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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.
Nothing better than a law which let's a public entity have legal protection from public oversight.
... please leave your rights and any expectation of privacy on the table to your right and pickup your federal ID on the left. Then continue down the hall for mandatory finger print and DNA recording for your protection.
Its almost the same situation with guy who got permission from a land owner to sit on the property and video tape police. The judge considered it unlawful seizer, and he won the case. Mainly because video taping is a legitimate way of gathering evidence. The full case is at http://www.paed.uscourts.gov/documents/opinions/05 D0847P.pdf
That case was federal, I have no idea about state laws but in theory it could be appealed and possibly get the federal court involved.
What's wrong with filming the cops?
Isn't that the only REAL way to watch the watchmen?
It's an old saw of photography that in a place where a celebrity does not have a reasonable expectation of privacy, you can take their photo without permission. You can even publish it. When I was handling photos for a major movie site, I had to remind agents and managers of this when they'd try to bluster about how neither they nor their client authorized us to run a photo they didn't like from a premiere or party. We didn't need their authorization.
/. post elements:
Now take something that is within the public interest, recording a police officer in the performance of his/her duties in a public place. Quis custodiet ipsos custodes? If there isn't an exception to the wiretapping laws when a citizen records the police, but there is an exception when the police record citizens, there is something seriously wrong with that law. This case bears watching.
- Greg
P.S.: And to have some stereotypical
In Soviet Russia, the police record *you*.
1: Record Police Officer
2: Get Arrested For Felony
3: ???
4: Profit!!
I, for one, welcome our new wiretapping overlords.
Start a happiness pandemic
I guess my question is "Why SHOULDN'T you be able to videotape police officers doing their job?". Seriously.
Posted by ScuttleMonkey on Mon Feb 19, '07 04:13 PM
from the turnabout-isn't-fair-play dept.
a_nonamiss writes "A Georgia couple, apparently tired of people speeding past their house, installed a camera and radar gun on their property. After it was installed, they caught a police office going 17MPH over the posted limit. They brought this to the attention of the local police department, and are now being forced to appear in front of a judge to answer to charges of stalking."
I could see if this was like in a private building or someones personal area, but if your out in the open then anyone can hear you anyway. If the police have an exemption then the public should have it as well.
Note it doesn't say "without notification," it says "without consent." Important difference.
Do not read this sig.
But in PA audio recording probably is. PA is a two party state. What that means is that all parties involved in a conversation must be aware it is being recorded for that to be legal. There are a number of states like this, and that's why there's the "this call may be monitored or recorded" crap on 800 numbers and such. They don't really care if you know, except that they are required to say so in some states.
Other states, like AZ, are one party states. This means that only a single person in a conversation needs to be aware it is being recorded for it to be legal. So while you can't, say, tap your girlfriend's phone (because you aren't a party in those conversations) you can tap your own phone, or walk around with a recorder in your pocket and it is legal.
So, if shit like this pisses you off, and it should, check and see if you are a two party state. If so, you should be getting on your state legislature about changing that.
How can it be wiretapping when the event happens in public place ? Wiretapping means listening into private conversations and some secret stuff. Not recording the cops abusing it's power in a public place.
American laws are scary. I say that as a foreigner and a person how lives outside the U.S.
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
This is more likely to get the law thrown out then get this guy put in prison. It is unreasonably broad for this officer to be applying this law in this way.
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
If this is taking place on a public street, then the wiretapping laws don't apply, just like the people's rights don't apply to "illegal search and seizure" when you're growing marijuana in your front yard in plain sight.
Right?
Pigs on taaaaaaape...
"Hey, if the police have nothing to hide, why do they object to being videotaped?"
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.
This is ludicrous. It's a public location, there is no expectation of privacy.
And that's on top of the assumption of these ... "pigs" is fair, here ... that they should be immune to citizen oversight. There's no way that *SEVEN* *EXTRA* *COPS* were needed to arrest him.
