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Is Videotaping the Police a Felony?
AtomicSnarl writes "When Carlisle, PA, police noticed their traffic stop was being videotaped, they arrested the fellow with the camera for felony wiretapping. From the story: 'Kelly is charged under a state law that bars the intentional interception or recording of anyone's oral conversation without their consent... An exception to the wiretapping law allows police to film people during traffic stops.. [An assistant DA] said case law is in flux as to whether police can expect not to be recorded while performing their duties.'"
I'm guessing that if it's illegal to take a picture of police than it's also illegal to film them.
So, I guess if you want to videotape the police, you'd better declare yourself an independent journalist and hope the judge values our freedom of the press?
This is both shocking & amazing on so many levels. I can think of several ways to look at this that make it hilariously backwards. The cops are on duty, their income is supplied by individuals like this man. As far as I'm aware, employers are allowed to videotape their employers.
I've met good policemen and I've met pigs. These instances sound like a pig on a power trip. Illegal wiretapping, yeah right! It has a sound function so he's wiretapping? Everything just sounds so ridiculous. If it happens in public, it's public domain. This is just obvious abuse of those they are supposed to protect.
My work here is dung.
What's wrong with filming the cops?
Isn't that the only REAL way to watch the watchmen?
I guess my question is "Why SHOULDN'T you be able to videotape police officers doing their job?". Seriously.
If they were here to "serve and protect" they wouldn't be harassing citizens in petty traffic stops to begin with.
"He who can destroy a thing, controls a thing." --Paul Atreides, Dune
And what's with this wiretapping nonsense? That doesn't even make sense, how do you wiretap the air? Last I checked it wasn't a series of wires...
"Kelly is charged under a state law that bars the intentional interception or recording of anyone's oral conversation without their consent."
Okay...what? Why is this illegal? I mean, I can see some potential for abuse, recording someone saying something and using it to incriminate them etc. But seriously, if you say it aloud to someone they can report that you say it in court (presumably without hearsay as, as far as I know, that only applies to stating facts you heard from someone else, not what someone else said. As in I can say "Billy said..." in court but not "I know that because Billy said so")
I mean, I'm sure this law is great for privacy freaks, but it just seems off. If you're going to say something to me why don't I have the right to record it? My brain's already doing that, what's wrong with having a more accurate representation of it? You'd prefer I improperly remember you saying "I'm gonna blow them up!" and not have the recording that actually says "He's gonna blow them up?" I wouldn't mind people recording my conversations, why would you ever say anything you wouldn't want recorded to another human being with a memory?
Just seems like an off law to me. The case itself, not so much. If it's illegal there, no matter how off that law may be, then he should be arrested. However I'd hope he could get off with only a fine due to the extreme obscurity and horrible naming policy (really, they're supposed to know that videotaping someone talking is wiretapping?).
There are two kinds of fool One says 'This is old therefore good' Another says 'This is new therefore better'- Dean Ing
When those who enforce the law are above it we are on the road to becoming a fascist oligarchy -if we aren't already.
Of course we have an executive branch which has put itself above the law in the name of terrorism and freedumb(sic)....
and a legislature which does not have the will to fix our healthcare crisis because they have their own healthcare system which isolates them from the f'd up system the rest of us are dealing with.....
There must be literally HUNDREDS of cases since Rodney King in which cops (especially LA cops) have been caught doing bad, abusive and unconstitutional things to perps -er citizens.
There should be no right of public officials to privacy while they conduct the tasks that they are allegedly performing on our behalf.
Cameras and things like open government sessions are about the accountability which is becoming rarer in this society.
LET THE SUNSHINE IN (ie. 'sunshine' laws)
I'm just sayin'
I'm sorry, but this is pure bullshit, through-and-through. Police officers in America are authorized and equipped to use *lethal* force, and in most courts their word is taken as gospel over a civilian. Due to departmental 'solidarity' successfully prosecuting even the worst cases is incredibly difficult.
If anything, police officers ought to be required by law to wear pickups that record ALL sound and a snapshot every 10 seconds while they are on duty. Ideally, said recordings would also be instantly transmitted to a secured location which nobody in their headquarters has access to for archival purposes.
If you don't believe there was criminal intent, why the fuck was he arrested & why should he plead guilty to a lessor charge ?
Sue the fuckers !
Wanna fight ? Bend over, stick your head up your ass, and fight for air.
