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by Animats10 hours ago |
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upvoteby dylan6049 hours ago|
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> In one case, law enforcement didn't pay their bill, resulting in the person being wiretapped having the wiretap connection show up on their bill, blowing the case.

In the fictional world of The Wire, one of the "wires" were blown when the guy checked on his mobile bill to find out his account was flagged to not be disconnected. I'm sure this was art imitating life or inspired by type of thing

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upvoteby inigyou9 hours ago|
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The Wire is allegedly one of the more realistic crime shows in how incompetent it portrays the police.
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upvoteby thisoneisreal4 hours ago|
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It was created by a journalist and a cop, who both had long careers in Baltimore before working on the show. Not surprising how realistic it is. (Also a beautiful work of art beyond the realism.) If you find the show interesting, David Simon's book "Homicide" is a great read.
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upvoteby pimeys1 hours ago|
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And a few of his other series, such as Treme, The Deuce, and Generation Kill are all fantastic.
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upvoteby newsomix9xl7 hours ago|
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In their defense their target was amazingly adept.

Many criminals even today don't engage in basic counter measures like you see on that show.

And I'd call them "dysfunctional" more than inept. Bad leadership stymied by political goals overcomes even good policing.

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upvoteby semiquaver8 hours ago|
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You’re doing my boy McNulty dirty.
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upvoteby walrus017 hours ago|
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That, and the alcoholism
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upvoteby Ccecil40 minutes ago|
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Never watched the wire...but I remember back 25+ years ago some people joking about not paying their phone bill to see if the phone was tapped.

They claimed that since it never got shut off when they didn't pay it must be tapped.

Possibly correct I suppose...

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upvoteby vaylian4 hours ago|
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The cost dynamics have flipped in the past decades. What we have now is "Surveillance Too Cheap to Meter" https://cacm.acm.org/practice/surveillance-too-cheap-to-mete... Because storing data is cheaper and often economically more useful than not storing it.
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upvoteby 20after42 hours ago|
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With the price of memory skyrocketing, maybe that equation changes slightly.
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upvoteby leeoniya7 hours ago|
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> The one shown in Wikipedia is mine.

neat!

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/e/e3/Pen_Regi...

assuming you still have it, it wouldn't be the worst idea to update the pic to something without chromatic aberration and motion blur. the wiki pic is probably the worst of the bunch compared to others on google image search :)

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upvoteby Animats4 hours ago|
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If any legit museum, or attorney involved with Fourth Amendment issues, would like it, please contact me at nagle@animats.com. It's just sitting around.

I bought it on eBay years ago, out of curiosity, and fixed it. I built a little control box to go with it, with a phone dial and a 9V battery, and found a source of paper tape and ink. So it can be demoed. If it ever is used in a court appearance or legislative testimony, that would be better than it sitting in a box.

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upvoteby p0w3n3d4 hours ago|
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Yeah I find the phone-taken images much worse than camera-taken even despite the astonishing number of megapixels and amount of technologies promised in the phones nowadays. Sadly most people don't buy the camera because it's too expensive and you need prepare yourself to take it with you (so the most photos are taken instantly with the phone)
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upvoteby downrightmike10 hours ago|
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"Back when Rudi Giuliani was prosecuting organized time" I can't even fathom he'd not be cashing checks from the mafia to go after other families. Odds are good that historians will find that he did.
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upvoteby ericjmorey10 hours ago|
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He traded Italian organized crime for Russian organized crime.
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upvoteby usumgallu8 hours ago|
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[dead]
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upvoteby arjie9 hours ago|
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A similar story around this is the controversy around various Mumbai “encounter specialists” (a violent incident between police and gangsters is an “encounter”) and whether they were effectively hitmen for some faction of the local mob. Always thought it was quite intriguing stuff.
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