Slashdot Mirror

In county? Nah, it was probably the arresting officer sodomizing him with his taser.

It is also worth noting the US Department of Justice also believes recording is a constitutional right and important to "engender public confidence in our police departments, promote public access to information necessary to hold our governmental officers accountable, and ensure public and officer safety," and they've set forth a clear set of guidelines that can help police departments set their policy and officer training accordingly.

HAHAHA, fuck no. They'll use the guise of protection of the police and beat you, or even shoot you if you try to record them. Turn about is not fair play, they want the power. They will lie to you and say it is illegal to record them and destroy the video. If you are lucky you might get a payoff from the city while the officer keeps his job.

http://www.ironmill.com/2011/08/31/man-faces-life-in-jail-for-recording-police-video/
http://www.pixiq.com/article/las-vegas-cop-beats-man-for-videotaping-him
http://www.myfoxboston.com/story/18706155/man-who-says-he-was-beaten-for-recording-police-receives-33000-settlement
http://articles.latimes.com/2011/nov/08/opinion/la-oe-turley-video-20111108

In the USA they can arrest you for taking pictures of a courthouse. http://www.pixiq.com/article/cop-detains-man-for-photographing-federal-courthouse In the USA your rights are "god given", in the rest of the world they are given out by government or taken away as they want.

At least in the US, the primary food being advertised has to be real, however there are still loopholes (e.g., in a cereal ad the cereal has to be real, but the "milk" can be glue or paste). Reference: http://www.pixiq.com/article/food-photo-tricks

there is no basis to assume that intelligence officers are routinely, intentionally, and wantonly violating the law.

The FBI routinely, intentionally, and wantonly violates the law when it comes to NSLs. Notice that the report linked in the article is the THIRD one about the problem, I don't see why I should assume the NSA is any better.

I think you're also misinterpreting his comment: cops don't get fired when they botch an investigation on Constitutional grounds because they aren't willfully violating the Constitution

Cops dont' get fired because the system is too corrupt to fire them. We live in a world where two police officers can anally rape a man with their taser, on tape, absolutely confirmed to have happened, and the police ombudsman recommends nothing more than additional training. There is no honest excuse for that and it betrays a deep deep perversion of the law enforcement culture in this country.

That is the reality of the world in which we live. I know it would be wonderful if we could just trust the authorities to adhere to and uphold the law, but that's a dangerous fantasy. Our public officials aren't all looking to get us, but they are more than willing to turn a blind eye to some terrible abuses of power. Especially when it means bigger budgets and job security.

When any government official steps outside of their legitimate authority they should feel the full force of the law any of us would experience if we did the same act. In fact, there should be an extra penalty for the violation of public trust. Anything else makes a mockery of the rule of law. Every overreach of government power is a crime.

The DOD has an Intelligence Oversight office whose sole purpose is to ensure that intelligence operations do not run afoul of the law with respect to US Persons.

Yes, and I'm sure they're about as interested in prosecuting actual crimes as our friend the Idaho ombudsman is. Internal review boards serve no purpose but whitewashing. Are documents like this really supposed to make me any more comfortable? The document itself is whitewashed!

If you want me to trust that authority is responsibly wielded, start holding people responsible who fail to do so. Is that so unreasonable?

Actually, it was the Police Commissioner saying that:

“It's one thing when providers learn what pizza or movies you like. It’s another to create a database of stops and arrests by police,” [Deputy Police Commissioner Paul Browne] said in an email statement. “On the plus side, the videos may capture images of suspects in the vicinity of a stop and be helpful to the police in that regard. Presumably, the NYCLU database will [include] the names of the videographers and provide a rich vein of potential witnesses to crimes being investigated by the NYPD and other authorities.”

Translation: we're coming after the videographers. You upload a video, expect a knock at your door from a hostile police officer, demanding to know what you saw, why you were in the area, maybe you were part of the crime, what's your alibi, mind if I look around your house, we're going to need you to come downtown and answer some questions, etc.

While some individual cop may decide to do that; my experience is that most police agencies don't have the time to waste doing that nor, in general, are even interested in doing what you say. They really do want to catch bad guys while not trampling civil rights, believe it or not. That's not to say they all are perfect or card carrying ACLU members, but they do care about following the law.

Sure, but they want to protect their own before they do any of those things. That's why, for example, the police department here in Boston fought all the way to the 1st Circuit of Appeals to protect their officers who arrested the guy filming them beating a guy in Boston Common. That's why, for example, a guy who filmed cops was arrested, beaten, and had his phone erased. That's why these people were arrested.

