Last Night’s Home Invasion

I guess I can’t really blame my neighbour for what happened.

You see, I’d been out of town for the past week, and the endless crying in The Human Centipede is rather convincing (the plot and dialogue are another matter).  As far as my neighbour knew, my girlfriend had been home alone when the screaming started, and can you really expect a single mother to intervene?

And I guess I can’t really blame the police, either.  As far as cops go they were decent enough.  Of course they took the throwing star my brother given me the day before, fresh off the plane from Japan, and left on the coffee table next to me (restricted weapons, I guess, though I don’t really know why) but they didn’t charge me for it.  And yeah, one of them threatened to cap my ass while I was getting him my ID (“Sir, if you pull a throwing star out of that pocket I will shoot you”), but there was no real malice in his voice.  And of course – once they’d realized all this was just a misunderstanding – they proceeded to snoop around with their flashlights, and run our names to look for some sort of crime to arrest us for – but once again, they didn’t do this any more roughly than was necessary.  No tearing apart books or knocking things off the shelves.  Just a methodical investigation of all our personal belongings.

So in the end, I really shouldn’t be so upset.

But sometimes I dream of a different sort of Police Department.  One that isn’t just another gang, granted privilege by our rulers, but a Department that is part of, representative of, and answerable to the citizens.  I can imagine last night in my head. “Ah, sorry for interrupting your evening Mr Aurini.  Glad we got it all sorted out.  I’m Officer Dalidowicz, by the way, and this is my beat.  If you ever need any help you know who to call.” And then my girlfriend and I would have made a new friend, our neighbourhood would have had a new face – and I’d still have my suriken.

You see, here’s the thing about heuristics/methodologies: they only measure what they’re intended to measure.  And when you try and appraises them by asking how many times they measure whatever criteria they’re programmed to measure, all you’re really testing for is laziness in your agents.

The way things go right now, the Police department takes every opportunity to troll for minor crimes; for anything short of murder, their interest is going to be focused on the victim and what they can get them for; finding the person who stole your bike or laptop would take a different approach, something wholly alien to the current process.  And by threatening us bottom feeders with minor offences – things that shouldn’t be illegal, or ‘tax collector’ crimes such as most traffic tickets – they occasionally find a path to move up on the big fish.

This is the world we’re living in.  Where each and everyone of us is a suspect, a potential provocateur, a troublemaker who is to be roped in and coerced any time we cross paths with the boys in blue.  Never a citizen, an agent of Canada, building this country, or a member of a community.  It’s a different sort of surveillance state we’ve got going here, where you’re potentially subject to analysis at the drop of a hat – but at least they don’t violate your ‘Rights’.

Two lessons, then, I guess:

1. Don’t watch The Human Centipede.  At best you’ll waste an hour and a half of your life, at worst you suffer a police raid.

2. Don’t be poor.  That never helps.  Especially not in Calgary, the Heart of the New West.