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A New Jersey state legislator who is sponsoring a bill against swatting, has himself been swatted:
According to a report by NJ.com, Moriarty received a phone call at his home on Saturday from a police officer asking if everything was okay; the assemblyman was then informed that someone had anonymously called in a report of a shooting at the home. He was then told to describe his clothing and step outside, where he saw a crowd of officers armed with "helmets, flak jackets and rifles."
There was no mention if the legislator questioned the over-militarizing of the police or no-knock raids...
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New Jersey Legislator Who Sponsored Anti-Swatting Bill Gets Swatted
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Another good night not to sleep in a eucalyptus tree.
(Score: 5, Interesting) by snick on Thursday April 16 2015, @10:17PM
Seriously messed up dude.
Swatting should be treated as attempted murder.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by c0lo on Thursday April 16 2015, @10:43PM
Pragmatical: how is this to be enforced? By de-anonymising the emergency callers? Are you sure you want that?
(extra time required for passing on the identity of the caller and the operator to certify it; increased reluctance/unwilligness of witnesses to report an incident if not anonymous; etc)
When the actual problem is: why do you need a militarized team as the very first step in investigating an incident? Isn't a more gradual reaction possible?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
(Score: 2) by Tork on Thursday April 16 2015, @10:46PM
Pragmatical: how is this to be enforced? By de-anonymising the emergency callers? Are you sure you want that?
If this keeps up, the answer to that question won't matter.
🏳️🌈 Proud Ally 🏳️🌈
(Score: 4, Informative) by c0lo on Thursday April 16 2015, @11:43PM
I'm assuming the "it" (that you refer as "keeping up") is the swatting. If I'm right, then the next thoughts (somehow in the "critical" category) that cross my mind are:
Further reading - a 2006 (that's 9 years ago) report on the SWAT uses Overkill: The Rise of Paramilitary Police Raids in America 2006 [cato.org] (PDF warning: small footprint - 1.64 MB, but 103 pages). Some excerpts for your convenience:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Tork on Friday April 17 2015, @12:14AM
I'm assuming the "it" (that you refer as "keeping up") is the swatting.
Correct! I do want to be clear, though, that I'm all for de-militarizing the police force. My response has more to do with what we can expect the actual reaction to be. Swatting won't bring us any closer to that change happening. Instead they're going to try to find the easiest solution to the problem, and de-anonymizing 911 and punishing offenses with a fine might actually be it. I'm not advocating it, I'm saying that the people trying to make that statement by abusing that service will have as much luck as somebody curing their RSI by typing up a lengthy essay about it.
🏳️🌈 Proud Ally 🏳️🌈
(Score: 2) by c0lo on Friday April 17 2015, @12:43AM
I concur.
Now, couple it with "Criminalizing swatting won't stop it" and (re)consider, for example, (the "generalized you" here) how willing are you to disclose your private info (e.g. address) on social media (security - trade-off between your protection cost and the attacker cost).
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
(Score: 2) by Tork on Friday April 17 2015, @12:52AM
Now, couple it with "Criminalizing swatting won't stop it" ...
I'm not quite with you on this one. We may have to agree to disagree, but I think if they de-anonymized it *and* made sure that you'd get punished even if you, for example, swatted somebody in Florida from a computer in Alaska, that a couple of high-profile busts would dramatically reduce swatting. I'll concede that it's unlikely that last stipulation would make it, though.
🏳️🌈 Proud Ally 🏳️🌈
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday April 17 2015, @12:57AM
First, these fools won't be able to de-anonymize it. Second, people will, of course, ignore the law. We already know that Tough On Crime doesn't do shit.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by c0lo on Friday April 17 2015, @01:07AM
New business segment opens to Russian hackers: SWAT your neighbour for only $50 - you know you can't do it yourself anymore. Serious discount for bulk-buying.
New business segment opens to Russian mafia: "pay your ransom or get swatted - a minor inconvenience. But ignore us twice, we'll frame you as the caller... just be reasonable, why risk jail?".
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
(Score: 2) by tathra on Friday April 17 2015, @01:53AM
if only he really thought this, then he'd be shooting alcoholics and cigarette smokers; i have no doubt the asshole drinks alcohol and probably smokes too, making him just another violent hypocrite. instead what he means is that he thinks any use of drugs that aren't blessed by the state is deserving of execution, while abusing state-blessed drugs like alcohol is fine even if they're far more toxic to the both the individual and society. this dumbass has completely drank the DEA cool-aid and does no thinking for himself. at least some of his coworkers [www.leap.cc] and former coworkers are sensible people who put facts and evidence over transparent propaganda.
(Score: 2) by c0lo on Friday April 17 2015, @02:10AM
Interesting, isn't it? I mean, the linked Cato report.
You can include food in the highly addictive substances class: you mother gets you used with it after birth and if you cease taking it regularly all your life, well... nasty withdraw symptoms, comma then death are sure to happen.
