Replying to an earlier post

It can’t.

Also, and I have no idea what race this person is, but facial recognition tents to be even worse when it comes to minority groups, especially black people. Because its more often created and tested by white or asian dudes.

Which has absolutely terrible implications when you consider it gets used for things like Flock, for crimes, which already have a racism problem skewed against black people.

Replying to @⁨bedwyr@piefed.ca⁩

You’re the one who took what you heard as fact (you made a statement that said something happened that didn’t with no indication that it was fiction or urban legend) without checking but okay, stranger on the internet. A dumbass forum comment like yours doesn’t merit a literary analysis, get over yourself.

The lack of self-awareness is hilarious, so thanks for the chuckle. Some serious malding loser energy to take an offhand joke so damn personally.

Replying to an earlier post

Common Law is better than codified law. That’s the only reason we have juries and don’t just let judges decide the fate of the accused. Can you imagine, in this country, judges the sole decider of your case?

The reason that the UK and US have had such cuntish law enforcement is not because of english common law. It should be noted the UK cancelled some of common law’s basic tenants, like the right to a jury trial, not only afforded to indictable offenses, any crime with less than 3 years imprisonment is decided by their famously haughty aristocratic judges now.

Replying to an earlier post

Yeah, first the Tories maybe 5-7 years back or so cancelled juries for crimes with less than 1 year imprisonment, then Starmer’s labour party just upped it to all crimes less than 3 years.

In the late 19th century they also passed a law where if they thought jury tampering was going to happen they could just do it with a judge, idk how often they have used it though.

Replying to an earlier post

I was trying to verify where this was, the guardian and reuters in like 2024 or so left me with the impression it was passed, but a cursory search after your inquiry did not find the detail. I had to leave town here, Hopefully I can find out tomorrow morning.

It sounded like they made the new rule but it’s not in force yet from my cursory search that led me to some lackluster guardian article.

Quick edit, the news did say it was passed I am sure. I have been wrong before though on stuff like this.

Replying to an earlier post

Jury vs judge trial is a separate axis from common law vs civil law. You can have common law (where decisions of higher courts are deemed binding on lower courts) even if lower courts are all judge-only trials. You can have trials decided by a jury where every decision made by a judge is ultimately answerable only to written statute, with prior judicial judgments being at best persuasive.

Replying to @⁨AmyAye@nord.pub⁩

Why do people keep pretending the Supreme Court always agrees with Trump. They’ve struck him down often and seem to be taking a very strict constitutionalist view. Most recent example would be the whole birthright citizenship ruling.

Obviously this court us terrible for many reasons, the gutted the voting rights act and ended Roe. But they’re not getting rid of juries their record is clear there

Replying to an earlier post

Basically a jury can legally decide to nullify by declaring “not guilty” regardless of the facts or the judge’s instructions, etc. This is why even mentioning jury nullification during a trial can really upset the judge and the prosecution. It is supposed to be something every jury is aware of, but that is usually not actually the case.

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jury_nullification

Replying to an earlier post

Why should law enfocement and prosecuters get to decide which laws to enforce and which not to, but jurrors cant?

Unless the laws on the books were short and perfect, there is always going to be enforcement choices, and it seems to me the jury nulification option is no worse than other selective enforcement. It lets guilty people go free, sure, but it sometimes stops unjust incarceration.

Replying to an earlier post

It is a grand jury. That is the practice round for a trial. The prosecutor goes over the evidence and explains what argument they are going to make in court without the defendent or their lawyer present to argue against it. The role of a grand jury is to pump the prosecutor up and say “You got this. I would totally believe you if I was on a real jury.”

The fact that in this case, the grand jury said “That is stupid. You have no argument. Just let the guy walk,” means that either the prosecutor is an incompetent idiot who did not understand what evidence he was presenting or the jury thought that no crime had been committed.

Replying to an earlier post

It’s not a practice round for a trial. It is the first safety check of “Is there even plausibly enough evidence to go to trial?” or more specifically “If everything the prosecutin is claiming is true, is that enough for a trial?” which is why it nearly always is.

