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[Ben Brunk <brunkb AT ils.unc.edu>]

> Law enforcement is a thankless job that puts good people in harms way.  I
> know many officers and I can tell you that most of them are just like you 
> or
> me.  Most of them are good people, who care about their jobs and do their
> utmost to uphold the law and uphold their oath to serve and protect.  If 
> 95%
> of the people at your company are good people, then I'd venture that about
> 95% of law enforcement is as well.  The difference between them and you or 
I
> is that we don't do our jobs under the continual scrutiny of the press and
> by individuals with an axe to grind.  And we aren't met by hostility and
> resentment each time we attempt to do our job.


I knew someone would come to rescue of the cops here, it is inevitable that 
every time that the police overstep their boundaries, we get some acolyte 
who reminds us how thankless the job is and how over-scrutinized they are 
and how we need not question their gestapo tactits.  Working at a gas 
station is a thankless job, too, but nobody ever praises our brave gas 
station clerks whose statistical risk of getting murdered on the job is far 
higher than any police officer's.  We just take gas station clerks for 
granted and we don't even have to pay taxes for them!  Because police are 
"good people" I am not comforted, given that every goofball idiot I went to 
high school with wanted to be a cop because they thought it would be 
exciting and got off on having unquestionable authority because nobody 
payed any attention to them otherwise.  We place some questionable people 
in a position of power over us, and ignore that fact that it can have a 
corrupting influence on them.  That's why I cringe whenever I hear things 
like "only the military and police should have guns."  Yeah, right, becuase 
they're so responsible and none are alcoholics, drug users, wife beaters or 
crooked.  Sure!

The police are far too under-scrutinized.  Most of the time, the media is 
on their side no matter how egregiously they screw up and even when they do 
get taken to task, it is a slap on the wrist.  It is absolutely necessary 
that the police be scrutinized and kept accountable given that they have 
such power over us and can take away our freedom at the slightest pretext. 
We damn well better complain when local officers get absorbed into the 
federal machine because if we don't, we lose the all-important 
accountability that is supposedly guaranteed when we elect a mayor and town 
council.  You will find that many other officers are on various federal 
task forces, most of them dealing with drugs.  I think Chapel Hill needs a 
citizen review board to review their conduct and their policies, not only 
in this case, but also in general matters such as the installation of those 
wretched stop-light camera money grabbing machines.  But a review board 
will only work if it is made up of skeptics and not cheerleaders who just 
rubber-stamp whatever they do.

I think all these task forces on cybercrime are pretty much a waste of 
time.     Two years ago at Duke, the FBI cybercrime people came around and 
gave a seminar about their "services." It left me feeling as though they 
were just out trying to drum up work to do.  They were begging local 
companies to open up about hacking incidents so they would have something 
to investigate.  Now here come two new recruits looking to make a name for 
themselves and impress the real feds and they show just how dumb an idea 
the whole thing really is.  None of this would be happening except for the 
wild hysteria over all things terroristic and technological and the police 
unions taking advantage of people's naive fears to justify an across the 
board increase in the ranks of the police AT OUR EXPENSE.



Ben Brunk