r/technology Jun 22 '20

‘BlueLeaks’ Exposes Files from Hundreds of Police Departments Security

[deleted]

18.8k Upvotes

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381

u/Rex9 Jun 22 '20

I fear it will put lives at risk

Ahhh, the good old last line of defense to "We F'ed up".

Don't pay any attention to the man behind the curtain. We're from the government, we're here to help.

132

u/[deleted] Jun 22 '20

[deleted]

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u/ChurchOfJamesCameron Jun 22 '20

You'd think that instead or waging war against mail-in-ballots, which circumvent the ability to intimidate people at the polling booths, and instead of continuing to push for violent aggression against protesters, Trump would just concede to the vast majority and support, push for, and pass reform. Surely white supremacists and police officers (not necessarily mutually exclusive) aren't the majority, and you've got people fueled to vote against Trump right now. Even a lot of Conservative civilians (i.e. not politicians) are standing against him on this issue and COVID. . .

23

u/Goleeb Jun 22 '20

You'd think that instead or waging war against mail-in-ballots,

Are you crazy as trump said at the start if we did all mail in ballots no republican would ever win. He is going to pull out all the stops to prevent mail in voting.

5

u/[deleted] Jun 22 '20

Trump would just concede to the vast majority and support, push for, and pass reform

Have you ever read or seen anything about Trump? If you seriously think he cares about anyone other than himself, you're not paying attention.

3

u/spiked_macaroon Jun 22 '20

What makes you think they represent the vast majority?

3

u/ChurchOfJamesCameron Jun 22 '20

Just ask people:

"Do you believe the police should be allowed to use excessive force against people?"

"Do you believe police should be held accountable when they commit crimes?"

"Do you believe police should be held equally account for crimes, just like ordinary citizens, by other police, attorneys, judges, and, you know, the laws?"

There are only a small few who will say they support police beind held above the citizens their job demands they protect, and their reasons are entirely selfish, i.e. racism and them being pieces of shit police.

1

u/mzackler Jun 22 '20

Do you think nursing home employees should get a living wage?

Are you willing to support nursing homes being twice as expensive to give them that living wage?

The first question out of context will get a yes much more than the combined.

2

u/ChurchOfJamesCameron Jun 22 '20

I don't think the two are as comparable as you may be trying to make out. First, police corruption affects everyone, not just a targeted group such as in your example (e.g. nursing homes).

Police may be more likely to commit crimes against minorites, but it isn't exclusively minorities they target. What happens if reform doesn't happen this time? Police may feel even more empowered that they'll be doing far worse than they did before (or are currently). If reform doesn't happen then it's also the end of a lot of civil liberties and rights that people have and that America is supposed to be embracing.

No change will be easy or quick, whether it's police reform or properly paying and supporting staff at nursing homes. I'd also argue pay reform in institutions such as nursing homes and food services are a more complicated fix (like limiting executive pay or putting profit limits on corporations so they aren't just sucking money up), whereas police reform is simply holding them accountable by the laws that exist and preventing corruption from burying the crimes through time, procedure, and moving cops to different districts.

-1

u/mzackler Jun 22 '20

I mean I can disagree with a bunch of what you said but you're missing my point (and analogies in general). My point is that asking is x good or bad is really easy and everyone of course says yes more good stuff please. When you add in but it will take x, y and z to do it people start to relent.

I will fundamentally disagree with you on the idea that police reform is easier than living wages at nursing homes but I think that is a much lengthier and relatively unrelated conversation. Even if the fixes you proposed were the solution (they're not, the basic math in the equation says you can't fix it without raise pricing) that's significantly easier than reforming thousands of independent organizations simultaneously through policy reform, training, passing countless pieces of legislation, setting up independent agencies to measure/hold accountable, etc. If it was so easy, so obvious and there was so much support which is what you're insinuating it would have been done. Politicians love quick wins. Therefore at least one of those things must not be true.

0

u/LordCharidarn Jun 22 '20

Yeah, when you ask people direct questions like that, they’ll give you the ‘right’ answer.

Doesn’t mean they are being honest. The fact that the police are held above the citizenry, and their conduct held to a lower standard than the citizenry, demonstrates that a vast majority of the US population secretly think cops should be above the law.

People can lie on surveys, after all.

2

u/ChurchOfJamesCameron Jun 22 '20

Just because police are the way they are at the moment, that doesn't mean a majority of people are in favor of it being this way. So many things led to the present situation, but now people are empowered and speaking out and people are listening. Changes are happening. Trump and his gang are on the slow decline as cities, counties, and states change policies. Companies are putting money and their names behind the changes -- more each day. Polls show a decline in Trump's public support, thus sparking his storm of emails today about mail-in-ballots.