I highly disagree with your assessment, and it sounds like you don’t really understand the courts. Now, you may be simplifying, and if so, then my ‘accusation’ is off-base, so don’t take it too seriously.

I’m no legal expert, but I’ve followed enough to see how 99% of legal representations on television (i.e. court dramas) are laughably inaccurate.

So I go back to my point - like when see a real judge on a youtube video of a courtroom proceeding and they do a probable cause hearing - basically similar principles to a grand jury - it matters why they throw something out. It matters a lot. Is it a technicality that they can overcome and resubmit the case, or is it a fundamental flaw?

Replying to an earlier post

For once yes. Grand Juries at the time of the Constitution were a safeguard against arbitrary and unjust prosecutions. The rulers have since changed what a grand jury is to make it the opposite, a tool of the prosecutors.

Luckily the prosecutors for this administration are so arrogant and incompetent they haven’t been able to maintain that facade of trustworthiness which the masses still afford to dickheads in suits with position.

Of course the judges are so bad it often doesn’t matter, especially when it’s in a shitholy jurisdiction, like those protesters at the Texas Ice that got kangarooed by their dipshit hanging judge down there under preposterous, blatantly unconstitutional charges, cancelling the 1st amendment.

Replying to an earlier post

That whole “a good prosecutor could indict a ham sandwich” was when you could pull your jurors out of a citizen pool that didn’t walk in already believing you were lying through your fucking teeth.

But then they pulled the mask off, and let us all see how they are using the courts for vindictive prosecution and political harassment.

Looks like the ham sammich days are ending, lol.

Replying to an earlier post

I just heard about a prosecutor that didn’t get all of his indictments and then sent the jurors that voted against him home and replaced them. That and other stuff, they aren’t even pretending to follow the rules, they think everything is more openly corrupt than it is yet.

But anyway, the courts threw out like 200 indictments because this prick prosecutor didn’t think he had to follow the rules/didn’t know or care what the rules were.

Replying to an earlier post

It sucks he resigned an election he won because the courts decided to disfaithfully charge their duty. The now lionized by the dem establishment Ruth Bader Ginsburg was the deciding vote on giving the vote to the loser of the election by the way.

Fuck Al Gore. Voters decide elections, not courts, he should have stood up and taken it, but our dem leaders, especially for president, are chosen because they are weak kneed sell outs. Biden was just the progression where every cycle it gets worse respective of party.

Replying to an earlier post

Yeah that is good advice, hedge the bad times coming. I haven’t patronized these betting sites because the one I liked, predictit, run by a couple universities, one in new zealand, was outlawed by the US while they gave the franchise to for profit companies. I am salty on this.

It was outlawed a while back, can’t remember if it was the prez’ first term or Biden’s. I think the latter actually, biden was a fucking cunt.

Replying to an earlier post

The Department of Justice has been doing stuff like that a lot since the Trump administration, to the point that they lost presumption of regularity (the assumption in advance that state actors are being honest and following the rules in good faith). There were so many prosecutions that were clearly directed by the White House and were vindictive persecutions of political enemies that the judges just stopped believing anyone from DoJ.

It didn’t help that all the honest prosecutors in DoJ resigned when they were ordered to do something unlawful, resulting in massive brain drain. All the rehires are unskilled if not incompetent, and sometimes they issue legal statements that sound like a Truth Social post.

Replying to @⁨ActualGrapesTasteGreen@piefed.zip⁩

That case is way too political. Common sense has gone out of the window there.

Every time they ever move him around every cop in the area always seems to need to be involved. It’s not like he’s accused of slaughtering an entire precinct with nothing but his bare hands or anything, supposedly he shot one person with a gun that he obviously no longer has. I’m really not sure why they treat him as Hannibal lecter.

Replying to an earlier post

The farther you move up the ladder, the less they see us as human. “Human resources” says it all. We’re just another resource to them, like coal, or water, or electricity. An input in their factory to achieve a product output. They don’t care what happens to us while there, as long as we keep producing. They don’t care what happens to us when we leave, as long as we don’t sue them, or smear their name.

