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A Balancing Force to Mass Surveilance?
moerty asks: "The advent and application of video surveillance by governments on its peoples has been a worrying trend in western society. The recent incident with the use of tasers on a UCLA student has highlighted a shift of power where surveillance in the hands of civilians can be used as an equalizing tool against government oppression. What are the best optic/sound capture devices for such a situation? A plus is having a device that is inconspicuous, since photographers are usually targeted due to the visibility of their cameras. What about off-site storage and the hosting of such videos? As a follow-up, what organizations exist that encourage the use of the camera as an equalizing tool?"
I've been a big supporter of cameras not to just protect my rights, but to prove my innocence and to protect me. Based on talking with slashdot user jdavidb, I've given up my guns and have fully accepted the pacifist way (I feel that it is the most Christian attitude). While I would not attempt to defend myself anymore, not even from the State, I do believe it is OK to document what happened if something bad happened. Plus, the two cameras I do have on my property have secondary uses that are even more of a benefit: I can see who is at the door without getting up, and I can see if my driveway needs to be shoveled before I get home (a quick call to a neighbor's kid). This works great.
I have videotaped local law enforcement a few times in the past year as I've been working on a "free" viral documentary I've been hoping to put on YouTube to gain some support for both citizen surveillance of the State, as well as the ridiculousness of the State most of the time. I'd videotape police officers sitting around "radaring" possible speeders in hopes of catching them doing that when a crime may have occurred at the same time -- a real crime with a real victim. Lucky for me, 3 out of 4 times that I caught a cop doing nothing but attempting to produce income for the State there had been a violent crime within 15 minutes of the wasted taxpayer labor. You can't beat that. But the fourth time I was actually questioned for a full 20 minutes by the officer (or a radio'd in backup) as to what exactly I was doing.
I explained that the officer was on private property (usually a parking lot), as was I. Just as the officer didn't ask for prior approval, neither had I, but I would happily leave if the owner of the property told me to (or posted signs to the effect of telling me I can't be there). Since neither occurred, I felt I had ever reason to watch the police who watch us. The officer said I could be arrested for trespass and for violating the officer's privacy. I explained to the near-arresting officer that no one has privacy of transport in public as long as they're on public property or on someone else's private property. I do believe you have the "right" to privacy within your home (close the shades), but the minute you leave your property, you're on someone's land, and that person has the right to dictate what can be done on their property. That didn't jive with the officer, but he let me go (as if he ever really had me in custody). Unbelievable.
I feel we should be watching ourselves more closely. I had a rear-camera on my old truck to back it up easier, and I'd happily use it to record if I felt I needed to. I've even come out supporting the idea of the State IF and ONLY IF everyone who works for the State had to be under constant surveillance -- constant. Public IP cameras in the mayor's office and car. Public IP cameras in the DMV. Public IP cameras following the President. Let amateurs watch them, if they wish, and tag them and bookmark them and watch those watching us. If the public official has a lot of power, they should be watched even on their private time -- no bribery, no scandals, no cheating, no lying. Get them in their kitchen, get them in their meetings. The public should have privacy, but the public official should have none. Zero. They're our employees, right? They have the power to tax/steal from us, right? They have the power to imprison/enslave us, right? We should know what they're doing -- all the time.
There is some virtue in the idea of a totally "transparent" society. The problem with most disclosures of private information is that they put you at a disadvantage; either they are out of context, or they fall disproportionately on you but not others around you.
However, nobody who argues that we should chuck privacy argues that we should chuck it for everyone. They're really more interested in turning privacy from a right into a commodity, that some people can buy and others have to go without.
Sure, sometimes you can catch a bad cop in the act. Good. But you can't catch the people you really need to watch; the people who control the surveillance network.
Post may contain irony: discontinue use if experiencing mood swings, nausea or elevated blood pressure.
I think http://www.witness.org/ is worth mentioning. They have articles and guides like Effective Strategies for Video Advocacy, "Tips & Techniques" Training Video and Manual and so forth that might help you get some ideas.
He predicted that, as technology increased, the panopticon would become ever more pervasive and ever more invasive. That was a few decades ago. Sure enough!
The trick is, as others have mentioned,that as technology becomes more and more advanced, that people who were traditionally in the position of "guards" are now safely monitored in their own panopticon. Case in point, the nanny-cam.
I say let it roll! I say let's get every politician, police officer, judge, corporate CEO, etc. wired for audio and video and have it stream to the internet 24/7! If we can't hide, then neither can they.
One, because the law says to stop at a Stop sign. There are a good number of folks out there who stop because obeying traffic laws is the right thing to do. Let's just skip right over the obligatory /. moral relativism--there are people in the real world who don't feel a juvenile compulsion to break any and every law to prove they are somehow fighting "the violence inherent in the system." There are nonsensical laws, even laws that deserve to be ignored, but generally traffic laws don't fall into that category.
Secondly, they stop because they're aware of their fallibility. Just because it's three o'clock in the morning and they didn't notice any headlights on the cross street while they were approaching the intersection doesn't mean that there's no oncoming traffic.
I've been surprised by supposedly intelligent people I ride with who don't use their signals when changing lanes. The rationale is frequently "I already looked and there's nobody there, so I don't need to signal." My response is invariably the same "Haven't you ever started to change lanes and then seen someone you didn't realize was in your blind spot? That person has no way of knowing you're about to clobber them if you don't signal." The response is usually a non sequitur.
