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Recording Police Misconduct is Illegal
mypalmike writes: "The Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts has upheld a lower court's decision that it is illegal to record what happens to you when get pulled over by the police. It seems they are citing a rule which essentially prohibits all recording in which the recording is made secretly. Maybe I can sue the local quickiemart for secretly recording me as I purchase a slushie. (Reported in the Boston Globe)." I'm not sure I understand this. Aren't almost all police cars these days equipped with video cameras that record everything occuring in front of the car?
once the news media gets a copy who gives a crap
"illegal" or not it's real
yeah, it has NOTHING about how EVIL microsoft is... wtf is up with THAT?
Are you supposed to even speak when you get pulled over by a cop?
Suppose I launch the recording just before the cop pulled you over, the cop come by me:
Cop: "Driving License, please"
Me: "Ok, just want to tell you that..."
Cop: "Shut Up, freeze, get out the car, put your hand behinf your head!"
Me: "But..."
Cop : "Just shut the fuck up!, you're under arrest for non cooperative attitude"
The Massachusetts law was passed quite a while ago. The issue here is the AUDIO recording of the incident. The exact same charges would have been filed against the kid if he used a cassette recorder to tape the incident without the knowledge of the other party. IANAL, but, if the camera was in an open place, say mounted on the dash pointing at the driver's side window, it *might* have been legal. If he told the cop "I'm recording this incident" then the cop would have specific knowledge and could base his further actions on that knowledge.
This ruling flies in the face of common sense and the intent of the wiretapping laws.
Starting with the Rodney King case, videotaping police without their consent is a cornerstone of civilian activism against police brutality and abuse of authority. The police are public servants that operate entirely in public, and entirely on the taxpayer dollar. The citezenry have every right to videotape the police, and I feel that this behaviour should be encouraged rather than punished as it will lead to honest and law-abiding police officers. It is a sad commentary on our society when the police have to be blackmailed into behaving with the threat of being caught on camera.
Forgetting for a second that we have every right to make sure the police are actually "serving and protecting," we must remember that the police operate in public. They are not after all, "secret state police" are they? Just as you have a right to videotape the squirrels in a park, you have a right to video tape an officer when he is performing his duties in public.
This sort of worries me though. Why would two courts in a row decide against public scrutiny of police? I feel as tho there is something being left out.
If he told the cop "I'm recording this incident" then the cop would have specific knowledge and could base his further actions on
Yes, the policeman could have smashed the recorder and destroyed the tape to add to his other crimes. That would really help.
It is only considered wiretapping in a few states. If Monica Lewinski were taped in New York, there would be no problem. But she wasn't. I believe it was Maryland that has the screwy law.
There was a bit on one of those Americas something or other Video shows where some police officers were choking some guy nearly to death with a nightstick. One of the police officers approached the person taking the video and ordered him to give him the camera. The guy taking the video took off like a bat out of hell. Obviously that's the only reason the tape even existed any more to show on TV.
I'm going to call up my boss at home today and insist on a reduction in pay! Thanks for the job security tip.
On one of those Fox home video compilation shows a few years back they had one video taken while the police were choking some guy nearly to death. One of the officers came right up to the guy taking the video and ordered him to give him the camera. The person taking the video promptly ran away. I'd say that's a bit better than anecdotal evidence.
Instead of 'myself', sometimes I type 'mysql'. It's pathetic.
tons of examples. I have seen on TV cops chasing guys with camcorders trying to get the video tape. A buddy of mine working as a college journalist was beaten severly with his camera equipment by the officer. and then charged with assultin the officer. (The officer cut himself on a broken part of the camcorder he was beating my friend with.)
The judge was going to convict my friend until we filled the courtroom with over 200 people acting as character witnesses and 5 of us as actual event witnesses.
I also believe that the fact we were hanfding out flyers with the judge's and officer's home address+phone number helped.
You have to record these bastards we call police today... most cities hire only the worst of the lot because they pay diddley (Muskegon,MI - $35,000.00 to risk you life as a cop) and the city officials espically the city managers couldnt care less.
document, and publish... the ONLY way to fight corruption.
When I was fourteen, I got caught with a friend who was (unbeknownst to me) shoplifting in the same store I was buying some supplies for a project in. When we met up in the lobby of the store, we were both taken into custody and I was arrested (well, they never read me my rights, but they put me in handcuffs and took me to jail with him). I refused to make any statements and did not talk to the police officer as I was not involved but knew that there was little point in debating it with a buy who's just making his quota. Later, when my lawyer read the police report back to me, there were suddenly all sorts of statements I had made about how I shoplifted with my friend and was damn proud of it and derogatory statements about "pigs" and "bacon". I had always been taught that you are not required to speak to the police without a lawyer present or until you are ready to make a statement. I'm not sure if this happens to adults, but when I was a kid, I had all sorts of things held against me that never should have happend. From having statements made up when I didn't say anything to being arrested without having my rights read to me. And in the long run, nobody gave a damn (although the judge excused me since he realized I had no part or knowledge in what my friend had done). I guess it's not a big deal when a policeman fabricates statements and ignores procedure.
What's this got to do with Linux anyway?
--
"Remember when the U.S. had a drug problem, and then we declared a War On Drugs, and now you can't buy drugs anymore?"
Why should it? As police are so fond of saying when asking for draconian new powers and tools, if they're innocent, why would they have anything to fear?
Not if the recording is being broadcasted to a storage device at home....
Mary Jo told Kennidy that day that she was pregnant with his child... He told her "No problem... we will cross that bridge when we come to it"
And in the end, the love you take is equal to the love you make
And everybody blows it off when I claim that the drug war fosters corruption in the police and military.
It's not enough to bash in heads, you've got to bash in minds. - Captain Hammer
Seriously, cops get paid low enough that you have to want to be a civil servant to take the job.
Unfortunatly, the working conditions and pay mean that there are two types strongly attracted to law enforcement: Those who are dedicated to an orderly and safe society, and those who have a powerful underlying need to weild authority over others. Of course, the latter category is the problem.
The problem is compounded by many of the metrics used to determine a good officer. For example, the undesirable category of officer will typically have less trouble meeting ticketing quotas, and will show no reluctance to engage in the latest marginally constitutional police action. Their job performance will appear to be superior on paper.
Lawmakers should show a LOT more respect to law enforcement, the People, and the spirit of freedom and democracy than they do.
Police departments should endevor to remove the undesirable category of officers from the force, EVEN AT THE COST OF EFFECTIVENESS. The failure to do that is at the heart of the slow decline in respect for the law amongst average citizens.
Is larceny a felony? I believe you can only make a citizen's arrest for a felony-level crime.
"If there's a bright center to this universe, you're on the planet that it's farthest from." That's originally from Foundation. Not Star Wars.
I'm not really an Asimov fan either, but that's a line everyone knows, even if they don't know it's Asimov.
It's curious that you cite judgement as being an important characteristic of police officers, while I'm told that (at least in some areas), a disqualifing factor in becoming an officer is too high an IQ.
Wil
--
Wil
wiki
"This Car Subject to Video Taping"
That should satisy the requirement that the recording not be made without notification.
Software sucks. Open Source sucks less.
It's illegal to try to obtain proof that the broken jaw and strangulation bruises really come from the cops and aren't self inflicted.
Jeeze.
Chas - The one, the only.
THANK GOD!!!
Chas - The one, the only.
THANK GOD!!!
so there are good and bad ones and they have good and bad days. But this is still WAY OUT OF LINE.
[rant] Next you will need permission to travel from county to county in Mass. To help regulate traffic flow for your own safety of course, and to assist you local Law Enforcement Offical you will be required to install this combo tracker, kill switch device into you car, and have it checked by a licensed tech for a substantial fee every 90 days. Driving on the roads IS NOT RIGHT, it is a PRIVELIGE you pay for...through the nose.
[/rant]
errr....umm...*whooosh* *whoosh* Is this thing on ?
I looked it up in the Calif Penal code and it ONLY COVERS the monitoring of in place communications devices such as phone or private radio bands. The term does NOT EVEN REFER to the use of a recording device in an open environment.
errr....umm...*whooosh* *whoosh* Is this thing on ?
The really sad thing it isn't just the cops--almost *nobody* in this country thinks deeply about the role of government and the enforcement of possibly unjust laws.
Umm....
That's a quote from Arthur C Clarke, not Asimov.
krails
Which is all well and good, except there endangering all of the people *NOT* involved in the crime that are around. That's why it's *illegal*, even if it's often ignored.
*I* don't want to be the one they are hiding behind, they took the job, and shouldn't use me as a human shield
In further news, hurricane Hugo is sueing the news media for having recorded his actions without prior written consent. Hugo's legal counsel has stated that they intend to plea that this law should be extended to all antropomorphised entities.
While the 'faces in the ground' may be a little too much, I do, in fact, want the cops to respond to complaints that people are being shot in public parks, and if you think for a second you will agree with me.
-David T. C.
If corporations are people, aren't stockholders guilty of slavery?
PS Dpon't even bother attempting to pretend I was talking about all cops. I was simply talking abou the fact cops have more power then people at 'an office'.
-David T. C.
If corporations are people, aren't stockholders guilty of slavery?
Who will watch the watchers? Not you obviously.
As for obtaining video records from government agencies, good luck: "Do you know the number of the video tape on which the alleged action was recorded?" Of course not. You couldn't possibly.
Maybe Kazinski wasn't completely wrong about everything.
We live in societies bound by two webs. One of trust and one of deceit. Some people are constantly stradlling lines from both.
MSBPodcast.com The opinions expressed here are my own. If you don't like 'em... Think up your own stuff.
Think that's weird? According to a friend of mine (who is not a lawyer, but his wife is an educator for "special needs" children), in Florida it's legal to record video, except you can't record video of a retarded child without permission from their legal guardian.
So your webcam is perfectly legal, unless a retarded child walks by.
That information is third-hand, and I can't provide a citation, so don't hack on me too much if it's wrong...
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Most of the US is like that, too. Canada tends to pass national laws, but the US Constitutionally leaves most questions to the states.
So what you should have said is "Massachusetts is weird."
