There is an app called Witness that allows a person to secretly record the police. When pushing a “panic button,” the phone will start recording video and audio, and stream that live to the Internet. It will also text three other phones, notifying them of your emergency situation, while allowing them to see and hear through your phone live. Your phone goes blank so it doesn’t look like its active at all. Imaging the local, and global, implications of filming the police in every capacity with the public.
There is an app called Peacekeeper, which allows a person to form a community of trusted neighbors who can respond to an emergency, instead of having to call 911. In other words, this community app is capable of replacing 95 percent of what 911 provides. It gives the user a choice. Its applications are also global in scope. Imagine that.
The long standing inside corruption on this island between government administration, the courts and the police is destined to crumble under the weight of the options the Internet can provide our communities. The existing structures are of the older, non-Internet-equipped generation, and must give way to the younger, more well-educated generation.
If this island’s residents vote for another “same old, same old” candidate for mayor in 2016, they’ll have exactly the government they deserve. There is no reason why money should dictate the winner when the power of the Internet provides all of the widespread attention an independent candidate would need to beat any incumbent. I would run for mayor, but because I’m white, with a white last name, people would think I’m not qualified, and they’d be right. Everything about me isn’t qualified to be mayor except my integrity, and my willingness to give up mayoral power to an equal circle of local leaders, so we can all get rid of the existing class warfare being waged against the lower class, starting with the police.
A mayor dictates what police enforce and how. He or she has great influence over what “crimes” get prosecuted, no matter what federal law dictates. That is real change. That is real freedom. That is true independence, no matter what lines on a map say.
Homeschooling via the Internet, growing our own food, providing our own energy, using jury nullification in our courts, and using our own medicines is our right, and no old, rich, archaic bureaucracy can do a thing about it if we only unite under a banner of common sense.
Joe Pierce is a former U.S. Air Force officer and a current resident of Hilo.
Viewpoint articles are the opinion of the writer and not necessarily the opinion of West Hawaii Today.