that it’s specious to deny that you’re a suspect. There is no legal minimum standard for you to be a suspect. Being suspected deprives you of no rights.
Cops always work by elimination. Anyone who could have done it is a suspect until they are eliminated. That’s how it works.
To me, this sounds like they have someone in particular in mind and they’re hoping, by broadcasting their “intentions”, they’ll draw him to remove something from his house or take some other telling action while they’re watching. Of course, I probably watch entirely too much crime drama on tv.
This is all complete horsehit, of course. I know you think you’re being satirical, but you’re satirizing an attitude I have not epressed. The problem seems to be that you guys think the word “suspect” actually has some kind of specific legal significance. It doesn’t. It just designates somebody who hasn’t been eliminated as a possible perp yet. I have not said that being suspected means a person does not still have the same full battery of civil rights as anyone else. No one is talking about any kind of illegal or warrantless searches in this case. We’re only talking about voluntary searches which violate no civil rights.
Being a “suspect” is not even probable cause for arrest. Lighten up.
There isn’t one. That’s the point. You guys are whining about being put into a categorization that has no legal status or formal meaning at all. It just means the cops think it’s possible you might have done it. It doesn’t mean you lose any rights or anything, but you don’t have a right to not be suspected or investigated.
I don’t care if you want to play semantic footsies with the word “suspect,” it’s not germane to your desire to have communities install viewscreens.
I was very careful to account for what you did express:
You have nothing to hide, so why not a viewscreen? You put rights in quotes, clearly indicating that they are specious under these circumstances. No longer a teenager, you don’t want to argue with its installation. What “rights” do you want to preserve at the cost of a safer society?
If the police have no leads on a felony, then door-to-door searching is justified to eliminate suspects. It’s normal police methodology. This is a grown up method, putting the more important goals of a safer society ahead of other’s self-absorbed territoryialsm.
In fact, it’s a much more effective method than walking door-to-door, as they can reach a much wider range with dramatically less expenditure of resources. ***A policeman walking up to your door, knocking, and looking about your house is no different than a police using your pre-granted permission to look about your house. ** *
You’re saying that the right thing to do is install viewscreens, since it will help the cops narrow the search for the actual perpetrator. You’re saying that it’s unethical to deny the police this tool to protect society.
Again, you marginalize the concept of privacy and desire to exclude the police from your home without sufficient cause. You are saying that there is “no ethical high road to impeding” this kind of investigation “just to assert some sophomoric sense of privilege.” How does the Chief of Police’s request that you install a viewscreen any different?
and
Since no rights are violated because you want to voluntarilly install the viewscreen, there is no problem.
and
Accepted: in any unsolved felony, everyone is a suspect until the police deem otherwise. Installation of viewscreens will not only increase the police’s closing rate, it will make your life easier as you will be eliminated as a suspect much earlier.
Not hyperbole. Not satire. Your words. You have nothing to hide, and consider the reluctance to install a viewscreen to be based on a childish and sophomoric concept of a “right,” clearly unethical, and a by-product of self-absorbed terrorialism.
The recently deputized folks from Geeksquad will be by shortly.
Here’s the problem with ideas like that- sure it’s more probable that it was someone near. But how near? So they search 4 blocks, and it turns out to be 5 blocks*- it’s just as likely to be in the next block over. Or the next. .Or…
So, the search area is bogus. It has not worked once (except for in the limited sitrep I talked about). It’s unlikely to work this time. The Chief knows that full well, and there’s a 100% chance he’s not trying to get any results for it. He either wants some political exposure, or as suggested earlier- by a Chief needing to show he’s doing *something. *
It’s a waste of time, police resources and taxpayers money. They may well be allowing the killer to get away by taking away police resources from real investigations. In other words- it’s *worse than useless. *
*(or she ran away and is living in Chicago)
Alright, alright. I’m going to go ahead and ask for a cite that any law enforcement officer or other legal professional has ever regularly used the word “suspect” to mean, without qualification, “someone who hasn’t been eliminated as a possibility yet.”
