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Comment by dkarl | Hacker News Reader

The problem is that this is designed specifically for when police don't want to do their job. They believe the people are "bad" and engaged in undesirable activity, but they can't be bothered to investigate and gather evidence of criminal activity. Instead, they want to make their lives miserable, on the principle that the threat of surveillance bothers the guilty, but not the innocent. And any sweet old lady can tag someone as a "bad element" who needs to be driven out of town.

If that's what we want, then we don't need police in the first place. We just need close-knit communities where good old boys are eager to enforce the nervous prejudices of the community using violence and intimidation.

Don't get me wrong; I'm a quiet, boring person who detests littering. I wouldn't be a target for this kind of operation. But we already know the hazards of this kind of justice. We've been there, done that, and moved on.

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I wouldn't say that it's designed for when police don't want to do their job. There are many communities where there aren't enough police to do a good job. Using techniques like this seems like it would allow them to use actual humans where they're more needed.

The cases cited in the article were of neighbors asking the police to somehow combat the unruly elements in their communities. It seems like you're under the impression that this is a matter of "nervous prejudices" running wild, like some Salem witch trials scenario. But what would you, personally, think would be the best course of action if one of your neighbors (not you yourself) was a drug dealer whose activities were a constant nuisance, if not a threat to your well being? What would have the police do if they had tried every other tactic at their disposal? I don't know if you have children, but if you did - would you just stoically endure, put them in danger, on the basis that a technique which works might one day be abused?

I know it's lame to say "think of the children!", but when you're talking about drug dealers and the kind of trouble they bring I think it's appropriate. In high school I worked with a lot of kids from bad neighborhoods and saw the effects of living in an unstable environment. If something like this helps out kids like them, I'm all for it.

/rambling

As far as I'm concerned, nobody is a drug dealer until the police have caught them dealing drugs. Gossip is not a good way to determine who the good guys and bad guys are. In the cases described, what's freaking people out is their neighbors being noisy and dirty and keeping odd hours. These are class and cultural differences which, I will admit, are really annoying and (I assume) strongly associated with criminal activity, but people should be held responsible for behavior that is observed and documented, not serious criminal behavior that is statistically inferred from violations of decorum. You can easily make a neighborhood more pleasant and secure by running out all the poor people, or all the black people, or all the straight people. Or the Irish. That's stereotyping. (It works, bitches! But it's wrong.)

You want to raise the tenor of the neighborhood, broken-windows style? Then use existing laws or HOA rules about trash and noise. Pass new and draconian ones if necessary. Go wild! But the police shouldn't hold people responsible for their neighbors' assumptions about them. We're supposed to be a liberal society, in the classic sense of the word. If you want to treat someone as a drug dealer, catch them dealing drugs.

"As far as I'm concerned, nobody is a drug dealer until the police have caught them dealing drugs."

Which is clearly false.

"Then use existing laws or HOA rules about trash and noise."

How do you make a noise survey without surveilling people. How do you know which house to surveille without listening to the neighbours?

If a community is splitting into two factions, the ideal would be for them to geographically separate. If a few people look down on the whole rest of the group, the few should go find a like-minded group. Obviously, "just moving" isn't as easy as one would like, but the benefit is opting into the homogeneity that some want. If you don't like the behavior of some others, you can tolerate it, leave, or attempt to make them choose to change or leave. Communities should be small and should be allowed to have stupid rules as long as they're all willing to follow and enforce them. There just needs to be a place to go for those who don't like the rules, and going to that place needs to not be too inconvenient.

We need close-knit communities where good old boys are eager to enforce the nervous prejudices of the community using violence and intimidation anyway. We just need lots of such communities, with very varied nervous prejudices, including the occasional such community with a nervous prejudice against the situation I'm describing (an escape hatch within the system)

If you think there's some degree of social homogeneity that will keep people from conceiving suspicions, hatreds, and jealousies, dream on.

I was saying that a small community whose favorite prejudice is that against prejudice would make a safe harbor in case one can't otherwise find a community of likeminded individuals.

In the article, the police claimed to have tried all other methods of 'traditional' policing before resorting to the truck:

"In the summer of 2006, police were brainstorming ways to rattle a suspected drug dealer. They had exhausted traditional strategies, including undercover operations, and were left empty-handed and frustrated. They decided to park a retired police car in front of the suspect's house."

That's how the idea started. Afterwards they used it to scare off the lady's grandchildren when she went on vacation.

I don't see what's wrong with asking the police to help protect your house from vandalism, even if you are on vacation. The kind of behavior this old lady's kids were engaged in was illegal, and the police helped solve the problem in a cost-effective way. Where's the problem?

The problem is that it went from extreme no-other-solution necessity to a more mundane use. In other words we get too comfortable with it and pretty soon they could be monitoring everyone. It's not a slippery slope. It's just natural progression.

You made a typo: Please change "monitoring" to "tasering".

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