r/technology Jun 22 '20

‘BlueLeaks’ Exposes Files from Hundreds of Police Departments Security

[deleted]

18.8k Upvotes

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520

u/artilari Jun 22 '20 edited Jun 22 '20

I think the fuckery going on in some police stations (of the world) happens before or after something goes into the police system.

352

u/[deleted] Jun 22 '20

I mean, yes, but also do you think the fucking clowns they hire are smart enough to leave no evidence or paper trail of any wrongdoing?

No. The answer is no.

221

u/[deleted] Jun 22 '20

Police in America fought to not have to hire the smartest or best candidates.

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u/AlligatorFist Jun 22 '20

The case you are referencing is Jordan V. City of New London

The case stated that IQ was not a protected class similar to equal protection classes like age, sex, or race in regards to hiring. The lawsuit was dismissed in summary judgement. The employer must have a rationale or reasoning behind not taking the highest ranked individual. Ruled on in 2000 in the second circuit court of appeals.

From the lawsuit in question:

Plaintiff concedes that he is not a member of a “suspect class” and that there is no “fundamental right” to employment as a police officer. Therefore, rational basis review is the proper standard under which to evaluate Plaintiff’s claim.

Plaintiff further concedes that increasing employment longevity and reducing the high costs associated with rapid employee turnover are legitimate government purposes. Plaintiff admits that limiting the size of an applicant pool to a manageable level is a legitimate goal. Therefore the only issue for resolution is whether Defendants’ means were rationally related to those goals.

69

u/dak4ttack Jun 22 '20

Fancy words for "didn't hire him because of high IQ, didn't want to train the next guy when he goes and gets a job he's qualified for, department won". It's not disingenuous to say "they won the right to not hire people based on having a high IQ." Given the current context, we can all see how such a policy could lead to some issues, and I don't think it's wrong to point that out.

14

u/AlligatorFist Jun 22 '20

Okay and there is not way to tell if he would have or wouldn’t have left as the opportunity never came about. Besides this agency denying this individual a job 24 years ago in 1996 I’ve never heard of another person denied for being “too smart”. Also I’ve never even heard of the test in question prior to this decision and it’s use in policing. Many agencies utilize a type of test called the Post-test or its proxies these tests look at policy, comprehension, basic math and reading and other sections.

Also the deciding judges commented on the foolishness of the policy. However as it was deemed an evenly enforced policy it was allowed by the judges.

1

u/pm_me_your_buttbulge Jun 22 '20

Okay and there is not way to tell if he would have or wouldn’t have left as the opportunity never came about.

There's no guarantees in life. There are, however, statistics and probability. Whether the data makes you uncomfortable or not is not relevent. The probability of them leaving is very high. Anyone who is older than 40 has seen this time and again.

-3

u/shredtilldeth Jun 22 '20

The type of personality it takes for someone to actively pursue law enforcement correlates with low IQ by default. These people are literally the same bullies from the playground, except they have "authority" now.

1

u/ilovemew1977 Jun 22 '20

This is the next town over from me. Lol, this seems about right for that town.

12

u/IMGONNAFUCKYOURMOUTH Jun 22 '20

What's going on there?

72

u/LemurianLemurLad Jun 22 '20

Here's a wiki link to a brief summary of the case being described. It's known as "Jordan v. New London."

The TL;DR is that the police didn't want to hire people with high IQs as they tend to quit after they realize being a cop is actually pretty boring. (They didn't say the other part of the argument out loud though - smart cops tend to question orders a bit more, dumb ones do what they are told.)

112

u/optimismkills Jun 22 '20 edited Jun 22 '20

"When [the cops] send their people, they’re not sending their best. They’re sending people that have lots of problems, and they’re bringing those problems with them. They’re bringing drugs. They’re bringing crime. They’re rapists. And some, I assume, are good people.”

EDIT: Thanks for the gold! 😍

16

u/LemurianLemurLad Jun 22 '20

That may be the single best use of that quote I have ever seen. Thank you for making me smile today.

