Wednesday, August 14, 2019
Gathering is less than half of the problem
An article on the pros and cons of the computer age
So, for example, the ability to perform extraordinarily detailed, second-by-second monitoring of patients in a hospital—that would score high on beneficial personal effect for the individual patients, and it has fairly benign social effects. Plot it in the upper-right quadrant. The computerized ability to monitor the behavior of everyone in a public setting, however—that has a generally positive score for individuals, protecting us from terror attacks and criminal assault. But it has a negative score for a society stripped of freedom by constant surveillance. Plot it in the upper-left quadrant. The digitizing of criminal records, making it difficult to dodge the consequences of, say, multiple drunk-driving convictions in different states? Great for society, bad for individuals. Belongs in the lower-right quadrant. And the creation of electronic telephoning, allowing the solicitations of robo-calls? Negatives for both society and individuals. Goes in the lower-left quadrant.Each of these changes is meaningless. Gathering data is one side of the system, doing something about the data is the other side. Computers have improved the data-gathering side, but the doing side is either unchanged or worse. With hospitals it's clear that computers obstruct the proper function of medicine. Doctors and nurses have to spend too much time entering data, which gets in the way of direct sensory observation of patients. With surveillance, we know what everyone is doing, but Deepstate is using that data to CREATE "terrorists", not to control real crime. Robo-calls have been around since the 1920s. Computers made them easier to produce but also much easier to detect. The five-second blank silence at the start is an instant clue. With criminal records, the court system is still failing to keep professional criminals in jail. Nice long example in today's Spokane News:
This morning just after 5:00 a.m., an officer responded to a report of a naked man, who appeared high, standing on the side of the road at 2nd Avenue and Monroe Street. The man was Richard A. Sala. The officer tried to contact Sala, who was completely naked and holding tree branches in both hands, but he ran away. Sala was taken into custody near Railroad Avenue and Monroe Street after running around the block. He was arrested on the outstanding Department of Corrections warrant and charged with Felony Indecent Exposure. Sala was booked again into the Spokane County Jail. Previous Release: Felon released from custody immediately after being convicted of felony indecent exposure. Richard A Sala (29) was convicted of indecent exposure, a class C felony, Wednesday, August 7th. The conviction was a felony due to two previous indecent exposure convictions in 2016. Sala was immediately released from custody Wednesday. Sala was then seen wandering around Downtown Spokane. Sala is currently wanted on a Department of Corrections warrant for Escaping Community Custody due to not abiding by his post-conviction supervision agreement. Sala has an extensive criminal history which includes nine felony convictions (Criminal Mischief with a weapon, Assault 3rd degree (x3), theft 1st degree, theft 2nd degree, retail theft with extenuating circumstances and promoting pornography). He also has 19 prior Misdemeanor convictions (assault 4th degree, trespass 1st degree (x4), theft 3rd degree, harassment, indecent exposure (x2), disorderly conduct, criminal trespass (x4), resisting arrest, minor consuming alcohol and driving without a license). Sala’s criminal history ranges from 2008 to present.This is clearly a professional criminal. The data-gathering system pulls together some of his LONG and varied record so we can see clearly that he's a professional criminal. He has crossed the meaningless three-strike threshold many times. And what happens? He's released immediately. We can be 100% sure that he was doing the same things with the same frequency before age 18, but that part of his record can't be published. So despite the gathering, we only get to see half of the problem, and the courts are still doing nothing to segregate him from society. ¶ 12:51 AM
