Comment by mothballed
4 months ago
They were co-operating/conspiring with CBP as an extension of the federal government.
Most likely the feds said they will tie up whoever challenges them in federal court. They can play jurisdiction fuck fuck games and then flip between it being a search, it being necessary for safety, that the city/county was obstruction a federal investigation, and all other nonsense.
Don't think your company could just put up cameras and post the location of LEO and they'd let you get away with something like that.
> Most likely the feds said they will tie up whoever challenges them in federal court. They can play jurisdiction fuck fuck games and then flip between it being a search, it being necessary for safety, that the city/county was obstruction a federal investigation, and all other nonsense.
This sounds like some sort of legal procedures adopted from the USSR.
It turns out capitalism devolves into authoritarianism too when money gets concentrated enough. Basically any extreme concentration of power (wealth concentration or Stalinism) is going to tend toward this kind of outcome.
Slight correction, capitalism has no political ideology and craves monopoly. Corporate feudalism and capitalism are totally compatible.
It isn't just USSR, it is the core Russian principle of "oprichnina" - you can violate any laws, human or God's, as long as you're serving the tzar, Secretary General or President Putin. We start to see a hint of it here with ICE, and i'm sure we'll see a bit more of it with the newly formed Domestic Terrorism Task Force.
And if I'd have to wager anyone that dare speaking out would be labelled antifa, therefore a terrorist, therefore free for all from a law enforcement perspective...
Things are going downhill at an impressive pace... Not going to lie watching the Trainwreck in slow motion is entertaining in a sort of morbid way. Though I wished that it wouldn't go that way...
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> It isn't just USSR, it is the core Russian principle of "oprichnina" - you can violate any laws, human or God's, as long as you're serving the tzar, Secretary General or President Putin.
“For my friends everything, for my enemies the law.” — Oscar R. Benavides, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Óscar_R._Benavides
"oprichnina" https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oprichnina
> Domestic Terrorism Task Force
That is ... a surprisingly honest name for a force that'll terrorize any domestic opposition, gotta give them that at least.
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This mode of operation is completely the reverse of my country the Netherlands.
In Dutch society it doesn't really matter who the current ruling party is the big machine keeps rolling on. The names change frequently- governments keep tumbling down- but every day like clockwork people get up in the morning, go to work and follow their programming. Prime minister A is replaced by prime minister B.
In some ways having a personality cult is less scary. You can kill a man but how do you destroy a collective?
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No need to look abroad; companies have gotten away with this kind of stuff for most of the history of the US. Union busting is a particular flashpoint for engaging in illegal activity with the blessing of the government.
Well, you're probably right for some types of procedures.
But this type of thing (surveillance cameras) would actually fall under state security and be ordered by the Central Committee and done top down without any comments anywhere along the line (because everyone understood what was good for them).
You're probably thinking of the "we're making the wrong type of tractor ball bearings"/"we're making broken consumer radios" type of issue where yeah, they'd give you the runaround.
A bunch of companies seem to be relying on similar federal cover. To me it seems dumb because whatever legal exposure they create will outlast the current administration. It’s impossible to predict who will be running the federal government 3 years from now, and liability does not evaporate much in that time frame.
The next administration could decide to side with localities, and assist prosecutions of the companies and executives involved. Or even pursue their own federal prosecutions.
Do you have a source for their cooperation with CBP? I think that would make this an even bigger story.
Yes the posted article
Flock promises all sorts of safeguards and ethics around, y'know, the law, but the reality is their perspective is "it's not our job to tell you that you can or can't do something, even if we know for a fact that you can't".
Reminds me when I build health insurance claims management software (pre-ACA). "We want to mine the database for familial history of conditions, based on familial claims and ICD codes".
"We can't do that."
"Why not? It's all in the database."
"It is. And we are legally forbidden from running such queries."
"..."
> Most likely the feds said they will tie up whoever challenges them in federal court
The keep saying this and losing in court. I don’t have much respect left for these bootlickers who won’t fight.