cross-posted from: https://piefed.world/c/tech/p/1304793/how-rogue-officers-turned-a-nationwide-camera-network-into-a-tool-for-stalking
Flock’s array of license-plate cameras was built to fight crime. But at least 50 law enforcement officers were charged with or accused of misusing it and other systems.
FTFY:
How Rogue Officers Turned a Nationwide Tool for Stalking Into a Tool for Stalking
or perhaps
How a Tool for Stalking is Used by the People For Whom it was Designed
The problem with many of the articles that discuss how the system is being ‘misused’ act as if the mass surveillance involved is otherwise entirely acceptable, so long as it’s used for its intended purpose.
“Rogue officers” attempts to frame the discussion around a few "bad apples"instead of the mass surveillance.
As if the nationwide camera network wasn’t purpose-built exactly for this.
“Gosh, someone came in here and turned our perfectly innocent, nationwide array of facial and vehicle recognition cameras that we programmed to recognize and log everything and turned it into something nefarious while we weren’t looking! Imagine that! It’s those damn dirty no-good rogue officers that are the problem, not our panopticon no one asked for.”
If the rogue officers aren’t immediately in jail, then they aren’t rogue are they?
there’s a long history of cops making petty abuses of the power over others they’re granted, and of those additional powers not making their communities any safer. to me this headline reads as “most predictable thing imaginable has come to pass”
here’s my advice:
Don’t try to pass the buck, it’s wrong to have built the network of spycams to begin with
If the officers “turned it into” a tool for stalking, that means officers were stalking people with it. Stalking people is a crime. If these are truly “rogue” officers, that means they weren’t supposed to be stalking people, so they should be charged with the crime of stalking.
But they weren’t. And they won’t be.
This is exactly what the cameras are for, this is exactly what all cops are doing with them, and they will continue to be allowed to do it.
In this system it seems like a “rogue officer” would be someone with personal integrity.
Everything new tech that comes along can be used for bad, and you can absolutely count on bad people figuring out how to use it.
It is totally predictable, and it’s up to the rest of us to figure it out, too, and make sure those people get stopped early. But that’s not what happens. Those at the top don’t want anything slowing down their tech, so they are fine with it being used for corruption, as long as nothing slows them down.