And, you'd be right; we have a certain bunch of states that tend to have weird-ass laws that don't reflect the rest of the country. Massachusetts is among them. More power to 'em; they can have whatever laws they want, without affecting me.
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Do it openly and your gear will be confiscated, and if you're not lucky, other stuff you own too. The cop will probably start looking really hard for stuff to arrest you for too. At any rate, you won't get your recording. SECRETLY is the only way to get your recording and force a certain level of accountability.
Need a Python, C++, Unix, Linux develop
As that unbiquitous popup ad asks.
I don't think so. In this scenario you've already stated that you are recording the conversation. You don't necesecarily have to say that you are recording the conversation on this or that recorder. Should the officer confiscate what he *assumes* to be the only recorder has no bearing on the fact that you said the conversation was being recorded.
To annoy a police officer who has pulled you over is to put yourself at risk. In that situation, he has the power. He can escalate a parking ticket to a more severe ticket. He can decide to search the car for drugs. If he does, you may have the upholstery ripped out. The only person who will end up paying for that is the owner of the car. He doesn't have to find out that you have done anything wrong to put you in considerable trouble, and to considerable expense.
... well, this would need to be determined. People in total isolation start hallucinating after a few months.
People, with a few exceptions, are not sane enough to be trusted with authority. There have been several experiments that prove this quite emphatically. At least one had to be cancelled because the students started to physically abuse each other.
Do not assume that a person that you meet in a social context will behave the same when a stranger meets him in an official context. It is an incorrect assumption.
This is one of the problems with the prisons. The guards are put in an inherently corrupting situation, and most of them become corrupted, in one way or another. Mainly just to the extent of standing by while others in authority do things that they know to be reprehensible, but that, also, is corruption. Prisons need to be redesigned so that there is no interaction between the various kinds of authority present. This includes guards. This includes gang leaders. This includes peer groups. And the sentences need to be correspondingly shortened. With everybody in real solitary, including no interaction with the guards...this is mandatory, the time will need to be shortened by
Notice that this would immediately destroy the recruitment of members for the prison gangs. That is but one of it's benefits. It would also destroy the corruption of the guards, which is just as important. The moral atmosphere of a society requires that the guardians should act in a moral fashion, and that includes not knowingly allowing immoral actions (e.g., the beatings of prisoners, the smuggling of drugs that they consider "wrong" to transport) to take place without at least speaking out. So the systems need to be so designed that they need not allow such things to happen. The easy way is to prevent them from happening, and the easy way to do that is to close off the avenues of communication.
Notice that this implies that there should be no use of money within the prison. None. No phone calls (I expect that calls by lawyers would need to be allowed.)
This is but a skeleton, and there are lots of details that would need to be adjusted. But it provides the idea. I recognize that this is, in many ways, more punishing to many than the current prison environment would be (I recognize this by proposing shorter sentences), but that's not the purpose. The purpose is to cut the various cycles of corruption that I have identified.
Caution: Now approaching the (technological) singularity.
I think we've pushed this "anyone can grow up to be president" thing too far.
And I think that negligent homocide is the appropriate accusation. The other is just silly. That one thought ... I find it hard to believe anything else. Remembering back to when I was in my twenties, and the times that I was lucky, rather than careful though ...
... else ... dead, but I'm rather glad that I was lucky.
I'm rather glad that I was lucky. I don't think I would have ended up with anyone
Caution: Now approaching the (technological) singularity.
I think we've pushed this "anyone can grow up to be president" thing too far.
The police are not to blame, but their job design creates intolerable pressures of various kinds. Police need to support each other. This is sufficiently strong (their life may depend on the action of their fellows) that they will not speak out against those that fairly blatently violate politeness, civility, decency, the constitution, and local ordinances. Consider that in the Rodney King case no policeman could be found to testify against those involved. And all of those involved supported each other.
Even if you take the kindest possible interpretation of their actions, at least they were guilty of excessive use of force. But no policeman testified to that.
So the "good" hide and protect the evil. Should they then be surprised that they are tarred with the same brush? There's no obvious way to tell them apart.
But the problem is basically structural. The job design is quite awful. And most of that design is in the hands of politicians who neither have real experience, nor any long term interest in fixing the problems. It it doesn't win votes at the next election, then they don't care. (And that's another, different, design error.)
These design errors are, actually, the same. Many jobs are designed to create centers of authority, which are clustered in subservience to a higher center of authority. This is a social design that we have inherited from, at minimum, the feudal Kings and Lords. Possibly from the Romans (the intermediate period is hard to trace things through). It's not the only way to do things, but is one of the easiest to design. (Rather like code that's just thrown together, and then evolved by a chain of maintenance techs, who each need to re-write some piece of it, but have to keep the whole thing working the entire time, and never get to debug it.)
Caution: Now approaching the (technological) singularity.
I think we've pushed this "anyone can grow up to be president" thing too far.
You lived in a gentle area. Well, I did too, but there were small gangs of bullies. If one wasn't enough, you got several.
So for some reason I'm distrustful of authority figures. I don't think of them as supportive. Not terrible (they never jumped on me themselves), but certainly not supportive, or trustworthy.
As an adult I have seen no reason to change my mind. The first rule is don't piss off the boss. The second is don't get caught. You can pretty much forget the rest.
Caution: Now approaching the (technological) singularity.
I think we've pushed this "anyone can grow up to be president" thing too far.
G) You can moon the cop! :)
B) He can beet the shit out of you (no video
G) you can swear at him.
B) He can swear back.
G) you can make up a bogus harrassment call
B) He can to
I think this state screw up badly.
Utah also permits recording as long as one or more partys know about it. The Police officer counts as one.
These men go completely by the book, and I have never heard them once allude to anything illegal or abusive.
Do you really think that those who abuse their power brag about it to civilians later?
I regularly hear stories about their jobs which makes me sick to my stomach at the flak they recieve.
They chose the occupation because they are authoritarians who like to harass other people. Don't show them pity because they want to be loved, too.
This [flak] ranges from law school students who and kids with rich parents who are ready to sue at the drop of the hat, to idiots who are ready to fight an armed officer (or worse).
We should all be ready to kill an armed officer, if need be.
I would be the last to advocate the killing of every police officer, but when I hear about yet another police murder on the news, I stop to think how it could have been avoided by a citizen with a firearm killing the corrupt cop on the spot. We do have the right to bear arms, and if a cop is directly threatening your life, shoot him between the eyes.
"Holy shit! Is this guy serious?"
Yup. Officer Friendly is trained to eliminate any threat to himself, you would be a fool not to treat the officer with the same suspicion that you're placed under in every traffic stop.
The police have no interest in protecting civilians, their occupation is ONLY to uphold the law.
aÍÍ©ÍÌÍ£Ì'̽ͩÌÍzÍYÌÍÌY
Please, cite for me where I demonstrated bigotry.
Okay.
bigot \Big"ot\, n.
A person who is intolerant of opinions which conflict with his own, as in politics or morals; one obstinately and blindly devoted to his own church, party, belief, or opinion.
This couldn't describe you any more if it had your picture integrated into it.
aÍÍ©ÍÌÍ£Ì'̽ͩÌÍzÍYÌÍÌY
I can hear the entire Slashdot community sighing and shaking their heads.
Please cite for me specifically where and how I have been intolerant.
Easy.
When you mentioned that your police officer friends never abused their power, you recieved a bunch of replies noting that you had no reliable way of knowing this. Moreover, there was a fair amount of doubt that a corrupt cop would come clean to his civilian friend(s). Instead of humoring/exploring these notions, you insisted that the whole concept was ludicrous. This insistance that you were correct was intolerance for the opinions of others.
Part of the definition of being a bigot is one obstinately and blindly devoted to his own church, party, belief, or opinion. You are blindly and obstinately devoted to your opinion that your police officer friends don't abuse their power, therefore you are bigoted against other opinions.
As you have been shown conclusivly at this point to be a bigot and intolerant.
Would you like me to specifically cite you for where and how you've wasted vast amounts of my time by being a twerp who feels he has the right to be "cited" on everything?
aÍÍ©ÍÌÍ£Ì'̽ͩÌÍzÍYÌÍÌY
Man, I could vomit hostility at you forever if you keep this up.
...you would have to argue that police have a perverse sense of authority to view the life of a police officer as a self absorbed paradise.
A police officer will also not go around touting how unabusive he is. Do you honestly believe that the police who don't break the law will brag about it to civilians later? I can't guarentee every officer is not crooked, but I am sure that the ones _I_ know aren't.
So I suppose that you know your police officer friends are legitimate by first hand around-the-clock surveillence, right? No? So your police officer friends talk about not being abusive but there aren't any officers that do the same?
Do you see why I don't put a whole lot of faith in your opinions?
Would you agree with organizations such as the ACLU have made it easy for criminals to sue police officers at the drop of a hat?
No, I wouldn't. The ACLU is one of the few organizations around that offers citizens some recourse against abuses by police. It sounds to me like you're suggesting that this is a bad thing.
Would you agree that police officers are spit on, by people like yourself, every day of their life?
Would you agree that citizens are spit on by police officers every day of their lives? I sure would. After seeing people thrown down onto the asphalt, kicked, beaten, sodimized, and murdered, I think I'm justified in claiming that police have the upper hand in these situations.
So, no. The police don't get spit on enough.
Now, let's poke a few more holes in your logic...
Until a citizen has established beyond a shadow of a doubt that their life is in danger of _murder_ (IE, an unjust killing) they have no right to lift so much as a finger at an officer.
There's no time to "establish beyond a shadow of a doubt" when someone is pointing a gun at you, especially if the police officer drew his gun first. I wonder what an situation an officer has to be in to justify murder...?
You may be asking what would justify an officer killing a suspect. Should a suspect resist in a manner that would so much as risk the officer breaking a fingernail, the officer should have the right (and be encouraged) to defend himself with lethal force.
Heh. You're on drugs.
Frankly, I don't give a flying fuck about Officer Friendly's fingernail, and the courts agree with me. Unless an officer can show that a suspect was a clear and present danger to the safety of an officer, no one is legally allowed to murder him. If a citizen can show the same, that it was either the officer or him, he's granted the same justification. There isn't a double standard, nor should there be.
