Diesel Civil Trust

abbyjean:

Are experienced CCTV operators better than naive participants at judging from an unfolding scene on CCTV whether or not a crime is about to be committed? The short answer is no, they aren’t. Presented with 24 real-life 15-second CCTV clips, and asked to predict which half ended just before a crime was about to be committed (examples included violence and vandalism) and which half were innocuous, 12 experienced CCTV operators managed just 55.5 per cent accuracy - no better than if they’d just been guessing. Twelve naive controls achieved an accuracy of just 46.5 per cent - no worse, in terms of statistical significance, than the CCTV operators.

The key to successful predictions seemed to be to pay attention to the social context. Specifically, when participants spent more time focused on the face or head of single individuals not engaged in any social interaction, or looking at the bodies of those in a social interaction, they tended to more accurately predict whether a crime was about to occur. Grant and Williams think this might be because the former allowed the participants to notice when a lone person in the scene was staring at other people, which could betray their plans to commit a criminal act. Meanwhile, viewing the bodies, rather than faces, of those in a social interaction, might have allowed the participants to notice aggressive body language and the spatial proximity of people in a group.

You may remember the case of Anthony Graber, the Maryland motorcyclist charged with violating the state’s wiretapping statute for recording his traffic stop and posting it on YouTube. I’ve saidseveral times over the last few months that these charges are based on a misreading of the law; minus a “reasonable expectation of privacy,” recording an oral communication does not violate the wiretapping statute.

For the last few years, federal agencies have defended body scanning by insisting that all images will be discarded as soon as they’re viewed. The Transportation Security Administration claimed last summer, for instance, that “scanned images cannot be stored or recorded.”

Now it turns out that some police agencies are storing the controversial images after all. The U.S. Marshals Service admitted this week that it had surreptitiously saved tens of thousands of images recorded with a millimeter wave system at the security checkpoint of a single Florida courthouse.

azspot:

The ACLU of Maryland is defending Anthony Graber, who potentially faces sixteen years in prison if found guilty of violating state wiretap laws because he recorded video of an officer drawing a gun during a traffic stop.  In a trend that we’ve seen across the country, police have become  increasingly hostile to bystanders recording their actions.  You can read some examples herehere and here.

However, the scale of the Maryland State Police reaction to Anthony Graber’s video is unprecedented.  Once they learned of the video on YouTube, Graber’s parents house was raided, searched, and four of his computers were confiscated.  Graber was arrested, booked and jailed.  Their actions are a calculated method of intimidation.  Another person has since been similarly charged under the same statute.

The wiretap law being used to charge Anthony Graber is intended to protect private communication between two parties.  According to David Rocah, the ACLU attorney handling Mr. Graber’s case, “To charge Graber with violating the law, you would have to conclude that a police officer on a public road, wearing a badge and a uniform, performing his official duty, pulling someone over, somehow has a right to privacy when it comes to the conversation he has with the motorist.”

(via digby)

Freelance photographer Lance Rosenfield [1] was working on assignment for ProPublica in Texas City, Texas, last week, when a BP security guard began following him. Rosenfield was later detained by police after taking photos for two ProPublica stories. One revealed that BP’s Texas City refinery had illegally emitted 538,000 pounds of toxic chemicals [2] into the air in April and May. The other reported that the Texas City refinery continues to have serious safety violations [3] five years after an explosion at the plant killed 15 workers.

I lived in Chile during the Pinochet dictatorship—I can spot a fascist police-state when I see one.

The United States is a fascist police-state.

Harsh words—incendiary, even. And none too clever of me, to use such language: Time was, the crazies and reactionaries wearing tin-foil hats who flung around such a characterization of the United States were disqualified by sensible people as being hysterical nutters—rightfully so.

By Gonzalo Lira

nomosshere:

yeahyouoverhere:

f***kyeahchicago:

POLICE BRUTALITY. The guy on the ground was thrown down, pepper sprayed multiple times, kicked in the temple and back of the head, and then beat with a baton. For what? Taking photos of another person being assaulted by police. I was choked with my own helmet by a cop and Brian was maced - again… FOR TAKING PHOTOS.
Chicago Tumblrs - who got video?  We NEED to get this out to the media.
(via abeird:soylentgreenispeople:bnf) 






What is this, Nazi Germany?
This is a ridiculous abuse of power, assuming it’s true. And I’ve read of multiple occurrences of this kind of intimidation of people taking pictures of police, such as at Instapundit. 
So, um, WTF?!
The police have no right to beat the crap out of some guy taking pictures of them, and this is obvious to anybody with two eyes.  And if they are really doing this in response to some guy taking pictures of them brutalizing some other guy, then there is something seriously wrong with not just these particular cops, but the institution itself.
We need to get a grip on this, and fast. I’m all for law and order, and the fact the the cops beat up some hippies in Chicago in 1968 doesn’t bother me, because I’m pretty sure some of them deserved it.  But, again, assuming this photo and description is legit, this is something else entirely.

nomosshere:

yeahyouoverhere:

f***kyeahchicago:

POLICE BRUTALITY. The guy on the ground was thrown down, pepper sprayed multiple times, kicked in the temple and back of the head, and then beat with a baton. For what? Taking photos of another person being assaulted by police. I was choked with my own helmet by a cop and Brian was maced - again… FOR TAKING PHOTOS.

Chicago Tumblrs - who got video?  We NEED to get this out to the media.

(via abeird:soylentgreenispeople:bnf) 

What is this, Nazi Germany?

This is a ridiculous abuse of power, assuming it’s true. And I’ve read of multiple occurrences of this kind of intimidation of people taking pictures of police, such as at Instapundit

So, um, WTF?!

The police have no right to beat the crap out of some guy taking pictures of them, and this is obvious to anybody with two eyes.  And if they are really doing this in response to some guy taking pictures of them brutalizing some other guy, then there is something seriously wrong with not just these particular cops, but the institution itself.

We need to get a grip on this, and fast. I’m all for law and order, and the fact the the cops beat up some hippies in Chicago in 1968 doesn’t bother me, because I’m pretty sure some of them deserved it.  But, again, assuming this photo and description is legit, this is something else entirely.

In a 2003 paper for the Naval War College Review, author Richard J. Norton defined the term feral cities. “Imagine a great metropolis covering hundreds of square miles,” Norton begins, as if narrating the start of a film pitch. “Once a vital component in a national economy, this sprawling urban environment is now a vast collection of blighted buildings, an immense petri dish of both ancient and new diseases, a territory where the rule of law has long been replaced by near anarchy in which the only security available is that which is attained through brute power.”

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