“So the cop was tracking random people off social media using this incredibly invasive technology, on a pretty regular basis.”
“That’s bad.”
“But, an audit detected his abuse of the system and he was slated for termination.”
“That’s good!”
“But the system still exists, and can be used for nefarious purposes as long as those are state-approved uses backed by a case number, which is honestly a bigger deal and concern than one random officer using it for, presumably, stalking.”
“That’s bad.”
“And, from the description of the nature of their auditing, it would be pretty easy for an officer to use the system abusively as long as they were more careful to disguise the nature of their access than this guy was.”
“That’s… also bad.”
“And, it’s notable that the auditing in question was done by his department, not ClearView itself. It sounds like it’s up to each individual law enforcement agency to make sure its officers are using it ethically, without centralized oversight from ClearView let alone any type of judicial or legal oversight, which sounds like a recipe for abuse even leaving aside the issue of state-sanctioned abuse of the system and the general increase in police powers it represents.”
“… Can I go now?”
Yeah. That part makes perfect sense to me. It’s a little different from what you were saying, but someone on Lemmy was actually telling me about their experience with someplace where something like this had been implemented – mental health people going on certain calls instead of cops, with cops assisting in cases that might turn violent, and it sounds like it works out great from all people involved’s perspective. The callers are happier because people come who are better at handling the problems, the cops are happier because they don’t have to deal with calls they are less qualified to deal with, the mental health people are happier because they have cops on standby for violent calls but they also get to deal with things right from the jump, instead of coming in after the cops came and just tackled and cuffed the person or whatever and now they have to come into the middle of the wreckage.
I know you were talking about things at an even much earlier level than when the 911 call happens; that sounds good to me too. The only part I was objecting to was the vindictive framing of it. Like if you want to fund mental health and homeless services that sounds great, we should do that. Coupling that idea up with punishing the police because they were bad (not saying you’re doing that, but definitely some people have that in mind saying “defund the police” I think) I don’t think is the way to produce progress though.