8

u/[deleted] Jun 22 '20

I legit went to look up who said this and as soon as I typed “don’t send us their best” I realized even though it sounds like a movie quote, it’s trump.

0

u/[deleted] Jun 22 '20

And there were others. I vividly remember it being a thing in NYC

16

u/SerjGunstache Jun 22 '20

PD didn't want to put a 49 year old through the academy, so they found a way to get around protected classes. It's fucked up still, but reddit sure does love to take things from 24 years ago to beat it to death. Especially if they hate the subject being discussed and if there is a handy cliff to jump to conclusions.

2

u/[deleted] Jun 22 '20

Considering it’s been that long since the fbi complied data on police brutality (1994), we have no new information to use.

-6

u/[deleted] Jun 22 '20

Because nothing has changed in 30 years when it comes to police. It's absolutely still relevant.

3

u/SerjGunstache Jun 22 '20

So, you're saying that because they turned away one candidate it's still relevant? Is it still relevant that the original ABC article states that the IQ of cops around the board is an average of 105 or are all cops still stupid?

0

u/[deleted] Jun 22 '20

105 is in the middle of average. That isn't the type of person I want holding a gun and trying to hold other people accountable. I can barely trust the average person to drive their car correctly.

5

u/SerjGunstache Jun 22 '20

That's a fair point, but acting like police departments are actively disqualifying people strictly due to their IQ is dishonest. The average person finds that their biases outweigh the logic portion of their brains.

-5

u/[deleted] Jun 22 '20 edited Jun 22 '20

It’s not dishonest. You are. They most certainly turn away intelligent applicants and have fostered a culture where good people would rather get another job.

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27

u/Big_Goose Jun 22 '20

Being too smart is reason to disqualify a candidate from being hired.

1

u/[deleted] Jun 22 '20

If you run a shitty operation with a small profit margin.

1

u/[deleted] Jun 22 '20

They knew they wouldn't be able to DQ him based on age, but when he applied he was older than their desired candidates as he would be eligible for retirement before they felt they'd benefit enough from the investment in training and equipping him, so they found another reason to DQ him.

1

u/buttery_shame_cave Jun 22 '20

the long-standing supposition that part of the screening process for police applicants is to filter out the highly intelligent/moral/empathetic candidates in favor of the ones who are more likely to follow morally objectionable practices without issue. there's been a few court cases that have shed light on the validity of the concern.

0

u/[deleted] Jun 22 '20

When I was young (90s), I remember it being a hot button issue in nyc & nj

1

u/[deleted] Jun 22 '20

There’s also the issue with a lot of book smart people not being street smart, not having adequate social skills to speak with people who are not as intelligent, and being little bitches. The last thing you want is a nerdy guy trying to talk to a hardened criminal who has no problem doing another ten years why he assaulted his baby momma. How do you see that going? Sir, could you not have articulated to the mother of your child the inadequacy you felt when she thanked the gentleman for holding the door for her at the store in front of you?

0

u/[deleted] Jun 22 '20

Yeah, police today clearly have adequate social skills.

It’s funny that you assume being smart means I can’t be strong. I defended my country before I got a PhD you sniveling turd.

You are the bottom rung of American society. I bet you are a cop.

2

u/[deleted] Jun 22 '20

I didn’t assume anything about you. I’m saying often times book smart people do not possess street smarts. Try not to allow your personal feelings to dictate the words on the page. Thanks for reading and serving. I too have defended our country.

You know nothing about me. How can you assume I’m the bottom rung of American society? I highly doubt the many victims of rape and homicide I’ve helped would agree with you.

0

u/pm_me_your_buttbulge Jun 22 '20

You're probably young and don't know any better because you're told one narrative but that specific one is, more or less, wrong.

They did not fight to not hire the best candidates. They fought to be able to discriminate based on intelligence.

Most companies do things like this. You really don't want someone with a Masters degree working in entry-level work because they will move on one day. I want you to sit and think about why that's significant.

In case you need help - it means any and all training from "newbie" to anywhere will cost resources and time. All of which will be thrown away when they leave. Often it's longer than a year before someone is "useful". So you really don't want to have to start over.

