You say Police State, I say potato. Either way let's discuss surveillance and government overreach.

DSGamer wrote:

I don't know if that's entirely true. The fact that we were "followed" here from another thread to me was the original lack of courtesy and one which gave this thread no hope of succeeding.

What does that mean?

Jayhawker wrote:
DSGamer wrote:

I don't know if that's entirely true. The fact that we were "followed" here from another thread to me was the original lack of courtesy and one which gave this thread no hope of succeeding.

What does that mean?

I think DSG has an unreasonable expectation of having invite only discussions for those whose points of view match more closely to his own.

In his defense, it isn't unreasonable to want to talk to like-minded individuals, but it is perhaps unreasonable to expect P&C nerds on a video game forum to stay on topic:)

Hunh. For some reason, I thought that this thread "Is the USA a Police State? Discuss." was the one for discussing about whether the US is a police state or not and stating evidence both ways, and the "Olice-pay Ate-stay: What to do if you feel you live in one?" was the one for true-believers only.

Gorilla.800.lbs wrote:
DS wrote:

I wasn't worried about the US being a police state in August of 2011.

But then again, Amadou Diallo and countless others would probably disagree, from beyond the grave.

Amadou Diallo's tragic death is an example of excessive use of deadly force by the police. It also points out flaws in the system, where it is ok for police to react with deadly force to mistaking a man reaching for a wallet for reaching for a gun and mistaking an officer tripping and falling on steps for the officer being shot. It was a tragedy, and I believe, a crime. What it isn't, is evidence that we live in a police state. If this were a police state, the state would not have paid 3 million dollars to the victim's family to settle a wrongful death suit. In a police state, the family would have no recouse at all. 3 million dollars can't bring the wrongfully killed back to life, but the fact that the state paid the money shows that there are limits on police power, even if they are in this case after the fact and insufficient.

The fact that justice can be miscarried does not mean the same thing as a systematic lack of justice, in my opinion, anyway. The current situation w/ the Seattle police and the US DOJ is a counter-example. Patterns of excess and abuse are tracked and police are being held (eventually) accountable. This doesn't excuse their excesses or bring the dead back to life, but it does show that there are checks on the power of the police. (I want to be clear that I'm not saying the police were right to murder Amadou Diallo, just that his murder by the police and the officer's subsequent acquital on all counts is not evidence of a police state. It is evidence of flaws in the justice system.)

What I would call a police state would be a state where the police did not have to answer for their abuses. Where redress of wrongs is not possible. The no-fly list, for example, is what I would identify as a perfect example of police state activity. You can't know if you are on it, you can't know why someone is on it, and you can't take any action to get your name off of it. There is a lack of due process or checks on the power of the police. People, including US citizens, being held without charge and without access to a court of law are examples of a police state. State pressure being used to cut off funding sources for wikileaks is an example of a police state. Warrantless wiretapping is an example of police state behavior. (As were Japanese internment, suspension of habeous corpus, and the Sacco and Venzetti case.) Maybe it is a semantic distinction, but abuses of police authority, in my view, are not examples of a police state. It is the lack of avenues to due process that change abuses of power into systematic disenfranchisement of civil liberties.

Amadou Diallo's tragic death is an example of excessive use of deadly force by the police. It also points out flaws in the system, where it is ok for police to react with deadly force to mistaking a man reaching for a wallet for reaching for a gun and mistaking an officer tripping and falling on steps for the officer being shot. It was a tragedy, and I believe, a crime. What it isn't, is evidence that we live in a police state. If this were a police state, the state would not have paid 3 million dollars to the victim's family to settle a wrongful death suit. In a police state, the family would have no recouse at all. 3 million dollars can't bring the wrongfully killed back to life, but the fact that the state paid the money shows that there are limits on police power, even if they are in this case after the fact and insufficient.

Oso, my implied tangent to the "police state" story is that all of the shooters were fully acquitted.

Oso, my implied tangent to the "police state" story is that all of the shooters were fully acquitted.

It is a good tangent. It points out that as long as police follow their training and procedures, they aren't legally responsible for mistakes in perception. This is non-trivial. Because of the settlement, I don't share your view, but the point is a good one.