This is state. Recording laws vary state to state and in PA, it's a state where all participants in a conversation must be informed they are being recorded (for audio at least). There are plenty of states this is not the case for. This all predates 9/11, Bush, and whatever other big brother federal things you are thinking of by quite some time.
While their wording of the law for felony wiretapping of voice communications probably has flexible spots, I doubt it'll bend that far unless the guy has a really crummy lawyer.
One line blog. I hear that they're called Twitters now.
It's pretty clearly noted in the article that only the audio portion of the recording was considered to fall afoul of the law. But, a videotape of a person speaking could be taken to a person who lip-reads to obtain a later transcript of a conversation. (And how admissible might such a transcript be if needed later?)
I'm also curious to know whether the subject, as a passenger in the vehicle, would be considered a party to the conversation (something that some wiretapping statutes take into account).
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.
Next time, they'll have solid law to prosecute any SOB who films them at work and the recordings (being illegally obtained) won't be usable in court.
Lacking <sarcasm> tags,
I forget which case it was, I had to do a research project on it about 4 years ago, but it involved wiretapping in public areas. The incident involved wiretapping a payphone booth that was used regularly by the defendent for placing bets on sports events over the phone (both betting on sports and gambling over phone lines were illegal at the time.) The FBI claimed that because the pay phone was in a public area that they were free to tap it because it wasn't considered a private area. The court ruled in favor of the defendent, stating that conversations in this type of pay phone booth, which had a door that closed so nobody outside could hear, was reasonably expected by the publicto be a place where one could hold a conversation in private. The general ruling is that if there is a commonly accepted expectation of privacy, a warrant is required. The incidence for the case here is that the police were out in public on the streets. Nobody can reasonably believe that a conversation in the street is a private event. Therefore, this case should be closed and in favour of Mr. Kelly. Update: The case I referenced in the beginning of this post is Katz v. United States. I found an audio recording of the case 4 years ago that was in mp3 format. It can be found at http://www.oyez.org/oyez/resource/case/198/argumen t.mp3, along with the transcript at http://www.oyez.org/oyez/audio/198/argument-ra.smi l
After all, if they're not doing anything wrong then they've got nothing to hide!
Isn't that how the argument goes?
Sauce for the goose...
You're using her as bait, Master!
Yeah, you can't actually monitor police activies ESPECIALLY if they are doing something wrong. ..and if you TELL someone about it your obstructing justice and harming the nation.
This is an afront to everything a free country is about! They are suposta serve us!
Bringing liberty to the masses. - http://freetalklive.com/
Does the law require consent or awareness? There is a big difference between the two. If the law requires consent and you call a toll free number from or in Pennsylvania, does that mean you can tell the operator then that you don't consent to the call being recorded? If the law stipulates that parties must simply be made aware of the recording, then Kelly's mistake was surreptitiously recording the officer.
Another consideration is that a roadside does not constitute a public place, and by my interpretation of the law that is an essential element to the wiretapping offense. Namely, that an offense only occurs when there is an expectation of privacy. A roadside police stop doesn't conform to those requirements, in my opinion.
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.
Just ask MPAA and RIAA.
Oh, you meant actual cops? Never mind.
You are being MICROattacked, from various angles, in a SOFT manner.
What is wrong with taping the police, when the police are in public? How could this possibly hurt anybody?
There was a case where a student secretly taped a teacher teaching extremist left-wing propaganda. The school said teachers could not be taped because it might be distracting to the other students. WTF?
...it's the same in China.
Max.
I wonder what the PA police would make of Gordon Bell http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gordon_Bell/ and the MyLifeBits project http://research.microsoft.com/barc/mediapresence/M yLifeBits.aspx/?
The charge is invalid because it flouts privacy laws. Under the fourth amendment the expectation of privacy is not reasonable at such public places as automobile thoroughfares.
The magical number is: 09 F9 11 02 9D 74 E3 5B D8 41 56 C5 63 56 88 C0
What was that about warrantless wiretaps?
There's a bit of a difference between a citizen NOT empowered to drag anyone off to jail for 24 hours and a cop. It's about the potential for abuse of authority.
