News for hackers. Stuff that matters.
Re:LAPD Officer Killed During Training Exercise Was Investig... by Arrath on Tuesday October 04, 2022 @01:48PM (#33084004)
Time to start prorating individual officer's salary for the % of their shift time that has extant video footage?

These body cams are useless if the video can go conveniently missing whenever it needs to.

Re:LAPD Officer Killed During Training Exercise Was Investig... by bee_rider on Tuesday October 04, 2022 @02:58PM (#33085052)
Judges should start instructing juries make an adverse inference against the police, if bodycam footage is missing.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adverse_inference

Re:LAPD Officer Killed During Training Exercise Was Investig... by hutzlibu on Tuesday October 04, 2022 @04:07PM (#33085978)
Yes and they likely will - but only in jurisdictions, where bodycams are mandatory to be always on.
Re:LAPD Officer Killed During Training Exercise Was Investig... by Tangurena2 on Tuesday October 04, 2022 @03:07PM (#33085200)
Losing insurance is making a number of police departments actually make changes:

> Even departments with few problems are experiencing rate increases of 30 to 100 percent. Now, insurers also are telling departments that they must change the way they police.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/investigations/interactive/20...

Re:LAPD Officer Killed During Training Exercise Was Investig... by midoridensha on Tuesday October 04, 2022 @08:58PM (#33089575)
It's pretty bad when you have to rely on greedy capitalists and not public servants for positive change.
Re:LAPD Officer Killed During Training Exercise Was Investig... by zhengyi13 on Wednesday October 05, 2022 @10:39AM (#33096143)
Hey look, the market fixes everything!

(/s)

Re:LAPD Officer Killed During Training Exercise Was Investig... by noboostforyou on Tuesday October 04, 2022 @02:51PM (#33084952)
Get rid of Qualified Immunity for starters. Next should be some sort of malpractice insurance that police must carry themselves (none of this using our tax dollars to pay for their own crimes).
Re:LAPD Officer Killed During Training Exercise Was Investig... by mike_d on Tuesday October 04, 2022 @03:14PM (#33085283)
Qualafied immunity is the cornerstone of a functioning democracy. People who advocate for its elimination only know about it from the negative context and don't fully understand its value.

For example say a rich person murders their partner. The cops show up and the killer says "if you arrest me I will drag all of you into court personally for years to come and bankrupt your families." Without QI the officers need to make a decision if justice is worth the risk of personal loss.

Or if a rich person wants to build a new deck which is denied a permit, QI is what prevents them from personally dragging everyone involved to court personally.

QI does not eliminate personal liability when a crime has been committed. If an officer shoots someone and is charged criminally, they can then be sued personally.

Re:LAPD Officer Killed During Training Exercise Was Investig... by burkaman on Tuesday October 04, 2022 @04:35PM (#33086422)
Why isn't this a major issue in any other functioning democracy?
Re:LAPD Officer Killed During Training Exercise Was Investig... by mike_d on Tuesday October 04, 2022 @09:44PM (#33089998)
Because other democracies tend to have functioning police oversight and populations that are not openly hostile to the police. QI is actually rooted in English common law, so similar concepts exist in other countries that also adopted the system.
Re:LAPD Officer Killed During Training Exercise Was Investig... by phendrenad2 on Wednesday October 05, 2022 @07:14PM (#33102406)
But aren't you using literally the same logic?
Re:LAPD Officer Killed During Training Exercise Was Investig... by mywittyname on Tuesday October 04, 2022 @05:08PM (#33086925)
> QI is what prevents them from personally dragging everyone involved to court personally.

No it doesn't. The case will get thrown out on some other grounds when the officials sends in their report on why the permit was denied. Likewise, not responding to the lawsuit could result in a default judgement regardless of QI.

We can keep frivolous lawsuits by people pissed off with bureaucracy from happening while also allowing government officials to be sued for the actual economic damages they inflict on people.

