Category: Asshole Cops

Flock News Update

Asshole Cops, Surveillance Society

Here we go again:

Columbus police have paused their use of Flock automatic license plate readers after an officer was accused of searching the same plate more than 270 times over roughly 14 months.

The Columbus Dispatch reports that Mayor Andrew Ginther called the allegations against the officer “deeply troubling” in comments made this week as the city moved to immediately halt use of the cameras and cover them with bags to prevent further data collection. The city will also audit all Flock searches conducted by Columbus police, and City Council is drafting legislation to govern how the cameras can be used going forward.

Considering that these godless fucking snooping devices seem to be all over the United States, I think it’s time for federal legislation — it’s too big an issue to be left to municipalities and even states to address.

And I absolutely hate the feds to get involved in anything, except where Constitutional principles are involved — like here.

Lickspittle

Asshole Cops, Government Thugs, Gummint, Surveillance Society

In this specific case, the above insult is directed at that girlyman Rich Lowry at National Review.  (Back in the Buckley Days, I actually had a subscription to the Dead Tree National Review for many years.  Now?  I’d drink old motor oil first.)

Basically, Lowry is fawning all over the foul Flock company and their little snooping cameras, signing their praises to the heavens because:

There’s a reason, though, that police departments so rapidly adopted the cameras — they are an extremely useful investigative tool.

I bet they are.  How much so?

The cameras routinely aid in the identification and apprehension of the perpetrators of serious crimes and the location of missing persons.

According to the Jacksonville, Fla., sheriff’s office, the cameras since 2024 have “helped solve 15 murders, 17 kidnappings, 6 forcible sex offenses, nearly 100 shootings, and 172 missing-persons cases.”

That’s over two and a half years, which, compared to the crime stats of said area, is not so great a proportion — and let’s not kid ourselves, we’ll never know how many of those would have been solved anyway, without the “assistance” of Flock..

Here’s the thing.  Unlike Lowry, I’m not interested in the entire country surrendering their privacy just to help the fucking police solve a few crimes, any more than I support universal gun confiscation to help the police (I know, it wouldn’t, but it’s the principle I’m arguing here).

You can make an argument for any kind of totalitarian abrogation of rights for the same reason — the old “security vs. freedom” argument we’ve heard so often before.

And finally, we all know that this wholesale collection of individuals’ private information is going to be abused.

“Really, Kim?”

Newsflash:  it’s already being abused.  From Lowry’s selfsame article:

According to The Washington Post, “Authorities have charged or accused at least 50 law-enforcement officers of using license-plate readers for unauthorized purposes, including to stalk their exes.”

I know that’s not a large number:  but it’s a lot greater than zero (which is what it should be).

Lowry’s idiocy continues:

But license plate readers aren’t the only offender.  There are all sorts of other surveillance cameras, many of them privately owned and operated, that the police access during investigations.

We let our mobile phones and various apps track us all day long.

And something like 60 million households have Ring or other security cameras that record what’s happening on their property, and often in the immediate surroundings.

Good grief:  this idiot can’t even tell the difference between private security activity and State steamrolling.  Just because we (voluntarily) do it for ourselves, does not justify the Gummint doing it to us all, without our consent.  And the final insult:

The only reliable way to ensure that you aren’t being recorded is to stay inside — and draw the curtains.

Fuck you, you supercilious, condescending little turd. Do you even know what you’re saying?

It’s bad enough when the Commies want to fuck us all over;  but to have a nominally “conservative” commentator spew nonsense like this?

Somebody reserve Lowry a seat on the next Air Pinochet flight.

Never Mind, It’s Just A System Glitch

Asshole Cops, Surveillance Society

…or, Flock Off, Part 2:

A Wisconsin woman was pulled over at gunpoint twice in one week after Milwaukee Police Department staff failed to remove a vehicle alert from the Flock license plate camera system.

Fox 6 Milwaukee reports that on Thursday, police in the Milwaukee suburb of Brookfield, Wisconsin, conducted a high-risk traffic stop on Interstate 94 after a Flock camera flagged a vehicle in connection with a Milwaukee homicide investigation. Video footage from the incident shows multiple officers with weapons drawn and a passenger extending their hands out the car window in compliance with police commands.

The vehicle’s driver, Amber Newell, and her passengers were detained during the stop. However, when Brookfield Police contacted the Milwaukee Police Department to coordinate the arrest, MPD informed them they no longer needed the vehicle or its occupants. The officers immediately released Newell and the other individuals.

And if anyone in this party of “desperadoes” had been accidentally shot, it would have resulted in an “Oops, my bad” response from the cops, no doubt.

Remember:  “If you’ve done nothing wrong, there’s nothing to worry about.”

Uh huh.

Grex delenda est.

Some Pushback Required

Asshole Cops, Shootin' Time

Okay, here is where all my hackles start rising, and my sense of fair play starts to load up some spare magazines:

The UK’s West Midlands Police used fictitious evidence to justify its advice to ban Israeli fans of the Maccabi Tel Aviv soccer team from attending a match in Birmingham last month, the force’s chief admitted to a parliamentary committee Monday, as MPs grilled police brass on the basis of their controversial decision.

The Aston Villa soccer club announced in October that no Maccabi fans would be allowed at a November match following a police assessment that classified the event as “high risk” and suggested banning Israeli fans from the stadium.

In the report presented to the club that suggested banning Israeli fans, police presented information about a 2023 match between Maccabi and West Ham, which the report said was the Israeli club’s “last appearance on UK soil to date.”

