> not solving that is just a bandaid
I think the framing is silly, but in the spirit of argument, let’s accept it. What is the solution? (To me, it implies disbanding the police, which is not something most people want for obvious reasons.)
I think the framing is silly, but in the spirit of argument, let’s accept it. What is the solution? (To me, it implies disbanding the police, which is not something most people want for obvious reasons.)
When officers start losing their badge or their pension for cutting corners, they'll stop cutting corners.
[1]: https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/23780231198797...
https://www.sltrib.com/news/2019/10/12/ex-salt-lake-city-off...
https://www.sltrib.com/news/politics/2019/08/28/police-offic...
https://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2017/11/01/561337106...
Detective Jeff Payne was fired by SLC PD, remained unapologetic. Went to the next county north and hired at the County Jail. He then sued SLC and the PD for wrongful termination, arguing that his bodycam footage was misleading and that he was following direction of a supervisor.
We could start by enforcing the 4th amendment.
Then we could actually hold officers accountable for their actions.
Qualified immunity should be scaled back drastically and any LEO which violates the law should have a multiplier applied to the sentencing guidelines for any convictions against them.
I think if it's not in the form of a constitutional amendment, then we will be constantly at risk of having it repealed or lessened or made irrelevant by superseding laws.
I understand that we can not go around amending the constitution on a whim, but these topics are so young that we cannot foresee all the possible ramifications of any law that we try to pass but at the same time they are too important to not take action.
A simple, easy-to-understand constitutional mandate such as "no law shall be passed that infringes on a citizens right to digital privacy" would be the ideal solution.
After that, courts can be used to iron out the details and set precedence.
How could congress even begin to keep pace with that rate of change?
They certainly have not been keeping pace, and arguably going backwards in a number of areas (see FISA).
The courts could take every issue, one-by-one, and clarify the reasons for any decisions. These decisions would happen in the light of day with an appeals process ready to handle disagreements about the letter and intent of the laws in question.
> should be addressed by the national legislature in specific and clear text
Congress has not shown an interest in keeping pace with technology, and would therefore be hard-pressed to write such "specific and clear" legislation.
It would, therefore, fall to the lobbyists who have draft legislation ready to go with carve-outs custom made for the companies that sponsor them and which are not in the best interest of the average US citizen.
There is a solution for the problem you're highlighting: Congress passes a law which delegates authority to a regulatory agency. For instance, Congress doesn't need to be an expert on the latest airplanes in order to regulate them. They have assigned the FAA to do this.
Agreed, but I was trying to comment about digital privacy which is a fairly new issue.
> constitutional amendment would allow for a general principle. US laws really do not.
That's pretty much my point. We already have a similar amendment (the fourth amendment) already officially ratified, so this is not unprecedented.
The problem with the fourth amendment is that it was written in a time when the government would need to physically go somewhere and take something, so there is no general principle allotted for digital privacy.
At the same time, there _are_ laws governing ownership of data which made sense when it was the credit reporting agencies trading information for legitimate business purposes, but now we are in a very different landscape of what information can be stored, traded, transmitted, sold at a scale never before seen. These laws would need to be revised and would need the heft of a constitutional amendment to drive that process.
A problem with laws is that there are so many to choose from and they are so narrow. See for example the video rental records law. An extremely narrow law that ignores the broader issue entirely (and which penalty is not even scaled for inflation). Same for credit reporting. Or for HIPAA.
General principle is needed and we are not likely to get that from laws. And in the US that's not what laws are for. Generally. So the 4th amendment could be touched up to correct the fact that it was written when "online", "data", computers did not exist - and metadata was thin enough to not matter too much, and "privacy" was or was not the point and was unclear of a concept. Fixing the 4th would establish the principle that yes, now digital matters and privacy matters and must be included in the 4th. Otherwise we remain in the situation where it's easy to argue that it's not part of the 4th.