It's not a very hard arguement to make. Look at a cop's salary, the job is obviously not about the money. If you can't get rich being a cop, why would you want to be one? One word: Power.
Statements like this make me wonder if you're merely a troll.
Well, my user number is lower than 20,000, my karma is maxed out, and I have a +1 Bonus (which I never use). Yeah, I must be a troll. And who do you think you are, Signal_11?
A suspect who resists the police should expect the violence that will result from his resistance.
Well, it's good to know that, all told, you support the perpetuation of police crimes against humanity. Yes, tent1cle, violence solves everything, and if it's coming from a police officer, it must be justified, too.
Is it hard to hear with your head shoved so far up your ass?
aÍÍ©ÍÌÍ£Ì'̽ͩÌÍzÍYÌÍÌY
No, I can not assert that the police I know have not committed crimes, based on first hand surveilance. To require me to do such, however, is a fallacious argument. I need merely establish beyond a reasonable doubt that they do not abuse their power.
...which you haven't done. You have provided no evidence that would prove the integrity of these officers.
Based on my relationship with the police officers, I can establish that the officers do not abuse their power.
Based on my relationship with Hitler, I can establish that he was a fun-loving vegetarian who never harmed a fly and enjoyed basket weaving.
Can I really establish that Hitler was a nice guy just because a blew a couple of weeks with him? Of course not.
My point? You can't prove anything just because someone hasn't displayed certain traits in your experience with them. We have no way of knowing if Officer Friendly goes fishing with you, then brutally beats the elderly in the streets. Frankly, you have no way of knowing that either.
Based on the fact that you don't know the nature of the relationship between me and the officers I am judging, you are not within the realm of reason to judge whether or not I am right in saying that the officers I know have comitted abuse.
This is exactly the reason that we've been operating under the assumption that these people are casual friends of yours.
By your own judging criteria, can I say that your wife/daughter/mother is a whore? Based on the fact that you can not be with your wife/daughter/mother 24 hours a day, what ability do you have to defend against that statement?
The senario that you put forth is nothing like the current one for a whole host of reasons.
Firstly, this senario involves you accusing my wife/daughter/mother of being a whore. For this to be a similar senario, I would have had to claim that my wife/daughter/mother wasn't a whore, then refuse to back it with proof. You claimed that your police officer friends were not corrupt, the Slashdot community asked you for proof your friends were on the level, which you never provided.
"Huh, huh, huhuhuhuh. Proof is a fallacy. Yeah, yeah."
This, of course, is false. When you provide a statement, you are also under the burden of proof to back those statements.
Next, a wife/daughter/mother is a close family relation, not a casual friend like you claim these police officers are. You are expected to know more about a family relation than you are about a casual friend.
Though no one can say anything with 100% certainty, in my experiences with my wife/daughter/mother, I have never found her to be a whore. This has nothing to do with your corrupt cop cronies.
Man, I haven't seen a total logical disconnect like that since Reagan was in office.
For the second time, would you agree that officers are spit on every day of their lives?
It was an ignorant, meaningless question the first time you asked it, as it continues to be now, the second you've asked it. Spit on by who? Metaphorically? What?
I would say that the vast majority of citizens who treat officers with any respect do not get undue harassment by the officers.
So the vast majority of people don't get harassed, are you using that as justification for the minority that is harassed?
Most of the anecdotes I have heard about citizens being treated harshly by cops have started out with the citizens refusing to comply with the officer's requests.
aÍÍ©ÍÌÍ£Ì'̽ͩÌÍzÍYÌÍÌY
Ha!
...your wife/mother/daughter is a whore. Can you provide me any proof that they aren't, using irrefutable evidence?
I can testify on behalf of the character and behavior of the officers I know. Abuse of power is inconsistant with how they conduct their lives. Unless you can provide hard evidence that suggests they have abused their power, their behavior suggests otherwise.
This means all you can claim is that you don't think these police officers are corrupt. This is merely your opinion, not the fact you were previously trying to sell it as.
Your argument if flawed by the simple fact that there is evidence against Adolph Hitler.
There is evidence against police officers at large.
You mean other than the fact that I keep the bitch tied up 24/7?
Accusations aren't the same thing as statements. As I said before, this whole f*cking scenario is flawed just because you stated your police officer buddies were not corrupt, and tried to sell this statement as fact. It was merely pointed out that you have no way of backing these statements at all.
To truly create a proper scenario, I would have to claim that my wife/daughter/mother is not a whore, just as you claimed your police officer pals were not corrupt...
...which I'm not going to do.
I never stated the nature of which I know the police officers.
Would you agree that your relationship to these people is pretty damn important, especially when considering possible biases?
One of the four officers I know is my cousin. The other three are not casual friends.
So the other three are formal friends?
Me: Though no one can say anything with 100% certainty, in my experiences with my wife/daughter/mother, I have never found her to be a whore.
Is this consistant with your earlier judging criteria that stated that since a person does not observe another person 24 hours a day, it is impossible to establish someone isn't something?
Yes, it is. I said that in my experiences, I have never found her to be a whore. She could be slurpin' knob by night, but my statement has nothing to do with that. You see, I clearly stated where my experience with the person in question ended, which you did not do when vouching for the legitimacy of these officers. You just claimed that your friends weren't corrupt, and that you knew this which, of course, you didn't and still don't.
Me: This has nothing to do with your corrupt cop cronies.
Floating a shroud of doubt over someone is different than spreading libel. Can you provide any evidence to back up the accusation that the police I know are "corrupt cop cronies"?
I have a reason for suspicion when you start vouching for their integrity religiously.
The purpose of the question has been to establish that police officers do not have a job that can be considered a lap of luxury.
I don't have a job that could be called the "lap of luxury". I think that if you're in the lap of luxury, whatever you're doing probably can't be called work.
Dumbing down my question: would you agree or disagree that police officers are looked down upon, and disrespected, by the citizens they are assigned to protect?
Customer service representatives are disrespected. Wendy's workers are looked down upon. Construction workers, urinal maintainance managers, and toll booth operators are looked down upon as well. All of these people have to put up with their fair share of flak.
The reason I continue to refuse to answer that damned question is that it is completely irrelevant to the topic. You're trying to bring emotions and sympathy into play.
aÍÍ©ÍÌÍ£Ì'̽ͩÌÍzÍYÌÍÌY
It's a socialist state, what do you expect?
now we need to go OSS in diesel cars
Unless you are blind, all quickiemarts (aka 7-Eleven, Kum and Go, etc) have some form of sticker when you enter the shop that says the place is under the camera's eye. So, in that respect, it is different. Sorry, but no legal action for you.
Bryan R.
Bryan R.
The price of freedom is eternal vigilance, or $12.50 as seen on eBay.....
The police abusing a bad law is not news specifically for nerds, but this is also about the bigger issue of the dangers of legislative overreaction to technology, in this case, the ever cheaper and smaller video cameras.
I was in Harrod's a couple of years ago and I noticed one of the ceiling cameras pointed directly at me. I walked 45 degrees along its circumference and it followed. Another direction, it followed again. I put down the £200 worth of stuff that I was buying, flipped the camera the bird and walked out. I was disgusted.
That kind of rudeness should not be tolerated - not from a salesperson and not from some clown sitting in a back room twiddling his joystick.
I hear people in England say thet they enjoy the *security* of these cameras, but at what cost?
Where I live, we have beat cops who actually walk around, not so afraid that they have to hide behind a camera. They say hello, offer politeness and respect and expect it in return, get to know the people in the neighborhood (to the point of stopping by your house once a year to introduce themselves and see who you are) and they won't hesitate to stop you if you look like you are doing something suspicious. (Or lend a helping hand if you happen to need one at that moment.)
That's the kind of security I would prefer from the police - When a policeman makes a mental note of you, he has his intuition and his conscience, backed by a brain that no computer can compete with. When a camera takes note of you, you are just an entry in a database waiting to be taken out of context, the first time suspicion is cast upon you for something. I mean, we are conditioned to see anyone on a security monitor as an instant perpetrator.
Which would you choose?
Cheers,
Jim
MMDC Mobile Media
-- My Weblog.
And then there are the illiterates. I saw an accident report with the ever-helpful:
--
Sheesh, evil *and* a jerk. -- Jade
> The police are here to server us.
Just wanted to say that I'm glad to see that I'm not the only one who always gets an "r" on the end of "serve", whether it's needed or not. I swear, my brain thinks the word is spelled s-e-r-v-e-r-backspace.
--
Sheesh, evil *and* a jerk. -- Jade
but 'wiretapping', I thought, by definnition, was when an electronic conversation was eavesdropped on.
Recording a meatspace conversation is not wiretapping..
True enough.
I just know I've heard about this type of interpretation of state wiretapping laws in several states... so much that the common person on the street (even in canada) is under the impression that its' illegal to record a conversation without the permission of all parties.
It's rediculous.... and this court ruling is doubly rediculous. Wiretapping laws were to prevent eavsdropping on telephone conversations....not to prevent people from recording what they are legally hearing.
Wiretapping laws are supposed to safeguard privacy, you got that right.
But if I call you on the phone, you have no expectation of privacy with regards to me. You can expect that whatever you say into the phone, I will hear (and be able to record, etc).
It's only some states that have 'abused' the wording of their anti-wiretap statutes, interpreting recording your OWN phone calls as 'intercepting' the communications. (By classical definition, you cannot intercept something already destined for you)
No, I don't think it matters. There may be some other laws unrelated to wiretapping regarding this.. howver.
In the scenario you described, there is no 'sneakiness'. The person in question IS talking to you, and has no expectation of privacy with regards to you. Playing a videotape back is similar to verbally recounting a conversation, except it's more accurate. It's not any sort of invasion of privacy.
Now, if I leave the room, and some of those I'm meeting wiht start talking while I'm not present, even for a moment, then they DO have an expectation of privacy, and my videotaping them may be illegal.
As with spying; using a device to pick up a conversation (or picture) you cannot see without such an aid is illegal; using the same device to simply record or make easier some transaction is perfectly legal.
Especially the 'wiretapping' bs where tape recording your OWN phone call is considered 'wiretapping'.
Canada, lots of other places, you can record any conversation so long as at least one party involved knows about it. I believe the same goes for video. (You can't video tape people in a private place without their permission, but if you are one of the people involved...)