Can we stop making this idiotic assertion? Public servants are not employees of each citizen. How can you tell? Because you cannot fire them. They work for you, in the sense that they work for your benefit, but they do not work for you in the sense that they are in your employ.
"Stumble before you crawl"
It boils down to if the person being arrested had a reasonable expectation of privacy. Just because you are 'out in public' doesnt mean you cant expect some level of personal privacy.
Now, the fact that there is a 'state offical' involved too, it makes things much more complex. There is no black and white 'covers all situations' answer here.
---- Booth was a patriot ----
What happened to all that claptrap about if you've got nothing to hide you should'nt mind being taped?
Isn't that the crap the authorities come back with when people complain about CCTV cameras?
I'm guessing the COPS were videotaping the arrest with a car camera, if so, THEY have already CONSENTED
to having their actions recorded while on the job.
They are employees of the public going about public business IN PUBLIC. They damn well better be able to be recorded
or we are in serious trouble.
Service guarantees Citizenship! Questions Guarantee GITMO.... Amerika Uber Alles!
I bet that ACLU will take this on. It seems like a pretty easy case. Police on the job are NOT private, they are in the public domain. As such, we have the right to video and tape them. Likewise, we have the right to record a politician who is busy making a speech or operating in the public.
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
Oh, yeah, in dictatorships & communist countries that squash common freedoms in the name of..... (Fill in blank)
The officer probably didn't know of the wiretap law either, and the DA was fortunate to find it, or they'd be even worse off than they are now. Arrested for no reason at all. They clearly wanted to harass and scare the kid, which the obviously succeeded at. Now the city should fork over $100K compensation, along with a sincere apology in the process.
If it ever goes to trial, and I was on the jury, it would be Jury Nullification all the way, baby!
"It's the height of ridiculousness to say for those 9 lines you get hundreds of millions."
"Kelly is charged under a state law that bars the intentional interception or recording of anyone's oral conversation without their consent."
The officer DID consent to have the conservation recorded. In fact, he was recording it with his own audio/video system.
He didn't consent to have it on the defendant's tape... but unless the statute draws that line, the court should not either.
Ah yes... Pennsylvania, my home. Remember this law next time someone uses their camcorder (or their point-and-shoot) to record their child playing at the park, or an open free concert -- unless they have the consent of every person within audio recording range, they're guilty of felony wire tapping. You might want to call 911 to get the police involved, though I think the DA only prosecutes if police or politicians are involved. Perhaps as a service to my fellow Keystone Staters I should stop down at the local BestBuy and put a post-it note on every one of the camcorders warning potential purchasers that unless they obtain the consent of everyone around, use of the device potentially constitutes a felony. I'd sarcasticly suggest that camcorders should be registered like firearms, but someone might take me seriously.
"If they're not doing anything wrong, they shouldn't have anything to worry about."
Snoop onto them, as they snoop onto us!!
It is pitch black. You are likely to be eaten by a grue.
Except that... you can actually fire them. All it takes is a majority (or even a vocal minority) of citizens. Similarly, one shareholder in a company might not be able to fire the CEO. But a lot of irate shareholders can. And typically, they don't have to burn down City Hall or the corporate headquarters, either. Usually, the offending individual sees the writing on the wall and leaves. So, public servants ARE employees of each citizen.
Second, videotaping or photography has nothing to do with this case. The issue is audio recording.
Third, you are the officer's employer in a very indirect sense at best. You have no actual power over him or her. You have handed that over to your government, and you can only effect a change through your government. Fourth, employers do not have an unqualified right to videotape their employees. Fifth, you bring up public domain? This is not a copyright case. I do know what you mean though, and while it is true that you have no expectation of privacy in public with regard to the way you are viewed (since you can be seen from far away), the same cannot be said about what you say. Sound only carries so far, and it is not unreasonable to expect privacy with regard to what you say.
To be clear, I do not believe the officer had an expectation of privacy with regard to what he said, but the PA legislature has deemed the wiretapping law to be a good one, so they are the ones to blame.
