Government Overreach

A thread showing government out of control.
Let's try to keep it civil, debate actions and ideas, not people.
Best described by this famous quote:

When you see that trading is done, not by consent, but by compulsion — when you see that in order to produce, you need to obtain permission from men who produce nothing — when you see that money is flowing to those who deal, not in goods, but in favors — when you see that men get richer by graft and by pull than by work, and your laws don’t protect you against them, but protect them against you — when you see corruption being rewarded and honesty becoming a self-sacrifice — you may know that your society is doomed.
~By Ayn Rand from Atlas Shrugged.

Seems that Oakland California is concerned with Law Enforecement's uncurtailed use of technology.
It is felt that maybe the tail is wagging the dog. Federal funds become available, and programs are implemented without public input or a determination of need. Everything from Armored Personnel Carriers (APC) to Automated License Plate reader (ALPR). Simply because the funds are there is NOT a great reason to startup enforcement programs.
While this story is directly related to Surveillance, it is also serves as a good example of overreach, and resulting push-back by citizens.

How Cities Are Reining in Out-of-Control Policing Tech
Local governments are demanding accountability, transparency, and community participation on law enforcement surveillance practices.
By Robyn Greene

Since the turn of the 21st century, local law enforcement departments have stocked up on unprecedentedly invasive surveillance tech for monitoring their communities, with little to no oversight. But a counterrevolution is brewing. On May 1, the Oakland, California, City Council unanimously adopted the Surveillance and Community Safety Ordinance, the nation’s strongest law governing how police acquire and use surveillance technologies. While Oakland may be at the head of the pack here, it isn’t alone: In the past few years, local governments across the country have become laboratories for developing new approaches to reining in policing tech, and the solutions they’ve been cooking up are starting to spread to more cities and towns that are concerned about overreaching or secret police surveillance of their communities.

After Sept. 11, thanks in part to massive federal grants with few strings attached, local law enforcement agencies all over the United States began steadily acquiring and deploying powerful new policing tech. These surveillance technologies, often acquired and deployed unbeknownst to residents or city councils and usually without court approval or oversight, include cell-site simulators for tracking cellphone-call details (often referred to as stingrays), automatic license plate readers for tracking cars, drones for conducting aerial surveillance, gunshot-location technology that relies on citywide networks of high-powered microphones, and predictive policing algorithms that tend to push police to focus even more on already overpoliced communities. This trend of unrestrained acquisition and use of surveillance tools has been dubbed by some critics as “policymaking by procurement,” with important decisions being made about police power based simply on the fact that the feds were willing to cut a check for the tech, rather than being based on careful consideration by local elected officials.
Story Continues.

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