And most importantly, that's why the police commissioner in the article is laying the ground work for insisting that the NYCLU identify each person taking video: it's to cause a chilling effect. The police "really do want to catch bad guys," but maybe every so often, they get frustrated when a suspect isn't polite and helpful, or they get scared when they see him reach into his pocket for an ID and then realize it wasn't a weapon, but now they're angry, so they just have to beat them a little bit, y'know? And that's understandable, they're all just good men and women, laying their lives on the line every day, so they shouldn't have to be afraid that someone with a camera is going to be second guessing their decisions, right? I mean, if they have to hesitate to ask "should I really be breaking this guy's ribs with my night stick, what if someone's taping me," then that same hesitation might mean they get shot in a confrontation, right?

Hence why, yeah, the cops are going to spend time tracking down the videographers, intimidating them, and spreading the message that if you tape the cops, you're going to be harassed, arrested, possibly beaten, and then released without charges... this time.

Thank goodness someone's browsing through the thread with a citation to show that it has, in fact, happened, eh comrade?

http://www.pixiq.com/article/Houston%20Police%20Threaten%20To%20Arrest%20Photographers%20To%20Protect%20Own

Executive Assistant Chief Dirden, who is over the Internal Affairs division (“IAD”), admitted in an interview that none of the officers on the accident scene, including Capt. Manzo, had reported any information from which IAD could open an investigation.

We know that Capt. Robert Manzo and a number of the officers on the accident scene were, in fact, aware at the time that there was alcohol in Sgt. Trejo’s truck based on pictures that were taken of the truck and accident scene.

We also now know that Sgt. Trejo arrived at the hospital with a blood-alcohol content of .205 – nearly three times the legal limit. We know that Sgt. Trejo was only minutes from climbing behind the wheel of an HPD vehicle where he was to supervise an entire shift. We know that Sgt. Trejo was not placed under arrest at the time of the accident or at the hospital. And finally, we know that Capt. Robert Manzo, the supervisor and ranking officer on the accident scene failed in his duty to report any of this to his supervisors.

Each and every decision Capt. Manzo made on April 13th was a violation of the public trust. His efforts to cover up Trejo’s crimes began as soon as he arrived at the accident scene. He used his rank and position to direct the actions of the officers under his command to assist with this cover up insuring the omission of particular information in their reports and eventually falsifying his own report.

Sorry, but the pictures of Cap'n Manzo's men covering up beer bottles and telling everyone for two weeks that the cop's breath was minty fresh and he was clean as a whistle just aren't serious enough to get IA's attention. Can't open an investigation on Cap'n Manzo's coverup, unless Cap'n Manzo says so.

Bonus points: because of Cap'n Manzo's coverup, the guy was not immediately arrested. Because he was not immediately arrested, the hospital's .205 reading isn't admissible evidence, so the cop can't be charged with DWI. It's not clear whether the poor lady driving the bus had her ticket (which probably got her fired) expunged, or if the cops even bothered to pull her back out after she was "thrown under the bus" by Cap'n Manzo's men as part of the coverup.

IANAL, but I believe you missed something crucial in your story: the fact that the officer has a reason to arrest the person fleeing. If a cop pulls you over or detains you, you have been given an order to stop and remain at a place. Fleeing from that place is a failure to follow an order, which can be cause for arresting someone. So, at that point, you could be arrested on a charge other than resisting arrest. When all of the charges against you are later brought, they may tack resisting arrest onto disobeying an order, but it can't stand by itself.

That's almost the exact opposite of what happened here.

The law on the books in Florida is:

Resisting without violence is governed by Florida Statutes 843.02 and requires proof of resisting, obstructing, or opposing a law enforcement officer performing a “lawful execution of any legal duty”. Therefore, lawful arrest is an element that the State must prove in order to establish that the defendant resisted arrest without violence.

While you could make a case that the journalist failed to follow orders (the legality of which have been called into question), the journalist was never charged with doing so. Since they're not claiming he was violent, and they're not charging him, I fail to see how a lawful arrest could have taken place (again, IANAL). And without a lawful arrest, he couldn't have resisted arrest.

So, he did manage to recover the whole video but I admit to some skepticism as to his narration of it. From the video it looks to me like he just got a little too bold with his camera. There really didnt seem to be any protestors around, but the couple other photographers who were there were all basically being ignored as long as they stayed a few yards away from the line. The cops looked like they were staging a drill more than carrying out a dispersal order on a group of people, as there was no longer a group of people. So they pushed up a block. stopped, met with another group of cops, then formed a queue and started to walk back down the block. The photographer then immediately started back down with them. He was ignored as he started, then about 15 yards in, that officer stopped him, and you can hear the muffled, 'oh i was just going back to my car.' but he wasnt, he was just continuing to film the cops.

