Hard Work
From time to time we hire private investigators to assist us and all are former police detectives. One common thing they tell us is that they did not know what hard work was until they had to produce results for a client. Policing, we are told, is a lot of drinking coffee and socializing and then wondering why the files are stacking up.
Of course, there are many hard working police officers. But you cannot blame us for being cynical when so many in the Vancouver Police Department were recently been found to have spent their time at work cruising porn sites, emailing porn to one another and obviously looking at porn. Again, this is your tax dollars at work.
Now, it is important to note that police officers are not permitted to spend their time surfing porn — it is against the rules mainly because it supports a pervasive environment that has been historically hostile to women. Porn is out and meager discipline will follow for those who were caught. But what about Facebook? Or Lainey Gossip?
If VPD officers can while away the hours perusing porn, how many are whiling away their hours and your tax dollars on Facebook?
We have made numerous Freedom of Information requests to the VPD over the last year. In all but one case they told us that it would take too much time to accommodate our request and they they would not provide the disclosure we want unless we pay as much as $4900. Clearly, they are too busy surfing, emailing and viewing porn to disclose information that is in the public interest.
Another epilogue:
We would pay it, but we have no confidence that they would disclose the information in any event. They seem bent on keeping ASD information from us since we told the press about their wildly inaccurate devices a few months ago.
We note that there is always more money promised for policing by political types but never money promised for legal aid or the courts. Promising money for the police (to watch porn) helps win elections. Providing proper funding for the courts will not bring voters out on election day.