Because, from where I’m sitting, that word just means “everybody in the state” to you, in which case it seems to me that the police would have to then conduct some form of specific investigation of everybody to narrow down the “suspect” pool. In fact, I am pretty sure that the police do not do this. They identify as “suspects” people who could have committed the crime and for whom there is some reason to consider them more likely to have done it than any other random person on the street. If I’m wrong about this, I await your well-supported correction.
But in any case, I’m pretty sure the original objection was only to the way you suggested that it would be a good idea to allow the cops into your home just so they could eliminate you as a suspect. But the way you’ve defined “suspect” is so uselessly broad that there is zero benefit to being removed from the police’s suspects list, and thus no reason to allow them into your home. That was my main point, quibbles about the meaning of “suspect” notwithstanding.
:: waits for that one guy to show up who always shows up with the link to the HOUR LONG youtube video from some defense attorney explaining why you should never ever help the police ::
I’m part of the slippery slide crowd. Let the cops do a massive search for this cause, then next week it’s looking for another, lesser crime.
It’s a farce. There’s 60 cops, not even experts as they are being pulled from all sorts of jobs, searching 6,000 homes, so each one searches 100 homes.
I would most likely let them in and search, mostly depending on whether it was convenient for me at the time. I’m okay with letting them in, but I don’t feel any obligation to change my plans to accommodate them.
But I’d also support my neighbor who said “no, come back with a warrant.” Rock on, 4th Amendment Neighbor.
The real reason I would let them is because I would be madly curious to see how they will search and what they are searching for. Would I be able to tell from watching them if they are looking for a particular type of thing? It seems like such a crazily inefficient plan for finding anything, it makes me wonder if they have some specific item in mind that they are looking for.
All of this presumes the police are honest and have good intentions, a premise I reject. I have been ridiculed on this board for relating incidents about the Burbank, CA police department where they have lied and attempted to frame a friend of mine. Now, the FBI is investigating the department, one of their officers who was under investigation shot himself, and the chief has resigned. Yeah, the department here is soooo clean.
The police are nothing more than the largest gang of thugs in the United States. Fuck the police, and fuck the people who fellate them. The policeman is NOT your friend, he regards you as a suspect at all times, and is just looking for anything he can use against you, and will be happy to make crap up and perjure himself in court to throw your happy ass in jail. It happens every day. A large number of LEO’s are of the philosophy that there are two kinds of people in the world, people that work in the criminal justice system, and people who should be in jail. Prison planet, here we come.
The fact that the piggies would even propose this kind of outrageous fishing expedition should clue even the dumbest into their real outlook on how things oughta be.
I wouldn’t let them in, either.
The way I look at it is that if this is such a good idea then they should be able to convince some judge to sign a warrant for the whole neighborhood. That they won’t do this makes it a fishing expedition. Plus, with my sense of humor I’d get arrested from just watching them going through the motions of a search. “Cold…Colder…Oh, you’re really freezing there!” “Marco?”
But it’s not sophomoric and it’s not a sense of privilege, it’s a right so fundamental to the laws of the United States of America that it’s in the Bill of Rights. (I do realize that we’re talking about Canada, but I don’t know enough Canadian law to make a contribution.) The police may not enter your home without your permission (or an extremely good, legally defensible reason), and if they hold it against you that you don’t grant that permission and thus waive one of your rights, then it isn’t really a right, is it? This isn’t a small thing.
You’re not making any sense. Voluntarily helping the cops does not involve giving up any rights.
Refusing to help the cops out of a sophomoric sense of indignation is your prerogative, but the question in the OP was what would YOU do. I would have the decency to prioritize the search for a kidnapping victim over my desire to act like a self-righteous teenager.
Your attempts at satire are completely off the mark since I’ve only talked about what I’d be willing to help the cops with, not what anybody should be forced to do. If it makes you feel good to obstruct the search for a missing kid, knock yourself out and sleep well.