Comment by m000
21 hours ago
Still. I understand the officers having "qualified immunity". But not the agency.
If an agency has shitty officers doing dodgy stuff, it's on the agency. The agents may be declared immune to direct litigation, but any claims and reparations should be automatically shifted to the agency.
If the agency has become corrupt, tweaking immunity isn't going to fix it. Only voters can solve that by saying clearly "no, this is not the agency we want."
If that is what the voters want, then the victim minority can only reconsider their role in the social contract.
I do not understand officers having qualified immunity. They are armed for of the government and they have much lower expectations placed on them the normal citizens.
The fact that cops can break laws, actually harm people and then make prosecution basically impossible is bonkers.
It’s a sticky issue. Without QI, it seems very plausible that many law enforcement departments would be seriously hamstrung by continual waves of legal action and thus cost taxpayers a lot more to operate effectively. Not only would many people use a court of law as a fallback from the court of public opinion, but the legal industry would support this given the lucrative monetary and reputational advantages of suing the government.
And I’m saying that as someone extremely pro-curtailment of police/TSA/CBP scope and resources, and extremely critical and aware of the law enforcement abuse and overreach epidemic. This one just doesn’t have an easy solve—not without a massive overhaul of the entire US justice system down to the roots.
Indeed, it's those normal citizens who hold those expectations. Quite a lot of people voted explicitly for this, and are getting what they voted for.
This is indeed bonkers, because history is rife with examples of this ending badly. And that bonkers goes far deeper than just this issue.