Silly specific example in this case, as a healthcare provider, I can't tell a cop you have high blood pressure, because HIPAA. A pharmacy can tell a cop you take lisinopril/HCTZ, which is only prescribed for high blood pressure, because ... shrug.
https://www.hhs.gov/hipaa/for-professionals/faq/505/what-doe...
> To comply with a court order or court-ordered warrant, a subpoena or summons issued by a judicial officer, or a grand jury subpoena.
Emphasis mine.
From the article:
> Instead, all the pharmacies hand over such information with nothing more than a subpoena, which can be issued by government agencies and does not require review or approval by a judge.
Emphasis also mine.
Police officers are not considered judicial officers, though they are officers of the court.
"Judicial officers are typically categorized as judges, magistrates, puisne judicial officers such as justices of the peace or officers of courts of limited jurisdiction; and notaries public and commissioners of oaths. The powers of judicial officers vary and are usually limited to a certain jurisdiction."
It seems to me that there's an extrapolation here that is not covered by HIPAA. HIPAA only refers to subpoenas issued by or reviewed by judicial officers, not a blanket allowance.
The provision that pharmacies are using is, I believe, this one:
> To respond to an administrative request, including an administrative subpoena or summons, a civil or an authorized investigative demand, or similar process authorized under law, provided that: the information sought is relevant and material to a legitimate law enforcement inquiry; the request is specific and limited in scope to the extent reasonably practicable in light of the purpose for which the information is sought, and de-identified information could not reasonably be used (45 CFR 164.512(f)(1)(ii)(C)).
> the information sought is relevant and material to a legitimate law enforcement inquiry
Your average PharmTech at CVS isn't assessing the legitimacy of the inquiry or its relevancy, but is instead blindly acquiescing (or being told to do so).
The other part that is a problem is the use of "and":
> and de-identified information
There's no de-identified information in "Show me all the prescriptions you filled for Mr XYZ."
But what there is is enough plausible deniability for the corporations to say they were following their interpretation of the law.
Something like "I'm a police officer with ABC department, and I need to know which drugs Mr. XYZ has purchased between [x] and [y] in regards to a criminal drug trafficking investigation I am investigating" seems to satisfy all of the requirements.
* "administrative request": the officer is asking
* "the information sought is relevant and material to a legitimate law enforcement inquiry": they are real police, and they are investigating a crime regarding this person and these drugs.
* "the request is specific and limited in scope to the extent reasonably practicable in light of the purpose for which the information is sought": It is about Mr XYZ, and it is about drugs he purchased, the crime being investigated is about the same.
* "and de-identified information could not reasonably be used": because it is specifically about Mr XYZ
Same for "constitution applies only to govt" - where now so many corporations or other groups wield comparable power. There is space for more improvements on the constitution - and then also perhaps now is not a great, constructive time to do that.
The reason other things aren’t in it isn’t because they aren’t or weren’t issues. It’s because they were out of scope for the purpose of that document.
The FBI presumably has the responsibility and authority to police sheriffs departments and police departments that aren’t behaving appropriately, and the FBI is part of the Executive Branch. It would be relatively straightforward for the President to task resources to focus on this specific problem and ask the DoJ to focus on prosecuting civil rights cases.
Elsewhere someone suggest a privacy amendment to the Constitution, we already have that and it’s the 4th amendment. We don’t need more legal protections, we need to actually hold police officers and departments accountable. We need to enforce the laws we already have, most importantly the Constitution, against officers and end effectively limitless immunity.
We also need to raise hiring standards. The minimum standard to be a police officer in most civilized countries is similar to our requirements for FBI agents. Most police officers on duty in the US are uneducated, ignorant, and stupid so it is not a surprise that belligerent behavior is the norm. Only in the US did we actually have police departments placing a cap on the IQ of incoming officers. Only in the US do we have no national requirement for someone to serve as an officer. Some cities require a certification or attendance to a police academy, but there’s no national standard. Only in the US is the average cop your high school bully given a gun and a badge.