The result was that it was O.K. to tape record the police during a traffic stop.
The rational was that since the traffic stop happened in public, there was no expectation of privacy.
Basically, you can record anything that happens in public.
Now PA law might be a bit different.
TODO: create/find/steal funny sig.
Oh, yeah, in dictatorships & communist countries that squash common freedoms in the name of..... (Fill in blank)
FTFA:
"Police said the officer saw Kelly had a camera in his lap..."
Doesn't that mean the officer knew he was being recorded and therefore the recording wasn't illegal? It seems like it would only be illegal if the officer *didn't* see the camera and somehow found out later that he was being recorded. The law in PA says that all parties of a conversation need to be informed if it is being recorded. The very fact that the officer saw the camera implies that he was aware of the recording.
Anyone know if COPS was filmed in PA? Wouldn't this same law apply in reverse, and the cameramen charged with the same felony?
I can't see how a recording or photographing a police officer while performing his or her job is considered wiretapping when anybody can listen to and record the police using a radio scanner. Nothing that is being said between a cop and a person he is talking to or his actions with that person are something he should be worried about. By virtue of their job, the opposite should be true. From the article 'Young man, turn off your ... camera,'
I notice at the end that the ACLU might get involved and I hope they crush that cop and his department.
What about dash cams and microphones on police cars used as evidence?
-Nuke the moon
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.
Maybe they want to protect the cops to avoid another "Rodney King scandal". If it's illegal to tape the cops, your video footage of certain incidents is illegal and can't be used against them in court.
But if they are so keen to apply that law in this case, it's looking grim in others. The law says: "...bars the intentional interception or recording of anyone's oral conversation...". So if I stand on a bus stop and next to me there are two people having a conversation and I listen in, I'm technically intercepting their conversation and hence can be charged for wiretapping. Even if I bloody lip read what they're saying, I'm intercepting their convo. It may be a good idea to use ear muffs and a blindfold when you are in PA...
No expectation of privacy in public places. That's all I have to say.
Libertas in infinitum
Who loves the police officer that pulls you over? Even when you were clearly going faster than the posted speed limit. (I'll agree that there are shady tactics--like pulling people over right after a speed limit change, and the like). Most cops are just out there doing their jobs, no need to take it out on them. Not to quote our President, but "we are a nation of laws." We have people out there to enforce them, and we hope that they will do so fairly.
It's also easy to see that we hear more about the cops out there making questionable decisions, like this case (or the cops in the UCLA incident not too long ago which was caught on cell phone videos). But these are not the norm.
... and to your comment, 90% of statistics are made up on the spot.
"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.
Everyone in public should expect to be recorded there. We're already based on that way of expecting publicity in public, rather than expectations of privacy in private. Technology is just letting us live up (or down) to our expectations.
These police aren't just appearing in public. They work for the public, represent the public. They absolutely should expect to be recorded when in public.
In fact, all police should be recorded every minute they're on duty, with explicit (and logged) privacy breaks. Their records should be scanned for completeness after every shift, and archived for some reasonable time, like a year, or after a couple of performance reviews. Cops should use the videos as evidence in trials, as reports (just voice annotated), as tools to help other people identify and link suspects. How many escaping suspects require excessive force to stop them, because otherwise they'd get away, who could just be recorded and caught later, without car chases and shooting that endangers the cops, the suspects, and bystanders?
Once the public is already always recorded, we'll have good reason to stop being so lazy and defend our actual privacy, in private, which the government is already invading and recording all the time, even despite laws against it.
--
make install -not war
Even if you find the law valid, the police had no way of knowing if the defendants camera was recording audio or just video thus they had no probable cause for seizure and since the defendant was essentially in police custody at the time(and undoubtable not informed of his rights before being forced to hand over evidence) there was no reason not to wait and get a search warrant. Plus the police officer already notified the defendant that he was recording them...thus making the tape just an other copy of a recording that is already evidence in a criminal case and a matter of public record
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 hope this law takes effect in the UK with all their government sponsored CCTV's. Imagine cops arresting themselves! It would be like watching a bad coding bug in a video game. I'll be sure to grab some popcorn as I watch the chaos that ensues!