SallyNasty wrote:
Jayhawker wrote:
DSGamer wrote:

I don't know if that's entirely true. The fact that we were "followed" here from another thread to me was the original lack of courtesy and one which gave this thread no hope of succeeding.

What does that mean?

I think DSG has an unreasonable expectation of having invite only discussions for those whose points of view match more closely to his own.

In his defense, it isn't unreasonable to want to talk to like-minded individuals, but it is perhaps unreasonable to expect P&C nerds on a video game forum to stay on topic:)

I understand and largely agree. I is indeed unreasonable to only want to talk to like-minded individuals. The thing you have to understand, though, is that there's a difference in opinion of degrees even between the supposed "true believers". My main frustration is that this has happened twice. It's been impossible to create a single thread based on this premise that can't be derailed on this topic because there are some points of view that just won't be tolerated on GWJ these days.

Hypatian wrote:

Hunh. For some reason, I thought that this thread "Is the USA a Police State? Discuss." was the one for discussing about whether the US is a police state or not and stating evidence both ways, and the "Olice-pay Ate-stay: What to do if you feel you live in one?" was the one for true-believers only.

It's the other way around, actually. Here's the history.

- The "Olice-pay Ate-stay" thread was started as a response to the police state rhetoric ramping up in multiple threads. The creator of that thread correctly thought it would be a good idea to divert a lot of that discussion into a single place. That thread started off as a thread for the true-believers (for lack of a better term).

- Quickly, though, that thread turned into an argument between the true-believers and people who thought they were wrong. That got protracted and heated and the original point of that thread was deviated from and turned into an argument about whether the US was or was becoming a police state.

- Thus I created this thread as an attempt to re-rail that conversation in a different thread, hopefully as a place where that discussion could take place without the very premise being questioned. The original title of this thread was something to the effect of "So You Feel You Live in a Police State - What Do You Do Now?" My hope was that even though the other thread had organically been taken off topic that this thread could be the place where the "true-believers" (for lack of a better term) could discuss what kind of political and personal action you could take.

- Unfortunately this thread was also derailed by the same people and eventually I just renamed it to what everyone was arguing about at that point.

That's what happened. Keep in mind that a large part of why this happened (both the original thread and this thread) is because people were sick of Malor, myself and others injecting our frustrations with US security policy into other P&C threads where it seemed topical. It made a lot of sense what HP Lovesauce did when he wrote...

Malor and DSGamer especially have banged this drum in the forums recently. I wanted to take their viewpoint as the basis for a hypothetical:

Your nation is [becoming|not quite yet|a new kind of] a police state. What do you do?

... and started the "Olice-pay" thread. I liked that idea and wanted to keep it intact because I felt for people who wanted to talk about presidential politics or whatever without hearing about the same issue over and over. It seemed fair to contain it. Unfortunately that attempt at being courteous was not reciprocated and we've had two threads now where the very premise has been argued to death. If I started a third the same thing would happen there. That's why I think there's no point in continuing to discuss this.

In this case, you might just meditate on the fact that the thread titles do indeed seem to invite the opposite of what was intended. "Is the USA a police state? Discuss." suggests that there's a question about whether the USA is a police state, and that people are invited to discuss the question.

Add to that the fact that the OP of the thread doesn't say anything about the apparent intent of this thread, and it's really really not surprising that people would use it for the "wrong" thing.

--

P.S. Every thread in P&C gets derailed all the time. This subject is not particularly special.

DSGamer wrote:
SallyNasty wrote:
Jayhawker wrote:
DSGamer wrote:

I don't know if that's entirely true. The fact that we were "followed" here from another thread to me was the original lack of courtesy and one which gave this thread no hope of succeeding.

What does that mean?

I think DSG has an unreasonable expectation of having invite only discussions for those whose points of view match more closely to his own.

In his defense, it isn't unreasonable to want to talk to like-minded individuals, but it is perhaps unreasonable to expect P&C nerds on a video game forum to stay on topic:)

I understand and largely agree. I is indeed unreasonable to only want to talk to like-minded individuals. The thing you have to understand, though, is that there's a difference in opinion of degrees even between the supposed "true believers". My main frustration is that this has happened twice. It's been impossible to create a single thread based on this premise that can't be derailed on this topic because there are some points of view that just won't be tolerated on GWJ these days.