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I can give an example from personal experience:
Back in 1994, I was asked to go along with some logging protesters to video the protest. I called this 'safety video' because the intention was to visibly document the protest to discourage loggers from engaging in vigilante violence. We never considered the possibility of violence on the part of the police.
There were actually two of us doing video. Two people had chained themselves into cement barrels, and a couple of other people. Apparently there was a 3 year old injunction discouraging people from blocking the logging, so the cops showed up with the rep from the logging company and held us on the bridge while the logging company guy read the injunction to us and handed us copies. The second video guy was actually eager to get off the bridge and left as soon as the police allowed him to. I moved a bit more slowly (dealing with power problems on my camera).
As I got off of the bridge, I heard a disturbance behind me. It turns out that the RCMP had arrested the other camera guy as he was leaving the bridge. I turned around to film him being stuffed into a police car as he protested "but I was trying to leave!". The lead officer (Sgt. Bruce Waite) turned around, saw me filming and challenged me "I thought I told you to to leave!".
"OK", I said. I shrugged, put down my camera (but did not turn it off) and turned to walk further down the road. As I was walking away, he ordered another police officer to arrest me. I turned around and protested that I was (a) off of the bridge and off the road, and (b) walking away, but after he insisted (3 or 4 times) that the other officer arrest me, I was finally arrested.
I was charged with contempt of court (violating an injunction). In his papers to the judge, the Seargent claimed that I had refused to leave the bridge. If I hadn't kept my camera running, I probably would have been convicted (his word against mine). Faced with my video, charges against me were dropped.
After me and the other cameraman were arrested, and out of the way, the Seargent Waite ) turned around and assaulted the two people who were chained into barrels. It turns out that he had a history of being sued for assaulting prisoners (mostly natives).
If it hadn't been for my video to put Sgt. Waite's testimony into question, the whole case would have probably turned out a whole lot different.
Sometimes boldness is in fashion. Sometimes only the brave will be bold.
This is a strange way of thinking. I think you have an incomplete understanding of "defense."
You say you can defend yourself with a sword against another sword. Typical of the gun banner mentality, this treats the weapon as a being, and ignores the problem. Yes, when I swing my sword at you, you can swing your blade in such a way as to prevent mine from cleaving you crown to crotch. However, you have not defended yourself against me: I am still here, I still want to kill you, and I am still capable of killing you. I swing again, you block again, rinse lather repeat. At some point, you are going to have to do me bodily harm, disable me to the point where I can no longer swing my sword at you, or you will end up dead, having failed to do more the prolong your life by a few moments. Anything less is not really an option. "Self Defense" is an end, not a means. The end result is to prevent harm that would otherwise be done to you. Ask any police officer who has shot someone who pulled a gun on them, if they thought it was "self defense". If they had not fired, they would have been shot by the bad guy. Since they did fire, they were not. Harm was prevented, "self" was "defended" from bodily harm.
As far as Deterrence:
"You can use a gun as a deterrent, but that's a drastically different thing, and frequently not a very useful one." IF a man comes at a women with a knife intending to rape her, and she pulls a gun and he runs, one, this is indeed self defense. She prevented harm with her gun, even though she did not have to pull the trigger. "Deterrence" is based on an unknown. A sign in a liquor store that says, I carry a .44 magnum three days a week, you guess which three, is "deterrence." The THREAT of the gun, not the actuality, is deterrence.
You say that it is frequently not very useful. According to the FBI, (who should know,) of all the things you can do when faced with a criminal, the MOST EFFECTIVE way to prevent harm to self, is to resist with a gun. You are more likely to get hurt if you resist with a knife sword, or club. You are more likely to get hurt if you run. You are more likely to get hurt if you cooperate. You are least likely to get hurt if you pull a gun. That is a simple undeniable fact.
You are wrong about pretty much every specific of the case you bring up.
... sniff... fragile egos of those brave men in blue.
1) The student didn't forget his ID. He refused to show it, because it's a stupid rule and because he felt he was being singled out for his ethnicity.
2) The police didn't ask to see his ID. A librarian did. By the time the police got there, the student was heading out the door, but the cop couldn't resist putting a hand on him. That's no way to treat someone who is already complying with your requests, because it escalates the situation. The cops escalated the situation repeatedly.
3) The students surrounding the cops seemed far less concerned about their term papers than about the flagrant abuse the cops were inflicting on an unresisting student who posed no threat to them.
4) You say that after the first tazering, he still didn't "grow up." In fact, the problem was that he didn't *get* up, which is hard to do after being hit with a stun gun, and even harder after three or four blasts. Of course, at this point he was already handcuffed, and couldn't pose any threat to anything except for the
5) The cop in question was actually the reason the UCLA cops were carrying tasers in the first place. He'd previously been suspended for three months after fatally shooting a homeless man. I'm sure the guy gave the cop lip, though. So he obviously deserved it.
I'm amazed that you're more concerned with a student being "a whiny bitch" than a cop denigrating his own profession and abusing a citizen. But given how you recount the events with such utter relish, my amazement is tempered by the realization that you're basically an idiot, and your opinion doesn't count for much.
You want the truthiness? You can't handle the truthiness!