Slashdot Mirror
NH Man Arrested for Videotaping Police
macinrack writes to mention a story about a New Hampshire man who was arrested for videotaping police on his doorstep, using a fairly standard security camera system. He was officially charged with 'two felony counts of violating state eavesdropping and wiretap law by using an electronic device.' From the article: "The security cameras record sound and audio directly to a videocassette recorder inside the house, and the Gannons posted warnings about the system, Janet Gannon said. On Tuesday night, Michael Gannon brought a videocassette to the police department, and asked to speak with someone in 'public relations,' his wife said and police reported. Gannon wanted to lodge a complaint against Karlis, who had come to the family's house while investigating their sons, Janet Gannon said. She said Karlis showed up late at night, was rude, and refused to leave when they asked him."
And they wonder why people don't respect the police...
So we have a story of a rogue police department intimidating anyone who gets in their way, and of course someone submits it to Slashdot hoping to get everyone worked up about our rights online being trampled? What's next, blaming it all on Bush? Have some perspective, please.
By the way, isn't New Hampshire supposed to be the state all the Libertarians are moving to, and wasn't it chosen because it was the most Free to begin with? Jeez, if this kind of thing can happen there the rest of us are really screwed!
"[Regarding the 'cloud,'] ownership was what made America different than Russia." -- Woz
Did these guys think that because they were the cops, they didn't have to answer to anybody? If the contents of the tape is what this family says it is, some hard lessons are going to be learned. Unfortunatly, the people who are going to pay are the taxpayers, and not the cops themselves.
"Live Free or Die," indeed.
One CPU cycle wasted on digital restrictions management is ONE TOO MANY.
Most people will look at this and see a corrupt police force and yet another sign of our times. Yes, I see the irony that a citizen is getting charged under a wiretapping law in this day and age.
Problem is, most people don't see these stories for what they truly generally are. Stupidity. You know, there are stupid cops and even stupid judges. Most of the time, when cases like this make it out into the world people think that the system is to blame. Normally thats not the case, the stupidity of the officers involved are to blame. Well, either that or some queer powertrip, which is far too common with law enforcement aswell.
In the end, this will all get thrown out in court. Thing is, nobody knows at what cost it will be to the guy involved. Thats truly the greatest flaw of all in the system. IMHO, there should almost be a pre-court judge that can take a look at cases in advance as a checksum against stupidity, and throw them out right away if they are as dumb as this one. I suppose that would be rife for abusing too though.
Well, I feel like a dolt.
:/ Live and learn to read.
I guess I assumed there wouldn't have been any issue with a sign.
What?
Let's see. Someone comes on his property, stands in full view of the owner and anyone walking down the street, the owner videotapes him and then uses the tape to try to lodge a complaint and they charge the property owner with a crime? Worse yet they try to use eavesdropping and wiretapping laws when he filmed the cop in public view on his private property. If he's convicted then we are really living in a fascist state.
..."Live Free or Die".
Doesn't he know that the President is the only person legally allowed to wire tap?
Don't you mean, illegally?
"... true power is taken." - J.R. Ewing
All we need now are a few more of these incidents, a few FOX reports siding with the police and the conversion will be complete.
Sad but true.
Obama's legacy: (N)othing (S)ecure (A)nywhere and (T)error (S)imulation (A)dministration
Obviously this means that his civil liberties can be trampled on.
Which seems pretty backward. The government should be held to a higher standard than citizens, not a lower one.
"Private place" has a different definition than "private property." As horrifying as this situation is, I don't think you're interpreting this correctly.
I beleive the statute you are quoting more concerns you placing a camera in the ladies room of your restauruant and then defending it as it was on your property. Front stoop is private property, but not a private space.
Since this happened on the doorstep, I don't think it qualifies. However, I don't know NH case law on this aspect. Furthermore, if there was a clear sign and the officer maintained their presence in the area, they were giving implicit permission.
"The laws of 13 states expressly prohibit the unauthorized installation or use of cameras in private places"
If the camera was on the man's property, then you couldn't hardly say that the installation was unauthorized.
Ninjas don't carry tic tacs
What you do is make a motion for dismissal based on prejudice. Show the judge what you got before your court-date and write up the motion. You'll find most judges/upper people in the COURTS to be cool. Just don't go to the PD to try and get anything done. It's how I got rid of my speeding ticket :D (IANAL)
Sig: I stole this sig.