They also use facial recognition in the City of London, so could you demand that information also?
I wonder....
I don't know what planet you live on, but cops on planet Boston make more than teachers and sysadmins. I personally know a cop who, through a combination of highly-paid details and the automatic pay raise for having a Master's degree, makes $80k/year for a job that is almost entirely walking a beat. Cops with actual high rank almost certainly make much more; I recall a recent scandal over certain high-ranking cops being paid more than, say, the President.
Not to mention the squeeze, stolen evidence, and such that is available to unethical cops with very little risk of being caught; the fact that they can get away with murder, quite literally, if they plan it reasonably carefully; and so on.
A permanent separate police force is as much of a danger to democracy as a permanent separate military.
Heh. Did it occur to you that perhaps the guy with five years of experience has five years of experience rather than one year ten times? There's a good chance that places would rather blame "affirmative action" than tell you that they thought you were a loser, or too old, or whatever. FWIW, I've never been rejected from a job I tried to get (the interview with Microsoft doesn't count; that was a free vacation is Seattle and an entertaining philosophical discussion with moderately high management), and I'm a white male...
and for that matter, I don't know any white males who claim that affirmative action has dissed them, even though about half my friends are white males. The only common factor I can see is that we're all pretty smart, young, and good at our jobs.
I guess those laws allowed a senator from the state to get away with murder (or at least negligenct homicide)
Not until they find the body of Levy will it be a murder. If you wanna call a missing persons case a murder case you might as well stop sending out those little cards in the mail of kids that say "Have you seen me?" because they're already dead, right?
On a more ontopic note, I am a Massachusetts/Rhode Island resident. My home is in MA, my college is in RI (In my dreams I attend Brown, but go to the ghetto Johnson and Wales). In RI drivers aren't required to have insurrance or bullshit like that. It's horrifying to cross the street with those maniacs driving around the city. Now I'll be 19 within a few weeks, sometime before then I'll FINALLY be getting my drivers permit or license or something. I'll be interested to see how MA officers will act in light of this.
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Check out my blackbox styles
When he stated "I guess those laws allowed a senator for from the state to get away with murder" the first thing that clicked in my mind was the who Condit/Levy case since it's one of the top long running stories now. As for you, I never stated that the Levy case had anything to do with Massachusetts.
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Check out my blackbox styles
Like I said, I had CA in my mind since I misunderstood.
Geez you geeks are harsh today.
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Check out my blackbox styles
Tell the officer he's being recorded. You don't have to show him the recording device, nor do you actually have to have one. In fact, you can put a notice on the driver's side window that says something to the effect "Traffic stops may be monitored or recorded for quality assurance." or some BS like that. Then that whole "I didn't know I was being recorded bit" doesn't apply. Of course, if you actually SAY you're being recorded, then its on the recording as well, and they'll have a REALLY hard time dening that they knew about it.
The problem with is, is the fact that the whole REASON for recording police encounters is to have later evidence of police wrongdoing. If the police KNOW they're being recorded and they commit said act of wrongdoing, they will probably attempt to confiscate or destroy any recording devices. The way around this is to not HAVE any recording devices in the car. Use a cell phone to transmit the encounter and have a recorder on the other end.
In fact, if you're recording the conversation over the phone, you might not even have to disclose that fact. It HAS been proven in court that only one participant in a phone conversation has to know they're being recorded. I wonder....
-Restil
Play with my webcams and lights here
Affirmative action needs a sunset clause. 2010 would be a good time to put that behind us. It can only really be justified as the law trying to compensate for the mass amount of discrimination against minorities that occurs.
There are two problems here. The first is that AA simply covers up any discrimination, worst those best at discrimination can come out looking the best. The same way that corrupt cops can wind up looking "good".
The other problem is that as soon as you remove AA the qualifications of any previously favoured group become utterly valueless
Did you see this page.
Apparently they've never heard of the web. Very crafty; to avoid getting citizens all uppity about their opinions, they hide them behind some ancient BBS system that may or may not even still be around.
All citizens should have the right to secretly or non-secretly record any public official while they are discharging their duties in public.
This case just confirms the basic problem with Brin's concept (i.e. if you think that the people in power will in fact permit universal surveillance results to be available to Joe Sixpack, particularly in cases where it shows their own misconduct, I want to know what you're smoking and where you got it).
/.
/. If the government wants us to respect the law, it should set a better example.
I like to make note of the vehicle number and make a call to the police station. I have called in and reported officers speeding, driving without seatbelts and tailgating a motorcycle.
I don't know that the officers are ever reprimanded or anything, but at least it lets someone at the station know that they are being watched.
Ender
Nothing to see here
1. This situation applies to everyone. People have been pulled over/encounterd police regardless if they are nerds or not.
2. There are alot of these "the government is corrupt and there is very little in the way of justice" around. Why this one?
The surprise isn't how often we make bad choices; the surprise is how seldom they defeat us.
The comment about the Rodney King video was what's known as 'obiter' (I THINK I spelled the word right). -- It's, more or less, an aside to the larger argument. It doesn't have the effect of creating any sort of precedent, but coming from the chief justice of the state, I would be inclined to believe that she knew what she was talking about.
Even dissenting opinions have some real value in the legal world. They often describe the issues that the majority decision is either opening up or leaving unresolved. These issues often need to be addressed later -- whether by future decisions or future legislation.
(That having being said: If the person describing her comment as flat out wrong was Thurgood Marshall, then I'd say we had a real legal disagreement on our hands).
--
Sometimes boldness is in fashion. Sometimes only the brave will be bold.
> What's the purpose behind laws like that?
Most surveilance-type tapes are made without audio. Most consumer video devices have builtin microphones that are often difficult to disconnect (i.e. requiring [warranty-voiding] disassembly).
In other words it allows professional surveillance videos of public places, while making it hard for the public to do the same on an ad-hock basis.
Ain't public protection nice?
--
Sometimes boldness is in fashion. Sometimes only the brave will be bold.
As an example, most RCMP are fine people, but I had a run-in with a Sgt. Bruce Waite. Mr. Waite has a history of beating up prisoners -- especially natives. The RCMP has settled a number of times out of court after he was sued for beating up prisoners. (One, for example, had to be medivaced to hospital after the beating he recieved).
After one such lawsuit, they then gave him a Promotion and put him in charge of a detatchment... near yet another native reserve.
And you wonder why minorities sometimes hate police?
--
Sometimes boldness is in fashion. Sometimes only the brave will be bold.
No bullying victim ("nerd" or not) deserves to be bullied based on their behavior, any more than any rape victim deserves to be raped based on what they were wearing.
So are you trolling, or just a total and complete asshole?
Tom Swiss | the infamous tms | http://www.infamous.net/
Tom Swiss | the infamous tms | my blog
You cannot wash away blood with blood
David Yas, publisher of Massachusetts Lawyers Weekly, said the wiretapping law was established to protect citizens against government oppression.
"The preamble to the law said electronic devices are a danger to the privacy of all citizens. This case turns that notion on its head because here we had an individual trying to protect himself from a misdeed on the part of public officials and he's the one who ends up being arrested for it and prosecuted," Yas said.
--
So just because I received a speeding ticket, I now see cops blowing by me on the highway at 90 mph? Wrong.
The officer who gave me my ticket was right - I admit that much, which is why I paid it. I was in the wrong - and I don't hold it against him. But it doesn't excuse the cops I see speeding down the highway at far excessive speeds without lights or sirens. It doesn't excuse the cops who beat Rodney King, either.
Are there good cops? Sure. But they seem to be in short supply.
The police are paid by us, through taxes. They're there to serve us, the public. It should be reasonable for them to expect they *will* be recorded, while serving the public in a public place - even if it only serves as a check for those who abuse their power.
Remember Ted Kennedy's "Where Was George" speech?
Remember the T-Shirts the RNC made?
Heh. They said "Dry, Sober and Home With His Wife."
Woot!
- - - - -
Napster-to-go says "Fill and refill your compatible MP3 player", which is a lie. It's not MP3. It's WMA with DRM.
Of course, this cuts both ways: the police may or may not need to inform you of their recordings. In all states and Federally AFAIK, evesdropping without either party's consent is illegal.
...a Beowulf cluster of hidden cameras?
The part of the article that concerns me is where the Judge said the Rodney King video would have been prohibited in that state. Didn't that take place on a public road? You couldn't record the actions of police in a PUBLIC place?
Be interesting to see if police want to set up video cameras with face matching software in Boston in a few months....
Yeah, I keep seeing references to this esteemed legal theory, but it's obviously false. By this logic, I can go into a convenience store that's got video surveillance, shoot everyone dead, and leave. Because the video tape "can't be a witness". You're making a systematic confusion between the prosecution -- which is the government, just like always -- and the witnesses.
On the other matters: are you saying that if a cop showed up to hand-deliver your photo-ticket, that would make a difference?
I think you're subscribing to legal quackery here.
Too bad they couldn't reuse those in 2000, for some reason or other.
I was thinking something similar. If the issue is simply that of secrecy, tell them, "For quality control purposes, this encounter is being recorded."
I'm friends with four police officers in Massachusetts, three of which I see on a weekly basis. All of them are nice people, and none of them abuse their power.
You have absolutely no way of knowing that they don't abuse their power. Nice and friendly people are frequently guilty of horrendous crimes
That would explain it
I don't need to know them or you, all I need to know is that you're not present when they perform their job. That means that you simply can't know if what they do there.
That they are very nice and friendly too you doesn't mean that they will treat people they percieve to be scum legally. Neither does being married to a black woman, or even being black for that matter.
Things like planting evidence on or beating up people who they know are guilty of something, but don't have enough evidence for can easily be seen as a way of helping justice and doing a good thing for officers who percieve themselves as being very good upstanding people. They would most likely not discuss that with civilian friends. It's been known to be a routine tactic in many police departments.
Check out what friends and neighbours say about serial killers sometime. It's quite often that it's incomprehensible that such nice and friendly people could possibly be guilty of anything remotely so horrific. The bottom line is that you just don't ever know.
That they don't tell you about any criminal activity they engage in is no guarantee either. If the police themeselves operated by those standards, they would catch very few criminals.