I'm of two minds about this. on the one hand, he was kindof obviously tempting fate. the cops had just 'cleared' the block, and he immediately tried to walk back up it. if he was really 'just heading back to his car to leave because everything was over,' it certainly didnt look like it. On the other hand, all of the other cops were ignoring him. at a couple points, he seemed to be in the midst of the line without any of them telling him to clear off. Going from totally ignoring him to arresting him and saying he'd been warned seems like bullshit. even if his claim that he was walking back to his car was bullshit, and i think it was rather a poor justification, zero to arrest seems over the top. 'Oh, your car is back there? well, you'll have to wait here until we've cleared the area' seems like a more rational first response than 'you're under arrest.'

As to the above discussion of whether one can or should refuse to do what the police tell you, well, even the ACLU will tell you that police misconduct cannot be challenged on the street. So, if, in the course of enforcing an eviction the police issue a dispersal order, yes you have to obey them. I think this discussion went off the rails a bit with hypotheticals, so try to keep in mind what was actually happening here. The police were evicting an Occupy camp. whatever you think about this, it was a court order. Unlike evicting a single family from a home, they cant just show up and change the locks. They really do have to cause everyone to physically leave the area. It would be rather silly if the occupy folk all just went across the street and got a cup of coffee and waited till the cops left. watch the video. its not like he was arrested because he was filming the cops breaking someone's rights. The police had to clear the area, and he was walking right back into it not 5 seconds after they cleared it. which was pretty stupid.

I, too, am concerned that they erased the video of the arrest. Because while the arrest itself seems valid as for cause (taking all the given context and video at face value) the manner in which it was conducted was less than above board. While the off-camera voice instructing the photographer to let go can probably be forgiven - as there was quite a clutch of officers surrounding him, and wearing the cameras might have easily appeared to be holding on to the camera - the first cop, smiling creepily and saying 'we dont want to have to hurt you' while the photographer seems to be standing perfectly still in the middle of a scrum of cops, cannot. That is wildly inappropriate behavior, outside what was necessary to accomplish the arrest, and, when it comes down to it, assault. If a cop menacing you while you are peacefully accepting arrest by saying 'we dont want to hurt you' in response to no provocation whatsoever doenst put one in fear of immanent bodily harm, i dont know what would. And the video would be evidence of this. That the police would take advantage of their custody of his equipment to erase possible evidence that might be used against them is, if not shocking, then at least offensive.

the officer who gave the order can then be charged with

Except that the article suggests they are not charged with anything. We have case-after-case of cops harassing and/or arresting people for filming them, many of which are resolved in the photographer's favor, and yet the taxpayers, not the cops, are the ones who pay for it.

Consider, for instance, the case of Sean and Erik Ibarra who we had to pay $1.7 million for the cops' assault and destruction of evidence and the Ibarra's subsequent arrest for "evading arrest".

Charges for the cops? None. And do you know what happened when the Ibarras asked why? The DA deleted his emails. Then we got to pay for his contempt defense. Of course, it's just contempt of court, not an actual destruction of evidence charge, so he was given a dinky little fine, which of course he appealed at our expense.

Or take the cops that harassed people who were photographing a drunk cop who slammed into a schoolbus. The cops were seen covering up beer bottles and the hospital found the cop to be over .200 (out of .08) yet internal affairs stood by the cops who "investigated" the wreck and insisted that the cop wasn't drunk for weeks.

the officer who gave the order can then be charged with

Except that the article suggests they are not charged with anything. We have case-after-case of cops harassing and/or arresting people for filming them, many of which are resolved in the photographer's favor, and yet the taxpayers, not the cops, are the ones who pay for it.

Consider, for instance, the case of Sean and Erik Ibarra who we had to pay $1.7 million for the cops' assault and destruction of evidence and the Ibarra's subsequent arrest for "evading arrest".

Charges for the cops? None. And do you know what happened when the Ibarras asked why? The DA deleted his emails. Then we got to pay for his contempt defense. Of course, it's just contempt of court, not an actual destruction of evidence charge, so he was given a dinky little fine, which of course he appealed at our expense.

Or take the cops that harassed people who were photographing a drunk cop who slammed into a schoolbus. The cops were seen covering up beer bottles and the hospital found the cop to be over .200 (out of .08) yet internal affairs stood by the cops who "investigated" the wreck and insisted that the cop wasn't drunk for weeks.

http://www.pixiq.com/article/i-recovered-the-full-uninterrupted-video-police-deleted

Funnily enough, he was actually asking the police if he could go to his car when one of the commanders started shouting "Arrestee! Arrestee!" and had him arrested.

