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Comment by sasasassy | Hacker News Reader

Jesus Christ people. Let's be honest here, the NYPD kept some data, we don't even know how large, about probable criminals. Further it used some detective work to guess who belongs to gangs. These don't look like big crimes to humanity.

I'd be much more worried about, you know, children under 14 committing crimes already.

The lunacy of some of these commenters...

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We're a nation of laws, our entire culture and system is built around rule of law. These protections exist for a reason, to protect children who are not done developing mentally, from having their acts from following them around for life.

Rule of Law cuts both ways though, we don't get to just ignore laws we don't like, and the powers that be even more so cannot. If the law itself is a problem, you change the law.

Sure, it sucks, and the bureaucracy that is the NYPD probably means records are kept from longer than they should, and that is bad. But still, the kids data will not be used against them later on, i.e. crimes they commit at that time won't be prosecuted. Their data only helps arrest them if they actually commit a crime, so they would be the ones breaking the rule of law.

If you think the law is bad, then you should work with the government to get the law changed. Otherwise, you need to follow the law.

At least, that's what the police will tell you when you break the law. So why should they get a pass? It doesn't matter if the law actually isn't useful or is causing harm; the police are more bound to follow and enforce it than anyone else. So why are you making excuses for them?

I would make excuses for anyone who violated the law while acting with good intentions. The rule of law is important. But so is having a sense of proportion about illegality.

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