Zero fucking empathy for anyone but themselves, not even their own kids. They know what they’re doing is terrible, that’s why they’re building bunkers. They fully expect us to turn on them at some point in the near future. That’s why they surround themselves with boot-licking bodyguards.

Replying to an earlier post

To convince the public he's guilty. It's one of the ways they skew the narrative.

Remember in the movie "SWAT" where that monster guy who entered the country illegal to kill the one guy and then offered money to get him out? That's Hollywood doing their part to put the idea in our minds that this kind of thing is warranted.

People do want to help Luigi and that scares the shit out of them too. They expected people's moral compass to make them side with the CEO he shot. But that's not what happened. The general public is very much pro Luigi.

Replying to an earlier post

While you are right, there are almost no laws in the US that protect privacy. Short of being in your own home with the blinds down, there is next to nothing working in your favor. The assumption is that you’re in “public” or clear view of the public, thusly, screw you.

Your pool? Clear view from the road. That douchenozzle with a drone, probably not breaking the law when he takes a video flying over. “Oh, I was looking at my own roof” or some bullshit.

There should be privacy laws. The world has changed so much, but most laws are stuck in the stone age and now sold to the highest bidder who actively monetizes the complete lack of privacy laws.

In the US, you can look up TONS of details about anyone’s house. From the sale price, the tax history, tons of details about it and even photos of the inside. In what normal world does that make sense?! Your employer sells your salary data to ADP who then sells it to any number of others. What the actual fuck?! Nobody asked for this, it’s opt-out only but the opt out expires. I did it a few years ago, and it’s back on again.

If privacy were not important, then there should not be bathroom doors.

Replying to an earlier post

Companies are trying to prevent people switching jobs to get raises by creating a central database of all employees and their salaries. That way, when you try to find a new job they can pull up your salary history and not accidentally give you a 40% bump when your desperation factor clearly shows you’ll settle for 10%.

I assume adp is just one of those companies doing this, and you opt out by not participating in the economy.

Replying to an earlier post

There are plenty of privacy laws, but the catch is that you have to make an effort to create privacy. Putting your blinds down creates privacy. Building a roof over your pool and walls around your yard create privacy. There is just no expectation of privacy in public, and technically anything that can be seen from public is “in plain view”. Protecting your privacy is not a function of the state unless you had an expectation of privacy through explicit disclaimer or honest effort.

Replying to an earlier post

Just adding here, what is clear to all of us as Coaster indicated, that aggregate privacy and anonymity are what is really at stake here.

Sure, I’m in public and just walking around. I don’t have a right to privacy in those instants. Some jerk with a camera is within their rights to capture my image.

The other aspect of the laws, though, is that even a few years ago, that image was of an anonymous person. The photographer didn’t know who I was and couldn’t find out without asking me and if a cop wanted that picture they had to request it from the taker. Now, though, that image can be shuffled off to a giant datacenter to be processed and potentially figure out who I am, coordinating the time, place, clothing, activities, nearby people, and myriad other details and the tech companies have no problem handing it over that information without any of the humans ever knowing.

I think the simplest solution is that any LEO querying a company’s data about a private entity should require a warrant or subpoena. Data sharing agreements between companies and governments should be illegal.

The longer solution is that collecting and retaining this information “for business purposes” needs to be more heavily regulated. The current definitions of PII are out of date. PII should include things like location, likeness, mood, etc, and the history of those things. Look at what Walmart and others are doing with dynamic pricing, for example.

Replying to an earlier post

We have legal precedent that the police cannot use GPS trackers. A similar case was opened for the APLs in traditional speed cameras, but they were determined to be constitutional since you have no expectation of privacy on a public road and a camera can’t be used to track you like GPS. The networked APLs accomplish the same result as GPS trackers just without technically using a GPS tracker.