Here in Albuquerque police did something similar recently. The police have been cracking down on drinking of any kind. Police were stopping all patrons leaving a particular bar and breath testing them. Even patrons taking a cab or a limo were harrassed. The bar owner had a friend come and videotape them. They said he was interfering with a police investigation, and since some of the officers also worked undercover, he was endangering the officers. So they arrested him. His friend started to videotape them arresting him, so they arrested the friend. Then the bar owner came out and started videotaping them arresting friend one and friend two, so they arrested the owner. Never mind these supposedly undercover cops were in full uniform on a busy street, they were endangered by these evil videotapers.
On the other hand, not all cops are bad. Once in college I got a flat tire while driving an unregistered uninsured hippy painted VW bus carrying a bag of weed. A nice officer stopped (in the rain no less) and helped me change the tire without even checking my license or registration, let alone whether a hippy painted VW bus might have contraband onboard.
On the third hand (yes, it's a Larry Niven reference) I've seen cops beat my friends for trying to feed homeless people on the street in San Francisco. Then they poured our soup down the drain and poured bleach over our bagels right in front of about 100 homeless folks.
So YMMV where police are concerned, some are cool, some are total dicks.
- None can love freedom heartily, but good men; the rest love not freedom, but license. -- John Milton
This is a clear cut violation of First Amendment rights. Not the free speach ones but the free press ones.
Huh? Free press? A guy video tapes somebody on his doorstep and suddenly that qualifies him as a member of the press?
Regardless of whether he's press or not, I think you need to read the Bill of Rights again because you obviously don't know what it says. You don't have to be a literalist to understand that this doesn't mean what you think it means:
Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the government for a redress of grievances.
I don't see how this case has anything whatsoever to do with congress abridging freedom of the press. This is about a guy who got arrested for superfluous reasons. It's obviously one of those situations where the cops got annoyed, so they looked for whatever law they could find that they might be able to charge him against. It should be looked at in that light; trying to turn it into some weird and inappropriate first amendment discussion is not going to help anyone.
I agree that the 2nd is a good thing; however, outside of a general uprising, you as an individual are not going to win a firefight with the police.
The universal standard as far as politicians are concerned seems to be: All animals are equal. Some are more equal than the others.
Baker's Law: Misery no longer loves company. Nowadays it insists on it
http://www.sigsegv.cx/
Police reported that Gannon "has a history of being verbally abusive" toward police, and that after his arrest, he remarked that the officers "were a bunch of corrupt (expletives)."
Hard to argue with Gannon.
How can it be wiretapping if there's no wire being tapped?
How can the patriot act be called what it is? Why is it that if I wear a pistol in a holster on my belt, in plain view, covered with blinking LEDs, while wearing a t-shirt that reads "I carry a firearm" I'll be arrested for "carrying a concealed weapon." The names of laws often have nothing to do with what the laws say.
Why is it a crime to monitor what our public servants are doing?
Because the police are criminals and they follow the orders of the corrupt politicians who pass these laws. I know quite a few cops, but I've never known one who did not flaunt the law and brag about how they don't have to follow it since they are cops. I've never known one who does not have a "funny" story about how they abused their power for their own personal ends. If you haven't noticed this by now, you haven't been paying attention.
It wouldn't be too hard to argue that consent was granted the moment he stepped onto his property. Unless he had a warrant the cop was tresspassing on private property and is himself committing a crime. You can't claim to be a victim of a crime by commiting a crime that results in you being a victim.
Similarly, it's illegal to record a telephone conversation without telling all parties on the line that it's being recorded. I think that's federal law.
r ica.htm#The%20US%20Federal%20Law
Actually, only a handful of states require notification of all involved parties. Most only require one-party notification.
http://www.callcorder.com/phone-recording-law-ame
My opinion is that anyone should be able to record their interactions with the police in any manner. I would never have thought that it might be illegal to video or audio tape on the premises of my own residence much less the interaction with a public official on my own property.
I reserve the right to think for myself. Others' opinions are optional. Puppy on lap = typos...not illiteracy.
Quite true. I have long suspected that the single most effective defense against most abuses of power is a camera (at least in civilized places where public opinion matters). Without video footage, no one will believe the abuses really happened.
Ubiquitous surveilance is often seen as a tool of big brother, but it can also be a tool against oppression as well. Imagine a society in which many people wear a webcam attached to an ipod-like device with a ring buffer storing everything the wearer sees. Then imagine you are a corrupt police officer who likes to intimidate and/or abuse certain people. Would it give you pause if you knew your actions were quite likely to show up on the news the next day?