“The most recent match Maccabi played in the UK was against West Ham in the Europa Conference League on Nov 9, 2023,” the report read.

Well, fine, except:

However, no such match was played, and Maccabi has never faced off against the East London club.

Here’s the outcome I would like.  This asshole cop, and every single cop involved in this disgusting fabrication should be fired, stripped of their pension and benefits, and face charges of fraud (or whatever the official term for wrongdoing by a policeman may be).  Under Hammurabic Law, they’d all be executed for bearing false witness, but sadly, we’ve come a long way (too long a way) since then.

Basically, these dickless Tracys invented a reason to avoid a potential clash between two groups of people so that they wouldn’t have the responsibility of policing it.  And they could hide behind the fact that Maccabi are a Jooooz team, so who cares.

In the broader picture:  if these little shits can do this, any police force can, and most probably will.  (In totalitarian states they already have, multiple times.)

Disgraceful.

STFU FOP

Asshole Cops, Government Thugs

Here’s one snippet guaranteed to raise my ire:

The National Fraternal Order of Police (FOP), together with the International Association of Chiefs of Police (IACP), sent a letter to Congress urging them to reject national reciprocity for concealed carry.

The legislation, H.R. 38, is sponsored by Rep. Richard Hudson (R) and would treat the concealed carry license of any one state as valid in the other 49.

H.R. 38 is titled the “Constitutional Concealed Carry Reciprocity Act.”

According to the FOP/IACP, “The legislation exempts any person with a valid photographic identification from state or local firearms law who asserts that they are lawfully carrying a firearm under the laws of their own state of residence.”

They claimed that national reciprocity for concealed carry would impact officers’ safety, and it “jeopardizes qualified immunity.” Concerning the latter, they wrote, “Qualified immunity protects officers from civil liability unless they violate clearly established statutory or constitutional rights. Any action the officer may take in reaction to the knowledge that the person they have encountered is armed could place that officer in very real legal peril.”

Yeah, well fuck you.  If a state-issued driver’s license is valid (under the Constitution ahem), then so should firearms carriage, if it’s lawful in the traveler’s home state.

Basically, what your organizations are saying is that you cops should be the only ones carrying guns.

Sorry, but that’s not how it works.  Under the same Constitution — which, lest you pricks have forgotten, is something you swore to uphold and protect, despite the possibility of personal danger — We The People have the right to keep and bear arms.   Whether in their home state or not, and whether or not it frightens you.

The fact that some states (and their little minions) behave contrary to the Constitution is irrelevant, and your pathetic fear of armed citizens ditto.

As a general rule, I’m on the side of law and order, but not when it comes to my rights.  So STFU cops, and your bosses likewise.  (Just the word “International” in the chiefs’ organization title grates on me.)

And lastly, you bastards have been abusing your “qualified immunity” for too long anyway, and you deserve to lose it.

That “86” Thing

Asshole Cops, Rights, Two-Minute Hate

A whole lot has been said about former FBI Chief Thug James Comey’s X-post featuring this picture, and his coy little observation:

Needless to say, this silliness found immediate favor with the Perpetually Indignant (Rightwing Division, even John Kass), who claimed that the “86” is code for “kill” or “assassinate”.

No it isn’t.

“86” means to dump or throw in the trash — in restaurant terms, it also means “not to mention (to customers)”, and back in my executive days, we used to use “86” to mean “forget about it” — e.g. “86 that idea, dummy”.

In other words, it’s a completely innocent term.  It does not mean anything sinister.

I don’t care that the .dotmil uses “86” to mean “kill”, either.  The military (and government, for that matter) has a long and storied history of using the English language to cover a whole panoply of ugly shit (e.g. “Terminate With Extreme Prejudice”), and I don’t care about any of that either.

Now far be it for me to come to the defense of that treacherous lizard Comey, but seriously?

Current FBI Director Kash Patel announced that his department is in communication with the Secret Service over Comey’s social media post “directed at President Trump” on X Thursday evening.

Secretary of Homeland Security Kristi Noem added in her own X post that the DHS is investigating Comey’s post as well.

Noem appeared on Fox News Thursday night, saying she believes Comey “should be held accountable and put behind bars for this.”

“The rule of law says people like him, who issue direct threats against the president of the United States, essentially issuing a call to assassinate him, must be held accountable under the law,” she said.

FFS, grow up, you assholes.  Your reaction to this is actually in the dictionary, under the word “Overreaction”.  Get a clue, and stop being so hyper-sensitive.

This is just as bad as those foul pricks on the Left complaining about Sarah Palin’s “crosshairs” comment.  It was bullshit then, it’s bullshit now.

Yeah, I know Trump has already survived two actual assassination attempts and everyone’s hyper-sensitive about anything that might hint at another.  But wait… we’re talking about jailing someone for a fucking Twatter post?

And yet we (quite justifiably) mock the BritGov when they send the rozzers over to threaten people over Fecesbook ramblings that run afoul of the dreaded “hate speech” rules?

Fuck off, all of you — and yeah, I’m including Superhero Kash and St. Kristi here — because this is absolute bullshit.

Look, the whole “86” thing may be in poor taste;  but the last time I looked, “bad taste” is kinda protected by the First fucking Amendment.

I know, the Bill of Rights can be a somewhat inconvenient at times — the Second as much as the First, ask any gun-confiscator — but that’s the exact purpose of the Bill of Rights:  it protects us from government.

And as much as I hate to say it, that shitbird Comey gets the same protections as the rest of us, even if he himself is a prime candidate for “eighty-sixing” — i.e. should be dumped in the trash heap of history and forgotten.

Fach.