Worth it to note that you don’t need an app to do this. It’s very common for cops to work off duty private security for retail stores, in uniform, with a full ability to make arrests.
this post was submitted on 20 Jul 2025
537 points (97.7% liked)
Technology
76046 readers
3909 users here now
This is a most excellent place for technology news and articles.
Our Rules
- Follow the lemmy.world rules.
- Only tech related news or articles.
- Be excellent to each other!
- Mod approved content bots can post up to 10 articles per day.
- Threads asking for personal tech support may be deleted.
- Politics threads may be removed.
- No memes allowed as posts, OK to post as comments.
- Only approved bots from the list below, this includes using AI responses and summaries. To ask if your bot can be added please contact a mod.
- Check for duplicates before posting, duplicates may be removed
- Accounts 7 days and younger will have their posts automatically removed.
Approved Bots
founded 2 years ago
MODERATORS
Yeah they make BANK too.
Law enforcement officers are, according to Peelian principles, agents of the state and members of the community.
If they can be rented then they are no longer police officers but mob goons. Hred guns. The same category as mercenaries (PMCs) and hit-men.
While you're not wrong, hired mob goons wearing local PD uniforms has been a common thing - in the US at least - since forever.
load more comments
(4 replies)
load more comments
(1 replies)
You couldn't pay me to let a cop linger on my property, off duty or not, I don't want someone unbound by law hanging around.
I feel like, if the land's law doesn't bind them, the law shouldn't protect them. But that's crazy talk, that'd mean fairness for the average Joe
Sentences for anybody given such powers when they do get caught breaking the Law and are actually prosecuted and found guity, should be at least double the sentences that people who had no such powers and inside influence in the Law Enforcement process get.
If they have a priviledged position within the legal system with powers which others do not have (including, directly or indirectly the power to make it less likely that they are made accountable for their own crimes), the punishment for breaking the Law if and when they do get caught, prosecuted and found guilty (a big IF) should reflect their superior familiarity with Criminal Law, their lower probability of getting caugh, prosecuted and found guilty because they're inside the very system that does it, and the fact that they abused the authority they were entrusted with.
just a reminder, mercenaries aren't to be trusted as a military force due to weak loyalties completely dependent on financial compensation.
but hey, you rich folks do whatever you want to do.
That's why they are pulling them from within the state apparatus.
But what about the code??
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pinkerton_(detective_agency)
established around 1850
Oh rain on me dystopia.
Nothing new here. Private citizens and organizations have rented real cops, both on and off duty, since forever. I can drop a dozen examples off the top of my head.
Yet none are dropped?
I’m not GP, but Stadiums, concerts, conventions, traffic control, high value stores like apple, etc.
You know all those Cyberpunk books and movies?
Apparently we thought those were a suggestion instead of a warning…
Cyberpunk is a critique and warning about hypercapitalism with cool aesthetics and technology. Somehow we ended up with zero aesthetics, meh technology, and we're far down the road to actual factual shit down your throat hypercapitalism.
I always try to end depressing comments with something positive, but I can't think of anything. Hug your favourites, and good luck in the Climate Wars.
I look forward to dying at your side.
The 15th Federated will remember our sacrifice at the Battle of the Erie. As long as there's a Fifteenth, we'll live on. o7
The tech is good... for overlords.
load more comments
(3 replies)
Tech bros actually think it’s something to aspire to. Saw some tech moron on Xitter say that cyberpunk is a utopia we can achieve. Then he started arguing with people who told him it’s a dystopia.
Fascist tech bros think they will be the elites in Harlan’s World and not some downtrodden servant.
I once thought it's possible to build some kind of "idealized" Empire from Star Wars. Almost like the Soviet space dream.
The problem with these people is - they don't know what they want to do. They have vibes.
I can relate to that very much, I too for most part have vibes and not understanding, and also executive dysfunction, so my life is vibe-driven.
They think they erode the oppressive mechanism (sometimes) or change the world so that the better would be on top (that'd be them in their opinion). These are actually similar in the sense of trying to slowly break what they consider to be chains. Except they don't, they reinforce it.
You can't build a cyberpunk world (no matter dystopian or utopian) without the technologies used being interoperable, replaceable, durable, and available to many people. That's how those worlds exist, through a certain kind of technologies being as ingrained into the society as public domain works of literature.
While these platforms are not such. These platforms for me reminisce China before Opium Wars. A similar degeneracy, feeling of power and lack of feedbacks. (I hope the Chinese have this association too and something in their lives prevents a similar crash, but my hope isn't very strong)
Lawfare as a Service
Streamlining the existing process by disintermediating middlemen like politicians and police chiefs.
If they have time to work off-duty they have time to work an extra shift.
They're supposed to serve the people, not the rich.
I hate walking into a supermarket and seeing a cop there working, in uniform. If those rich fucks want "security", hire regular security guards.
I mean, cops effectively protect wealth, not people, so being rented like that certainly aligns with their daily jobs
So people can now hire a cop to actually prevent a crime, instead of waiting for it to happen so that they can report it afterwards? Crazy times.
This has been going on my entire life (since the 1960s and before) - maybe it's a new twist that a "startup" put up a website explaining the process but the process has been around forever.
Example: ever see a cop hanging out at your grocery store, in uniform? Yeah, he's not on duty, he's been rented.
Do they vet the people? Could someone hypothetically sign up for the app, case the rich person's situation, and then do crimes? Sounds like a good way to find rich assholes.
Do they vet the people?
Yes
According to a press release, Patrol "officers" are "vetted professionals" from law enforcement, military, and special forces backgrounds.
Sounds like they'll rate those that killed at least one innocent person higher
Unless the business is ran by complete morons, it's pretty unlikely that there is not some form of vetting or validation.
The validation may have problems and may have holes but it probably exists.
At least to me the one of the first questionswhen building a X For Hire service, aside from where do you find X and where do you find the people to hire them, Is how do you know that these people are actually X.
Can I rent one for our next protest?
In the book Parable of the Sower, all the cops and firefighters work for the rich and the poor cannot afford to hire them.
So like real life then.
In my experience firefighters are alright. Cops like shooting people but firefighters just want to put fires out and otherwise be the hero, they want nothing more than to be pictured saving a cat for a house fire. If you want to be the hero you can't be the villain, cops don't care though because they get off on bullying people.
You should look up the history of firefighting in the US, because we're heading back there and it's not great.
Or firefighting back in Roman times. "Oh no, what an unexpected fire in this place I'd like to buy! Too bad my men only put out fires in places I own, which, by the way, would you like to sell your burning home to me? I'll pay half the price because I'm generous, you see"
Ferengi Firefighters, coming to a town near you!
In the Bay Area, cops in uniform and patrol vehicles are stationed outside Apple Stores. At least on weekends. I’ve seen them in Emeryville and Berkeley. Dunno about SF.
Isn't this the origin of the police?
Sounds like an arrangement that happens in the developing world, where landowners and businessmen are down with police chiefs at weekend drinking binges and sports betting.
BFD
I am friends with five people who were once police, are police or are retired police and every single one them had/has a side job.
The most fascinating side job was, he did homicide investigations for the DC police department.
The mundane one was he belt decks.
So this is a niche staffing firm.
view more: next ›