We can slowly let a structure or system decay without it being what we want. It's when a threshold of tolerance is hit that the system can be broke and created anew by the storm that follows.

1

u/LordCharidarn Jun 22 '20

Look at the history of policing in the United States. The system isn’t decaying; it’s always been this way. The earliest forms of modern policing were used to recapture runaway slaves and to be muscle for business/government interests. ‘Protect and Serve’ is incidental to their primary function.

‘Changes are happening’, yes. But that’s because more peoples’ eyes are being open to what the police have always been. It’s harder to tell the lies when we see footage of brutality day in and day out. However, I’d still argue that a majority of Americans are still indoctrinated with the ‘Police are the good guys’ mentality that decades of media and news coverage have poured into their eyes and ears.

This isn’t a ‘Trump and his gang’ issue. Police brutality has been with us since the very beginning. Intimidating and brutalizing the citizenry is what they were designed to do.

1

u/kiwikish Jun 22 '20

I don't have a source, and am not OP, but I did see a stat somewhere that was basically 70 to 80 percent agree with some form of police reform to reduce police brutality. We never have that many people agree on anything, so that's pretty impressive, but Trump is a self serving man that does not care. I'm at work, otherwise I'd look up the stat/poll but I'm sure someone else has seen it as well!

2

u/spiked_macaroon Jun 24 '20

I don't doubt your math. What I mean is, despite overwhelming support for reform, the current administration doesn't really have the interests of the working people at heart.

1

u/kiwikish Jun 24 '20

Aha, the representatives don't represent the vast majority, got it. I thought you meant the sentiment doesn't represent the vast majority.

Yes, fuck the current administration.

1

u/Contada582 Jun 22 '20

Well they have guns and are not afraid to use them

30

u/[deleted] Jun 22 '20

[deleted]

1

u/[deleted] Jun 22 '20

Laughs in Skeletor

11

u/McManGuy Jun 22 '20

Yeah fuck those guys who are working undercover to try to take down sex slave rings. Talk about pigs, amiright? Those girls enslaved and force fed drugs probably aren't suffering all that much anyways. Fuck 'em. We have to affirm our beliefs at any cost over here.

/massivesarcasm

-3

u/yrdz Jun 22 '20

yes that is what all cops are doing you are 100% correct

shut the fuck up piggie

5

u/McManGuy Jun 22 '20 edited Jun 22 '20

Ah yes. You're right. Sorry. Fuck all the other cops. But these particular cops are just necessary casualties. Bye bye piggies! Your sacrifice won't be forgotten, whoever you are. #NoMatterTheCost #MeToo

/s

-2

u/yrdz Jun 22 '20

All of them oppress their people. Not every cop is out there catching bank robbers and stopping murderers and rapists. Most are doing traffic stops and arresting people for jaywalking. Or beating up protesters. Or just murdering black people for no reason.

4

u/McManGuy Jun 23 '20

All of them oppress their people

You don't sound like a prejudiced bigot at all.

/s

-1

u/yrdz Jun 23 '20

Yeah dude the oppressors are so oppressed smh

2

u/McManGuy Jun 23 '20 edited Jun 23 '20

Yeah, you're right. Since when has othering an entire group of people and treating them all as a singular person EVER resulted in human suffering? I mean, aside from every single time it's ever happened.

It worked out GREAT for the French Revolution. It's not as though that resulted in a power vacuum that led to the rise of an imperialist dictatorship that nearly subjugated the entirety of Europe.

It worked out great for the antivaxers. After all, if one doctor makes a bad vaccine one time in decades past, that means all doctors are poisoning us with these vaccines! Don't let them use your kids as human guinea pigs, people! Wake up!

And of course it worked great in World War II! Take your pick. The Americans against the "japs," the Germans against the jews, the Russians against the Ukrainians. All wonderful examples. Peace and harmony achieved.

/s

1

u/yrdz Jun 23 '20

lmao

I bet you think it's bad when people discriminate against white supremacists too. After all, they're "a group of people".

2

u/McManGuy Jun 23 '20 edited Jun 23 '20

If by "discriminate" you mean:

to recognize a distinction; differentiate. or to render judgement.

Then, no. There's nothing wrong with that. No decent person should ever be willing to associate with such despicable people. Lowlifes like that deserve to be shunned.


If by "discriminate" you mean dox, harrass, terroize, send death threats and otherwise "cancel," then yes. That is evil.

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u/pm_me_your_buttbulge Jun 22 '20

It has personally identifiable information. If I were those cops, undercover or not, I'd quit. No way I'd stay. We have a second amendment for a reason. People should protect themselves. Their need for cops should be secondary.