This is what is called a strawman argument. Instead of responding to my actual argument, that he can't be sure his police friends are not criminals, tentacle pretends that I have claimed that his friends in fact are criminals, and responds to that instead.
This is usually done because people have no good response to the real argument and have to invent a stupider argument that they can respond to. It can possibly also be because of poor reading or comprehension skills. In either case, there is nothing for me to add.
This is deteriorating into nonsene. You ask me to prove my accusations. But I haven't made any accusations. You suddenly demand that courtroom rules should apply to this thread, seemingly unaware that this is not a courtroom.
The "innocent until proven guilty" principle only means that the legal system should treat people as innocents (i.e. not punish them) until convicted of a crime, not that they have not actually commited the crime. I'm sure you also know that when you're not trying to win an argument.
To get back to the actual issue, what I originally commented was this statement by you:
I'm friends with four police officers in Massachusetts, three of which I see on a weekly basis. All of them are nice people, and none of them abuse their power.
This clearly says that your friends do not break the law. What you're saying now is that they have not been convicted of breaking the law. A completely different statement. I suppose I could see the fact that you no longer defend your original statement as a quiet admission that you were wrong.
OK this is a out there...
m inalProcedure312_388/7police_interrogation_recordi ng_e.htm
But your honor I was helping the police officer
with HIS DUTY to record any interviews with suspects.
FROM: http://www.commonwealthpolice.com/Free_Stuff/Crim
In Commonwealth v. Diaz, 422 Mass. 269 (1996), the SJC stated that "[w]e decline at this time to adopt or prescribe a rule of general superintendence or of common law suppressing statements taken from a defendant in custody in a police station unless those statements have been electronically recorded. However, defense counsel is entitled to pursue the failure of the police to record a defendant's statements. Counsel may, for example, inquire of a testifying police officer, as happened here, whether he or she was aware of the availability of recorders to use during the questioning of suspects. Counsel may argue to a jury and to a judge as factfinder that the failure of the police to record electronically statements made in a place of custody should be considered in deciding the voluntariness of any statement, whether the defendant was properly advised of his rights, and whether any statement attributed to the defendant was made."
Thinge that make you go hmmm....
AdFuel
... the cop said I was weaving around in my lane. Well, the REASON I was weaving ... I was looking in the rear-view mirror, trying to figure out why a car had closed in on me going 120-150 mph, then slowed down to my speed and started shadowing me
Something similar happened to me. I was in the right-but-one lane just after bar closing, approaching my exit. Car pulled up into my right blind-spot and sat there - where I couldn't tell whether it had my bumper hooked or not.
Sped up, it sped up. Slowed down, it slowed down. (Is it a drunk or a cop.) Repeat, with more extreme changes, until I finally hit the brakes max from 65 down to about 45 and they couldn't slow abruptly enough. So THEN they lit up and pulled me over. Two in car, one came out...
"Do you know why we pulled you over?"
"Why, no, officer. Could you tell me, please?"
"You seemed to be having difficulty controlling your speed."
(No I didn't explode in her face...)
After I told her I thought she might have been a drunk and I was trying to get her out of my blind spot (and her partner had a good laugh) she gave me a bunch of drunk tests looked through the junk in my back seat (for "junk"?) and finally sent me on my way.
Bantam Dominique roosters crow a four-note song. Once you've heard it as "Happy BIRTHday" you can't NOT hear it that way
How many times has a cop car without its lights on blow by you doing 90MPH on the freeway? Have you ever seen one of these guys pulled over for speeding?
No, and you won't. Because sometimes it's proper and legal cop behavior.
When they are called to a crime in progress they are often ordered to approach dark and silent. This is to avoid alerting the perpetrator, which might lead to a hostage situation.
They are supposed to proceed lights-only (because sirens CARRY) until close enough that the perp or his lookout might see them, then go down to just running lights (to look like ordinary traffic) and perhaps go totally dark for final approach if it's safe.
If they're full-blast on the freeway without lights they're probably either on such a call or moving up on someone they observed doing something questionable or illegal and trying not to spook him into a chase (VERY dangerous to bystanders) until they're too close for him to think he has a chance to escape.
Bantam Dominique roosters crow a four-note song. Once you've heard it as "Happy BIRTHday" you can't NOT hear it that way
MA is interesting. I guess those laws allowed a senator from the state to get away with murder (or at least negligenct homicide), but prevent a common citizen from protecting himself from a authority figure abusing his/her power.
MA is indeed interesting. Once it was a major factor in the revolt against England and a hotbed of freedom-lovers - and the free press. But after the Potato Famine an influx of immigrants (not JUST from Ireland) turned its legal system upside-down, making it a hotbed of censorship. The ideological descandants of the revolutionaries headed west.
A significant fraction of them ended up in Oregon, which is now a hotbed of porn publishing. B-) Unfortunately, the east-coast transplanted-European-serf mindset followed in two stages - into California starting perhaps in the '60s, and is just now moving on Oregon, Washington, Arizona, and Nevada.
Perhaps the "hi tek crash" will slow it down - at least until the next economic half-cycle.
Bantam Dominique roosters crow a four-note song. Once you've heard it as "Happy BIRTHday" you can't NOT hear it that way
Cue the Antichrist, please ...
Gamingmuseum.com: Give your 3D accelerator a rest.
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This guy named Neil McGuyver is trying to prove you can live without a SSN. One problem he ran into is that the state of Pennsylvania won't give him a license without him producing an SSN. The fact that he doesn't have one doesn't seem to make a difference. So, he doesn't have a license. He carries a tape recorder in his car to record the ecnounter between himself and police if he gets pulled over. Well he got pulled over and he recorded the incident with the permission of the police. It still didn't do him any good. The officer changed his story on the stand and they took the word of the officer over the recording .. gotta love it.
http://www.cjmciver.org/free.shtml
----- I was not elected to watch my IP packets fragment and collide while you discuss this routing policy in a committe
http://www.cjmciver.org/free.shtml
----- I was not elected to watch my IP packets fragment and collide while you discuss this routing policy in a committe
Asimov probably said it more than once, but the quote is usually attributed to Arthur C. Clarke.
where I live, there are cameras in a bus interchange, and there are signs up saying that cameras may be monitoring you.
Those are probably posted to discourage crime (i.e., mugging) at those location(s).
I thought you said "Police Misconduct is Illegal".
Whew...
No need to speak. Just shrinkwrap your driver's licenst in an EULA that states that you are recording this encounter for quality control purposes and that the police officer recognizes this fact by removing the license from the shrinkwrap.
Problem with this is. The cop will have you break the shrink rap, as they woun't accept a licence in anything but it's orginal condition.
Ever been stopped and hand the cop your license and registration in one of those handy carrying cases?
Cop: Please remove the license and Registraiton from the container.
Runestar
I don't quite understand how this is really news for nerds...
isn't there some sort of law that you must be informed of it though, like where I live, there are cameras in a bus interchange, and there are signs up saying that cameras may be monitoring you.
hehe people, this was just meant as a semi-troll first post, but I missed it by one. It is in the spirit of slashdot to voice opinions that are of this nature. The views portrayed in the previous article were definitely not ones that I actually hold to be my own.
Police-related... My friend (nickname: Elephant) told me this a few days ago in e-mail.
"I just saw a license plate frame on a cop car that read: 'CHEER UP. I'M NOT BEHIND YOU!'"
Ant(Dude) @ Quality Foraged Links (AQFL.net) & The Ant Farm (antfarm.ma.cx / antfarm.home.dhs.org).
Recording police *conduct with their knowledge may not be illegal, but it certainly pisses them off. Probably enough that they will "ask" you to give them the device. At least that's what happened to a friend of mine who had a super-8 camera with him when the cops found him investigating/trespassing in a university building. He had the camera not-quite hidden and was a bit excited to be getting the audio of the conversation. When the cops saw the camera, they demanded it, and he didn't get it back for months, never getting back the tape itself.
Wrong! It is Mass. residents that don't have those rights. Here in Arizona we can shoot burglars and record what we need to.
The only good weather is bad weather.
Lots of employees (esp. bank employees) but especially some gov't employees (i.e. those who work in the money mints) work under the knowledge that they are being recorded, for good reason.
I think police officers should also work under the knowledge or assumption that they are being recorded. If a cop is going to say "well, I have a right to be aware that I'm being recorded, so I don't get caught harassing and abusing people" then I guess that's ok - but I don't think it should be each citizen's responsibility to remind the pig that he's being recorded. It should go with the job. Just as a cop is aware that he may be shot at by a crazed motorist (which is why they follow certain safety procedures), the cop should be aware that he may be recorded, which is why he should follow certain CIVILITY procedures.
Being a public employee should essentially mean you must ALWAYS assume that you are being recorded, WHILE ON DUTY. Of course, when you're off duty, you're not under that assumption.
It's not that cops are in a different category, it's that they do not have a right to privacy while on duty, and they should assume they're being recorded (and maybe they should stop acting like assholes so much of the time).
-- "Those who cast the votes decide nothing. Those who count the votes decide everything." -Joseph Stalin
I guess those laws allowed a senator from the state to get away with murder (or at least negligenct homicide)
Not until they find the body of Levy will it be a murder. If you wanna call a missing persons case a murder case you might as well stop sending out those little cards in the mail of kids that say "Have you seen me?" because they're already dead, right?
For a MA resident, you seem to be lost on past events. And current events for that matter.
The original poster said Senator, not Representative. He was referring to the Honorable Swimmer from your home state.
You also get a low grade for current events as MA has nothing to do with the Levy case. Condit is from CA.
> If he told the cop "I'm recording this incident" then the
> cop would have specific knowledge and could base his
> further actions on
Well, in my case he would be smashing the decoy recorder on the dash board. Meanwhile another hidden recorder would record both the fact that he was properly informed and his act of destroying private property.
Fortunately for me, all this is unnecessary: I'm not a member of a visiable minority and I don't have an attitude problem so everything is pretty well "by the book".
@
@
-Andy
-Andy
Next time a cop pulls you over, whip out a tape recorder and politely tell them that you are making a record of everything.
