A novel way to catch drug traffickers?

Pete McCluskey.

Lifetime Supporter
Bloody civil libertarians, fancy worrying about people's rights! One minute it's telling lies to catch people carrying a joint in their car, next it's banning guns and using drones to spy on or kill people . What's wrong with that.
 
What a load of tosh! In the UK, we are going through a debarcle over random stop and search. Nothing to hide? SO stop me! Who cares? Civil liverty? See the bigger picture. Entrapment? Not if you aint holdin buddy!
 

Larry L.

Lifetime Supporter
'Wouldn't be constitutional here, Mark. '4th amendment prohibits searches and seizures w/o "probable cause" and/or a warrant. (Buuuuuuut that doesn't mean it isn't DONE regardless.)

One of our Founders, Ben Franklin, said, in effect, that anyone willing to give up his liberty for security DESERVES NEITHER. And he was 100% correct.
 
Well said Mr. Franklin.

However, (and I am not as intellectually gifted as Mr. Franklin), the word today is a somewhat different place.

You all want security and freedom, but the bad guys are in effect more at liberty than the good guys. In my meagre opinion, we 'civilised' types take everything beyond reason. Allowing the Police to randomly stop and search, is not the same as allowing them to take away your first born child and enslave them.

Yes you would have to seriously restrict that power, but like I say, if you aint doin nuffin illegal, who cares if the police stop and check?

Here they are whining about (not an exact figure), 90% of stop and searches do not lead to prosecution. As if that's a bad thing!? I think that's great. If it were the other way around, we'd really be screwed!
 

Keith

Moderator
All statutes, laws and 'constitutional rights' are surely consensual in that it relies on the tacit partnership of the people to make it work, as in Democracy.

But those 'rights and freedoms' also contain the seeds of that society's self destruction if a proportion of the citizens are determined to follow a path different to the 'legal and moral' one accepted by the majority.

To prevent such a breakdown in a free society, it is necessary for the enforcers of the People's laws to enforce the laws in a robust fashion for the greater good, as long as the methods deployed have some transparency and accountability.

The alternative is a descent into chaos and the eventual destruction of a consensual moral and legally acceptable free society.

I cannot for the life of me understand why these so called 'civil rights' apologists can possibly object to a harmless ruse resulting in dangerous drugs and their dealers being taken off the streets.

But there again, this is America. Sometimes I feel glad we don't have such a constitution in the UK as I know it would be far more abused here given that we are a lawless drunken lot of mongrels anyway! (And proud of it)
 

Jim Rosenthal

Supporter
I think it's funny. Hilarious, in fact. Wish they'd do it on the highway outside our community. They already do DUI checkpoints, what the hell.
 

Keith

Moderator
I wish they'd try it here - nothing to stop them as far as I can see.

It has to be better than (wait for it) cardboard policemen stuck in hedges, and inflatable dummy cops in a patrol car. Yes, the good old UK leads the way in high tech crime prevention!
 

Pete McCluskey.

Lifetime Supporter
My comment earlier was with tongue firmly planted in cheek, so here is my serious comment.
We in Oz are bombarded with legislation, designed to "protect"us. Each new legislation/ law takes away another small freedom. It may seem insignificant at the time but when they are all added together they impinge on your rights to move freely and be free.
In this instance, the cry if you ain't breaking the law you don't have a problem may be correct.
But do those who put themselves in the position of upholding the law have the right to lie to entrap people? Is the next step planting drugs on a known dealer
Because we know he is a dealer but just can't get the evidence?
Beware of allowing big Government to take away small freedoms, you will end up being their slave.
 
I could see how this sign think could be abused, but I would be willing to let it go until that point. If the people they are catching are indeed dead-to-rights guilty, i mean, caught throwing the drugs out the window; and its not bothering anyone else, then why care?
 
Generally Pete, I agree with you. I dislike over-regulation too. Something like random stop and search though, or this US fake stop ruse, is fine with me, for the greater good.