Why is this even a question? Of course we should be able to film and take pictures of them.
You can police the police at http://www.copwatch.org/
I guess this would fall under "attempting to police the police" (which IS needed in a lot of cases) and is one of the actions listed in the FBI JTTF pamphlet as being the action of a "potential domestic terrorist."
This is bullshit. It's clear that this is an abuse of power to stop people from being able to document further abuses of power. It's meant to also have a chilling effect and prevent others from doing the same.
Remember, one of the stated definitions of "terrorist" by the current administration is people who:
are Defenders of the Constitution
reference the constitution and the bill of rights
are property rights advocates
are loners
this is from an FBI Joint Terrorism Task Force pamphlet which you can see here:
http://www.welfarestate.com/pamphlet/
If a cop is doing his or her job, he or she should be proud to be videotaped.
Now if someone was following a cop all day with a videocam for no good reason, I can see where that could maybe be an issue - but it should be fine to videotape a traffic stop on a public street, especially if you are the one being stopped.
The fascism keeps creeping.
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."
Don't let anyone here on /. fool you! A silent movie of our cops doing their job is perfectly legal here in PA, the Keystone state. You'll need to add your own music soundtrack to keep audiences coming back for more, though.
Error:
I don't think these charges will stick because photography is considered a standard of truth. The right to capture the relative truth is necessary to prevent abuse of power by police and authorities. Besides, the wiretapping argument will not hold because the police are performing their duties in plain sight and therefore do not have a heightened expectation of privacy. The video taping is legal so long as the camera is capturing the footage from a distance sufficient that its operators are not interfering with the police officer's performance of duty. A first year law school student should be able to quash this thing. Also, I went to school in Carlisle, PA and the Carlisle PD does behave in a dubious fashion. Between you, me, and the microchips, C/PD is concerned that their tactics would be revealed.
A District Attorney is going to have a hard time of getting a conviction unless someone is willing to press charges, accusing someone else (in this case, Brian Kelly) of a crime. What would happen to the D.A.'s case, if Brian Kelly asked his pal to be a witness, and his pal said "Heck, I wanted Brian to record the cop that was yelling at me!"
Kind of makes the "non-consensual recording" charge go out the window, don't you think?
*technically, detention == arrested, if only long enough to issue a citation.
"The most sensible request of government we make is not, "Do something!" But "Quit it!"
Speed limits are funny things. In California (not sure about other states), speed limits are supposed to be set to the 85th percentile of speeds as determined by a traffic survey (provided that speed is under the maximum speed limit which is 65 mph these days, I think). So, on your average city street, 15% of people are *supposed* to be speeding.
We really need more people filming the police.
It seems that police brutality is getting so common now that they are willing to beat members of the media on camera . (The clip begins with the narrator suggesting that the protestors were "asking for it" by throwing rocks at the police, but they can't spin the footage of their own camerapeople getting beaten up.)
What's worse, is that police now tend to focus on people with cameras , as you can also see in the above video.
The tapes are very helpful in prosecuting police misconduct , so we neeed more people taping.
Otherwise, the police tend to lie about the incidents , even going so far to claim in the killing of Jean Charles de Menezes in Britain that 5 different cameras watching the action were all somehow not functioning .
In a Missouri case, a teenager was being harassed by the police at a DUI checkpoint for not telling them where he was going -- when he asked why he was being detained, he was told "If you don't stop running your mouth, we're going to find a reason to lock you up tonight".
Cameras are getting tinier and tinier all the time, and now we have Wi-Fi enabled storage cards. When cameras get so small the cops can't see them, and people can record the content wirelessly to hidden devices, it will be a lot harder for the bad cops to stop the filming of the brutality.
C'mon, we all know the cops are never in the wrong! After all, they're working for the good of the public, ya know...