I'm kinda curious if they would ask you to stop or not. In any event, it seems like a great idea because if there is one thing I have learned is that cops love to twist your words around. I once told a cop my license plate was in my trunk because my front mounting bracket was broken and when the cop recounted my statement it had somehow become that i refused to mount a front license plate to avoid photorader. Jerk.
-- I wonder which will go down in history as the bigger failure: the War on Drugs or the War on Filesharing
Well, technically the second amendment is another good check on corrupt cops, but they've eliminated that in Massachusetts too.
In Minnesota that's obstructing your view. Unless it's really small and on the windshield, you could get a ticket.
I've never seen anyone get a ticket for that.
sopwath
Make sure its powered by a gerbil in an excercise wheel. Don't want technicalities like electric motors ruining the deal.
Someone set us up the bomb, so shine we are!
Seriously.. I've been pulled over a few times, I don't know if they were taping or not, but if they were, I did NOT know about it.. And if you watch these police videos on TV, the drunk people that get pulled over also don't know they're being taped, so how could that be evidence?
--
Free Mac Mini
Um, you expect the U.S. Supreme Court to overturn this? The same Supreme Court that showed its utter contempt for the American people by overturning the results of the 2000 Presidential election? The S.C. is just as much a political animal as Congress or the White House these days, I'm afraid, perhaps more so. Best bet is for the Mass. legislature to rewrite the law, because buddy, the right-wing S.C. doesn't give a good goddamn about individual rights -- especially, although not exclusively, where encounters with law enforcement are concerned.
The correlation between ignorance of statistics and using "correlation is not causation" as an argument is close to 1.
"According to the count, George W Bush won the vote in florida,"
..." The Florida Supreme Court tried to order a fair and accurate vote count; the U.S. S.C. prevented it. It was quite possibly the worst S.C. decision since Dred Scott.
Change one letter in one word of that sentence, and you'd be correct: "According to the court
The correlation between ignorance of statistics and using "correlation is not causation" as an argument is close to 1.
It seemed to me that the reason police cars are equipped with cameras
is to protect them against charges of police brutality. Couldn't the
public's recording of police actions be taken as additional critcism and
distrust, i.e., the police already know there's a cloud of suspicion hanging over them.
To-do List: Receive telemarketing call during a tornado warning. Check.
I was referring to the now elder and still often drunk Senator Kennedy. The girl killed was named Mary Jo Kopechne and her body was most defin. found.
"Science is about ego as much as it is about discovery and truth"
"Science is about ego as much as it is about discovery and truth " - I said it, so sue me.
The lights flash, and a siren wails. "Damn cops, they are on to me." As I pull over I flip the face plate down so they can't see I have cajun in the car and quickly hit the hidden record button
"Do you know why I pulled you over boy?"
"No SIR!"
"You have a picture of a penguin on your car, you know the Linux operating system is illegal don't you??"
"Yes Sir I only run Microsoft product as per the constitutional amendment of 2015, Sir"
"You wouldn't be an illegal coder would you? I see the case of Jolt cola there, and I think I see an O'Reilly book on your back seat, thats damn near probable cause to search your car!"
"But sir, I'm just a lowly cleaner, see all the cleaning supplies. I found this stuff in an storage unit I was cleaning out".
I showed him my pay stub for the idiots I work for. I knew going through those old storage lockers would net me someting eventually. The cop bought it. Berated me for the penguin sign, said even though it wasn't illegal he'd take it off the car. I promised I would. Cop said owning a O'reilley book was illegal even though I knew it wasn't. I tried to argue but got a quick slap in the face. Ended up giving him the book, don't want him opening the trunk. We parted amicably, my cheek still stinging. Wow what a bitch slap that was. He probably dresses in drag on the weekends.
I'll use my new face recgonition software and cross my video with the video feed we have at dumbkin dognuts. Have to keep an eye on this one, he must of spotted that penguin sticker from 200 meters or more.
Over the top can't happen? Well at one time I would have thought that you could always record what a public official does in public. MA is interesting. I guess those laws allowed a senator from the state to get away with murder (or at least negligenct homicide), but prevent a common citizen from protecting himself from a authority figure abusing his/her power.
"Science is about ego as much as it is about discovery and truth"
"Science is about ego as much as it is about discovery and truth " - I said it, so sue me.
Yeah, I got pulled over once at around 3 am, because the cop said I was weaving around in my lane. Well, the REASON I was weaving around in my lane was because I was looking in the rear-view mirror, trying to figure out why a car had closed in on me going 120-150 mph, then slowed down to my speed and started shadowing me. Christ, I thought the guy was some kind of psychopathic freeway killer, it scared the shit out of me.
The only "intuitive" interface is the nipple. After that, it's all learned.
"The question of whether a computer can think is no more interesting than that of whether a submarine can swim" -EWD
don't let your initial reaction overwhelm you. there is another very real side to this debate. i like my privacy. alot. just because this means police officers have that same right doesn't mean it's wrong or should be revoked. maybe the specific situation should be considered to not have an expectation of privacy, but we should not let ourselves become enraged simply because the one party was an officer, or a jerk. the privacy law is good, and lacking in most states. it protects everyone equally, and that's sorta the sucky part about these rights we give ourselves, they protect everyone the same. until we can prove they are doing something wrong, we must respect their right to privacy.
Yet another example of a typical Slashdot You-Deserve-It response.
The extent of your stupidity is frightening.
Firstly, I can hide in the bushes on a sidewalk and secretly record passers-by. If someone is standing on their balcony having sex, I can videotape that as well (so long as it's in plain view).
In the United States, you have the right to privacy where you might reasonably expect it. This includes your home, the trunk of your car, etc. It does not, however, describe a bubble that travels around with you protecting you wherever you go.
The fact that the person being recorded in this instance was a public official only furthers the point. Courts have held time and time again that those who have by their own will become famous have less rights to privacy than normal citizens do. This is because there reasonable expectation of privacy goes down as their fame increases. The premise is basically the same in this case: The police officer cannot, while being paid by taxpayers, expect any form of privacy.
I'd like to find the hookups the Mass. Supreme Court has, because they're smoking some good fucking crack. I hope very much this is appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court where it will no doubt be overturned.
signature smigmature
- James
The application of a wiretapping law to such things is ridiculous. Wiretapping legistlation is to protect people who have no possibility to be aware that they would be viewed or recorded, such as people who are in the privacy of their homes or offices. If I call up a cop and talk to him and record what he says, then I am guilty of illegal wiretapping.
The same would apply if I had gone to a cop's house of office and performed the same activity. Again, they have a reasonable expectation of privacy, and thus should not be expected to be observed or recorded.
Even undercover police, operating undercover, could have the same legislation used with a little stretching, as it is in the spirit of the law.
However, if a police office pulls over another car, they are making an obvious presence, alerting everyone in the area to their activity. In any situation where you make a decided and obvious presence of yourself, you are now acting in a public capacity. It is no different than a public offical giving a speech or a military convoy rolling into my town. Those are obvious actions, and in the case for someone being harrassed without reason, it can be an embarrassing situation.
Simply put, if the cops can pull me over in full view of everyone else, and they're testimony in court can decided immediately (often without other evidence) that I'm guily of obstructing justice or harrassing an office of the peace, then why can't I as a citizen, record my encounter with the police in that situation, whether they know it or not?
Are we going to start arresting every person who records police raids that happen across their street because they didn't alert the police to the event?
The power of accurate observation is commonly called cynicism by those who have not got it. - G.B. Shaw
It is about time we (the people) started saying that.
That said, IMO, This guy was pretty foolish, taking the tape to the police. On TV, "IA" (Internal Affairs) may look like they're out to get the beat cops for any little thing, but in reality the Blue Wall still thrives, and unless you have a good lawyer they will F**K you. Next time, take it to the PRESS! It may not be "just" but the spotlight of public attention might be the only way to force the police to respond appropriately.
Freedom: "I won't!"
And you'll be pulled over frequently by some of the most courteous officers you've ever met. Some of the violations you'd be cited for you've probably never even heard of...
Here's a site that addresses hidden video, in addition to hidden audio in all 50 states:
s ta tes.html
http://www.rtnda.org/resources/hiddencamera/all
their attitude changes the second you tell them you're carrying a gun LEGALY.(and unless your an idiot and want to die you can NOT tell them right away that your LEGALY pack'n)
Am I alone, or did this paragraph make absolutely no sense to anyone?
Slashdot is jumping the shark. I'm just driving the boat.
Exactly! This is the same reason I can rig my rental property with hidden cameras, lease it to your mama, and sell a live video feed of her on my website all without her consent or knowledge. And it's perfectly legal! Ain't America great?
Check it out! It's enema night at your mom's house.
Next week: Grandma's monthly breast self exam!
FREE MEMBERSHIPS!r Homes.com
http://LegalLiveVideoOfUnsuspectingCitizensInThei
COMING SOON!
New feeds in homes I don't own, after all only the breaking and entering is illegal. If you don't get caught doing that then there's nothing they can do about it.
Disclaimer: I don't really do this so don't flame please.
Michael J.
Michael J.
Root, God, what is difference?
The police are here to server us. They are agents of the people. The Massachusetts Supreme Court has made them agents of power and eliminated the one check-and-balance we had available to us for protection from abuse of power.
No way that they would. They do that and they are admitting discrimination. It is illegal to discriminate based on race/sex.
Fight Spammers!
That, or get a CD copy of the cop's video tape ("My arrest, 7/14/2001").
With the part that incriminates the cop conveniently edited out, of course.
---
I pledge allegiance to the flag...
of the Corporate States of America...
the cop's aren't recording you secretly. That's the difference.
Not exactly. The problem is that not everybody knows of this police surveillance. Therefore, the (relatively few) people that don't know about it ARE being recorded secretly. It's like the Miranda case -- most people knew what their rights were when they were arrested, so it was assumed that everybody knew. But in this case, he didn't, and so he took it to court. Guess what? He won.
---
I pledge allegiance to the flag...
of the Corporate States of America...
It's not that people who are cops don't have the same constitutional rights that the rest of us do. But while they are performing their public duties, they should temporarily surrender some of those rights. I don't think this is an unreasonable expectation.