HOWEVER, as someone else mentioned above, things like this MUST be transparent and open to scrutiny by the public, so we can ensure that it isn't simply an erosion of rights leading to ever more intrusions into personal liberty and that the Police do not abuse the power.

I do not see tricking criminal morons, as the same thing as planting evidence.
 

Pete McCluskey.

Lifetime Supporter
Neither do I Mark, how ever every law introduced is open to abuse and people with adenoids and ten pens in their shirt pocket just love enforcing them.
I was forced to put a pool fence around a jacuzzi which is on a roof top garden of an Apartment I own to protect children from drowning. It is accessed only from inside the apartment.
The Islamic dickhead you just deported at a cost of millions was protected by laws introduced to protect refugees . Those same laws are ensuring his wife and family remain on welfare.
I know all of the above is a far cry from tricking a few moronic people with drugs in their cars but hopefully you understand where I'm at.
All the laws we need are already in place, we just need them to be enforced.
 

Jim Craik

Lifetime Supporter
I wonder how these same people would react to a sting that put up a sign that said:

"Up Ahead We Will Be Looking for Illegal Guns, un-registered guns, loaded guns and Felons in possesion".......................

Is that OK as well?
 
It's ok with me Jim.

Same thing as a sign up ahead that says "we will be stopping cars randomly, looking for abducted children"

If they caught just one, it would have been worth it.

And I suspect that (God forbid) were your child missing, you would have absolutely no issues, morally or otherwise, with the Police randomly stopping cars, in their search for your child.
 

Keith

Moderator
Granted - it's a disgraceful statistic, but if there were less people off their heads on manufactured 'designer dope' and enforcing it's sale and distribution maybe you could reduce that figure somewhat?

Are there any figures which connect gun crime to the illicit drugs industry?

My point is that it's all connected. You cannot possibly pass draconian laws against weapons if the need to own/fire/obtain one is driven by the tragic consequences of this disgusting trade.

I recently saw a documentary of a guy in the USA on 'P'. He was a very well built fella, stark naked, covered in (his own) blood and completely out of control on a quiet suburban street close to a school. It was down to the professionalism of the law enforcement officers that brought him to heel, when they could have just shot him when he viciously attacked a female officer.

My point is, I never realised what that shit does to a person before, and anyone that distributes stuff like that should be put on death row. No excuses.

You have to decide what kind of society you want and then enforce it vigorously because there are people out there, increasing in number exponentially, who want to tear it all down. If you want to be all touchy feely with people, fair enough, but I believe it's gone way past that in many Western countries.

As these matters tend to escalate - do you want to guess where we'll be in 10 years time? Fighting a war on several fronts? Political & religious terrorism/drug wars/corporate malfeasance.

There'll be no good people left and it's no good sitting back and blaming the Police and Government - the chattering classes will just have to stop talking and take action.
 

Larry L.

Lifetime Supporter
Yes, it's just a typical liberal "manifesto" to care about the 30,000+ US yearly gun deaths.

But where's that same "liberal manifesto (of caring)" when it comes to the 100% intentional deaths of a million+ babies a year caused by abortions in the U.S., sir? We don't hear any clamber from your side about those deaths, do we. No, we don't. What we DO hear/see is screams of protest and demonstrations in the streets whenever there's a move to limit/restrict/control/eliminate that procedure.

That's 30K "gun deaths" (some criminal, some accidental, some by suicide, some fully justified) vs. a million+ completely intentional and avoidable deaths by abortion. Now, which one of the above would any rational person say constitutes the faaaaaaaaar greater risk to someone's life here in the U.S.?

You might ponder that for a bit...


('Sorry for sidetracking the thread. I'll shuddup now...)
 
Sidetrack away Larry. I always do. Some call it thread drift, I call it an evolving conversation.

I won't get drawn into the Abortion argument, becasue I see both sides equally unclearly, but I do think that is more of an ethics argument than one about the Law as it relates to Policing it.

I do however think it relevant that you bring it up to show to Jim considering the angle he takes.
 
Back
Top