Police tech isn’t designed to be accurate — it’s made to exert social control
Police tech isn’t designed to be accurate — it’s made to exert social control
Policing technologies are inaccurate by design.
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My city council recently voted to start utilizing those "gunshot detector" microphones, despite being presented with evidence of how they are frequently inaccurate, with false alarms, and can tend to exacerbate racial tensions. The false alarms, meanwhile, pull police away from actual emergencies.
But here we are. Apparently we're going to spend millions of dollars on this.
I remember seeing the stats on this in DC. They always claimed they could precisely identify the sound signature of a gunshot… even filtering out similar noises like fireworks. Well, according to their own statistics, the system identifies the most gunshots on the 4th of July out of any other day of the year. I mean, I could see an argument for it. But, I also thought that this fact doesn’t give high confidence that it can tell the difference.
I mean, the one night of the year when the most guns are fired is the 4th of July. I try to leave the city for the whole weekend. It's not safe to stand out on the porch to watch what fireworks there are. It's fucking ridiculous, and terrifying. One year when I couldn't get away, I kept family in another state on a video call. They couldn't believe what they were hearing. It's pretty obvious when they're both going off at once, what's fireworks and what's guns.
That's not even getting into the PTSD aspects of that completely fucked "holiday".
Put a gunshot detector around here. I will blow it the fuck up with false positives.
Did you know the percussion cap on a black powder rifle sounds about exactly like a .22? And most states don't consider black powder arms to be guns? Just a random thought.
You owe it to yourself to get two large pieces of metal to constantly bang near the microphones. I would make it a hobby of mine if they did. I'd sit out at the end of my driveway and go ham on the daily.
I used to have a motorcycle that had a tendency to pop through the exhaust. I could normally manipulate the throttle to avoid that, but I wonder if it would trigger these detectors?
If a firework can cause a false positive then I cannot imagine a world where it doesn't.
I'm honestly not sure how any listening device can reliably tell the difference between a firework, a firearm, or a backfire. And every time I read about it, there is more evidence that it won't work.
It can't. That's the problem with this unnecessary surveillance technology.
Two 6" 2x4 pieces clapped together will also achieve the desired results as well!
I have misophonia. 😢
Hopefully someone else will take up that righteous cause.