I have never ever, ever met a good policeperson. Not even mediocre. 90% of America also shares this sentiment. (the other 10% being the most wealthy)
That sounds silly and made up. Most of our experience with policemen come when we're pulled over for speeding or some other traffic infraction. It's happened to me probably ten times in my life. Never once have I had a problem in any of the four states I was pulled over. In each case, the policeman was professional and polite. These incidents happened from the year I got my driver's license at 16 years old and was driving a beat up, 13+ year old Mustang, in another case driving a kind of old Honda Accord with a friend, another time when I was along with two other friends driving an early model Hyundai, and another time driving a Geo Storm. And yet another time when a friend and I decided to sleep in that same Hyundai in a shopping center parking lot in the L.A. area rather than spending money on a hotel; in retrospect, that probably looked very suspicious. And with the possible exception of the Geo Storm (which was new and pretty at the time), none of the cars gave an impression of me/us being anywhere near wealthy. And when we were in other states, there was definitely no way the policeman knew by the address on my driver's license that it was a upper middle-class neighborhood. But I've always been treated well.
I think how a policeman behaves has a lot more to do with the demeanor of the person that he is dealing with. If you're an ass, don't expect stellar treatment. Granted, being an ass isn't an excuse for them to treat you poorly, but there's no reason to be an ass to start with. Just be a polite human being and I bet you find that the police do the same. That's been my experience, anyway.
On the other hand, maybe you're right. Maybe 90% of the population does agree with you because 90% of the population do tend to be asses and then wonder why they "don't get no respect."
By this interpretation of the law anyone with a camcorder at a back yard cookout or public event is committing a felony, unless you have permission from everyone there. Unless they call out every exception, then TV news crews are roving criminal bands. It's ridiculous. The fact they're police officers is irrelevant. There's no expectation of privacy in a public place and the same standards should apply to audio as video.
This is completely insane.
That's our life, the big wheel of shit. - The Fat Man, Blue Tango Salvage
To comment on your first link - If the protesters were throwing things at the police, then it can probably legitimately be called a riot. The police, by necessity, have a little more latitude during a riot it is their job to disperse the crowed to prevent damage. If there is a riot, and the police give you an order to disperse (even if you are carrying a camera) you'd better move. Failure to obey a lawful order to disperse is a crime, and you can be arrested - I don't think this violates anyones civil rights (assuming it isn't a legal and peaceful protest).
None of that is to say that filming a public official in public is in and of itself illegal. I agree that we should be watching the watchers, and that journalism, whether corporate of citizen in nature is our best guard against police abuses. However, none of that permits you to stand with your hands in your pockets in a riot zone.
Police, in America less so than elsewhere, are basically fascists. There are good guys which always include them, and bad guys, (more often than not, you).
According to this worldview, everything they do is legal and everything you do is illegal. They have the power to use lethal violence against anyone that they feel is illegal. Which is everyone, including you.
But their resources are limited and there is a lot of paperwork to fill out for every illegal (you, baby) that they process. So they have to be selective. Anything outside the local norm gets selected. (You are outside someone's local norm).
When you understand this mentality, you understand the police everywhere in the world. There are only two other things that you need to know. 1: Having a lot of money changes you from being illegal to being legal, especially if you give some of this money to the police. 2: In most legal systems, the police don't determine whether a person or activity is guilty of anything. The courts do and the courts are a completely different branch of government from the police.
In America, the court's determination of your guilt is directly dependent upon the amount of money that you spend on lawyers. This isn't opinion or bias or fantasy, it's a basic fact that is simply never discussed publicly.
The question of whether it is illegal to video the police is irrelevant, the real question is whether the person arrested is willing and able to spend what is necessary to affirm his innocence in a court of law in the US.
The police everywhere are always going to arrest you for videotaping them. Whether or not they kill you, beat you half to death while you're in their custody, or simply detain you for a period of time depends on the traditions of the local jurisdiction.
One thing is for sure. If you do video tape the police in action, make sure that the image is being broadcast to another recording machine that they don't know about. This way you will have something to bargain with in court and you won't have to spend as money proving your innocence than if the police just take the tape from your machine.
This is not fantasy, this is the way that the world works once you get away from your PC.
Really? So if I'm in Philadelphia on vacation and I want to record some sights on my camcorder, I can't do so unless I inform everybody within earshot that I might accidentally record portions of their conversations?
Ask not what you can do for your government. Ask what they can do to you.
Now this is just silly. The police have cameras in their car. I realize they don't always turn them on, particularly when 'bad' things happen. But hey! Nobody is perfect! The police are not out to get you. They don't want to take you to jail just to meet a quota, or because they are on a power trip. When you video the police what you are saying is: "We don't trust you." And that is just plain wrong. So wrong, in fact, it should be criminal.