I think there's a difference between 'not tolerating' a point of view, and 'not consistently trying to pick apart'. From my, largely, neutral perspective, it seems like there's an even amount of shoving from both camps, and a lot of hurt feelings as a result of it. It's an aggressive give and take that often devolves into sarcasm, but outside of hyperbole, I don't think anyone's going it alone here. Compare that to the anti-feminism in a different P&C thread, and you'll see a truly 'intolerable' position.

There's something ironic about how much discussion of the police state threads involves things going down the memory hole.

Hypatian wrote:

In this case, you might just meditate on the fact that the thread titles do indeed seem to invite the opposite of what was intended. "Is the USA a police state? Discuss." suggests that there's a question about whether the USA is a police state, and that people are invited to discuss the question.

I understand. Once again, though, that wasn't the original title. That was what I renamed the thread after it was clear that the "true believers" wouldn't be "allowed" to have that discussion and that the thread was going in the same direction as the first police state thread.

DSGamer wrote:
SallyNasty wrote:
Jayhawker wrote:
DSGamer wrote:

I don't know if that's entirely true. The fact that we were "followed" here from another thread to me was the original lack of courtesy and one which gave this thread no hope of succeeding.

What does that mean?

I think DSG has an unreasonable expectation of having invite only discussions for those whose points of view match more closely to his own.

In his defense, it isn't unreasonable to want to talk to like-minded individuals, but it is perhaps unreasonable to expect P&C nerds on a video game forum to stay on topic:)

I understand and largely agree. I is indeed unreasonable to only want to talk to like-minded individuals. The thing you have to understand, though, is that there's a difference in opinion of degrees even between the supposed "true believers". My main frustration is that this has happened twice. It's been impossible to create a single thread based on this premise that can't be derailed on this topic because there are some points of view that just won't be tolerated on GWJ these days.

In fairness, I don't think it is that those views wont be tolerated on GWJ - but that they wont be tolerated by certain posters, on both sides of the issue, whose zeal for their positions prevents reasonable discourse.

DSGamer wrote:

It's been impossible to create a single thread based on this premise that can't be derailed on this topic because there are some points of view that just won't be tolerated on GWJ these days.

It's not that some points of view won't be tolerated, it's that some people feel that not enough evidence has been provided to support those points of view. That and the said point of view is absolute: America is a police state. Period. Full stop.

There's no tempering of that position to account for all the examples that have been offered up to show that if America is a police state, it's doing a terrible job at it.

I don't think anyone's countering with a position that America is a country with absolutely no government intrusion into peoples' lives and that our freedoms are universally respected by our government. They're just countering with the fact that if America was truly a police state you'd have been disappeared for even mentioning it.

SallyNasty wrote:
DSGamer wrote:
SallyNasty wrote:
Jayhawker wrote:
DSGamer wrote:

I don't know if that's entirely true. The fact that we were "followed" here from another thread to me was the original lack of courtesy and one which gave this thread no hope of succeeding.

What does that mean?

I think DSG has an unreasonable expectation of having invite only discussions for those whose points of view match more closely to his own.

In his defense, it isn't unreasonable to want to talk to like-minded individuals, but it is perhaps unreasonable to expect P&C nerds on a video game forum to stay on topic:)

I understand and largely agree. I is indeed unreasonable to only want to talk to like-minded individuals. The thing you have to understand, though, is that there's a difference in opinion of degrees even between the supposed "true believers". My main frustration is that this has happened twice. It's been impossible to create a single thread based on this premise that can't be derailed on this topic because there are some points of view that just won't be tolerated on GWJ these days.

In fairness, I don't think it is that those views wont be tolerated on GWJ - but that they wont be tolerated by certain posters, on both sides of the issue, whose zeal for their positions prevents reasonable discourse.

Which is why on two different occasions two different people tried to start threads to contain that zeal.

