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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?
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.
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As that unbiquitous popup ad asks.
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...)
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....
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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.
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
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?
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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.
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.
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- James
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.
http://www.rcfp.org/taping
Also has links to the relevant state codes concerning this.
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.
The issue isn't whether you or I put the cops in a different category. The big problem is that many cops see fit to place themselves in a different category. In the real world full of like-minded cops, they have little to fear.
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?
Don't fool around and try to handle things on your own, or the cops will hang you out to dry.