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Cops and Laws and Other Things
Someone on my friends list (herself a cop) recently talked about encountering people who hate cops, all cops. Got me thinking about my own stance on cops... which was a little more convoluted and confused than I expected. Please take all of the following as me thinking out loud. Feedback, as usual, is appreciated.
I don't think I hate cops. The fact that I have at least one that I know of on my friends list seems to indicate that's true. I've also known some good cops, including the father of one of my friends in high school. I've let a cop (same father of a friend, actually) search my house without a warrant before when a house across the street from ours was robbed, I'm always polite to police officers if I'm ever stopped on the highway, even been complimented for it before (not that it got me out of the ticket), and in general I would not even hesitate to go up to an officer to ask for directions or help under any circumstances.
So why is it that every time I'm on the road and I see a police car, I tense up, even when I'm not doing anything wrong? Why do I hate hate HATE having a cop directly behind me on the road? They're just doing their job, right? Looking out for the safety of everyone on the road, myself included... right? Maybe, I guess... but that's not how it feels to me. Frankly, it feels like an elaborate game of "gotcha". No seatbelt? Gotcha. Failure to use a turn signal, even if the road behind you was empty and there was no one to singal TO? Gotcha. Speeding, even when the road is EMPTY, there are no pedestrians around, it's a two-lane highway to begin with, and the fucking speed limit is 25 mph? Gotcha! Oh, and that last one might be "reckless driving", too, depending on your local statues. Double gotcha.
Maybe I'm just being cynical, but so MANY of these things involve penalties for things where no one was even harmed, it starts to make me wonder if the purpose of these laws being enforced is really to keep us all safe or if it's to make the locality a few extra bucks through ticketing. I also have to wonder... is there a point at which you start making things offenses in order to give your cops people to arrest? 'cause, let's face it, in our society we're not about to pay cops for standing around doing "nothing" even if the reason for that is that crime in the area is virtually nonexistent. We'll make some new crimes so they can earn their keep.
Maybe it's not cops I have the problem with, thinking on it more... maybe it's the law-makers I have the problem with, and cops just appear to be the problem because they're visibly enforcing the flawed laws made by the legislature. Not sure. That seems to work at first, but then I think back and note that I've had cops use their discretion to let me off tickets before when they didn't think they were warranted, and I've also had other cops who seem to think speeding on a back road in the middle of nowhere on a clear day with no traffic and no pedestrians is an offense worthy of an 80+ dollar ticket. Or who think that turning right on a green light is an offense for which I should be stopped and ticketed simply because I didn't notice the "no turns" sign (some idiot who designed the roads apparently decided all turns onto a particular road should be made through a separate road, rather than on the main road itself. I wasn't familiar with the area, didn't see that effective off-ramp, and didn't have time to read all the signs at the intersection before turning since the light was already green and I wasn't expecting a no turns period sign.) In neither of these cases did my driving in ANY WAY endanger anyone. So why didn't I get let off with a warning in these cases too? *shrugs* I don't know, though I suspect it might have to do with timing... I've noticed that when I do get pulled over and actually ticketed, it seems to disproportionately be within a few days of the end of a month. I've heard from many cops that they don't have quotas for tickets, but I'm sorry that does seem like a strange coincidence to me.
All in all, I'm not really sure where that leaves me with cops. I'm grateful for the work they do in apprehending actual criminals, but I worry that there is a line they flirt with and too often cross over where normal citizens are made into criminals for them to catch. I worry about statistics I've heard where a disproportionate number of people in our prison system are there for drug-related offenses. Frankly, I'd like to see us do away with drug offenses altogether. If someone does violence while on drugs, charge them with violence. If someone has an accident or even drives badly while on drugs, charge them with vehicular manslaughter and/or reckless driving or whatever. Make it about the act, rather than about the drugs one uses on your own body. And for gods sake, do away with possession as a crime. Please. I'm saying this as someone who doesn't even use drugs except a moderate amount of alcohol from time to time. It's not our business what people do to their own bodies. And yeah, I know this is more about the lawmakers than the cops again, but the cops are the ones who enforce it and it does seem to me that if enough of them banded together they could also choose NOT to enforce it and thereby pressure the lawmakers to change the laws.
I guess, by and large, I think cops are probably ok... just like I think, by and large, people are ok (even if large numbers of them are apparently also stupid). But I worry they've been given too much power and that the bad ones among them can and do abuse that without the good ones stopping them. Because what can you do about a coworker who is following the very letter of the law, even while breaking its spirit?
I feel like there's more I want to say, but I'm not sure what. Somehow this overlaps with some hacker-related reading I've been doing lately, as well. I'm finding much of my view of criminal hacking, including cracking and warez, to have been overly simplistic and often outright wrong as a result... adding new data at present that is painting quite a different picture than my first impressions. Many more shades of gray than I first thought. And parts of it do intersect with the criminalization of normal activity. I got pointed to this text as part of the reading I'm doing, and even though it's not specifically about hacking it does interrelate: http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/right-to-read.html Check it out, and really think about what it's saying. It's very thought provoking. It also leads me to the conclusion that some criminal hackers are, in a sense, warriors in a war for our civil rights that most are not aware is even being fought, and that their actions have only been made criminal due to repressive statues like those mentioned in the article. It also leads me to the conclusion, as bizarre as it may sound, that a constitutional right to possess hacking tools may exist. "A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed." Hacking tools are the first arms for the battlefields of tomorrow.