Replying to an earlier post

On the subject of Flock…

These are “autonomous deputies?” But uh, where is every single warrant for every plate they catch on a car? The plate may be public property, but the vehicle is not. Sure, maybe a bank has a lien due to a loan, but it’s still private property. This is some serious 4th Amendment violation because I have seen 0 warrant for any of these unwarranted searches.

Replying to an earlier post

Cool, so anyone who can afford a self driving car is immune to tickets and traffic citations. Very bourgeois.

Ticketing a car is a good practice to avoid police interaction, which is the real danger in this country. The burden of proof still applies in court, so even if you did get a “phantom” ticket, they still have to prove you were in control of the vehicle at the time. I recently got a red light camera ticket on a rental thrown out because I showed i turned in the vehicle 4 hours before the time of the infraction. Goddamn Hertz tried to throw me under the bus. Always keep your receipts.

Replying to an earlier post

You were lucky. What would have you done if you couldn’t prove you no longer had possession of the car? If they had ticketed the driver directly, none of that could have happened to you. There would have been nothing for you to prove.This is why the state I live in has had that law requiring ticketing the actual driver and not the car decades before traffic cameras were even a thing.

And since there are no self driving cars that can be commonly found on the roads today, that’s a silly idea. And IF that time ever comes, someone is still going to need to be liable for that self driving car as it goes down the road. That software is going to be so locked down it must follow all laws without exception. Because the company will hold the liability.

Replying to an earlier post

I literally say “save your receipts” at the end of my post and you come back with “well what if you couldn’t prove it?”

Thats what court is for.

Are you saying we should implicitly trust what a cop says just because they happened to be around to write a ticket? What makes an officers testimony more reliable than a photograph or video? In my state, cops arent even allowed to pull people over for minor traffic infractions anymore because they cant seem to stop targeting black and brown people. Do you think that’s somehow better than a speed camera or red light cam that doesnt care if the person driving is white or not?

Replying to @⁨KingGimpicus@sh.itjust.works⁩

That really needs to change also. That made sense back when it was just recording something in public that a random officer could have seen, but it’s no longer the same thing. No police force could have such large scale comprehensive surveillance and recording based on what an officer could have seen in public .

The fact that you could even have an officer overstep his authority to stalk someone one nationwide for personal reasons, is not just a failure of privacy safeguards, but proof that large scale surveillance is not the same as “what any random officer could have seen”

There needs to be a threshold, beyond which a warrant is required

Replying to an earlier post

You are correct in theory. In reality, its messy.

The courts suppose that a theoretical officer could be at any public place at any time for various reasons, and they are correct. Anything viewable from a public space is subject to plain view doctrine.

Your problem is that you say the scope of the actual surveillance available is disproportionate to the reality of what officers could feasibly see in the same timeframe. You are basically arguing that a continuous surveillance of public spaces constitutes an overbroad search.

The problem is that courts have set no upper limit on passive public observation. I cant think of any precedent where “the cops look this way too much” has ever been set as a valid cause of action against a government interest. Your best bet would be trying to argue that its prejudicial, but it’d be hard to proceed when there is surveillance on everyone pretty equally.

My problem with it is mostly that its a private network. If these cameras and services are being paid for with public funds, then the images they capture should be available for public use. Thats a whole new nightmare all on its own, but thats kind of the technohorror future we are building towards. Anyone being able to track down anyone at any time is a scary thought. But that’s what you get when you build a giant spy network with public money. The public gets access according to the law.

Replying to an earlier post

But they were. And now the resolution needs to not only include removing the cameras but also the freedoms from those who have been blatantly violating the rights of millions of Americans. From the oligarchs, the senators involved, the council members who got paid off, to every single employee in between that chose to go to work for these companies knowing full well their objective.

Replying to an earlier post

We need to talk a LOT about Jury Nullification in this country. They are trying to weaponize the courts, and ultimately it doesn’t come down to the system, or the judges, it comes down the Citizens simply saying NO.

Trials put the power into the hands of the Citizens, and we should exploit that power against our Opressors. WE will decide who gets punished in this country.