The Police Are Still Out of Control

I think much of the fault lie with the DA&#x27;s and Police Unions. They&#x27;re elected to do some job, which is to prosecute criminals, yet fail to do so when it is a police officer. The Unions are out of control in some instances making it so the police force cannot fire a crooked cop until he has been found guilty, in a criminal case. If the DA will not prosecute an officer he remains on the force, a liability to the citizens and their money, when ultimately he or she is sued in civil court.<p>On the issue of suing police, I find it interesting that most of thee civil cases are settled before a verdict. The police admit no wrong-doing yet fork over 2 million dollars.<p>I&#x27;m not entirely sure what should be done about the situation.

A lot of people think that when a local politician has the support of the police, it&#x27;s a good endorsement.<p>All that means is that the police union has the politician in their pocket.<p>Same thing when a politician has the support of the teachers union.<p>It puzzles me when people vote against their own interest by voting for these endorsed politicians. It&#x27;s much better to have someone there who will have a better chance of representing the voters rather than the unions.

What I find fascinating is that there is less natural conflict of interest in being a police officer than there is in being a politician.... and yet people are willing to believe police are corrupt (and some are, no doubt) but so unwilling to believe it about politicians.<p>This, even after a decade of revelations ranging from Bush&#x27;s illegal collection of phone metadata, the creation of the TSA (in violation of the 4th amendment) to the NSA spying Snowden exposed and the installation of porno scanners (which I think under most state laws, when used on children constitute child pornography, and if a child gets patted down, it&#x27;s pretty close to molestation-- as the statutes are written and applied to civilians.)<p>It&#x27;s like, to a lot of people, somehow when the government does it, with a plausible sounding rationalization, the laws of morality don&#x27;t apply.<p>In fact, even the laws of the law don&#x27;t apply. The fourth amendment trumps anything congress can pass. State laws still are in force, even if congress authorizes something (e.g.: it can be legal at the federal level but a crime at the local level.)<p>The government violates its own laws with impunity-- without even an investigation in most cases. Where&#x27;s the special prosecutor to root out the criminal activity at the NSA? Instead it&#x27;s just a manhunt for snowden. Yet people are very upset about &quot;net neutrality&quot; (which is a legitimate issue, but far less damaging than the panopticon)<p>I don&#x27;t understand this.

Okay, okay, already: What the heck are the rules, the <i>real</i> rules? Obviously, everyone needs to know the rules. I need to know the rules, that is, the <i>real</i> rules. E.g., what am I supposed to do in routine interactions with the police?<p>I&#x27;m just a Ph.D. applied mathematician and software guy writing code and gathering data for my start-up I hope people will like; the project is for nothing illegal, immoral, objectionable, offensive, politically incorrect, etc.<p>But if the project works, then I&#x27;ll have to get out from where I am now, get out from behind my desktop computer writing code and gathering data, get out into the community, have a light truck for my business, rent office space, contract for routine services, say, water, electric power, Internet access, telephones, trash pickup, hire people, get business insurance, a bookkeeper, an accountant, a lawyer, make some use of consultants, do billing, handle revenue, pay taxes, etc.<p>I will need routine police protection against vandalism and theft, etc.<p>And maybe there will be police walking a beat near my offices.<p>So, then, I may have some interactions with the police. Then, I need to know what are the <i>rules</i>. What are the real rules?