Re:LAPD Officer Killed During Training Exercise Was Investig... by notch656a on Tuesday October 04, 2022 @05:42PM (#33087424)
Ah yes, the classic someone will abuse it, so we'll make it illegal! By that same logic, we could just make it illegal to be rich, so no rich people are around to abuse the lawsuits -- checkmate!
Re:LAPD Officer Killed During Training Exercise Was Investig... by _jal on Tuesday October 04, 2022 @03:19PM (#33085366)
> Qualafied immunity is the cornerstone of a functioning democracy.

I take it you believe the US became a functioning democracy in 1967, then?

That's when Pierson v. Ray was decided and QI was invented.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pierson_v._Ray

Re:LAPD Officer Killed During Training Exercise Was Investig... by mike_d on Tuesday October 04, 2022 @03:23PM (#33085421)
Without getting into a longwinded discussion of specifics, QI as a concept within the legal system has existed for quite a long time. The case you cite is where it was codified into an explict short-circuit that prevented the cases from being filed in the first place.
Re:LAPD Officer Killed During Training Exercise Was Investig... by _jal on Tuesday October 04, 2022 @03:27PM (#33085474)
No, please - name cases you're thinking of. I am extremely curious about what you'll cite.

Because there was a specific reason QI came to be, and it was not a matter of a long-established doctrine being formalized.

I'll wait.

Re:LAPD Officer Killed During Training Exercise Was Investig... by mike_d on Tuesday October 04, 2022 @04:59PM (#33086784)
https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=3680714# and then click on view PDF. I don't think I can deep link to it directly.

Should give you a good context and background going back to the 1800s.

Re:LAPD Officer Killed During Training Exercise Was Investig... by rootusrootus on Tuesday October 04, 2022 @03:07PM (#33085188)
Although it gets misused, there is a very good reason for qualified immunity. Get rid of it and nobody will ever become a cop. And even if you could find people, you'd have to pay a pretty ridiculous salary, especially with an insurance requirement.

Better to reform the official checks & balances on police power so they are more effective.

Re:LAPD Officer Killed During Training Exercise Was Investig... by TomSwirly on Tuesday October 04, 2022 @05:45PM (#33087454)
> Get rid of it and nobody will ever become a cop.

Hello, I live in Europe. We don't have qualified immunity here, but we have police officers. How do you explain this?

Germany is by the way far more litigious than the US, so no, don't go pulling this, "But we have more lawsuits" thing.

----

Is there a way to stop you guys doing this? "It's impossible to do X" when in fact you are the only country that doesn't do X? It's simply embarrassing after decades and generations of this.

Re:LAPD Officer Killed During Training Exercise Was Investig... by BrandoElFollito on Thursday October 06, 2022 @01:54PM (#33111585)
I didn't know that Germany was more litigious than the US (I am French).

Is there a particular reason for that? (fast courts for instance, or the ability to gain tengoble money from the litigation? (something we do not have in France))

Re:LAPD Officer Killed During Training Exercise Was Investig... by nullc on Tuesday October 04, 2022 @04:05PM (#33085965)
> and nobody will ever become a cop.

Most (almost all?) police officers in the US have a union negotiated contract where the employing agency indemnifies them. Not only do you not need QI to avoid the liability you're concerned about, but the infrastructure is already in place.

Re:LAPD Officer Killed During Training Exercise Was Investig... by ROTMetro on Tuesday October 04, 2022 @03:17PM (#33085334)
Checks and balances don't work. Just look at the whole student debt issue. Someone sued and the Biden administration changed the rule so that the person suing no longer had standing, taking away access to the courts.

Trying to sue the government from inside the prison system is just naive. And even when it works, it doesn't work. We sued because we were housed in inhuman conditions. Because only inmates in one wing of the prison sued, the ruling only applied to inmates housed in that wing, even though the rest of the prison was exactly the same as what the Court had just ruled inhumane and unconstitutional.

Qualified immunity is a made up right by the courts (it doesn't exist in law) and places SOME animals above other animals when it comes to accountability. I thought we were all equal? All Americans should be responsible for their actions, government employees > accountability simply because they have a special 'job' should not be a thing.