"The laws of 13 states expressly prohibit the unauthorized installation or use of cameras in private places" If the camera was on the man's property, then you couldn't hardly say that the installation was unauthorized.
Not only that, but can the outside of someone's property really be considered a private place? Private property, maybe.. but "private place" implies an expectation of privacy. Can you have an expectation of privacy if you are outdoors where anyone can see/hear you?
It's not the video, it's the audio. The law isn't really aimed at CCTV systems but telephone recording. The problem is that a mike is a mic and a recording medium is a recording medium. Simple solution? Don't record audio.
Actually I think the police should be required to record both audio and video of every official interaction with the public. I think every interrogation should be recorded in full, and any breaks in the recording for more than 10-20 seconds (to allow for tape change) should mitigate against any 'confessions' obtained during that interrogation. Yes, I'm serious. This would protect the police who are accused of brutality, assuming they were innocent. The "if you've done nothing wrong, you have nothing to hide," should apply, but only to the government, because government is where the higher potential for abuse and brutality lies. You don't hear cases of 7-8 armed civilians beating the hell out of an unarmed, handcuffed police officer, but flip that around and it's suddenly less remarkable. Recorded interrogations would protect both the police and the accused, and prevent both frivolous lawsuits from the accused and brutality from the police. The only reason the police wouldn't want an uninterrupted record of the interrogation is if they fully intend on doing things that are illegal and unethical, and they want to prevent a judge and/or jury from seeing how they got that "confession."
I hope every citizen in that town files lawsuits for the same behavior for the dash cameras that every one of their police cars has.
Specialization is for insects. - R.A.H.
And every store and bank in New Hampshire that has a video camera is violating the same law? This is absolutely the silliest arrest I've read of in a long long time.
That only applies if the person has a reasonable expectation of privacy. When standing on someone else's private property with a sign that reads "You are being recorded by surveillance", or whatever the sign said, you have no expectation of privacy.
Read my short stories - You won't regret it.
We welcome you to the country where home doors are opened, police officers are polite, and we don't need cameras to check our private parking spot.
;-)
Please try to resist being smug. As much as I find a lot of what the US gov't does disagreeable it really irritates me when fellow Canadians brag about how much better our lot in life is in comparison with our southern neighbours. I thought we were supposed to be humble folk, but it seems some of us have developed a superiority complex. Historically Canadians have had trouble "blowing their own horn" so we should be sure to note our accomplishments. However, if you must brag, please be realistic. Canada has its share of challenges too:
* A recent behavioural study of major international cities on "politeness" placed Toronto fairly high on the list (Montreal, the other Canadian city did not do as well but did alright). Guess which city beat both? NEW YORK CITY. That's right. Most notably, New Yorkers were significantly more likely to open a door for a stranger in a public place. I guess that means "doors are opened" in NYC
* There are places in Vancouver, Calgary, Edmonton, Winnipeg, Toronto and Montreal where I most certainly would NOT leave my doors unlocked. OTOH, I don't think people ever use their locks in most of Montana, North and South Dakota, Maine, etc. I know this isn't apples-to-apples comparison but most Canadians live in a major city as is the case in the US (I grew up in rural Canada and yes doors are still open there too). The point is that Canada isn't THAT much different in this regard
* I've witnessed RCMP officers and city police be somewhat less than polite in dealing with people too. Some of it has been widely publicised (Anyone remember the pepper-sprayed protester in Vancouver? And Prime Minister Cretien's cavalier response with the joke that he prefers his pepper on his dinner plate?). When the Hells Angels held a patch-over ceremony in Alberta a number of years ago, anyone who rode a Harley and was dressed the wrong way was badly harassed by the cops.
* Years ago when a Quebec separatist group kidnapped and later killed a politician our "beloved" Prime Minister invoked the "War Measures Act", which allowed for police to detain anyone without charges and suspended many other civil liberties. This was in effect nation-wide, even though the FLQ Crisis only presented a direct threat to savety in Quebec. RCMP in places far away from Quebec took advantage of the situation and we had "troublemakers" in small town Alberta held in custody for days without charges.
* Speaking of Quebec, this is a province that has "language police" that will fine you in your shop doesn't have French on it, or if some non-French language on your signage is too prominent.
