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BPD looks to spend $1.4 million to monitor Twitter, Facebook
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Why
How far would 1.4m (first year mind you) stack up to putting foot LEO on the beat in Dot and Mattapan?
You can do more than one thing at a time.
You've presented a false choice.
Even more false
If you have unlimited money, your argument is certainly true. Do you believe that BPD has unlimited money?
"Stack up to" entails a
"Stack up to" entails a comparison which could easily be a simultaneous stacking up as well as stacking up one at a time.
I agree that 1.4 million dollars in police foot patrol work in any high crime part of Boston would beat the pants off 1.4 million dollars in Facebook citizen behavior monitoring in terms of successful prosecutions and quality of life improvement.
The lefties in government are concerned with "fake news" as of late. I can see why they drool over monitoring social interactions of private citizens.
Those lefties...
So pro-cop these days.
Wow
I thought Fish set the bar low for "incoherent blathering with a sprinkling of rightwing talking points".
I didn't realize that the competition for such honors had spread to UHub.
Yeah, that added a lot to the
Yeah, that added a lot to the conversation. 1996 called and DailyKos wants their passive-aggressive leftist rant back.
I am double majoring in Criminology and IT. If there are any "right-wing" talking points in my writings, then chalk it up to my current immersion crime stats and the concept of GIGO.
I am extremely well-versed in Stingray phone tracking legalities and technology which is a bit more mired in Constitutional tangling but shares a hefty amount of social and legal implications with LE social media tracking. The one thing that always stuck out like a sore thumb to me is the county/city map of current cell tracking - there is a noticeable similarity to county/city voting results for the 2012 election where Democrat voting wins in city/county have the tracking in place and the Republican city/county wins have no tracking in place.
My point on this post is that humans see patterns. Some at the cost 1.4 million dollars. Some are easily seen for free. It takes a special kind of person to ignore obvious patterns.
citiation please?
Well, you've now made claim to expert knowledge, and you clearly have time on a Sunday afternoon to write out long replies - so I'd love a link to this data.
In particular, I'd like to see those maps you say show such clear voter demographic patterns in cell tracked areas - I assume you corrected for other variables like income level, racial makeup and population density. I also assume that you were looking at cell tracking initiated and authorized by local Democratic party-alligned authorities, not Republican authorities at the federal or state level. Because GOP politicians giving the thumbs up for govt to listen in on Dem-leaning populations hardly seems like an indictment of liberalism - but rather the opposite.
(speaking of citations - I just finished reading the ref'ed chapter from that report Bob Leponge linked to in this thread - interesting! Especially wrt to your (and anon²'s) suggestion that spending money on foot patrols is an effective crime deterrent - spoiler:not so much).
citiation please?
I explicitly stated "The one thing that always stuck out like a sore thumb to me" and "there is a noticeable similarity". That is OPINION.. and kinda vague opinion at that. Most opinion is not cite-able. Just because the majority of people love my opinion enough to mistake it for fact does NOT make it able to be cited.
A map of 2012 electoral results and a map of Stingray states is easily Googleable. I did explicitly say I was taken with the similarity of city/county Stingray results and not merely the states, but you can build a map yourself and see if my opinion of the maps "sticks out like a sore thumb" to you also.
I said "noticeable similarity". Pay attention.
I said quality-of-life would improve. People like legit arrests. Watching or reading about thugs getting arrested is good stuff. The only crime deterrent I would cheerlead for in terms of recidivism rates as unquestionably effective is the death penalty.
Opinions are like anuses
Everyone has one, and they all stink.
Your ramblings are all froth and no latte.
mmmmm....
....froth and anus in the same post!
On a side note.
Any chance you'll see some of the 25 million Trump paid to settle?
Awww
That's cute kid - maybe come back someday after you get out of college with that 'IT' degree. I am sure that and your 'Criminology' degree when you finish with be great working the help desk. Nice buzzword bingo though, with a great descent into incoherent ramblings about partisan voting fraud related to sting ray trackers. Really good way to let everyone know you have no idea what you are talking about.