That's not what I see in the video (full video here). He was quite obviously following the line of riot cops, filming as he went, and when a cop stopped him he figured he needed an excuse to be going in that direction, so he came up with "I want to go to my car".

It's unclear from the video if there was any legitimate resisting going on, although the cop says to him "you were told to disperse". We don't see that part in the video, so it's unclear if it happened before he started the camera, or if she made that up.

No, RTFA.

You have to glance at the news source... ars. It's a great tech rag, but they aren't very good journalists. If you look at the linked blog of the journalist in question (Carlos Miller - love his mug shot), you will see that he says:

The gist is that I was arrested for refusing to leave a public area, even though hordes of corporate journalists were allowed to remain, including one who recorded my arrest.

If you filmed a policeman raping a women with your cellphone, they would arrest you.
http://www.pixiq.com/article/maryland-police-once-again-use-wiretapping-laws-to-crack-down-on-videographers

Possible, merely theoretical solutions that have no basis in what would happen:
* Confiscate Cameras: http://www.infowars.com/cops-confiscate-cameras-at-ohio-congressmans-town-hall/
* Delete data: http://www.pixiq.com/article/chicago-police-delete-journalism-professors-video-footage
* Destroy phone/camera: http://scienceblogs.com/dispatches/2011/06/miami_police_destroy_cell_phon.php
* Use of a live streaming/storage to avoid confiscation/destruction? There's tech for that:
** http://inventorspot.com/articles/spy_technology_how_disable_a_cell_phone_15035
** http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mobile_phone_jammer
* Wiretapping laws: http://yro.slashdot.org/story/11/03/05/1954216/Leave-a-Message-Go-To-Jail?from=twitter
* Camera blocking devices:
** http://www.gizmag.com/norte-photoblocker-club-beer-cooler/20820/
** Unable to find it, but I'm sure I remember Kipkay having a video showing how to make glasses that would blind any camera sensitive to infrared.

Some of this, such as the wiretapping cellphone case, has been overturned. I believe. This is just off the top of my head. I'm sure there is more for real cynics with time to list.

Because the right of the people to assemble peaceably doesn't have a time-limit? "You may assemble, but not at night. Limit your protests in public spaces to ten hours a day" isn't in the Constitution.

No, but just because you are protesting doesn't allow you to violate the law. If there are laws in place restricting the ability to set up a camp in a park, bring in generators, create health code violations etc., it must apply equally to all citizens.

I also find it highly ironic that some of the protesters relying on the 1st amendment to enable their protest, also take offense
to the very same freedom of the press that amendment enables.

I don't know what you're referring to here, and I'm curious about it.

Here's a few examples

http://www.pixiq.com/article/occupy-wall-street-activists-assault-and-threaten-videographer
http://www.pixiq.com/article/reporter-assaulted-investigating-who-pooped-and-peed-on-the-bank
http://www.pixiq.com/article/occupy-dc-activist-threatens

Granted, these idiots are the 1% of the 99% that really give the well meaning protesters a bad name

Because the right of the people to assemble peaceably doesn't have a time-limit? "You may assemble, but not at night. Limit your protests in public spaces to ten hours a day" isn't in the Constitution.

No, but just because you are protesting doesn't allow you to violate the law. If there are laws in place restricting the ability to set up a camp in a park, bring in generators, create health code violations etc., it must apply equally to all citizens.

I also find it highly ironic that some of the protesters relying on the 1st amendment to enable their protest, also take offense
to the very same freedom of the press that amendment enables.

I don't know what you're referring to here, and I'm curious about it.

Here's a few examples

http://www.pixiq.com/article/occupy-wall-street-activists-assault-and-threaten-videographer
http://www.pixiq.com/article/reporter-assaulted-investigating-who-pooped-and-peed-on-the-bank
http://www.pixiq.com/article/occupy-dc-activist-threatens

Granted, these idiots are the 1% of the 99% that really give the well meaning protesters a bad name

Because the right of the people to assemble peaceably doesn't have a time-limit? "You may assemble, but not at night. Limit your protests in public spaces to ten hours a day" isn't in the Constitution.

No, but just because you are protesting doesn't allow you to violate the law. If there are laws in place restricting the ability to set up a camp in a park, bring in generators, create health code violations etc., it must apply equally to all citizens.

I also find it highly ironic that some of the protesters relying on the 1st amendment to enable their protest, also take offense
to the very same freedom of the press that amendment enables.

I don't know what you're referring to here, and I'm curious about it.

