Understanding

About the blog

   Just had a possible solution for protecting privacy while providing knowledge for general purposes.

   Will use a police investigation as an example:

• For something to be accepted as evidence in an investigation, it must conform to certain rules:
• Testimonies must be from first person witnesses.
• Objects, imprints, indications of an event, recordings, etc., all must be collected using specific procedures and by individuals trained in doing so.
• Potential evidence that fails even a single rule can not be accepted.

   Those restrictions have been demonstrated to be well considered and serve both the public and private good.  There might be reasons to do things differently but those are rare.

   However, there are instances where a potential piece of evidence can not be accepted even though it may provide something that can bring everything else into clear focus.  It's unfortunate (some might say unfair) that some investigations are left without a resolution when the critical information is known but rightly excluded.  

   There might be a way to address this and it may also be acceptable to a majority.   It's something that could be applied for other roles and responsibilities too - much more than just investigations.  This is only the beginning of an idea (which I don't take credit for personally), please bear with me.

   Consider this hypothetical example:

• For a particular police investigation there has been evidence gathered.
• Witness testimony has been collected.
• For futuristic sake, let's include an imaginary software program that can connect as many potential dots automatically as possible to draw attention to "interesting" elements for review.

   It doesn't help.  To many things appear to conflict with each other or defy explanation through logic  and reasoning given what's known. The only way to move the investigation forward is through assumptions, guesses, or random luck.  Sometimes those may be enough but resources are always limited.  With infinite time, money, and effort it may be possible to resolve every investigation but we can't afford them yet.

   What if a "shadow" (secondary) investigation was initiated as required and done to be incapable/impossible of affecting the police investigation?  There are rules public institutions must  follow to ensure things are done correctly.  Some of those rules exist to reinforce the public's confidence that we have transparency, fairness, and independent oversight.

   A "shadow" (secondary) investigation could potentially operate under relaxed versions of the rules a police investigation must follow.  In some instances that might result in evidence found which could jump the police investigation ahead.  But allowing any relaxed versions of evidence to be included is currently not allowed and it should remain that way.

   Instead of violating rules of evidence, there's another way to assist the police investigation.  It should also be do-able in a generally agreed upon way that doesn't violate any rules on privacy, evidence, etc.  So even better it could be ultimately be put up to a public vote.

   Evidence itself could never cross the boundary between two investigations as described.  But something that was nothing more than a perception could - and it's up to the person perceiving it give it any recognizable form or function or value.  A frame-shift could be used to do that.  The result would be to change one groups "evidence" into nothing more than another groups individual perceptions.

   That's all it would be. 

   Think of it this way:

• The police can't be told something they don't already know.

   It's up to those doing the perceiving to find value and direction from it.  And the more experienced and learned the mind, the more value and direction can be found.

   I actually wouldn't be surprised if something like this hadn't already been tried more than once before.

   Here's hoping for a little more transparency this time around.