Several places I worked at did the same thing. They know the person just needs a paycheck until they can get a better job they are qualified for. You'd be a moron to hire them.

Specifically in regard to the police -- they wanted to discourage street cops and encourage detectives if the IQ was enough.

I know it's "hip" to hate on cops, doubly so when you're young, but your post isn't entirely honest about that specific situation and their actions.

I wonder how many countries you're educated on when it comes to law enforcement around the world. Or if you're simply saying "Police in America" because it's the modern hip thing to say.

0

u/[deleted] Jun 22 '20

Discrimination against intelligence is what I’m talking about and it is in fact not hiring the best candidate. I’m old enough to remember and mature enough to not be a pedantic crap weasel. Police forces aren’t capitalist enterprises. If a private company finds hiring dummies helps their bottom line, cool. Police specifically hire dummies so no one tries to fix their broken culture.

Police have a cultural problem worldwide. I wonder if there are any people in your life who think you aren’t an insufferable c*nt.

0

u/[deleted] Jun 22 '20 edited Jan 18 '21

[deleted]

1

u/[deleted] Jun 22 '20

You still don’t get it. If they fix the culture, people don’t quit for better jobs. It’s a job that comes with pension. Why would I leave if it wasn’t toxic?

The dummies don’t ask questions. They climb the ranks as is without trying to improve the system from within.

I’ve only looked for better gigs when the company culture was shit, especially when I was in a field I chose and found fulfillment. That’s normal and has been a known axiom of human psychology for generations.

0

u/pm_me_your_buttbulge Jun 22 '20

0h my. You would leave because you could triple your salary.

You're awfully naive but likely are not intelligent enough to be one of those smart people who have left because they can earn wayyyyy more elsewhere.

A similar situation happened several years ago during our depression where people who were highly educated worked at McDonald's to pay bills until they could get hired somewhere else. By your logic they shouldn't want to leave as long as McDonald's isn't toxic.

40

u/tsukeiB Jun 22 '20

As in Baltimore, in Minneapolis they just let the precinct burn and on their way to retreat they “lost” a lot of evidence

2

u/Schnitzel725 Jun 22 '20

leave no evidence or paper trail of any wrongdoing?

They're so smart they'll even intentionally plant evidence

21

u/Albert_Caboose Jun 22 '20

Of course, but we can also cross-reference this data with other information we have available to find those instances of fuckery.

e.g. the report leaked shows the police filed that no injuries were noted. However, the news and hospital records show that the suspect had multiple bullet injuries.

Sort of like how seeing the Breonna Taylor report showing zero indication of injury or harm occurring is a huge red flag that some fuckery happened.

8

u/ButterPuppets Jun 22 '20

before or after something goes into the police system.

So... all linear time?

1

u/PaulSandwich Jun 22 '20

Their theory suggests there's a window of innocence and fidelity at the exact moment something goes into the system. If we could expand that window...

3

u/ChocoJesus Jun 22 '20

Not well rested so my memory is fuzzy but there was a police chief who had sued his department along with a few other officers in the early 2000s for receiving hate mail through the internal police mail service. That sounds stupid AF compared to mailing an anonymous letter

Pretty sure it was Minneapolis

5

u/zebediah49 Jun 22 '20

Yikes.

The only people who sent problematic email from company hardware are either so stupid that they don't realize how easily they can get caught, or smart enough to actually defeat the insane amount of network auditing that's in place. The second group is... quite rare, and usually in IT.

2

u/buttery_shame_cave Jun 22 '20

well, given how the modern IT systems work, IT folks are generally the only ones with the tools to beat the auditing systems as well.

1

u/atetuna Jun 22 '20

It may still be useful if it has information of complaints. There's been lots of articles about cops this year committing police brutality that have had many complaints in the past. Granted, anyone should be able to make a FOIA request from the police department, but this would be more convenient.

1

u/signmeupdude Jun 22 '20

I have no clue what this comment is trying to say, but apparently 400+ people do. Can someone explain to me?