Here's a few examples

http://www.pixiq.com/article/occupy-wall-street-activists-assault-and-threaten-videographer
http://www.pixiq.com/article/reporter-assaulted-investigating-who-pooped-and-peed-on-the-bank
http://www.pixiq.com/article/occupy-dc-activist-threatens

Granted, these idiots are the 1% of the 99% that really give the well meaning protesters a bad name

I think you have it backwards. That's what happens in the US.

...but a uniformed or off-duty police officer? Why would someone with so much power be allowed to prevent the recording of the exercise of that authority?

Homeland security, of course! The article says, "In a hearing last December, Cook County Assistant State Attorney Jeff Allen invoked homeland security, arguing that Drew's recording could have picked up police discussing anti-terrorism tactics." Man, how could you make that argument with a straight face?

Anyone interested in "cop arrests guy with camera even though no law was broken" stories should check out Carlos Miller's blog.

There actually are several states where it is explicitly illegal to film police officers, as ruled by courts in those states.

http://gizmodo.com/5553765/are-cameras-the-new-guns

http://www.pixiq.com/contributors/248

By the time our porcine "protectors" figure out that smashing up the instrument rarely destroys the recording, we'll all have real-time internet-connected video cameras.

Some have, then they try and charge citizens who videotape them with violating state wire-tapping laws. One recent link, from Carlos Miller's Photography is not a Crime blog (he covers this type of thing extensively, and the Slashdot article links to one of his posts) as well as the Anthony Graber case from last year that got a lot of attention. After all, if you can't stop the recording, you can always punish the citizen who dared to record you doing your job out in public. Oh, and if you only read one of those links, read the one from last year. That case is a standout example of the new kind of police harassment over videotaping them in public.

There are a lot, an awful lot judging by the news if you follow it, of police who have a major, MAJOR issue with being recorded. And most of the time it's for good reason, they were doing something wrong and don't want any record of it. Other police support them, and often the district attorney's office will back them up (unless it gets enough public outrage to suddenly become politically untenable, then they'll change their minds). In Anthony Graber's case it took a judge to put a stop to the shenanigans, ruling that police have no expectation of privacy in a public setting and throwing out the charges. But that was in September, 6 months after the police charged the guy, seized all his computers, etc. And I can't find any information about anything happening to the cop who pulled his gun on Graber (without identifying himself as police officer first, or even being in uniform and all over minor traffic violations), so the police still won in that case.

By the time our porcine "protectors" figure out that smashing up the instrument rarely destroys the recording, we'll all have real-time internet-connected video cameras.

Some have, then they try and charge citizens who videotape them with violating state wire-tapping laws. One recent link, from Carlos Miller's Photography is not a Crime blog (he covers this type of thing extensively, and the Slashdot article links to one of his posts) as well as the Anthony Graber case from last year that got a lot of attention. After all, if you can't stop the recording, you can always punish the citizen who dared to record you doing your job out in public. Oh, and if you only read one of those links, read the one from last year. That case is a standout example of the new kind of police harassment over videotaping them in public.

There are a lot, an awful lot judging by the news if you follow it, of police who have a major, MAJOR issue with being recorded. And most of the time it's for good reason, they were doing something wrong and don't want any record of it. Other police support them, and often the district attorney's office will back them up (unless it gets enough public outrage to suddenly become politically untenable, then they'll change their minds). In Anthony Graber's case it took a judge to put a stop to the shenanigans, ruling that police have no expectation of privacy in a public setting and throwing out the charges. But that was in September, 6 months after the police charged the guy, seized all his computers, etc. And I can't find any information about anything happening to the cop who pulled his gun on Graber (without identifying himself as police officer first, or even being in uniform and all over minor traffic violations), so the police still won in that case.

Oops, I guess it is.

http://www.pixiq.com/contributors/248

il-lic-it/i`lisit/

Adjective: Forbidden by law, rules, or custom: "illicit drugs"; "illicit sex".

Many of us consider the changes made by the PATRIOT act and others to be pretty damn illicit. We've almost to the point where you have to show papers to travel by air inside the country for example, and how many times have we heard that audits show the FBI has abused the national security letters powers the PATRIOT act gave them? Since 9/11 it's become very common practice by law enforcement at all levels to use "combating terrorism" as an excuse to restrain civil liberties. Check out Carlos Miller's Photography is not a Crime blog for lots and lots of examples of that. These are things that are most definitely forbidden by custom, some of them by the law. So yeah, typo on the poster's fault, but sadly, it still works. Al Queda used terror to get the US government to introduce lots of illicit changes to the country.