[RS-232]

I disagree. There should be no expectation of privacy for any public officer. Things like this website, body cameras, and FOIA requests are all for the public good. Expose corruption and keep everyone safer with a little accountability.

[varenc]

> There should be no expectation of privacy for any public officer

It's worth noting that SF Parking Control Officers aren't "police" by most any definition. They're not sworn, and they don't qualify as peace officers under California law. They can't execute warrants, make arrests, or carry firearms, etc. They work under the San Francisco Municipal Transportation Agency (SFMTA), not the SFPD.

Their enforcement powers are limited to issuing parking citations, ordering tows, and directing traffic. About the only thing they share with actual police is the word "Officer" in the job title. Tracking these folks is about equivalent to tracking individual USPS employees.

[dragonwriter]

> They work under the San Francisco Municipal Transportation Agency (SFMTA), not the SFPD.

The other points are valid, but note that California’s main general purpose state police force (CHP, which also absorbed the named-as-such State Police in 1995) is part of the State Transportation Agency, so being organizationally subordinated to a transportation agency is not really evidence of not being “police” in the normal sense.

[contrarian1234]

> tracking USPS employees

... that actually also sounds useful

i don't see why they shouldnt be tracked while working

[crazygringo]

Accountability in terms of what has happened in the past, yes.

But the idea that current public locations of identifiable public officers is not justifiable at all.

That would be allowing individuals to be stalked in real time. That's not OK.

[itake]

They are operating in public. They shouldn't have expectations of privacy.

Are you against ICE agent tracking apps as well?

[utopcell]

It should be the city's responsibility to add a hysteresis to the reported data; perhaps this was already there.

[notatoad]

there is no public good afforded by violating parking restrictions. the public good comes from enforcing them, so that parking spaces turn over quickly and remain as available as possible.

circumvention of the rules for a priveleged few (like those who know how to surveil the enforcement officers) is actual corruption. this service doesn't expose corruption, it enables it.

[eru]

I have some sympathies for your argument, but I suspect you are trying to prove too much: your argument could more or less justify an infinitely large fee for parking violations (or even imprisonment). Most people seem happier with small, finite amounts for these things?

As a second point, I don't think parking and public goods have anything in common. Parking is _not_ a public good, and shouldn't be treated as such. Parking spaces are rivalrous and excludable. (See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Public_good for the background.) They should be provided by the private market just as any other good and service, instead of being heavily regulated and partially being provided free-to-the-user at the cost of tax payers and business owners.

[dragonwriter]

> There should be no expectation of privacy for any public officer.

So live public webcams in the employee restrooms in all government buildings?

I would argue that public officers would retain personal privacy, but that such privacy cannot be a shield against the public for the government concealing substantive operations, and that the identity of public officers and the substantive means by which they are engaged in the exercise of public functions, are therefore not within the space of their personal privacy.

[RS-232]

While personal privacy may be preserved outside the scope of public acts, an individual who, in the execution of official duties, operates vehicles displaying lights or sirens and wears official identification inherently waives any claim to geospatial privacy.

[jcalvinowens]

That's a false dichotomy.

There is a world difference between everything you mentioned, and publishing the real time locations of officers by their actual name (initials) on a website anybody can visit.

[throwmeaway222]

Then you should also have no problem with an app that helps people spot and identify people that break into cars, imo a much larger problem in SF than parking spot thieves.

[Aachen]

Any public officer, so also the spies you have in Russia, the investigators on murder cases, really everyone should have no privacy whatsoever in your mind?

[bobanrocky]

Thats a silly observation. Reasonable privacy is a reasonable expectation for anyone in the US.

[bumseltagbaerbi]

Everyone, just not officers?

As soon as the bodycams oh so requested by the Left were worn, it became slowly clear who the majority of perpetrators are in Cops vs. Blacks, Antifa, white liberal women... Now the Left's opinion seems to turn against these.

[elfonfire]

chat, is this bait?