Palmer Events Center
Waste of Resources
RECEIVED Wed., Sept. 16, 2015
Dear Editor,
Kudos for your diligent research and informative reporting on Austin's secret police [“APD Tracks Social Media,” News, Sept. 4]. At taxpayer expense, APD is apparently targeting “technical violations” of those on probation, parole, registration, and anyone else they choose – actions that have little or no correlation to bona fide public safety. Subsequent APD arrests divert limited resources from more needed services such as burglaries that are always backlogged. These new arrests additionally clog the jails, courts, prosecutors, and probation personnel with trivial regulatory matters – further expending public funds, leading to even larger public safety budgets demanded each year from taxpayers. Where are our elected officials who alone can demand accountability of APD? Are they also afraid? We are not safer, rather poorer, and our basic freedoms of expression are now subject to this anonymous (perhaps illegal) police monitoring of social media. Shame also to Snap Trends that betrays their own community by making all this possible, for profit.
Kudos for your diligent research and informative reporting on Austin's secret police [“APD Tracks Social Media,” News, Sept. 4]. At taxpayer expense, APD is apparently targeting “technical violations” of those on probation, parole, registration, and anyone else they choose – actions that have little or no correlation to bona fide public safety. Subsequent APD arrests divert limited resources from more needed services such as burglaries that are always backlogged. These new arrests additionally clog the jails, courts, prosecutors, and probation personnel with trivial regulatory matters – further expending public funds, leading to even larger public safety budgets demanded each year from taxpayers. Where are our elected officials who alone can demand accountability of APD? Are they also afraid? We are not safer, rather poorer, and our basic freedoms of expression are now subject to this anonymous (perhaps illegal) police monitoring of social media. Shame also to Snap Trends that betrays their own community by making all this possible, for profit.
Gary Wardian