NYPD Baffled By Tech Advances Like Laptops And WiFi
from the with-great-power-comes-a-whole-lot-of-complaining dept
It's over. The tech kids have won. Shut down the NYPD's counterterrorism unit and brace yourselves for a crimewave of Biblical proportions.Tech-savvy anarchists ran rings around the NYPD during last week’s Ferguson-related protests — and cops are now on edge over what the renegades may be able to pull off after a ruling in the Eric Garner case.The overt message is that the NYPD can't keep up with decentralized opposition. That's right on top. The underlying message is that the NYPD still hasn't stopped sending its uninvited officers to various locales to gather intelligence/annoy the locals/rack up per diem charges.
Yes. The NYPD sent detectives to gather intel at the Ferguson protests. These are the takeaways from the NYPD's bumptious interlopers. The NYPD can't stop anything. Protesters are "running rings" around the technologically inept force -- one of the largest and most highly-trained in the nation.
Cue the whining:
A “technology gap” … favors the activists, many of whom have the newest electronic gear, sources said.Can you feel the resentment? These cops (all unnamed) hate the fact that they're being outwitted by a class of people they obviously feel superior to. There's no "technology gap" here. The cops have laptops, WiFi, smartphones and access to the same social media services. It's just that one group knows how use these tools to coordinate efforts -- and it isn't the group with millions of dollars and years of training behind them.
“A lot of these anarchists are from the Occupy Wall Street group. They are little rich kids, little techie brats,’’ a source said.
“They get their money from Mommy and Daddy. And they travel from the West Coast to the East Coast and everywhere in between to disrupt events that involve corporate America, world summits, civil rights and especially those that involve law enforcement.”
“They have their little MacBook Air computers, their Wi-Fi, their smartphones, and they’re off to the races. We’re reacting to these situations, which means we are not fully in control of them,” the source said.
If this is how easily the nation's top police department is tripped up by "new" tech like Airbooks and WiFi, it should just call it a day and disband its (mostly self-) touted counterterrorism unit, as Marcy Wheeler points out.
If I were a NYC taxpayer, I’d call for the CT squad to be shut down right away. Partly because of the insubordination in the face of people peacefully protesting. But just as significantly, because of this claimed helplessness in the face of a far easier target than they’re ostensibly paid to pursue.Or maybe give the NYPD the benefit of the doubt. Surely, it can adapt to meet the challenges of this connected era? The unnamed officers state their concern about possible (now definite) protests following the grand jury's decision in Eric Garner's death at the hands of a plainclothes police officer (spoiler alert: no indictment), but they have a finely-honed plan in place to disrupt the disrupters.
“We’re expecting strong reaction and demonstrations when the decision comes down,” one source said.If you can't beat 'em, beat 'em.
Another source said: “The cops on standby will be in riot gear. That means helmets and sticks.”
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Filed Under: nypd, police, protestors, technology
Reader Comments
The First Word
“So, what they're saying is...
If I whip out a laptop, the NYPD will drag out an exorcist. Because technology is the devil!Subscribe: RSS
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I'll just leave this here...
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ZOMG anarchists!
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Re: ZOMG anarchists!
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Re: I'll just leave this here...
This is why Government will always be the greatest threat to mankind. Government must be limited in it capacity to govern citizen or it will just become your overlord... U.S. History is damn proof of it!
Yes, to the rest of you idiots... Governments are needed so don't get your panties in a twist and make it sound like I am advocating anarchy.
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I understand that you are really (I mean, **really**) concerned about some protests that may or may not happen due to recent events in your fine city. I want to let you know that I have the solution you need. You may not like it, but here it is:
Stop killing and disrupting persons who have not and are not committing crimes.
I think if you can do this, then the rest will follow. What was it that President Reagan called it? Oh yes, the Trickle Down effect.
Sincerely,
The American People
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Re: ZOMG anarchists!
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Riot Gear
The problem is not a technology gap here any more than there (where the technology of riot gear is only on the losing side). It's a misunderstanding of reality itself, without which one would be unlikely to become a cop in the first place.
"Police" started as thugs paid by the wealthy to enforce the privileges of the wealthy. They haven't changed in this, nor will they. They are there to serve and protect the privilege of the privileged. The rest is pretense, dissimulation and outright lies.