Look, I'm more than happy to debate this. I feel like there is indeed a giant memory hole of ambiguity that's been lost in this. I don't feel the US is Nazi Germany. I don't even feel like the US is currently functioning as a police state, per se. It's just that it's changed so much in the last decade and we tolerate so much overreach and lawbreaking in the name of security that I worry about where we are. There is a reasonable discussion to be had about that, though. It's there. I'd be happy to have that discussion and I'd be the first to admit that I definitely took passionate positions that made it difficult at times.

But we had two threads. We had two threads so that the "true believers" could go hang out, cool down and without feeling defensive talk about things they were passionate about without being called crazy or being accused of wearing tin-foil hats. When that territory was encroached on I feel like any chance to truly come to an understanding was damaged. I'm willing to entertain that I'm wrong. I'm not willing to entertain that my opinion is so absurd as to be unfit for discussion in a thread all its own.

The problem I have is that these unwarranted views of the US being a police state is dangerous and leads to things like OKC. Just like the militia movement of the 90's, people with these kinds of views tend to withdraw from society into the more comfortable environment of an echo chamber.

I remember laughing at the guys crying about jackbooted thugs and black helicopters. After OKC, no one laughed anymore. And people stopped tolerating this nonsense.

I agree that the Patriot Act and a host of other things are bad, and I want to see it corrected.

I agree that the police got carried away when dealing with OWS protesters that were never taught the principles of civil disobedience.

I don't like like the use of the no-fly list to harass Muslims.

But none of that stuff indicates we are in a police state. They are problems to be solved. But if people accept the notion that we are in a police state, the only resolution is revolution. That's not okay.

DSGamer wrote:

Look, I'm more than happy to debate this. I feel like there is indeed a giant memory hole of ambiguity that's been lost in this. I don't feel the US is Nazi Germany. I don't even feel like the US is currently functioning as a police state, per se. It's just that it's changed so much in the last decade and we tolerate so much overreach and lawbreaking in the name of security that I worry about where we are. There is a reasonable discussion to be had about that, though. It's there. I'd be happy to have that discussion and I'd be the first to admit that I definitely took passionate positions that made it difficult at times.

I'm not sure you actually are willing to debate this, because when people do try debate this, you have a habit of either citing their disagreement with you as evidence that they want a police state, "quitting" the thread, complaining that people joined your private conversation (that's being held on a public forum) and claiming that GWJ P&C is kicking you out by not letting you moderate your own thread.

I've told you in PMs that the kind of conversation you want to have (only people who already agree with you) is best held in PMs or some other, more private, method. That's still true.

Stengah wrote:
DSGamer wrote:

Look, I'm more than happy to debate this. I feel like there is indeed a giant memory hole of ambiguity that's been lost in this. I don't feel the US is Nazi Germany. I don't even feel like the US is currently functioning as a police state, per se. It's just that it's changed so much in the last decade and we tolerate so much overreach and lawbreaking in the name of security that I worry about where we are. There is a reasonable discussion to be had about that, though. It's there. I'd be happy to have that discussion and I'd be the first to admit that I definitely took passionate positions that made it difficult at times.

I'm not sure you actually are willing to debate this, because when people do try debate this, you have a habit of either citing their disagreement with you as evidence that they want a police state, "quitting" the thread, complaining that people joined your private conversation (that's being held on a public forum) and claiming that GWJ P&C is kicking you out by not letting you moderate your own thread.

I've told you in PMs that the kind of conversation you want to have (only people who already agree with you) is best held in PMs or some other, more private, method. That's still true.

I tried to keep alive the thread HP Lovesauce started. That's been my intent from beginning to end. To have the ability to have that discussion with being constantly told that our opinion is crazy or has no merit. Frame it as you wish. I know what I said and why I said it.

I, for one, am not calling anyone crazy. I may disagree, but I don't think you're crazy. (I'd say I see a worrying clump of spreading brush, using the forest analogy).

People having (frequently wildly) different views on situations like this is normal, and in fact, desired.

I think another issue to bring up when discussing the decline of police accountability is the matter of what time frame you are using. Are we talking about state authority from 1776, 1886, 1946 or 2002? In a broader historical context, I think the U.S. has improved a lot, but how much of that is due to the natural progress of technology or the role of the media? I think the short term trends are troubling, but maybe we're just seeing the consequence of citizens placing more pressure on authoritative institutions.