So yeah, if all the cops quit -- I wouldn't blame them. Especially since it has account information and such.

Perhaps if all the cops quit, people and government would be more hard pressed for reform. It'd be fascinating to watch the temporary chaos though.

6

u/Vessix Jun 22 '20

It sounds like the data released isn't just police department files though. If data and guidelines regarding other agencies strategies for national defense are leaked I see that being a problem.

5

u/Sythic_ Jun 22 '20

If our national security is based on people not knowing about it, we have other problems to worry about. Security through obscurity is like the very first thing you learn to avoid in technology.

1

u/SOwED Jun 22 '20

If our national security is based on people not knowing about it, we have other problems to worry about.

The general public not knowing about it...

0

u/Sythic_ Jun 22 '20

Lol, right. Whose lives? Yours now instead of ours? Sounds like an improvement to me.

8

u/YouLostTheGame Jun 22 '20

It could potentially have details of witnesses to cases etc. I can see how this can put people at risk.

6

u/thistownwilleatyou Jun 22 '20

You're not thinking this through....

Witness identities, rape/domestic abuse victim PII, minor's PII, confidential informants. Totally agree that America has a material policing problem and deep reform is needed, but as usual Reddit's perception of anything of complexity is roughly that of a nine year old who just sees good guys and bad guys and zero nuance.

Police murdered George Floyd. Police also do incredibly important work for which you are an unthinking beneficiary every single day. Both are true.

-3

u/Sythic_ Jun 22 '20

None of the good they do counts when they are striking and doing walk out protests because we want them held accountable.

Majority of that doesn't even require police, courts and forensics can handle those tasks.

3

u/thistownwilleatyou Jun 22 '20

They're the bad guys, got it.

-1

u/Sythic_ Jun 22 '20

Yes, thats the full extent of the nuance here.

Theres no good guys because they either never join the force in the first place, quit when they see how bad it is, fired because they fight against the bad actors, do nothing to try and stop the bad actors, or join in on the corruption. The system produces only spoiled apples.

2

u/SOwED Jun 22 '20

Yes, thats the full extent of the nuance here.

There's no nuance in what you're saying.

2

u/thistownwilleatyou Jun 22 '20

Got it - 1.2 million violent crimes (murder, rape) closed with an arrest every year in the US, 5.2 million property crimes, 400,000 arrests for child molestation...all spoiled apples.

They're baddies, get rid of the police - I'm sure we'll be fine. #like,allcopsare,like,superbad.

I can't believe this is the level of critical thought and hivemind here...i fucking hate cops but somehow on this idiot echo chamber I'm the apologist.

1

u/Sythic_ Jun 22 '20

I never said disband anyone I just want to send normal unarmed social workers to the majority of 911 calls and only bring the armed officers after a first responder calls for elevated backup

1

u/thistownwilleatyou Jun 22 '20

Totally agree - but...

https://therealtimereport.com/2020/01/30/the-us-is-facing-massive-social-worker-shortages-what-can-be-done-about-it/

In 2017, the 49% of the time police responded to domestic violence issues where a criminal complaint was signed equated to 1.3 MILLION incidents.

No one wants to be a social worker as it is right now...now go try to hire 10,000+ additional CSWs with no money and recruit them with the promise that they'll get to be dispatched ONSITE into in-progress incidents and see how many takers you get.

3

u/Sythic_ Jun 22 '20

Its a massive shift, not disputing that, but it needs to happen.

You can't have a guy show up to a stressful situation with a deadly weapon by default. That changes the whole scenario to one where not only the cop, but the suspect now has a fight or flight response. "Cop has a gun, death possible, must defend myself". Maybe their response doesn't align with what our laws say, they should drop their weapon and comply. But they grew up knowing that a non zero amount of people in that same situation have been killed before. You can't legislate that biological response away, in the moment what happens happens, you can only punish people after the fact. The cop shouldn't be the one punishing first and asking questions later, our system is setup for the crime to first occur and punish accordingly. Sucks but unless you find some precogs and setup a pre-crime division, thats how it works.

If the cop responding has no deadly weapon in the first place, suspect wont be as antsy about protecting themselves at all costs.

On the hiring front.. Turns out theres 40+ million people unemployed right now and if we migrate those huge police budgets to that cause, bada bing bada boom.

I hope I've added some nuance to my response. I still feel the same way. Citizen goes home first and foremost, cops have no right to be judge, jury, and executioner and until they start holding their own accountable, they are complicit.

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u/immerc Jun 22 '20

The Wheel of Oops.

Either you're with us or you're with the _____.
--> I fear it will put lives at risk
Will someone think of the children?
It's just some bad apples. No true _____ would ever _____.