Some have raised the idea that, if surveillance data on everyone were publicly available it'd be OK. The problem is that this will never include everyone. At the very least all government employees, from the President to local cops will be excluded. Beyond that there will be whole groups with varying degrees of influence who will be outside the system.
I came across an example of how this works a couple of years ago when I came across a toddler left alone in a car while strapped into her car seat. This was at the local post office. It was easily 110 degrees outside. The car was not running (no air conditioner). After about 15 minutes the mother came out of the post office. I confronted her. She saud there was nothing I could do about it. I took down her licence plate and called the police. My jaw dropped when The cops told me they could not help me. Her licence plate was protected because her husband was a cop. They claimed they could not get any data on that plate. I was fuming. I called again and asked for a supervisor to come and talk to me. Two cops came to my home. I had them interview my kids --who were with me and saw it all-- to get the facts. I got the same story. I told them that this kid could have died and that I was sure the cop husband would want to know about it. I got the clear and distinct feeling that pushing further would have had potentially negative consequences for me. I had to balance the my indignation with the potential to piss off the brotherhood of cops and my family's well being and safety. I dropped the whole thing and threw away the number. I know people who were cops in other countries ad have heard enough stories in the general vein of "fuck with cops and you'll regret it" that I had to opt for self preservation.
My point is that there are sub-societies that do not live in the same reality the rest of us enjoy. The idea that surveillance would be applied and disclosed equally is, in my opinion, not aligned with reality.
That truly is mind-boggling. I see cops turn their lights on to run red lights where I live and it makes me just as mad. One of these days one of them is going to get T-boned.
I wonder whether this "protection" happened at the state or local level. License plates are given out by the state, so if you had traveled 100 miles in some direction but not left the state, and had a different city look up the plate, would they have told you the same thing?
What happened to that police officer should have triggered mass firings and jail sentences. Every time I post a comment on HN speaking negatively of unionized government organizations I get mercilessly down-voted. I don't know if this is because there are a bunch of union thugs reading HN (doubt it) or brainwashed liberals who support unions out of pure indoctrination and without much thought. The truth is that these organizations are nasty animals with unprecedented reach, power, rights and immunity. They almost operate under their own laws and it is nearly impossible to go up against them. Case in point, bad teachers ought to be fired mercilessly without pension and those who abuse children should suffer the same fate. There was a case here in Los Angeles of a teacher who sprinkled cookies with --don't barf-- his own semen and fed them to the kids. The teacher's union actually protected this animal's rights for as long as they could. If the teacher's union is that ugly, imagine what police unions and even non-unionized government groups must be like.
I came across an example of how this works a couple of years ago when I came across a toddler left alone in a car while strapped into her car seat. This was at the local post office. It was easily 110 degrees outside. The car was not running (no air conditioner). After about 15 minutes the mother came out of the post office. I confronted her. She saud there was nothing I could do about it. I took down her licence plate and called the police. My jaw dropped when The cops told me they could not help me. Her licence plate was protected because her husband was a cop. They claimed they could not get any data on that plate. I was fuming. I called again and asked for a supervisor to come and talk to me. Two cops came to my home. I had them interview my kids --who were with me and saw it all-- to get the facts. I got the same story. I told them that this kid could have died and that I was sure the cop husband would want to know about it. I got the clear and distinct feeling that pushing further would have had potentially negative consequences for me. I had to balance the my indignation with the potential to piss off the brotherhood of cops and my family's well being and safety. I dropped the whole thing and threw away the number. I know people who were cops in other countries ad have heard enough stories in the general vein of "fuck with cops and you'll regret it" that I had to opt for self preservation.
My point is that there are sub-societies that do not live in the same reality the rest of us enjoy. The idea that surveillance would be applied and disclosed equally is, in my opinion, not aligned with reality.