Re:LAPD Officer Killed During Training Exercise Was Investig... by joshuamorton on Tuesday October 04, 2022 @04:37PM (#33086441)
> Checks and balances don't work. Just look at the whole student debt issue. Someone sued and the Biden administration changed the rule so that the person suing no longer had standing, taking away access to the courts.

This is because the standing they had was tenuous to begin with, his claim was that the issue was he'd be taxed on the 20K in cancelled debt and couldn't opt out. So it was clarified that he could, and suddenly he is no longer harmed. You don't have standing to sue if you aren't harmed.

Student loan companies have a somewhat less tenuous argument, but the real issue is that Biden's actions were probably legal, and checks and balances don't exist to prevent the government from doing legal things.

Re:LAPD Officer Killed During Training Exercise Was Investig... by tastyfreeze on Tuesday October 04, 2022 @03:18PM (#33085348)
The police must follow all the same laws that we do. Giving any kind of immunity enables officers to be "above the law". If an officer gets accused of rights violations it should be settled in court, not dismissed out of hand.
Re:LAPD Officer Killed During Training Exercise Was Investig... by selectodude on Tuesday October 04, 2022 @04:27PM (#33086303)
Pretty sure if you handcuffed somebody without their consent, regardless of what they were doing, you’d have to answer for it in court.

Cops are above the law. They are the violence arm of the local government.

Re:LAPD Officer Killed During Training Exercise Was Investig... by mywittyname on Tuesday October 04, 2022 @05:15PM (#33087026)
They aren't acting above the law, but within it. They are legally allowed to detain people in certain situations.

It's perfectly fair for the law to allow certain groups to do something that's illegal for other groups to do. For example, illegal for people not sanctioned by the government to drive on public roads.

Re:LAPD Officer Killed During Training Exercise Was Investig... by edgyquant on Tuesday October 04, 2022 @02:46PM (#33084879)
Nope time to throw cops and their supervisors in jail who lose or forget to record footage
Re:LAPD Officer Killed During Training Exercise Was Investig... by rightbyte on Tuesday October 04, 2022 @03:30PM (#33085511)
Fun times when your body cam breaks.

Just upload the video automatically to some central server. Then the corruption on police station level can't get to it.

You could do the upload via mobile network if a "bang" is heard too.

Re:LAPD Officer Killed During Training Exercise Was Investig... by dirkg on Tuesday October 04, 2022 @04:31PM (#33086358)
Theres no way any police reform will hapen as long as we have unions and qualified immunity
Re:LAPD Officer Killed During Training Exercise Was Investig... by hanniabu on Tuesday October 04, 2022 @02:33PM (#33084718)
Won't change a thing, they'd happily be paid 8hrs less if it means not going to jail
Re:LAPD Officer Killed During Training Exercise Was Investig... by wahnfrieden on Tuesday October 04, 2022 @02:50PM (#33084923)
It would have the same effect as this early american law:

> There was little doubt that fence cutting would be criminalized, but what was to be done about ranchers who were fencing over public roads and lands? Here the Texas Legislature stood with the rich, making fence cutting a felony punishable by two to five years in prison, while for the cattle barons who encroached on public land, the punishment was a misdemeanor and a small fine of $10 to $100.

ie levying a slight tax to enable it rampantly through surface-level law and order

Re:LAPD Officer Killed During Training Exercise Was Investig... by orwin on Tuesday October 04, 2022 @03:19PM (#33085369)
One thing i absolutely love and that police officers were not always aware off, is that initially their bodycam were always recording, and keeping the video they just recorded in a buffer (sadly, not often with audio). The buffer can change, but is a minimum of 30 second to up to 15 minutes, and some cops were busted by that. Now more often than not the configuration is 30s, so tape goes missing at a lower rate.

I think their is another kind, used more in cities, with bodycam uploading the video directly, with 3 modes (low-res, lowframe, low-res, normal framerate + audio, and high res high framerate).