For example, as a private citizen, if I want to wear a large button that says, "WHITE POWER," I should be allowed to do so. However, while acting as a police officer in uniform, I should not be allowed to wear it. I must give up some of my freedom of speech in order to execute my duties in a fair and impartial manner. I ought also give up some of my right to privacy while serving the public, don't you think?
There are two kinds of people: 1) those who start arrays with one and 1) those who start them with zero.
Well, not exactly. The Supreme Court ruled in KATZ v. UNITED STATES, 389 U.S. 347 (1967) that your general right to privacy is not protected by the US Constitution, but that it is protected by the individual States. (In fact, they said the same thing about your right to life!) So, you may have a "right" to privacy, but (in the US) it is up to your State government to enforce it (or not.)
Subsequently, in SMITH v. MARYLAND, 442 U.S. 735 (1979), one of the litmus tests for whether a person is entitled to 4th Amendment protection of a reasonable expectation of privacy evolved out of the KATZ decision, namely, whether or not a person "seeks to preserve" something as private. In other words, if you do not take steps to make your conduct private, you shouldn't have an expectation of it being so. I think one could argue that a police officer, by the very public nature of his profession, can be said to have waived an expectation of privacy and is proactively *not* seeking to preserve his privacy.
The problem that I see from a Supreme Court point of view is that the Court could very well rule that, true, the officer is not protected by a Constitutional expectation of privacy, but as per KATZ, the SJC of Massachusetts is within its rights to interpret its State's laws to extend an officer's privacy to on-the-job protection. This case may only be winnable by Hyde if the US Supreme Ct. determines his right to freedom of speech is more basic than the officer's right to privacy through his state's laws or his right to reasonably expect privacy under the Constitution.
Of course, IANAL so YMMV.
There are two kinds of people: 1) those who start arrays with one and 1) those who start them with zero.
"Aren't almost all police cars these days equipped with video cameras that record everything occuring in front of the car?"
Yeah, it's been a real hassle for the police people. Now they have to drag the innocent victim to the back of the car before they deliver a savage beating.
Then ask them this: If you saw a fellow officer abuse someone, would you report it? If they're truthful, they'll say no. Cops who turn in other cops are labeled rats and punks and shunned within the force. Their commanders nitpick their work and use any excuse to fire them. As a result, few cops will report abuse by another cop, which lets the abusive ones get away with it, the result being the public attitude you're complaining about.
Nope. Here in San Diego, the judges wouldn't issue subpoenas for the camera specifications, installation details, and technical data. Lockheed Martin, installer/operator of our red light cameras, has even threatened a lawsuit against some lawyers if they persisted in their efforts to subpoena the technical details of these cameras. It's only been through the persistence and effort of a couple of dedicated attorneys that details of the red light camera scam have finally begun to appear. Lockheed Martin deliberately misplaced the sensors, resulting in thousands of unjustified tickets. They also handpicked intersections with short yellow lights (as opposed to intersections that had the worst problems) to maximize revenues. Because of these abuses, the cameras are shut down. For now. The city is doing everything in its power to get them back up because it makes millions every year from these tickets. What's really funny is before the shutdown, it was discovered that peace officers weren't being issued red light tickets like normal folks. This embarrassed the city, which began issuing tickets to them. Their union then started screaming, and saying the red light tickets are illegal under California law! It's priceless.
You do not have any RIGHTS to privacy under the law, only a reasonable expectation of it.
Conformity is the jailer of freedom and enemy of growth. -JFK
I'm not the person you're responding to, so I can't answer your question, but I wanted to respond to something you wrote:
You don't leave your loved ones while a kevlar vest is waiting in your car. You don't leave your loved ones knowing someone is out there who wants to kill you only because of your job. You don't leave your loved ones knowing that in all likelihood, you will have to make a critical decision between your life and someone else's at some point.
Unless you have served in the military or work as a firefighter, you have no basis to compare your job to that of a police officer.
That's because my employer doesn't issue a vest to me. Thus, I stand a better chance of dying of a gunshot wound than a cop does. Granted, my chances of being shot to/from/at work are less, but then so are my odds of surviving a gunshot.
As for people wanting to kill you for what you do, you left a few careers out: abortion providers (doctors, nurses, receptionists) come to mind*. Unlike cops, the people who want to kill them over how they earn a living post their addresses, phone numbers, and movements on the internet for every bible-thumping lunatic with a hunting rifle or pipebomb to see. I have yet to see a web site offering similar details on cops in my area. Add international relief workers and reporters to the list, too.
As for dangerous jobs, taxi drivers take enormous risks. In some towns, they're required to go into areas they think unsafe at night. Same for delivery people. Sure, there's not so much nobility in getting a pizza to your door within 30 minutes of your order, but the delivery boy has no idea who or what is behind the door every time they make a run. Ever pulled an all-nighter alone at a convenience store w/o a weapon?
Some people want to kill people just because they work for the federal government in a non-military capacity. Plenty of jobs that have nothing to do with being feted by John Walsh or charging into burning buildings or carrying a backpack and an assault rifle involve a hell of a lot of risk, sometimes for the most mundane of reasons and sometimes for much less pay. As for making life-and-death decisions, you have to be ready to do that every time you drive a car. You may not be the cop that chases a stolen car, but you may be the innocent who is killed by the fleeing criminal (or pursuing peace officer--accidents happen.) I acknowledge that cops take more risks than people in many other professions. What I think is missing here is an acknowledgement that they are better equipped, better trained, and backed up by others so much more than people in some of the jobs I've mentioned. Moreover, military service is voluntary, as is being a peace officer. Eating is compulsory--you have to do something to live. The only difference with police service I see here is that cops have the power of the State behind them, and are armed by the State, as are soldiers.
Peace Corps members are volunteers too, but somehow being part of an armored, armed, trained team seems more heroic than going into a malaria-infected backwater where you don't speak the language to help set up sanitation facilities so babies don't die of waterborne infections.
--
Freeper Logic
What if the police officer turned off his/her secret camera, could you then record him/her beating you to a bloody pulp?
In some cases, the courts place a cop in a better category than average citizens, as well. For example, if I were to engage in the same activities as a police officer (stopping random people on the road, handcuffing them with threat of physical force as a backup, and then transporting them to a detainment facility), I'd be put in jail for a long, long, long time.
Cops are given additional powers with which to execute their jobs. As such, I don't think it's unreasonable for those powers to be balanced by public scrutiny, especially given the potential for abuse.
I have no objection to a cop being treated, while doing his job, exactly the same as I would while doing mine. However, in exchange, he should give up his ability to arrest people, use his lights and siren, and so forth.
> Can't subpoena the camera and have it testify.
Sure you can. You can have it dismantled/examined by an independent party, and have them confirm that it is working as described. You can take the testimony of the people that set up the system, and acquired/retrieved the film/data.
Evidence is evidence. If you commit a crime while someone's not watching and we've got evidence, your ass is still going to jail.
If you know of a place that's got rules saying otherwise, then something's wrong.
Wow, that's amazing.
The fact that this supprises me so, in spite of my clear awareness of how imperfect humans and human organizations can be, tells me that even I need to be continually reminded of our capability for corruption.
Thanks for giving me the booster shot.
Hmmm... You'd probably have to be crazier than I to try it, but what do you think would happen if you called your voice mail from a portable and announced "Good evening, Officer. This conversation is being transmitted, and recorded at a remote location."
Sure, they could still refuse you permission, or even smash your phone to bits and you afterwards, but that long silence at the end of the tape is going raise some real interesting questions in the mind of any judge or jury that hears it.
Like I said, it's probably not worth the risk, unless maybe you're a member of a group at high risk for police abuse. Nevertheless, I think I'll go max out the disconnect time on my voice mail at work. Just in case I ever want it.
The general consensus seems to be that cops get paid very poorly, and this is entirely untrue. Like most jobs, cops START around $35-40K. I have a friend who is in the Philadelphia Police academy now, and he showed me a run-down of police salaries. Within 3-5 years and even a single promotion, he expects to be making $60-$80K/Year, not to mention retire by 50 with an insanely massive pension (66% of final salary)...
I alternate between posting +5 and -1 Comments. Karma: +53 -47 = 6
Oh man, is that ever one of my pet peeves! I have no problems with law enforcement speeding to a location where they are needed. But please turn your lights on so we can get out of your way!
It shows an utter lack of respect for the job and society, I think. It really burns me when I see a cop (not one in a hurry) breaking the most basic traffic laws.
Seriously, cops get paid low enough that you have to want to be a civil servant to take the job. It's repetative, dangerous, and leaves you wide open to any person who has the money to sue you and/or your department. On top of that, most of these folks aren't philosophers, thinking deeply about the role of government and the enforcement of possibly unjust laws. These guys mostly operate on the level of good and evil (sing along - "bad boys, bad boys, what ya gonna do, what ya gonna do when they come for you?"), and if they thought on a more abstract level, they would quit their jobs rather than face the daily ambiguity.
I think the cops deserve a little more respect, and the lawmakers should respect them by passing enforceable laws that don't make criminals out of most people.
That being said, I think that folks should be able to passively film their own interactions with the police - maybe set the camera up (like the cops do with the windsheild-mounted camera), or have a passenger film the encounter. That, or get a CD copy of the cop's video tape ("My arrest, 7/14/2001").
Well, they have it backwards then.
At least making secret videotaping illegal would put those popup-loving bastards at X10.com out of business...
Kill, Tux, kill!
You do the math...
"Win treats sysadmins better than users. Mac treats users better than sysadmins. Linux treats everyone like sysadmins."
In my state, we both have to know. Not a problem. You'd be surprised what happens when you mention this to a customer service rep - never mind a cop.
"Win treats sysadmins better than users. Mac treats users better than sysadmins. Linux treats everyone like sysadmins."
Perl police
Camera
Broken Hearts are for Assholes. - Frank Zappa
Wouldn't a "wreckless" driving ticket the kind they only give to safe drivers?
SECRETLY recording police misconduct is illegal. Read it, ok?
Tastes Like Chicken
The Globe's coverage is actually pretty good, as I would expect from them. However, the opinion itself is here.
