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Comment by petschge | Hacker News Reader

Just a sidebar on the word "civilian". Police offices in the US like to call member of the public "civilians", but they themselves are civilians as they do not fall under the military code of justice. Unless you want to argue that they are an occupying force that is in armed conflict with the population and should be treated as combatants under the Geneva Conventions...

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Another sidebar, the CIA is a civilian service as ~70% of all intelligence services are (except military intelligence), otherwise it would not be possible to do stuff that is against the law and many other "bonuses", like plausible deniability.

Technically true, but in the UK they refer to themselves as "first responders", "emergency services", "the force", etc. And they do technically have powers beyond that of a civilian (for better or for worse).

No they don't. They have powers beyond that of an ordinary member of the public. So do many other civilians! That doesn't make them not civilians.

Several dictionaries define civilian as those not in military or police forces, the Geneva conventions only dictates language in the context of war.

There is also "civil servant", but that has different meanings in country's and also different law's and duty's attached to that "title".

Police are hired by the powers currently installed and paid through extraction of taxes.

In effect they are an occupying force.

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