BPD - well-known 'lefties'
Yeah, those 'leftie' Boston Police. Thank goodness that we've got the 'right'-eous ACLU to oppose this plan. (You did read the article, right?)
BPD brass are mostly left
BPD brass are mostly left-wing. Most BPD footsoldiers are right-wing. YMMV on race-based dissections.The department is 85 percent male.
That is all hard to fit in a headline, so many things people believe about the BPD as a whole are usually skewed bits of information, not necessarily printed to deceive. I myself would never label BPD as either right or left wing in any of their groupings. Their endorsements have varied by year - Bush Sr, Kerry, Trump.
Cautious about characterizing BPD, but not whole populations?
Hooookay. Yeah, you've got no axes to grind, that's clear.
</sarcasm>
"Social interactions of private citizens?"
Posting stuff on the web is not "social interactions," it's publishing. For the police to monitor things that are published, is no more invasive of personal privacy than them reading the newspaper.
Micro-Broadcasting
Is the term I like. And people really, really don't understand that's what they're doing. Or they want out when the negative consequences catches up.
That said, I don't think the issue is catching some criminal broadcasting he robbed some Jordans from the store down the road.
The issue is all the othet data that is swept up of people not involved, and what happens with that data. Security and misuse is a big concern. Hacking systems of smaller state and private organizations, with poor and limited underatanding of security was just horrifically played out in the last few months of a major presidential election.
There's a lot more to be concerned about than getting the loudmouth bad guys, which already can be turned in by good guys.
Wouldn't be surprised if this was some type of grant
I'm sure we'll be hearing from the rank and file if this is money being taken out of manpower budget.
So, if it's a "grant"
it's not wasting money that could otherwise go to more beneficial uses, right?
BPD would be "wasting" money if they didn't use grant
From their perspective, if in fact this is grant money.
I know there's a lot of Homeland security money out there. Neither party is going to be caught at election time saying they're anti-Homeland security, right?
Can't really blame the BPD for trying to get another tool in their kit. And I can see where it could be useful and also huge creep or misuse potential too. Gotta keep an eye on this one, folks.
grant
Well, that's not really the point of most grants. I'm sure some educational grant beneficiaries would rather spend the money on Legos and porn, but it's not really their decision to make. If, say, the grant is from a data company that is trying to leverage BPD resources in order to better their platform, then isn't it really up to the grantor to determine what a waste of the money would be?
Grant is possible
You bring up an important point. Grants, and from whom.
Few people understand that certain grants from state or federal government come with conditions telling you want you can spend the money on. They don't just give you money and say 'have fun.'
So before the hand wringing starts, where is the money coming from? Even if it is coming from the city coffers it may be funding that was set aside via budget hearings which cannot be changed without a specific hearing and vote of the city council to amend the budget. Of course such an act would open a can fo worms to change other allotments, so you may as well set that thought aside. FWIW, next year's budget process is starting already.
Sometimes I have to wonder if the people who post in social media... and taking UHUB somewhat in that vein... truly understand how government and funding work. Clearly it is not taught in grammar or high school and unless you get into civics in college, not there either.
For comparison sake, same is true of transit funding. When the MBTA spends funds on "X" but the system is falling apart elsewhere, they usually don't have a choice on what they were spending the funds on. The money came with a condition, and unless they use it for that, they loose it.
So... more facts needed before criticism is ventured.
As always, just because you read it on the internet, doesn't make it true.
Grants
Now let's not confuse people with facts on how grants work, ya know :-)
I agree. Been saying this about the MBTA for well over a decade. People don't get that grant money is for a very specific purpose and cannot be used elsewhere
I did grant writing for a while for technical grants for a non profit I was working for. Grants are REALLY specific. One grant I wrote was for Apple Macintosh computers.. but it was restricted to a certain configuration with hardware and software. And could *only* be used for this one specific purpose.
Study after study after study....
... shows that simply adding foot LEO makes no difference in crime
https://www.ncjrs.gov/works/chapter8.htm
Interesting report!