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What we learned today
2. The NYPD has just admitted, despite years of training and no doubt an insane amount of money, that they can't compete with a few college kids making casual use of ordinary technology. This tells us a lot about their ability to keep up with actual real live terrorists (you know: the people they're supposedly concerned about stopping) who have vastly superior skills, custom equipment, and lots of practice with tradecraft.
3. The NYPD views citizens exercising their Constitutional rights under the First Amendment as "anarchists" and "renegades". Oh, and "brats". This brings to mine an entirely apropos quote:
"We hear about constitutional rights, free speech and the free press. Every time I hear those words I say to myself, 'That man is a Red, that man is a Communist.' You never heard a real American talk in that manner." -- Jersey City Mayor Frank Hague, about 75 years ago
Same as it ever was...same as it ever was...
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Catch 22.5
A: A change in the focus on 'getting' anyone we don't like and a new box written with enabling rather than undermining the Constitution of the US.
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go see this
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go see this
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and think canada
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Re: Catch 22.5
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Re: Re: Catch 22.5
The trick is how do we control the phenomena that 'power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely'. What we have tried so far, ain't working.
But, if we could, then there is good reason to support 'policing' that is done with good intent.
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Re: Riot Gear
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Are they afraid?
had to say that.
SO..they wont/cant use a signal scrambler..
they cant use a RF receiver and listen to the local signals..
AND they cant Identify WHO is doing it.
HOW do they know its going on??
this sounds like reasoning to GET more advanced tech, that they CANT USE
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Re: Re: Catch 22.5
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So, what they're saying is...
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The gap
Paraphrasing:
"They're smarter than us and it's not fair. We're taking our ball and going home (dons helmets and batons)."
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no what they are really saying
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Re:
They don't even accidentally have a cop that can figure this stuff out? No, they only know how to use unConstitutional million dollar equipment provided by specialist tech companies with NDAs and training from the Feds. Normal everyday activity? Clueless.
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https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20140819/13212128258/lapd-officer-says-tragedies-could- be-prevented-if-citizens-would-just-shut-up-do-what-cops-tell-them-to.shtml#c1303
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Re:
And this is why Occupy has been so fantastically successful in making change in America over the last several years, and the highly hierarchical corporate structures that they oppose are now crumbling.
Wait, what's that you say? Corporations are stronger than ever and Occupy, for all their numbers, passion, and resources, never accomplished a thing?
Wow, you're right! Now, think about that for a second...
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Re: ZOMG anarchists!
This guy sounds like a typical old-school Communist party member defending the proletariat from the bourgeoisie....
Seriously, under what rock did they find this person? Does this person realize how incredibly stupid and uneducated they sound?
> 60% of the US population has smart phones and 1/2 of those are Apple devices. Apple has sold more than 300 million computers (desktop & laptop). So, according to this person, 1/3 of the US population (roughly) are "anarchists".
What a great quote, I'm going to have to tweet that. NYPD police official claims 1/3 of US population are anarchists....
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Re: Catch 22.5
A: Something that makes the current NYPD abuses look like a shouting match on the playground.
Really -- there's a reason they do all the vetting and training they do; it's because LEOs are an enforcement/policing tool. If you get a bunch of loose cannons in there, they misbehave in *unpredictable* ways. The last thing we want is law enforcement we can't predict.
And yes, this means that whoever's in charge of cybercrime probably shouldn't be LEOs. Homeland Security should have a separate batch of people to do that, like maybe the NSA and CIA? Liaison officers make sense, but not entire squads. They'll never be able to keep pace AND be accountable.
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Works as designed.
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Re: ZOMG anarchists!
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Re: Re:
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Asymmetrical warfare.
Money is still money. When white starts with a board full of queens and black starts with a bishop and a knight, you don't get to argue that the black played poorly on the grounds that he lost.
And the thing about insurrection is that it never goes away so long as the grievances are legitimate.
And people are looking so lean and hungry these days.
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Re: Re: Catch 22.5
Yes, it is called indoctrination, or laying the pathways to our way of thinking (describing the box around their point of view) (the vetting part is keeping those too smart to bend to their point of view out of the club). They certainly aren't teaching constitutional law.
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Re: Re: ZOMG anarchists!
anarchist
noun
- Any person who an NYPD employee perceives doesn't respect the authority of the NYPD to do whatever the fuck it wants. See also: terrorist, communist, fascist, hacker, pirate, drug dealer, protester, black person, citizen...
