Wise Guys on WHO Radio - August 23, 2014
The WHO Radio Wise Guys airs on WHO Radio in Des Moines, Iowa on 1040 AM or streaming online at WHORadio.com. The show airs from 1 to 2 pm Central Time on Saturday afternoons. A podcast of show highlights is also available. Leave comments and questions on the Wise Guys Facebook page or e-mail them to wiseguys@whoradio.com.
Please note: These show notes may be in various stages of completion -- ranging from brainstormed notes through to well-polished monologues. Please excuse anything that may seem rough around the edges, as it may only be a first draft of a thought and not be fully representative of what was said on the air.
Should police officers wear body cameras?
Pro:- Eyewitness accounts can be corroborated
- Individual memories (which are incredibly unreliable) can be replaced with reliable evidence
- May protect police officers from unfounded charges of brutality
- May protect public from abuse by officers
- May make it more difficult to obtain confidential insights from informants
- Outfitting officers with the technology could be very expensive and take funds away from more worthwhile policing activities
- Video recordings can be manipulated and made to show convincing angles on completely unrealistic situations
- As with any surveillance technology, body cameras could easily be abused by an unscrupulous authority
- "If a cop follows you for 500 miles, you're going to get a ticket" - Warren Buffett
- Knowing that they are being observed changes everyone's behavior, including officers, witnesses, victims, and the accused
- Are all videos subject to Freedom of Information Act requests? What about incidents taking place on private property, as in cases of domestic abuse, or those involving minor victims or witnesses?
- Video still requires substantial storage -- how long would video records need to be kept?
- Should a third party be required to keep and archive videos for safekeeping and tamper prevention?
- Would video recording influence the degree of discretion applied by officers, potentially making them more likely to enforce the letter of the law rather than its spirit?
- Who determines when the cameras are worn and when they are not? Who determines by which officers they are worn and which not?
In the news this week
ISIL threatens Chicago and DC via Twitter
The longer it takes to recognize that we're on borrowed time before ISIL becomes a permanent nation-state, the harder it's going to be to fight back
When it's OK to skip a vaccination
Spoiler alert: It's the exception, not the rule
Facebook adds a "satire" notice to some items in the news feed
Because sometimes The Onion's parallel universe to reality is just a little too much like reality itself for some people to get the joke
Badly-mixed messages from a former cop
While absolutely correct that we should probably start putting body cameras on most patrol officers, LAPD officer Sunil Dutta wanders into dangerous territory when he writes that citizens should be plainly submissive when encountering the police. That's not how the law is supposed to work. Polite? Yes. Respectful? Inasmuch as we should be of any other person, certainly. Submissive? Now that's a step in the wrong direction, particularly when there are some (not all or even many, but some) law-enforcement officers who overstep their own bounds. It's troubling to see serious escalation taking place on the streets of an American city, with police officers pointing loaded weapons at people. We need de-escalation, not further escalation.
Reasons to hold back from sharing too much about your kids online
There are a whole lot of unresolved questions and potential pitfalls from over-sharing. At the very least, people need to think carefully about sharing their kids' pictures on Facebook and elsewhere.
The DC-3: A truly beautiful piece of machinery
Civil liberties are seriously lagging financial freedoms in China
The government seems to be tightening the screws harder and harder on Internet-based means of sharing news and opinions. That's not going to end well...the unanswered question is, when will it boil over? Economic freedoms almost invariably beget civil liberties sooner or later -- you can't go very long telling people that they own the rights to the fruits of their labors, but that the state owns what they think.
How car shows brought about colorful vehicles
Chinese hackers have stolen 4.5 million American health-care records
Why? Good question...and that's the problem. What's the motive, exactly? Also important: They're successfully attacking databases using phishing emails. People can't assume that their antivirus programs provide comprehensive protection. We require good technology hygiene habits, too.
Uber hires President Obama's former campaign manager as SVP of "policy and strategy"
It doesn't say good things about the state of the economy that companies feel the need to bring in marquee political names in order to get the kind of political favor they need to survive. That signals an economy that's subject to the whims of politicians, not one in which markets are free to reward good ideas and punish poor performers.
More of the region around Yellowstone is at risk of a big earthquake than previously thought
And with more people living there and visiting than the last time there was a big earthquake, the impact could be magnified a lot