On the one hand I was surprised at the relative effectiveness (or lack) found for various policing strategies.
But I was also surprised at how few studies the report referenced overall! I'm not going to do a literature search right now, but my impression is that if there were more decent studies the authors would have noted them. So one meta-conclusion I took from that chapter was - We need to spend more effort & time figuring out what kind of policing actually works!
I've bookmarked that report and may slog through the whole thing at some point. Thanks for the link Bob.
Uhhh
Did Facebook and Twitter stop being free when I wasn't looking? Even if that's labor costs, how do you get to $1.4 million?
Software
They'd be buying a system that basically let's them filter stiff geographically, among other things (so no false positives from posts from New York or wherever). Probably includes j refraction with their existing data mining/analysis software.
Such a blogwonker
Quit showing off.
Blogwonker?
I think Adam can use that in his next article about Back Bay restrooms.
Too British?
You're confusing
You're confusing wonk with wank. I was hoping to be a little more subliminal with that. I don't think Adam is a wanker.
Proof Of Concept?
Are there any case studies where this software has proven effective in identifying crime before it occurs, preventing, and/or responding to it?
With tight geo-filtering, can the software identify threats from outside Boston, for example out-of-town gang activity planning to commit crimes here? Once potential criminals know certain sites are being monitored, will they just switch to another mode and/or use different language to avoid detection?
What happens when Facebook and Twitter are supplanted with other platforms? Is the software designed to keep up with inevitable change, without requiring constant, expensive updates?
Does the software work with complete autonomy, automatically dispatching police to the scene before crimes are committed, or are additional personnel required to operate and monitor the software, interpret its output and take action accordingly?
If so, how much more per year will be required for staffing? If understaffed, will the software accomplish anything at all, or will it be a complete waste of money? Has the software actually been proven to work better than spending a similar sum on real people?
Without clear answers to such questions, is it reasonable for the law abiding public to surrender once again to the police-surveilance state, for just another act of security theatre?
Minority report
Couple this with semi comatose savant triplets and we have some serious futuristic technology.
I agree that BPD should be
I agree that BPD should be skeptical of "pie in the sky" technology. Unless other cities are already using the same thing / same products, and rank-and-file officers in those cities agree "yeah, it works great", then don't spend the money on it.
Firehose
Importantly, they're also buying access to the "firehose" -- Twitter and Facebook don't let just anybody scrape all public posts, you have to pay for the privilege.
Do the math...
Police officers make somewhere around 180K. Fully loaded, including office space, administrative support, retirement, taxes, health, etc., the cost per officer is probably somewhere around $300K. Three on the job is $900K. Add some software, couple of computers, training...
Well
I was thinking more of using the money to shift resources and identify ways to better identify and fix problem areas with targeted plans of action. Community outreach and building is vastly cheaper than more men. Hiring new officers is always nice, but yes it's expensive, and there's other ways money can be spent in the existing structure to push better community policing.
There is a personel cost per officer Bob.
It is about 60K-80K.
If you actually divided the entire budget and divided by officer it comes out to about 130K per officer.
THanks for real data
Thanks for the correct numbers. I must have been starting with someone's fully loaded budget rather than actual salary.
Does not include cost of details
Since details are a required graft that all police benefit from those numbers should be included in estimating costs for each police personnel/officer. The costs are paid by individuals who have to hire details, utilities and related businesses who pass the costs to their customers, private companies hired by the City which passes the cost to the city and governmental agencies that pass the cost to tax payers.
Not how budgets work daan...
I know you are buthurt and jealous, but details are not ever figured into personnel costs. They are actually taxed and the city makes a money on surcharges, which would more than make up for any costs you might see in your tax bill.
Context matters
I agree that in the context of an official project of the BPD that the only budget considerations would include the official city budget. But since the cost of individual police was listed as $60 - 80,000 (as a general cost, not limited to the context of desk work) I believe that for the sake of clarity and completeness it is necessary to mention that the actual pay to Boston police are higher due to details.