* West of Ontario, it is illegal for farmers to sell most crops to anyone but the Canadian Wheat Board. Farmers who protested this by pubically deciding to sell their grain directly to someone else rather than through the wheat board had their doors kicked in and were dragged to jail--and had their trucks and grain seized. Sone farmer in Ontario does the EXACT SAME THING? Sure, that's OK--the act applies only to BC, Alberta, Saskatchewan and Manitoba. I could live with a government imposed monopoly, distasteful as it is, if it applied equally to all Canadians. As it is now this situation is a travesty.
* Well, I still live in Canada and I know that a lot of private parking spots are equipped with cameras here. In the past year or two there has been a dramatic increase in vandalism (mostly grafitti and car prowlings) and as a result more outdoor surveillance cameras are going up, and developers are putting out a lot more security guards in under-construction subdivisions as theft and vandalism increased there too.
OTOH Canada has a lot to be proud of too:
* Big, expensive and ineffective gun registry notwithstanding, there is WAY less gun violence in Canada than in the US
* Canadians ar
Since when cant we videotape what happens on OUR OWN FUCKING PROPERTY?
Since we all forgot that we are sovereign individuals, and not subjects of any
nation-state or government; since we all began to accept that the government
has some intrinsic authority which overrules our own sovereignty; since we
all began to believe that we answer to the government, instead of them
answering to us; since we all forgot that we are EXACTLY as free as we
CHOOSE to be; since we all forgot that we have as much freedom as we
choose to have and are willing to defend.
// TODO: Insert Cool Sig
It's stories like this that make me glad I live in Canada. It also confirms my reluctance to set foot into the USA.
I don't think there is any question about this being abuse of power followed with an 'oh shit, we got caught - better try to intimidate/bulley the person that caught us and maybe it will all go away'.
The real sad thing is that in this case it's not just a single cop but apparently the entire police department or else we would have never seen this story. The cop would have been reprimanded, case closed.
It would be interesting to see just how many cameras are operated by this police department for the explicit use and subsequent disclosure of the recorded information at trial. It would also be interesting to see how many cases where brought to trial where surveilance footage was used to convivt the (real) bad guy.
I can't believe that anyone in their right mind can expect privacy in a public place with video cameras sprouting like mushrooms left and right. Furthermore, I can't see how anyone in their right mind could think that a homeowner recording what happens on HIS property is acting in an unlawful manner.
Count me in under the column of "thoroughly disgusted by this"!
Everything you describe would be OK in Old America. Now in New America, since you jackasses voted Bush in, the Constitution is about as valuable as a used piece of toilet paper, since using the 911 attacks that he orchestrated to justify deleting the citizens' rights to _everything_.
Terrorist this, NSA spying that, the United States is the scariest place on Earth.
Okay we have a name tag Sealbeater, sitting on a spam domain filled with google adwords links, and the sig is, wait for it... Its survival of the fittest...and we got the fucking guns!!! I'd be a bit more cautious about throwing around accusations of assholery if I was you, my son. Glass houses and all that. Thankfully I am not, so although its something of a gaffe to feed the trolls, I am feeling generous today.
The poster in question was referring to that particular case, not to broadly general rules of conduct. Also you refer to "cops" and "civilians" as being something different, which leads me to believe that you have a view of the police as being some sort of military force out to dominate your world with an iron fist. Inferiority complex much? Of course, as you so eloquently put it, survival of the fittest, and you do have the fucking guns, apparently, so the police are just a rival militia to you.
I seriously doubt this will make a dent, Davey Crockett, but for the benefit of the other readers, let me tell you how it is. The police have to deal with serious assholes all the time. They wake up at 2am for their shift at 3am, and straight away they are dealing with halitosis laden drug dealers, drug addicts, wife beaters, child molesters, thieves, career criminals, fraudsters, you name it, they come eyeball to red glazed eyeball with them. People that you would literally cross the entire town, never mind the road, to avoid, people for whom prison is a holiday home, or in more extreme cases a brothel. And here's the kicker; the police have to play by the rules. If they don't, the lawyer will let said scumbag roam free, and the last thing you want is Johnny biker boy cruising the streets looking for your home address with a hard-on.
Of course the nasty types don't feel any such need to play by the rules, so let me ask you. After ten years of waking up at 2am and not going into a nice office to look at the HR lady's shapely backside, but wondering if you will make it home in more or less one piece, what kind of person will you be? I'll tell you, it depends on the person. Some police officers deal with it well, some have outlets for their frustrations, some have family that support and understand them. Some don't or just don't deal with it well in any case. So that's where good cops go bad; avarice, stress, fear, or just plain frustration at seeing the same shitheads walking out after two years and doing the same things to pretty much the same people. Before you start bawling like the survivalist microbe that you are about the bad, naughty cops, you walk a mile in their shoes. Or even better, walk ten years in their shoes.