Rodney King's recent death has gotten me thinking about the other end of the spectrum, where state authority is not enough to prevent mass violence. The L.A. Riots were an insane period in U.S. history, the implications of which are probably more important than 9/11, at least for domestic policy. I guess living in Hong Kong, I can see how strong central authority can be a good thing, so I'm not necessarily opposed to statism. However, I will agree that vigilance and reasoned discourse are a fundamental part of our nation (I'm American btw).

Glad to see the discussion take a more reasonable tone by the way. The concept of authoritarianism is a serious topic, not a "SERIOUS f*ckING TOPIC" if you know what I mean.

I was chilling in the garage last night having a cigar and a fine Wisconsin whiskey (Yaharah Bay is excellent if you can find it BTW) before shooting digital mens online I popped on the police scanner app on my phone and immediately thought of this thread.

I know there is a lot of shouting down on this topic by all sides, but I am genuinely curious how the existence of freely available channels to monitor the police bands affect the position of a Police State.

Wouldn't that be the first thing to be locked down?

Wired wrote:

Wouldn't that be the first thing to be locked down?

Not as long as Omni Consumer Products can make a buck on the app.

I believe that a lot of police forces are moving to encrypted comms. I've heard some discussion of that recently.

Robear wrote:

I believe that a lot of police forces are moving to encrypted comms. I've heard some discussion of that recently.

Because there's a definitive need to or because the WoT has made it possible for them to buy such equipment?

IIRC, the biggest action item of the post 9/11 world wasn't that everyone needed to buy encrypted comms, but that every department needed to buy equipment that could communicate with other departments.

The problem wasn't that departments couldn't find each other's comm encryptions, it was that they couldn't access each others comm frequencies. They simply bough equipment that couldn't/wouldn't talk to each other.

The way I've heard it, because they need to. Gangs and others are monitoring the police frequencies and reacting in real time.

Robear wrote:

The way I've heard it, because they need to. Gangs and others are monitoring the police frequencies and reacting in real time.

And I call BS.

The post 9/11 analysis was that each department had different equipment and protocols that meant they couldn't communicate with each other, let alone internally. That was the biggest problem on 9/11, not that terrorists or other criminals were monitoring police frequencies in real time.

I know up here in Ottawa/Gatineau (which are two separate cities) the different police forces cannot talk with each other, nor can they communicate with the RCMP (federal police force). They have spent a significant amount of one looking at upgrading their communications so that they can talk to each other.

OG_slinger wrote:
Robear wrote:

The way I've heard it, because they need to. Gangs and others are monitoring the police frequencies and reacting in real time.

And I call BS.

The post 9/11 analysis was that each department had different equipment and protocols that meant they couldn't communicate with each other, let alone internally. That was the biggest problem on 9/11, not that terrorists or other criminals were monitoring police frequencies in real time.

They are using both excuses.

http://news.slashdot.org/story/12/02...

There are also articles on how the military spent billions (forgot exact amount) for a radio system that is essentially bunk. This was the system they wanted to transition to after 9/11 when different orgs couldn't talk to each other.

If you thought that the TSA was intrusive before....

If the TSA's full body scanners make you nervous," says Marc Georges at Mashable, "the Department of Homeland Security's new molecular scanner may have you locking yourself at home and ordering in for the rest of your life." The government has teamed up with a subcontractor to produce a new laser scanner that can detect "traces of drugs or gun powder on your clothes," says Gizmodo, as well as the egg sandwich you had for breakfast and the adrenaline level in your body — all "without you knowing it." The new scanner is reportedly slated for use in airports and border crossings, but could have other applications as well. Here, a guide to this high-powered addition to the government's security arsenal:

From here

even more

The new scanner "fires a laser to provide molecular-level feedback" from your body, says Gizmodo. The results show up almost instantly on an attached computer screen, which can identify the most granular details, "even certain chemical changes in plant life," says Georges. The laser has a range of 164 feet, which means passengers could be scanned without even knowing it — "say while waiting to check in" to a flight, says John Roach at MSNBC.com.

well, i guess surrendering my freedom and privacy is going to be even easier and more efficient.