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Comment by n3rdy | Hacker News Reader

What super power does law enforcement possess that us lesser humans don't?

They have the super power of working within a judicial framework which forces them to be prove the suspects' guilt thoroughly before any kind of punishment can be dealt. This is not the case with vigilantes.

Doesn't America have the perp walk of shame (considered unlawful in some other developed countries)?

Isn't that almost the same thing as this, just with a higher probability that the shamed person is actually guilty of the crime?

No, while obviously uncivilized and outside of civilized rules of justice, it is not the same. At the minimum, there are some named people responsible for this who you can sue or at least make a dent in their reputation if they abuse their power (see Ortiz case.) The internet crowd bears zero responsibility.

Very good story about perp walks, and how they can be staged:

http://www.popehat.com/2013/04/09/misconduct-is-only-news-wh...

They have the super power of working within a judicial framework which forces them to be prove the suspects' guilt thoroughly before any kind of punishment can be dealt.

Yeah, how about those drug offenses? Or copyright issues? Or computer fraud and abuse? Or...

Don't be silly, nobody's saying it's perfect. But it's certainly better than universal vigilante justice.

Would you prefer it if copyright holders were free to exact their own "justice" outside of the court system?

Or... a witch hunt. That is what public justice is. That's why we have police.

They also have the super power of getting a search warrant and going through your fucking house so that they can find real evidence not just some pictures or possibly innocent people on the internet.

I don't know why I'm so pissed about these photo's but it most have something to do with the hypocrisy of HN being a group of people who hate to be watched and yet... WE are watching YOU. Seriously how are these photos any different than the government having drones? They are public? The public doesn't need to do everything and the government shouldn't be 100% open. I think this demonstrates just how bad it would be if private citizens were given the launch codes to nuclear weapons.

Give me a break dude, there's a huge difference between taking photos at a huge public event and government drones. I can't believe this even has to be addressed.

You are at a public event, you have no reasonable expectation of privacy and could not argue so in court.

If you are in your backyard and your neighbor is videotaping you, then that's illegal if you have the expectation of privacy. The government can basically do the same with impunity with drones without it being illegal.

See the difference?

So, reading your post, I just wondered something, I realize it may sound stupid. Most people don't have a backyard. As soon as they get away from under their roof, they are in a public space. Does this not affect them?

I used backyard as the sort of example that is always made in law school. Backyards are actually not entirely private. Say you have an illegal pool, if the cops see it from the air, you're still subject to prosecution. Or if you shared a backyard with a neighbor and were running around naked when they have free access to the backyard, it's still exposure.

What is true is that if you have a 12 foot fence and are in your backyard topless and your neighbor films you, then that's illegal because you had an expectation of privacy. Same goes if someone is being taped in a bathroom. You are in space that's not publicly accessible. I'm not 100% sure where the definitive case law on what is and is not private resides, but most of it is well defined in the physical world. So consider these three things: barriers (walls, space is not public), ownership (I own or are here with consent of who owns), and consent (I agreed to wave privacy rights explicity or de facto i.e. I'm walking down this street). These three things have to be ALL met or else you could tape people taking showers at your house legally.

With your apartment, things are even more gray because you don't have an absolute right to privacy there as your landlord can enter the premises under many pretenses.

OK see you are arguing to a specific point on the drones issue. I.E. them being used in your back yard. I'm referring to the idea that the government (using your logic) could film and track you whenever you go out in public, period.

But that's not the point I'm trying to make, Someone took a photo (publicly available) and found someone without a backpack, then the put it up online and said, this guy is a suspect.

Now we have a crowd of people (here on Hacker news and if you follow the threads others on Reddit) who have seen this guys face. The law of idiots leads me to believe that someone is going to recognize him and this could adversely affect his life.

Is it illegal... no. Is it morally wrong to post something like this online, I believe so. Sure, he has no right to privacy, and I'm no lawyer, but to slander someone's name with a very limited amount of evidence seems fucked up. I said it in another area, but they should have privately released this information to the police and let them investigate.

