Thursday, July 19, 2012

Links: Police Work

1.  Ex TSA agent shows TSA supervisor what was done to her.  TSA supervisor starts crying presses charges.  Citizen is put in jail for assault.  One of the most common libertarian complaints is so many violent felonies  are called "policies" if perpetrated by someone who works for the government.

2.  Telecom dares challenge the Great and Powerful Oz.  G&PO claims it NEVER needs a warrant.  Obama and co. are a disaster on basic civil liberties.  The president can kill citizens and search private records (and parts; see above!) with absolutely zero due process.  My lefty friends constantly say "He's no worse than Bush."  That's true, I suppose.  But he's also no BETTER.  Because he's NO DIFFERENT.

3.  This op-ed is amazing.  I often am sympathetic to Stuart Taylor and KC Johnson in their anti-Duke screeds; it's true that the lacrosse case was appalling.  But you'd have to be an idiot not to understand the problem of type I and type II error here.  Duke was over-zealous in prosecuting a sexual assault, which had not in fact occured.  Students were denied normal due process, and the presumption of innocence was violated.  Penn State was under-zealous in prosecting a series of sexual assualts that actually did occur.  The presumption of innocence was too strong, and they gave Sandusky the benefit of the doubt.  What is the implication for universities?  It cannot be either:  1.  Be more aggressive or 2.  Be less aggressive.  Saying "Get it right!" is dumb.  Of course Duke should have been less aggressive, and Penn State more aggressive.  But there is no general lesson to be drawn here.  Except perhaps that Stuart Taylor is not a very good statistician.

4.  "It fell through the cracks..."  No, it plunged down the escalator shaft.  But at least the police had suspended the guy's llicense.  Ten times. 

(Nod to W. Toler, Angry Alex, and the Blonde)

2 comments:

PeeDub said...

I still maintain that my dream job would be to be in personal charge of firing - *individually* - everyone in the TSA.

I would *dance* to work every day.

Dirty Davey said...

I didn't know escalators HAD shafts.