Portland - No more gang designations, because minorities.

[nmoore63]

When political correctness trumps critical thinking... its not long before the barbarians invade.....

[DBTrek]

I think we've established that there's no actual harm done by police recording obvious public affiliations in a private database. What happens if we take a look at the opposite end of the spectrum - can any good come from recording gang affiliations?

I think General Stanley McChrystal would tell you, unequivocally, yes.
In fact, understanding resilient and adaptable networks is the only way we've found to effectively fight horizontally organized criminal organizations. You can't 'decapitate' a resilient organization because it doesn't follow a top-down, vertical, power structure. You have to hit them in the nodes - each node being the local group of fighters.

So what Portland is doing is actually discarding the only real tool they have in their fight against gang crime (that tool being the map of the social network), because they have some sort of misplaced guilt over the demographics of these groups. Like somehow the fact that 81% of the people affiliated with gangs being minorities is evidence of white racism, and not a tendency for minorities to join gangs more often than whites.

Silly reason to discard what may be the only tool you have to effectively fight gang crime.

[Fife]

Here's an old nugget from the DCF days (took me a minute to google this up, so you're welcome) some of you might enjoy: London, 1772.

I have been asked by my superiors to give a brief demonstration of the surprising effectiveness of even the simplest techniques of the new-fangled Social Networke Analysis in the pursuit of those who would seek to undermine the liberty enjoyed by His Majesty’s subjects. This is in connection with the discussion of the role of “metadata” in certain recent events and the assurances of various respectable parties that the government was merely “sifting through this so-called metadata” and that the “information acquired does not include the content of any communications”. I will show how we can use this “metadata” to find key persons involved in terrorist groups operating within the Colonies at the present time. I shall also endeavour to show how these methods work in what might be called a relational manner.

[de officiis]

I suggested a solution but no one cared. Endless argument is more interesting, I guess.

/shrug

[TheReal_ND]

A reasonable compromise would be to maintain the data for a set period of time (choose a reasonable number) and then delete it unless the person is convicted of a crime, in which case the data would be retained for another period of time.

That makes too much sense though

[Fife]

I suggested a solution but no one cared. Endless argument is more interesting, I guess.

/shrug

I read it, and thought about it. I didn't want to get into a "fruit of the poisonous tree" discussion in this forum, but since you asked . . . the mere existence of this type of database by the state is problematic.

Just because John Q. Public can see something and take a picture of it doesn't mean that the government can do the same, IMNSHO.

[de officiis]

I suggested a solution but no one cared. Endless argument is more interesting, I guess.

/shrug

I read it, and thought about it. I didn't want to get into a "fruit of the poisonous tree" discussion in this forum, but since you asked . . . the mere existence of this type of database by the state is problematic.

Just because John Q. Public can see something and take a picture of it doesn't mean that the government can do the same, IMNSHO.

Fruit of the Poisonous Tree is a search & seizure doctrine which has no bearing on the topic at hand. The onous is in you to put forth a rational argument on what data law enforcement may or may not reasonably collect about private citizens, and why. I assume you're down with a rap sheet, for starters?

[Okeefenokee]

I like this thread.

Expunge my record. It's raysiss

[Fife]

I suggested a solution but no one cared. Endless argument is more interesting, I guess.

/shrug

I read it, and thought about it. I didn't want to get into a "fruit of the poisonous tree" discussion in this forum, but since you asked . . . the mere existence of this type of database by the state is problematic.

Just because John Q. Public can see something and take a picture of it doesn't mean that the government can do the same, IMNSHO.

Fruit of the Poisonous Tree is a search & seizure doctrine which has no bearing on the topic at hand. The onous is in you to put forth a rational argument on what data law enforcement may or may not reasonably collect about private citizens, and why. I assume you're down with a rap sheet, for starters?

Meh. You want to get hyper-technical? I can do that, but I doubt that more than about 5 members would understand what we would be talking about, much less give a shit.

As far as what "onus" is on me, I'll rely upon the constitution.

I suppose a "rap sheet" (depending on the definition) would be inside the ambit of allowed state power under a mosaic theory. I'm not sure about that yet, though.

[Okeefenokee]

I read it, and thought about it. I didn't want to get into a "fruit of the poisonous tree" discussion in this forum, but since you asked . . . the mere existence of this type of database by the state is problematic.

Just because John Q. Public can see something and take a picture of it doesn't mean that the government can do the same, IMNSHO.

Fruit of the Poisonous Tree is a search & seizure doctrine which has no bearing on the topic at hand. The onous is in you to put forth a rational argument on what data law enforcement may or may not reasonably collect about private citizens, and why. I assume you're down with a rap sheet, for starters?

Meh. You want to get hyper-technical? I can do that, but I doubt that more than about 5 members would understand what we would be talking about, much less give a shit.

As far as what "onus" is on me, I'll rely upon the constitution.

I suppose a "rap sheet" (depending on the definition) would be inside the ambit of allowed state power under a mosaic theory. I'm not sure about that yet, though.

If you've ever been arrested, you know they ask if you have any aliases. Should they get rid of that list too? That's information gathered and recorded prior to conviction.