Note that the opinion is still subject to appeal to the Supreme Court of the United States, on constitutional grounds only. I can see some pretty major First Amendment problems with it.
my old sig used to be funny, but then slashcode ate it and now it's not funny anymore
How did you manage to know that you would get user #444444? Did you just happen to get one close to that and keep madly re-registering or something? :)
no shite - any nation where you have to pay over 40% of your income to the gov is socialist in my book.
The irony of it is that they're allowed to record us without our knowledge. Like the superbowl face matching they did this year, and the recording of crowds in NY.
The cops love surveillance, as long as they're the only ones doing it.
I can find email addresses to the webmaster and certain clerks, but nothing that I'm confident the justices would read.
Wise man say, choose your enemies carefully, for you will become like them...
In Montreal, a kid who crossing the street to grab a bus was run over by a cop who was speeding through the intersection. It was bad enough that the kid had the walk signal in his favour, but the worst part was that this happened about a block away from an institute for the blind, and the cop didn't have his sirens on.
--------
Bleah! Heh heh heh... BLEAH BLEAH!!! Ha ha ha ha...
Course, I think MN permits you to record if you are part of the conversation, so this is not an issue here (yet). Wonder if that would be enought to cover you in Massachusetts?
+++ UGUCAUCGUAUUUCU
I would just like to say you are totally right.
In fact, the article states that your point is exactly the defense Hyde tried to use. The 'people should have no expectation of privacy in public' defense, and he lost with it.
Look for a showing of this case in your nearest US Supreme Court.
I Browse at +4 Flamebait
Open Source Sysadmin
This is Slashdot: News for Nerds, Stuff that Matters.
Not RMSdot: Linux for Everyone, Microsoft Sucks.
...no matter how much it looks like it at times. =P
-Kasreyn
Kasreyn: Cheerfully playing the part of Devil's Advocate to hairtrigger
http://www.rcfp.org/taping
Also has links to the relevant state codes concerning this.
What's the last sporting event you attended?
--Jimmy has fancy plans; and pants to match.
Awwwww, shaddap.
I love you too, AC.
Tell the Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts what you think.
US residents that don't work in law enforcement are now 2nd class citizens. Whether FBI, IRS, local police, or other, the 'commoners' are prohibited from criticizing you, identifying you to the public, or recording your actions in the same public areas that you record theirs.
Why are audio recordings illegal?
Were there too many cases of someone saying, "Hey, repeat after me, 'I killed that guy!'" and some bozo repeated that?
I am for the complete Trantorization of Earth.
chief wiggum: "is that you fat tony?"
fat tony: "hey wheres that voice coming from?!"
If he told the cop "I'm recording this incident" then the cop would have specific knowledge and could base his further actions on that knowledge.
It is weird that this point should even be made. After all, isn't a police officer supposed to act well enough so it wouldn't make a difference whether his actions are being recorded or not? You make it sound (with a point tho) as if a police officer who knows his actions are not being observed (save by his victim, but that doesnt matter much...), acts in an illegimite fashion...
The federal laws regarding wiretapping involve recording conversations when neither party has given consent to being recorded. If you record a conversation you are having with another party, you have consented to record your conversation and you are not violating the federal wiretapping laws. Local jurisdictions occasionally expand on what constitutes wiretapping, such as the Massachussetts law being discussed here.
I used to work for a large national chain of retail electronics stores where we sold devices for recording phone conversations. In the state where I live, there are no supplemental laws. Thus, anyone buying a phone recording device to record his/her own conversations was perfectly within their rights. However, anyone who wanted to record a spouse's or child's conversations without their knowledge was plotting to violate federal wiretapping laws and we were forbidden from selling them the equipment for such purposes.
So the moral of the story is: If you're looking to break federal wiretapping laws, don't tell the kid behind the counter at Circuit Hut before he sells you the necessary gear.
Oh yes the ARE recording secretly. He was taping you from the minute the guy pulled over, and his first words to the suspect were NOT "To ensure your satisfaction, this traffic-stop will be monitored". Patrol cars never seem to have prominent signs warning of video cameras inside.
The legal reason for that is that the wiretapping statute only applies to audio recordings, not video, so the police and the department stores can take all the pictures of you they want.
That's the theory anyhow.
Yes, I think we should appreciate the risks that policemen are taking.
On top of that, most of these folks aren't philosophers, thinking deeply about the role of government and the enforcement of possibly unjust laws.
Unfortunately, the police does influence policy strongly: they ask for more investigative powers, harsher sentences, criminalization of more conduct, and they often get it because it works for politicians and appeals to a vindictive and irrational public. What gets lost in this is a rational policy towards crime: better education, a better social safety net, better rehabilitation, etc. The net effect is that the US is an incredibly violent place, with high crime rates, a harsh and uncertain legal system, and internationally recognized human rights violations.
The people on the ground, the policemen, prison guards, and low level legal staff, are not to blame. Ultimately, its the public, which likes simple answers, and politicians, which are all too eager to supply them. And the net result is that we in the US are much more at risk than we would need to be, both from crime and from government misconduct .
It's true that in Minnesota a sticker on your WINDSHIELD or Driverside front-most window is illegal (visual obstruction), it's also illegal in Minnesota to have any object hanging from your rear view mirror, or mounted to your dashboard (I saw a State trooper confiscate a radar detector yesterday because of the "obstruction" law); but, on any of the rear windows, or passenger side front window, such a sticker can be posted LEGALLY. Also, Minnesota is a single-party consent state (meaning only one party needs to be aware of a recording device, hence there's no need for the obnoxious sticker). I monitor (with audio equipment) everything that is said inside my car, and -with video and audio- everything that occcurs inside my apartment. These tapes have come in handy; most recently dealing with a case between myself, a state inspector, and the property management.
I thought you could record anything you wanted in a public place?
I would assume if your pulled over you would be pulled over in a public place?
http://Lenny.com
4 great justice!
The power of a State is derived from the consent of the Governed not vice versa.
It is the *duty* of theState to demonstrate to the satisfaction of the people why it shall not grant liberties that are granted in other states or Countries.(?)art.4 Const. Thus we see that the state has not Constitutional rights before the Court, because by the nature of the State it acts against the desire of the people albiet for the sake of an alleged greater good. Therefor the court acting for the right of a state employee is in error. The employee is a public figuire with no right of privacy.
SPQR
I don't think that a person in this situation would be likely to get much sympathy from the police department. (And I'll bet the tape was confiscated, too.) Taking it to the cops was naive - what he should have done was posted it on the web and advertised the location with bumper stickers or flyers.
I suppose the answer to the age old question, "Who guards the guardians?" is "no one" in Massachusettes. Suggestion - bumper stickers that say "This car is under electronic surveillance" - even people who don't have recorders in their car should put them on. That way, the police have been informed. The right to record what the police are doing is a right that must be fought for.
After all, if they have nothing to hide, they shouldn't object to being recorded, right?
Legal guns and, of course, the capslock key.
I want to get drunk with Hoagy Carmichael and
I survived the Dick Cheney Presidency 7 to 9 AM 7-21-07
Doesn't right to privacy only refer to right to privacy from govt, not private citizens? Its been a few years since my college days, but I coulda sworn that these rights only apply in regards to govt people. Thats why private security guards don't necessarily need to heed them.
Cops break the law and have the last word on anything (if you got no witnesses of the incident).
Actually if there is no witness, there is no case, period. The 6th ammendment of the US constitution gives you a right to face your witnesses against you. Thats why photo-radar, red-light cameras, etc are a joke. No witnesses. Can't subpoena the camera and have it testify. So case gets thrown out.
Evidence is evidence, not a witness. 6th ammendment gives you a right to face the witness to the prosecution against you. Commiting a crime, and leaving evidence is different. A police officer will show up at your door, and tell you. That is facing your witness to prosecution. Receiving a ticket in the mail is not. That is after the fact. The former is before the fact. Doesn't matter if you you get "expert witness" to testify that the photo-radar is working correctly. Especially considering photo-radar does not have judicial notice. So you have to prove how it works, etc etc. This must be done on behalf of the prosecution. Who's your prosecution in this case? The photo-radar machine? Besides, if you look at the statutes, you'll see the driver is the one responsible, not the registered owner. Photo will not prove who the driver is. Even if the driver "looks" like you it doesn't matter. They have to prove it is you.
It does make a difference. I forget the terminology, but the method in which the thing is delivered is important. US Mail is most definately not one of them.
On another topic, there is a huge difference in the scenario you describe. Video is a lot more descriptive, then a simple photo. Also, if you shoot everyone dead and only have video evidence, you are forgetting the bodies that are there. They will reinforce the fact. Photo-radar does not do the same. It shows your car in the intersection, when the signal was supposedly red. The machine is supposed to function that way, but you can't prove 100% that it functioned correctly after the fact with no other corraborating evidence. Same when a cop gives you a ticket for running a red light, if he was not behind you, he can't prove that your signal was red. Even if he saw a green on his side. We studied such a case before. Getting back to the 7-11 scenario you described. If you go into a 7-11 and shoot everyone dead, and there is video footage, if there are no bodies after the fact, you will go free(eventually anyways). We studied a case like this before too... With no bodies, you cannot prove homicide, because there is always doubt. Manslaughter maybe, murder no.... We studied a case where they had the suspect, but no body. The suspect led the police to the bodies, but because the suspect was "illegally" interrogated without being read his miranda rights, fruit of the poisonous tree would not admit the body into evidence, and the murder charge could not be had, becuase with no body there was no murder. Even though there really was a body. Thats the kind of BS the law system has. If you don't believe me, you can look up the case. I can't remember the case number, but it was in Wisconsin. If you really want the exact case number, I suppose I can dig up my old law books.
the cop's aren't recording you secretly. That's the difference.
Incidentally, it's always amusing when dealing with "difficult" telephone conversations to state that the call is being recorded. Reactions range from dropping the line, to extreme professionalism.
If so, is it time to break out all the wax cylinder recorders that would slip under the Iron Curtain of Massacussets law?
What other technologies are available? Were there any non-electronic disk-recording dictaphones?
A minor point here, but I think in some jurisdictions it is legal to secretly videotape someone as long as there is no sound recorded. If sound is recorded, it is considered wiretapping.
Why the difference? I don't know.
Don't fool around and try to handle things on your own, or the cops will hang you out to dry.