Why, just the other day the neighbors called the cops to come visit me. I have such great neighbors. The officer said it was because someone *heard* a child crying. Think of that, they just wanted to be sure my children were happy. Of course, a crying child is very concerning. Why would a child cry? Well, only two reasons I know of: because you are hitting them with a shovel, or they want to stay up past their bed time. I'm sure my neighbor would know that my kids never cry at bedtime, so they naturally assumed a shovel.
The officer who showed up was such a friendly chap. He came in to my home and woke my kids by shining his flashlight in their faces. The kids thought it was a riot! We all had a good laugh afterwords. See kids! See what fun it is to be woken up by a big police officer with a gun and a flashlight in your face!? Good times. My two year old son especially appreciated it. I think he really grew to appreciate the police that day.
Well, the cop did his job. None of my kids were bleeding, nor had any signs of child abuse at all. He could see they were probably crying because they wanted to stay up and watch that friendly purple dinosaur. See how we trusted the police fully? I can let a complete stranger with a loaded weapon in to my child's bedroom and not have a care in the world. Why? Because he is an officer of the law. Just for good measure, of course, he referred us to the local child abuse center in order to keep our kids safe. What a great police officer. The city's finest I tell you. I wouldn't dream of video taping them because I trust them fully.
My wife sat in tears as the police officer left. She was so thrilled about the visit.
For the most part, I agree, but I've never seen the good cops keep the bad in line and I've seen the bad do some pretty fucked up stuff. I think it would be better if the cops and guards were watched 10 times as closely as anyone else. It's slightly harder for us to get away with murder.
Cause you a damn honkey!
I've met police men as an EMT and in private, while helping someone after a car accident. It's like night and day. As soon as you're out of your uniform they stop being nice. But it's the same with paramedics. They don't even listen.
Have you ever seen a riot (not on television)? It's scary stuff. People get trampled, beaten, and private property gets destroyed. A riot gains its power not from the handful of violent people, but rather from the hundreds (or thousands) of people surrounding the trouble makers preventing the police from arresting the agitators. If there is a riot standing around fuels the riot. If the police read the riot act (that's an expression with historical meaning - they don't have to read anything) and you fail to disperse you are part of the riot, with or without a camera.
Standing in a riot zone bolsters the mob by your presence. It's called mob mentality. If the mob hurts someone, and you're part of the mob, you are partly responsible.
If the commanding officer was incompetent enough to shoot on unarmed civilians, what makes you think he's competent enough to follow standard procedure?
Just because you never used "Get Set, Point, Fire" doesn't mean others haven't. How about you not make the mistake of extrapolating out your personal experiences to others. Hmm?
It sounds to me like some agitator wanted to add it and just messed it all up.
Sounds to me like you enjoy the taste of cop dick. But that's just wild speculation - just like your comment was.
He may be able to fool someone who has never been on a weapons range, but not anyone who has actually put rounds downrange.
Anyone who really has been on a weapons range knows that they are responsible for their weapon's discharge. Too bad that sense of responsibility evaporates whenever one of their little tin-pot authoritarians goof up. Then its "Guns kill people" or "Hippies kill themselves by wandering into our bullets." Sheez. Get up off your knees and Man up, will you?
I don't see why this particular police officer wouldn't want him being video taped at that particular moment. For one the police cars usually have video recorders taping the entire incident. If he didn't want to be taped, maybe he wasn't doing his job necessarily legal, police officers tend to have a history of bending the law. Police officers are a public figure, I don't see why they need to ruin the life of someone just because they video taped a cop.
Yess! That's what David Brin wrote in Transparent Society, I think it was called. The book is way too long, could've been shortened tremendously, but his basic thesis is that privacy is disappearing, the only question is how to deal with it. It will get to the point where enough people will be walking around with cameras streaming live that mugging one or committing any crime nearby will be shown to the world as it happens. What we don't want is police controlling the cameras; who will watch the watchers? At the very least, you want all police cameras available to the public at all hours, and you also want cameras in the police monitoring room. But that's all moot if every citizen has their own cameras.
Part of me is horrified at the lack of privacy, but the freedom it will simultaneously bring practically makes me drool with anticipation. The worst thing about peasants under the heel of the aristocracy was the waste of talent because that talent would have undermined those in power. I am convinced that one of the reasons for the US rapid growth economically in the late 1800s was precisely because the gun leveled the playing field, and suspect that a lot of gun control, besides being racist (most early gun control was aimed at free blacks), was a reaction to the very idea that the common man could have as much individual power and freedom as the rich and powerful. When the common man suddenly finds he doesn't have to kowtow, it frees his mind to more than just robbing banks. I really look forward to the rich and powerful losing so much more of their control over society. I include here all advocacy groups, where pro- or anti-abortion, pro- or anti-choose-your-religion, all of them.