There’s a lot more that could be done here. Hell, it doesn’t even have to be blue-tinted government action, it could be red-tinted government inaction by getting prosecutors to defect from the gang and uphold the right of self defense, correctly aligned to the actual law, in matters involving the police. It is legal under the letter and color of law to use lethal force to defend yourself against unlawful conduct by the police, most especially if they are attempting to use unlawful force or make an unlawful arrest, however as a practical matter prosecutors are in the gang and will “back the blue” no matter what. We could easily make even the idiots we hire as cops think twice before busting down a door without a warrant, announcing their purpose, or just plain knocking first.
What I am very clearly not saying is any such stupidity as “disband the police”. In a well functioning society, the police serve a valuable purpose. We are not currently a well functioning society, and part of why is because the police operate like thugs.
India is at least a democracy, but it’s very much still developing and has corruption at nearly every level and facet of society, including police abuses. It’s nearly the opposite of well functioning.
I'm sorry I didn't enumerate every bad thing the police have ever done in every single country on Earth. I don't really know what you're expecting from the reply you made to me?
A national law would work best but even state laws would be effective.
I consistently and strongly disagree with this. The police are a manifestation of our society. When they do bad things they do so in our name - whether or not you want them to do it. We have created a law enforcement structure that empowers these abuses to happen. Transferring the cost to them for acting the way society wants them to act is not the answer. We bear that responsibility and should bear that cost.
This _maybe_ works in some abstract way, but each police officer is autonomous and has the leeway to act any way they want.
I have autonomy as well, so I could commit a crime.
Let's say that I grew up poor, and the only opportunity in my neighborhood to make any substantial amount of money was to sell drugs. If I choose to sell drugs and get caught I go to jail.
Now at this point, we can say that we have created a societal structure that limits my opportunities (no economic development in certain areas) and empowered these drug sales (by making the drugs illegal thus increasing their value) to happen, but that does not somehow shift the blame from me to society.
I would do my prison sentence and try to move on with my life.
This apologetic stance for the abuses of the police is harmful.
Police officers are people and should have at least as many responsibilities and liabilities in the view of the law as any ordinary citizen.
In fact, as they are charged with upholding our laws, they should be held to a higher standard than an ordinary citizen. If a police officer commits a crime, then they have committed that crime _and_ they have abused the trust placed in them by the state, county, etc that they work for.
Today police, DAs, and judges are all incentivized to close as many big cases as possible. We need these people to be motivated to actually protect the public and help those in need. Police funding, promotions, and recognition could be realigned to much better promote a policing system that focus on actually serving the public rather than catching and punishing as many people as possible.
For people following in a different land, US kids are raised worshipping winning and (american) football and baseball players. And mostly in that world, winning is what matters - for individuals and for the team. Fair play is a british kind of nonsense, so is the spirit of the rules. And cheating is a means to an end (getting caught is a problem: you have let your team down). When that becomes a problem the rules are touched up so that "everyone is a winner" - but winning is still the point and anyway the kids know this is BS and that they have lost. I caricature a little but only a little.
American cops are THAT. They are there to win and everything else is for the losers. They are still playing their game - and their team.
Is this true? On sufficiently long time scales, do you really think that most people continue to imagine / desire law enforcement and public safety being mashed into the same entity(ies), and for those entities to be state agencies?
My sense is that most people recognize that this is a temporary phenomenon.
For advocates of slavery (including the current plantation-masquerading-as-corrections regime), police are of course necessary, because slavery is only economically feasible in the presence of this subsidy (which is how the current framework of police began in the USA in the first place).
But if we imagine something only slightly more utopian, like restorative and rehabilitative justice that isn't designed as a profit generator, empowered by a sufficiently democratic and highly sensitive internet, then it becomes easy to imagine relieving the police of their duties and moving to more mature and stable systems of public safety.