I don't think I hate cops. The fact that I have at least one that I know of on my friends list seems to indicate that's true. I've also known some good cops, including the father of one of my friends in high school. I've let a cop (same father of a friend, actually) search my house without a warrant before when a house across the street from ours was robbed, I'm always polite to police officers if I'm ever stopped on the highway, even been complimented for it before (not that it got me out of the ticket), and in general I would not even hesitate to go up to an officer to ask for directions or help under any circumstances.
So why is it that every time I'm on the road and I see a police car, I tense up, even when I'm not doing anything wrong? Why do I hate hate HATE having a cop directly behind me on the road? They're just doing their job, right? Looking out for the safety of everyone on the road, myself included... right? Maybe, I guess... but that's not how it feels to me. Frankly, it feels like an elaborate game of "gotcha". No seatbelt? Gotcha. Failure to use a turn signal, even if the road behind you was empty and there was no one to singal TO? Gotcha. Speeding, even when the road is EMPTY, there are no pedestrians around, it's a two-lane highway to begin with, and the fucking speed limit is 25 mph? Gotcha! Oh, and that last one might be "reckless driving", too, depending on your local statues. Double gotcha.
Maybe I'm just being cynical, but so MANY of these things involve penalties for things where no one was even harmed, it starts to make me wonder if the purpose of these laws being enforced is really to keep us all safe or if it's to make the locality a few extra bucks through ticketing. I also have to wonder... is there a point at which you start making things offenses in order to give your cops people to arrest? 'cause, let's face it, in our society we're not about to pay cops for standing around doing "nothing" even if the reason for that is that crime in the area is virtually nonexistent. We'll make some new crimes so they can earn their keep.
Maybe it's not cops I have the problem with, thinking on it more... maybe it's the law-makers I have the problem with, and cops just appear to be the problem because they're visibly enforcing the flawed laws made by the legislature. Not sure. That seems to work at first, but then I think back and note that I've had cops use their discretion to let me off tickets before when they didn't think they were warranted, and I've also had other cops who seem to think speeding on a back road in the middle of nowhere on a clear day with no traffic and no pedestrians is an offense worthy of an 80+ dollar ticket. Or who think that turning right on a green light is an offense for which I should be stopped and ticketed simply because I didn't notice the "no turns" sign (some idiot who designed the roads apparently decided all turns onto a particular road should be made through a separate road, rather than on the main road itself. I wasn't familiar with the area, didn't see that effective off-ramp, and didn't have time to read all the signs at the intersection before turning since the light was already green and I wasn't expecting a no turns period sign.) In neither of these cases did my driving in ANY WAY endanger anyone. So why didn't I get let off with a warning in these cases too? *shrugs* I don't know, though I suspect it might have to do with timing... I've noticed that when I do get pulled over and actually ticketed, it seems to disproportionately be within a few days of the end of a month. I've heard from many cops that they don't have quotas for tickets, but I'm sorry that does seem like a strange coincidence to me.
All in all, I'm not really sure where that leaves me with cops. I'm grateful for the work they do in apprehending actual criminals, but I worry that there is a line they flirt with and too often cross over where normal citizens are made into criminals for them to catch. I worry about statistics I've heard where a disproportionate number of people in our prison system are there for drug-related offenses. Frankly, I'd like to see us do away with drug offenses altogether. If someone does violence while on drugs, charge them with violence. If someone has an accident or even drives badly while on drugs, charge them with vehicular manslaughter and/or reckless driving or whatever. Make it about the act, rather than about the drugs one uses on your own body. And for gods sake, do away with possession as a crime. Please. I'm saying this as someone who doesn't even use drugs except a moderate amount of alcohol from time to time. It's not our business what people do to their own bodies. And yeah, I know this is more about the lawmakers than the cops again, but the cops are the ones who enforce it and it does seem to me that if enough of them banded together they could also choose NOT to enforce it and thereby pressure the lawmakers to change the laws.
I guess, by and large, I think cops are probably ok... just like I think, by and large, people are ok (even if large numbers of them are apparently also stupid). But I worry they've been given too much power and that the bad ones among them can and do abuse that without the good ones stopping them. Because what can you do about a coworker who is following the very letter of the law, even while breaking its spirit?
I feel like there's more I want to say, but I'm not sure what. Somehow this overlaps with some hacker-related reading I've been doing lately, as well. I'm finding much of my view of criminal hacking, including cracking and warez, to have been overly simplistic and often outright wrong as a result... adding new data at present that is painting quite a different picture than my first impressions. Many more shades of gray than I first thought. And parts of it do intersect with the criminalization of normal activity. I got pointed to this text as part of the reading I'm doing, and even though it's not specifically about hacking it does interrelate: http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/right-to-read.html Check it out, and really think about what it's saying. It's very thought provoking. It also leads me to the conclusion that some criminal hackers are, in a sense, warriors in a war for our civil rights that most are not aware is even being fought, and that their actions have only been made criminal due to repressive statues like those mentioned in the article. It also leads me to the conclusion, as bizarre as it may sound, that a constitutional right to possess hacking tools may exist. "A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed." Hacking tools are the first arms for the battlefields of tomorrow.
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