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Re: Asymmetrical warfare.
It's beginning to feel like it felt 50 years ago. There are coalescing forces and many motivated young people who are determined to change the world. I will probably not live to see it, and if I do, I probably won't agree with all of it. But I wish them well. The future is theirs, and I hope they grab onto it with both hands.
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Re: Re: Catch 22.5
If you're in a subclass of people that law enforcement dislikes, or one that is powerful, then it's entirely predictable, true. If you're in any other subclass (namely, middle class and white) then law enforcement isn't predictable right now.
It looks like all that "training and vetting" doesn't work very well.
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This is what they want to be able to do at will, when the authoritarianism rises in their gullet, but they are too damn lazy to actually investigate, do real police work, or restrain their urges to violate fellow humans because they are doing... something, whatever it is that sets them off.
While I still don't believe in "FEMA concentration camps" and mass disarmament of gun lovers, this is what the cops and Feds and national security apparatus keep pushing towards. (Unless you're a bunch of heavily armed, insurrection-talking, wackaloon white ranchers who think public property is their own. That's A OK. Wouldn't want another epic disaster overseen by the Feds there.)
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[citation needed]
They had a great deal of potential to accomplish great things, but from what I've seen they never got beyond the "potential" stage, primarily because of their deliberate lack of organization. The fact that they failed to recognize this and touted it as a "feature not a bug" makes me doubt they'll ever accomplish anything noteworthy at all, which is really sad.
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Wait! I have an idea!
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Also, they continue their work to this day in an arguably more effective manner: by providing support and outreach to disadvantaged people, so their accomplishments continue to accumulate.
All that nonsense about how their lack of organization was a fatal flaw is just that: nonsense. Given the extreme reaction that the Powers That Be had to them, and given the high amount of effort that the government put into trying to destroy them, being "disorganized" was pretty much the only thing that allowed them to accomplish anything at all.
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You're saying...
I gotta get me one of those.
Also, I love this:
'"We’re reacting to these situations, which means we are not fully in control of them,” the source said.'
So...what gave this guy the idea that the police were necessarily supposed to be in control of protests in the first place?
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Re: Re: Re: Re: Re:
Again, [citation needed] here. All that work has been done by well-organized activist groups that existed long before Occupy.
...such as?
The one thing I saw out of them that was actually getting some truly useful, effective results was the Rolling Jubilee project... and for some inexplicable reason they shuttered it at the end of last year!
You accuse me of spouting nonsense and then go and say a thing like this?
Try telling Martin Luther King that bit of political philosophy! That's not how it works, not in the least. An organization with a competent leader can respond to political persecution and turn it into an asset, use it to strengthen their cause. That was the great secret of the Civil Rights movement: the thing that caused them to be so successful was all the opposition, and the movement's leaders' skillful use of it to bring people together and portray their opposition in the media as the inhuman monsters they were being.
But that's only possible when you've got an established system to coordinate things. Otherwise, when the pressure's on, everyone goes their own way and it dissolves into anarchy and uselessness, which is precisely what we saw with the Occupy movement.
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You owe me a keyboard
Lol. How sad but true.
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Look for a ban on Tor and/or VPNs to be enacted in the new Congress.
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Re:
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Mac Baffled
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Mac Baffled
The last tech award in policing I saw was last week for deploying Windows laptops as a mobile solution. That was so 1990. The police havent caught up with tablets and apps. It just isnt them.
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Image how much harder it would be to manage protests, if that large group of protestors dispersed across the city into hundreds of smaller groups.
Now the police force needs to disband into smaller groups too, so they can cover a larger area in order to guard critical infrastructure across the city.
When police start getting violent, it's time to split them up. Police aren't nearly as brave when they're in smaller groups and backup is 10 minutes away.
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Re: Re: I'll just leave this here...
FIFY
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Re: Re: ZOMG anarchists!
Knowing who owns the NY Post (one Rupert Murdoch, self-proclaimed Libertarian), I'm surprised they printed that statement.
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Re: Re: I'll just leave this here...
Democracy is the worst form of government, except for all those other forms that have been tried from time to time.
--Winston Churchill, acknowledging the problem in 1947.
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Re: You owe me a keyboard
If you can't beat them, arrange to have them beaten
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Babies
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The Last Word
“Works as designed.