Police incompetence

Presumably everyone reading this is familiar with the EU Directive 2006/24/EC - the Data Retention Directive (DRD). It's what we call the DLD here in Norway, obviously. Most of you will probably have heard about today's major piece of non-Japan-related news as well - Europol's bust of what they're calling the world's biggest pedophilia ring. Suspects have been found in 30 countries around the world. Almost three dozen of them in Norway, too, but none have been arrested here, due to lack of evidence. Norwegian police are now saying that if only we had had the DRD implemented, they would not have dropped the ball on this one. (So it's not really their fault, I assume is the subtext they're projecting.)

This is transparently untrue - they're saying that the IP addresses are too old, but this investigation has been going on for three years. The data relevant to crimes committed by Norwegian citizens was handed over to our police in July last year. So even if we had had the DRD, the necessary info would have been erased either way. As I say, a transparent excuse.

But what I want to rant about is what a blatantly obvious setup this is for the police to push their own political agenda, and how depressing it is that our media is so worthless that they're allowing themselves to be used in this way. If we had media worthy of our respect, we would be getting some real facts, and we would be getting the info we need to really make sense of events. But no. Our media, like everywhere else in the world, is useless and almost worthless. It's pathetic.

But the problems don't stop there. Our police are also lazy incompetents. I can conclude in no other way from their desperate and undignified pursuit of the DRD. I don't believe for a second that they would catch any more criminals with it than without. They will catch more criminals if they do a better job investigating. That's it. Of course they'll tell you that the DRD will be a fantastic tool to help them investigate. Personally I don't believe that for a second. But even if it were true, it would still be unacceptable.

The police say that if they had the DRD, and could monitor digital traffic 'properly', they could solve so many crimes, in fact they could head off x number of crimes before they even happen. Hey, you know what? If the state were to install surveillance cameras in all our living rooms, you could prevent even more crimes from happening, you'd know while we were still just planning them. So maybe that's an idea? Arne Johannessen might actually think so. I used to have some respect for him, but not any more.

He actually recently presented as an argument in favor of the DRD the following: that if we had the DRD, it would be much easier for people 'to prove their innocence'.

WTF??

How can you be a police officer in this country for decades and not understand the fundamental principle of the Rechtsstaat? How is that possible? How does that even work? And why aren't more people freaking over it?

As a citizen, it is not my business to prove that I am innocent. I am innocent. It is the business of the state to prove that I am not.

Do your jobs, pigs. You don't need the DRD for that. Less coffee and more work is what you need. >:-(