Copy machines and faxes helped break up the Soviet empire. I wonder what ubiquitous web cams will do. It's going to be an unstoppable revolution.
Infuriate left and right
I think you're so wrong I don't even know where to begin. I loathe cops, and so do most other people.
Here's a few reasons why.
First, what kind of person wants to become a cop? The job itself sucks -- it's incredibly dull for 95% of the time (cruising around looking for someone to ticket, pointing speed guns at people, filling out endless paperwork, etc) and is dangerous the other 5% of the time. It does not pay all that well (here in Atlanta, you start at about 35k). You get decent benefits, I guess, but I doubt anyone goes into a career just for that. A sense of civic duty is possibly a motive, but that quickly fades for most people when they realize that busting people for expired tags and other petty crap, which is the bulk of a beat cop's work, ain't exactly cleaning up the mean streets.
What are we left with? What possible benefit could there be to this job?
Power.
Make no mistake that power is the single most attractive and established benefit to police work. Therefore, most people -- not all -- who pursue this career are, surprise, power hungry animals. Combined with the abysmally low standards for entry (in most jurisdictions any schmuck with a GED who can do 25 pushups can get the job) and you've got a police force composed largely of power-tripping twits on the lower end of the intelligence scale. Dont' forget that cops are not hired for their brains. They are essentially the muscle of the state and that's all the state cares about.
Next we have all the silly laws the cops are told to enforce. This is not directly the cop's fault, of course, but they did choose this job and stay in it. Moreover, I hold the cops accountable for how selective they are in their enforcement. Partially related to the local legislature, traffic cops in particular are far more interested in pursuing "crimes" that result in profit for the state than they are about public safety. They're happy to pull you over and cite you for something like an expired tag (you monster, you!) or whatever inane non-moving violation, but when it comes to the idiot swerving through traffic or the jackass going 20mph below the limit they're nowhere to be found, or drive right by.
A cop is also generally not held accountable for his or her actions. Oh, sure, in extreme cases, they might receive a slap on the wrist in the form of "administrative leave" which amounts to a week of paid vacation, but in general, they can do whatever the hell they want and let the court sort it out later. I hate anecdotal evidence, but I'll offer the example of myself, arrested in 2000 for "terrorist activities". I lost a job thanks to that, not to mention the 3000 dollars I had to front for the 17k bond, the legal hassle, and so forth. When it finally got to the arraignment the DA took one look at the cop's notes, saw that the cop had absolutely no reason to think I was up to no good, and dismissed the charges right then and there in the hallway.
Do you think anything happened to Mister Officer?
This is all too common. Most cases are not as extreme as mine, but cops routinely pull people over just to be jerks, bark orders when they have no legal authority (but know people will comply because, well, it's a cop), and otherwise abuse their power.
The citizenry has almost no recourse, either. Suing for false arrest is almost never successful -- it's not like the system hasn't built in protection for that. And that's assuming you were arrested, and not just harrassed with some bullshit ticket. A cop's charge against you can make your life a living hell and cost you considerable money and you have no way to defend yourself -- he says you ran a red light, you say you didn't, and who is the judge going to believe?
Our legal system is so constructed that no one really watches the watchers -- no one who can do anything about it, anyway. There's a reason we all get nervous when a cop is behind us in traffic, even when we know we're not doing anything wrong.
We should not be nervous around the people we are paying to protect us. There is something wrong when that's the case.
mirrorshades radio -- darkwave, industrial, futurepop, ebm.
And frankly, what makes you think its EVER acceptable under ANY circumstances to fire rifles into an unarmed crowd? Even if we concede to the NG's argument that a few protesters fired at them (and it would have to be a very few, since there is no record of them), how did it help the situation for the NG to fire blindly into the crowd? Rationallity and common sense should have told the NG that if they fired into the crowd the would almost certainly not hit the "attackers" but they WOULD definitely kill innocent people. So the only conclusion we can reach is that either the NG was grossly incompetent to the point where they shouldn't be trusted with firearms or that they deliberately attacked the crowd thinking it was somehow justified.