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Comment by bjornsing | Hacker News Reader

> These things will keep happening until it is no longer socially acceptable to advocate for the creation of data collection programs that are a necessary precondition.

One or two cops locked up for it can also work wonders. But somehow the western world has come to believe that lots of pretty laws with no consequences for transgressions is a wonderful thing. I think not.

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If you are a district attorney in a city, you depend on the help and cooperation of the police in your daily work. If you became unpopular with the police they can make your work very difficult and you could also become politically very unpopular. I think district attorneys and police want to do what they think is right but its very understandable to me why a DA does not want to prosecute police.

This is evidenced in Oakland, where the recall campaign for Pamela Price began before she took office.

Click through to the law in question. It's the Civil Code not Criminal Code, and states, "an individual who has been harmed by a violation of this title, including, but not limited to, unauthorized access or use of ALPR information or a breach of security of an ALPR system, may bring a civil action in any court of competent jurisdiction against a person who knowingly caused the harm."

So you have to prove actual harm. You have to identify the individual person who caused the harm. You have to prove they knowingly caused the harm. You have to quantify the harm in monetary terms. Then you can sue them for actual damages + attorneys' fees.

Yes. So yet another pretty law with no consequences for transgressions.

The American judicial system is pure theater. You used to be able to appeal forever. Then the government decided that was too expensive, so they changed it to like 7 days. Then that was too extreme of a limit from 'forever' so they compromised on 14 days. Your right to appeal expires in 14 days in the US. Also during those 14 days you are most likely in a detention center, or being transferred across the nation to a prison, so good luck researching/writing an appeal in those 14 days.

> somehow the western world

Excuse me. While a minority of rabid Anarchists might agree with you, the vast majority of people in Denmark happen to really like our police force.

This is largely an American problem. Don't blame it on "the western world".

I’m Swedish. We have plenty of toothless laws that no one follows. Plenty.

*no consequences for transgressions by anyone in law enforcement. Qualified immunity has snowballed into some serious bullshit.

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