Even more, I hear the addiction is transmitted from mother to the unborn baby during pregnancy!!!
(Offtopic: there may be a point into the above madness.
After all, we humans are sacks of chemicals [xkcd.com], which is awful indeed.
My point: don't you dare tell me that smoking kills - I know it already, just let my tobacco alone, will you?)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
(Score: 2) by tathra on Friday April 17 2015, @04:39AM
i don't give a fuck if you use nicotine, so long as you don't use it in a way that forces me to do it too, ie, don't smoke or vape it in my breathing space. drugging somebody against their will is never acceptable.
at any rate, my point is that if they're going to be all, "Drugs are the devil! Drug users are sub-human scum that should be executed!" they need to apply it to all drugs, or none. it'd be one thing if the drug laws were actually based on safety and scientific studies instead of racism; it'd also be something if drug laws were uniformly enforced [www.leap.cc] instead of selectively enforced almost exclusively against non-whites.
(Score: 2) by c0lo on Friday April 17 2015, @05:03AM
(not to worry, I do take care about others while smoking).
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
(Score: 2) by FatPhil on Thursday April 16 2015, @11:10PM
Great minds discuss ideas; average minds discuss events; small minds discuss people; the smallest discuss themselves
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Anal Pumpernickel on Thursday April 16 2015, @11:13PM
You want to charge all the cops? Because they're the ones who go insane when they have no evidence of anything. Or do you think the cops should have no responsibility for their own actions (even if they're being required to go to the scene), and that we should just ignore the fact that we know people sometimes lie? That fails to deal with the underlying problem: The cops resort to overwhelming force without understanding the situation.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by Soybean on Thursday April 16 2015, @11:34PM
> The cops resort to overwhelming force without understanding the situation
It's OK, they are just following procedure. And sadly, we can't really expect anything more of them than to follow procedure because procedure is what gives them CYA.
The problem is "procedure" was designed for one specific worst-case movie-plot scenario - psyscho killer who will immediately murder his hostages once he finds out the cops are outside. I don't really know, but my gut says that's probably the rarest actual scenario in real-life.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by frojack on Thursday April 16 2015, @11:32PM
Swatting should be treated as attempted murder.
Put just passing a bill that goes after the phony swat report, while doing noting about police seal-team-6 tactics based on some random internet untraceable phone call is just wrong.
They don't have to bust down doors, throw stun grenades, come in with heavy weapons and assault shields on only one person's untraceable phone call.
Cops can find better ways to determine if there is a real need for SWAP, via a multitude of methods, from simple drive-by observance, phone call into the premises,
or just park the swat truck outside, and send a single armored officer to knock on the door, or yell through a megaphone. And when Joe Boxer comes out looking all surprised, and unarmed, they still have no reason to throw him to the ground, cuff him (for is OWN protection!!) and slap him in the backseat of a squad car while they toss the entire house.
Maybe they need to take a lesson from Lt. Gen. Russel Honore who was tasked with leading federal troops to help rescue thousands still stranded in New Orleans days after the storm. Honore took pains to treat the residents like civilians, not criminals. He ordered weary police officers and his own soldiers to keep their guns pointed down and reminded his troops they were in an American city, not war-torn Iraq.
No, you are mistaken. I've always had this sig.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday April 17 2015, @05:47AM
Swatting should be treated as attempted murder.
We should be able to trust the police to investigate alleged criminal activity without assuming they will kill innocent people.
It could be considered attempted murder if police are assumed to be incompetent, but then whats the point in prosecuting a prankster in that sort of a society...
(Score: 5, Insightful) by Phoenix666 on Friday April 17 2015, @07:00AM
So...rather than saying, "Hey, maybe we shouldn't send a SWAT team absolutely every time and go in with guns blazing," or, "Hey, maybe taking a Fallujah approach to policing is a bad idea and will lead to bad, bad things," it's, "Seriously messed up dude?"
What is seriously messed up is that people across the land aren't jumping up and down and screaming about people in authority being totally out of control. You used to have a right to due process of law. Now you get a military strike team crashing through your door and throwing grenades into your baby's crib. And none of the punters says, "Seriously messed up dude" to that? You have cops strangling people to death *on camera* and then the cops don't even get indicted and none of the wags says, "Seriously messed up dude" to that either?
Where are the criminal syndicates who have been running the police departments and courts in Missouri as for-profit extortion rackets being perp-walked into federal courthouses? I mean, it was the Justice Department of the United States itself that reported that, and they. Have. Done. Nothing. Zero. Entire swaths of a major state in this country caught dead to rights acting like the mafia, and they have done fuck all.
That, my friend, is what I would call "Seriously messed up dude."
So when the legislators who visit these nightmares straight out of Stalinist Russia on the citizens of the United States get a little taste of their own medicine, then I say it's about freaking time. More, please. Let them suffer the consequences of their actions and choices for once, instead of merely dishing it out to people who can't fight back.
Washington DC delenda est.