Yes, there are bad police officers, and they need to be taken out of circulation just like the career criminals. But throwing out the baby with the bathwater is the worst idea anyone could ever have. Be polite to the police, and generally they will respond in kind. This has been my experience in every case.
What he can't kill, he has sex on. Trent.
President Clinton did lie about a blowjob, and I don't care. At all. It's completely insignificant in the balance of world affairs. The current President lies about torture. It wasn't under oath, so isn't impeachable, and that distinction is about as morally insignificant as you can get. It's wrong to torture people and then redefine the term in mid-sentence and then pretend you're being forthright about what you're doing. The way those people are being treated would be called torture if it was happening in our country to our citizens, and we know it. It was called torture before we were doing it, wasn't it? If it was your mother or best friend being interrogated in Dallas with these methods, you'd call it torture.
Where is the moral contumely that we were basting eyeballs-deep in during the Clinton impeachment? Where is the outrage? There isn't any, and you know exactly why--Bush is a Republican, therefore whatever he does is lily-white in the eyes of Republicans. Morality, legality, propriety, everything is subordinate to politics. They'll impeach a sitting President over a blowjob but sit placidly by while a President authorizes torture, secret prisons, indefinite detentions, warrantless wiretaps, etc. So spare me your moral equivocations. I don't care if Clinton got blown on film every Sunday at noon while holding the King James Bible in one hand and a joint in the other--if torture doesn't make your moral compass wake up and take notice, there is something fundamentally wrong with you as a human being.
Perhaps I'm barking up the wrong tree on this, and you are deeply disturbed by what the Administration is doing. If so, you have my apologies. I'm just so sick of the faux moralizing about Clinton, coupled with the complete blindness on issues that really do matter. Blowjobs, even adulterous ones later lovingly covered with perjury, are a miniscule speck, an electron-sized mote, of immorality, compared to torture of human beings. To bring up Clinton and his interns in this context is to color yourself either as a shameless political hack or a pretty despicable human being.
As ploce are public servants, employed by us via our tax dollars, should we citizens not have the same right as other employers to monitor the behavior of our employees? If our phone calls at work, our work e-mail, and where we go online can be monitored, and we can be filmed at work, by our employers, with or without any additional notification, then we should be allowed to monitor the police. Otherwise their power goes unchecked and along comes corruption. The word of one cop has more weight that three citizens, unless there's a videotape the backs up those citizens.
Those surveillance cameras are not hidden. They're pretty clear. And that man has the right to protect his family. If someone broke into his house and the proof he had were tapes, would he be the one charged with a felony while the burgler got off because the evidence would be inadmissible? yeah, let's punish the good guy and let the bad off the hook.
We've got to question what the officers did that they do not want that tape shown. If they were orderly and didn't threaten or act like asses toward that family, then there should be nothing to fear. But if they arrested a man and he's been charged with two felony counts simply for recording, then it would make sense that there is something to hide. They must have acted out of line.
And this man being arrested does not indicate that he did anything wrong in the way you might be thinking. Hostility, trying to attack an officers.... No. If simply recording is against the law, then they can arrest him for that and nothing else. He could have been entirely peaceful, as well as his wife and sons, and still could have been arrested. And now, even if all charges are dropped, this man still has an arrest on his record. And if his wife bailed him out via a bail bonds place, then they are out the 10% paid to the bail bonds place. Money lost, embarassment, a record of arrest....
Sad, sad day when taking steps to ensure personal safety in a non-violent way results in grounds for arrest.
It's a girl!
No one is guilty. Just ask the people in prison. They'll all tell you how innocent they are.
Slashdot - where whining about luck is the new way to make the world you want.
"if you really were as innocent as you claim, you would have taken your chance before a jury."
That's an arrogant thing to say. If you have the choice between a small chance of severe punishment on one hand and much less severe punishment on the other, most people would opt for the less-severe punishment. Why gamble? Why do so many companies, for example, settle out of court? Is it because they are really guilty, and this is an easy way out? I know that is not always the case. Sometimes, the risk is simply not worth the principle.
Taking stuff apart since 1969 (TM)