As for taxes and surcharges on detail pay I've heard this before. From my research what is paid to the city for detail assignments is a 10% administrative fee. Another report (from 1995) indicated that the detail program was actually costing the city because the 10% administrative fee did not cover the cost of managing the program. The reports are from the past: Beacon Institute from 2004 and a report from the city Finance Commission dated 1995. Perhaps the surcharge has increased and the city is no longer subsidizing the detail program?
What would happen if a developer did not employ police details? I've read that the city requires details for issuing permits because the contract with police requires the city to make details a condition for issuing permits. If that is true how does that reconcile with the two mayoral aids who presently are facing federal criminal charges for threatening to withhold permits if unions were not used? Both situations are based upon written or unwritten rules where union employees are required for issuing city permits.
A side question: If the BPD does implement a program of electronic minding of digital discussions would this discussion raise a red flag at police headquarters?
The discussion was about more foot patrols vs. 1.2 million
Bob threw out a high figure that the 1.2 million wouldn't really be worth the foot patrol money since the costs wouldn't add up. 300K was a little high but even at 100K the numbers wouldn't really help, that was my only point. How much a police officer makes in details doesn't matter at all in this context. (having a residency requirement and forcing these large salaries to live in Boston would have more of an impact than the details themselves)
The 10% would cover the details if you don't include injuries during those details or the other work that the detail supervisors do other than detail work.
Developers do not have to employ details in exchange for permits. They need to have details if construction effects the flow of vehicle or pedestrian traffic. This is a standard bylaw that every large city in the country would have. If Suffolk construction has a job site where they need cement trucks to block a street and close it, they would need police officers to redirect traffic and help the trucks in and out, if the next day Suffolk is just having the steel workers inside the site work on joint work that doesn't effect outside traffic, they wouldn't need a detail that day.
BPD would not pick up on this conversation but they could if they wanted to. From my understanding the money is mostly about geo-fences that they will set up for gang related activities.
$1.4 million would buy a lot
$1.4 million would buy a lot of body cameras.
Actually.. It wouldn't be
Actually.. It wouldn't be nearly enough to buy cameras for less then half the department or run those cameras for just one year.
Police and intelligence agencies
would guilty of negligence if they didn't monitor social media Welcome to the tail end if the 2nd decade of the 21st century.
The article says police
The article says police departments already use this type of system but they don't say how it was used specifically and how or why it was effective, leading me to wonder if this is entirely just a c.y.a. thing. It seems like this could just be another music man show for cops much the way shot spotter has been. I say has been because shot spotter hasn't much to show in the way of crime prevention and municipalities are beginning to get rid of them. Funny how the F.B.I. justified its use of social media monitoring by claiming that they need to get real time news of "military actions, epidemiological events, and natural disasters", none of which are within the purview of the F.B.I. Firehose, indeed.
They can't even monitor their own damn 311 app
I've got shit on there that's been open for two or more years. Including, several times, screenshots I've sent them of facebook and twitter postings where people are going on and on about their illegal activity. Not crimes in progress or anything, I'd call the cops obviously. The posts are still open on 311 and the people are still doing this stuff. But BPD is going to spend money on their social media monitoring and they're going to keep putting out those PSAs telling us to turn in people in our community. Oh, you got a war on illegal dirtbikes that my neighbors ride the wrong way on oneways while under the influence, but you ignore me when I send you the facebook posts of exactly where all the bikes are and who rides them. OK. I suspect the broken link in this system isn't that they need help finding the social media posts.
$1.4 million for the software
What kind of man-hour resources will be needed to cull all the aggregated data and determine its relevance?
Most police departments
Most police departments across the country have a social networking policy. I have many friends that are Boston police Officers that are always on facebook while they are at work.
These cops should be fired if
These cops should be fired if they used facebook while on duty. Now they are taking the taxpayers money to monitor them? What about taking that money and finding out which police officers lied about their residency to get hired. This is a crime, it is called fraud.