> They have the super power of working within a judicial framework which forces them to be prove the suspects' guilt thoroughly before any kind of punishment can be dealt.

The Presumption of Innocence is actually not directly enshrined in the US constitution, and has been relaxed or reversed by the government to serve "societal needs."

http://www.reddit.com/r/todayilearned/comments/1be5xv/til_in...

Also recall this from a few years back:

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2009/02/02/691881/-Holder-Habe...

> What super power does law enforcement possess that us lesser humans don't?

You're playing the foll, right? If not, then I'll tell you why.

Instead of going to your neighbours house and beat him with a baseball bat when you suspect his kids did pee in your rosebuds, you should report to the police and ask for a reparation.

Why? Because we live in a society, not in a hurd. The guy with the most muscles is not supposed to be more right than the guy with less, or in a wheelchair.

The way to do this is to agree together to not use force and let an institution use force, thusly forming a "social contrat", which you have already signed at your birth.

And what if you don;t agree with this contract? You woould need to go in another place, but all of them places have such contracts, you'll be sorry to hear.

Warrants, training, 40+ hours a week doing exactly this, rules to operate under (which of course are broken but that isn't the point of a rule now is it), the actual evidence from the explosion, bomb analysis tools, the ability to pull peoples records...

What do we have? A shit ton of people and photos of people with backpacks. This is great if you give it privately to the police so they can go out and use the rest of their tools to find stuff, but there is a reason why they don't announce their "suspects" to the public.

Training, experience, the requirement to follow procedures that safeguard the innocent.

Some procedures also end up safeguarding the not-so-innocent.

>Some procedures also end up safeguarding the not-so-innocent.

That's just as well. It's better to let a not-so-innocent walk, than to make an innocent pay.

That doesn't mean we should settle for that. I don't see why we can't have our cake and eat it too. You need a mix of strict procedures, but also lawless vigilantes. Only having strict procedures leads corruption/loopholes which leads to lots of criminals getting away needlessly. The strict procedures keep the vigilantes in check, and the vigilantes keep the people who foil the system in check.

>You need a mix of strict procedures, but also lawless vigilantes.

The very notion of justice in civilized western societies is that you DON'T need "lawless vigilantes".

And they ain't that good either. All their allure comes from BS movies, TV shows and comic books.

In real life "lawless vigilantes" are more like Southern lynching mobs.

> What super power does law enforcement possess that us lesser humans don't?

You're completely right. Everything was much better when the mob could just perform justice with a rope and a tree.

The superpower of not making the images of suspects they spot public until further investigation and judicial approval.

Legal liability. Everything else flows from that. They can't be careless and ruin lives; they're on the hook for what they do.

But a bunch of people on a forum? Will they even feel responsible for their individual small part of participation in a thread that ruins someone's life? It's very similar, psychologically, to a mob. And that's why it's so dangerous.

But your assessment of legal liability is completely wrong.

Law enforcement has absolutely zero legal liability for anything they do in the course of their job. Anything. This is well-settled law.

On the other hand the forum mob is legally liable for their actions.

So if your sole criterion was legal liability, we should expect greater care, consideration and accuracy from the forum mob than from law enforcement members.

It certainly isn't perfect, but the liability is there. Particularly the organizational liability. People's careers get ruined when they screw up. They certainly don't get promoted for leaving cities on the hook for massive payouts. (Hatfill won 4.6M from the justice department. Koon and Powell did time in federal prison.)

Whose livelihood is threatened by participating in a 4chan thread pseudonymously?

> Law enforcement has absolutely zero legal liability for anything they do in the course of their job. Anything. This is well-settled law.

That's not actually true, random internet anecdotes aside.http://www.columbia.edu/itc/journalism/cases/katrina/Human%2...

The city may choose to settle civil claims against it. The officer is not at risk. Which is a point made extensively in your link, actually.

The ability to effect justice through a legal system?

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