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
Yes! The government is not like your nosy neighbor. We can and should put additional restrictions on public servants while they are performing the jobs that we ask them to. Don't treat the government like a peer - it is both a useful and dangerous servant that needs to be watched and restricted so that those who would abuse the power we give the government cannot.
splash splash
Oh the irony.
I'm sure not everyone has forgotten about him yet, but if you have, here's the refresh. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rodney_King I find it quite amazing how things that weren't a problem years ago have become problems these days. I honestly can't say I stay current on all laws of all jurisdictions but I'm sure if this were the case back then somebody might have mentioned it. Instead we have entered a world where solid lines no longer divide right from wrong and instead with a good enough lawyer anyone can justify being on either side of the line.
The police may realize that they only have a limited amount of time to establish these rules before it is effectively too late. The time is fast approaching when nearly everyone will have a personal recording device (possibly concealed) running all day long for their own protection. This will severely hamper the ability of the cops to act like thugs unless they can somehow make such recordings illegal and inadmissable when a police officer is involved.
There are two kinds of people: 1) those who start arrays with one and 1) those who start them with zero.
I think you're slightly mistaken there. In my transportation engineering class, we were recently taught that the posted speed limit is about 85% of the design speed of the highway (rounded to the nearest 5mph). The design speed is presumably the maximum "safe" speed, although I'm not sure how it's determined. I imagine it's based on some kind of lowest-common-denominator, like a half-blind old lady driving a huge Buick with drum brakes, or a semi, or something. One thing I can tell you it's not though, is that it's not based on a survey of existing traffic speeds -- you have to design the road before the traffic exists! And also it's not so much that "15% percent of people" should be speeding, it's that it should be safe for [100% of] people to go 15% faster than the posted limit.
"[Regarding the 'cloud,'] ownership was what made America different than Russia." -- Woz
Camp Hill is to buy a street-sweeper. You heard it here first. I mean, second. Maybe third.
_ hill_to_buy_street_sweepi.html
http://blog.pennlive.com/patriotnews/2007/06/camp
When they came for the communists, I said "He's next door. Take him away. Goddam commies."
you are in a public place. As such, it will be interesting to see what takes hold. But with this case, the private citizen is a friend of the camera man. I am guessing that he will not file charges.
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
Either that, or next time I go to a convenience store or "big-box" retailer I'm going to demand that they turn off their cameras because they don't have my permission.
As far as I understand, the law says you have to be notified of recording. Otherwise, if it's your life, and it's happening to you, you can tape it.
You can't publish it without consent, but you (or your approved surrogate) sure as heck can record it. These cops were out of line.
IANAL.
--
Toro
Can I use the same argument?
No, because the red light cam's don't record audio. Read the fine article.
Mod down people who tell people how to mod in their sigs
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.
Were this the law in California the Rodney King case would never have come to light, nor at least a dozen other cases of police use of 'excessive force' (also known as 'beating the snot out of some poor schmuck who can't defend himself').
"Think about how stupid the average person is. Now, realise that half of them are dumber than that." - George Carlin
I've encountered both bastards as well the benevolent in the local police force. I had the unfortunate chance to encounter the former this winter; but the latter when I had gotten off work when the Oilers had their run to the 2006 Stanley Cup. Though I can also say the same thing about the RCMP; just depends on the officers involved.
This is a model for the law: http://www.ibiblio.org/rdu/nma-zone.html
This is a decent explanation: http://www.kentcountyroads.net/policies-speedlimi
From the Kent County information:
in England
Everyone knows that. Here in NC it's a felony to tape cops who come to your own house, for instance if you have a surveillance camera at the front door and the cop comes to your door to talk to you or serve a warrant it is in fact illegal for the homeowner to record that 'interaction' in any way.
Also, the state legislature is working on a bill to exempt all police from all traffic violations at all times if they are in their official vehicles whether they are on duty or pursuing someone or not.
As a fire fighter, I work with PD frequently. Despite what you see on TV, most of the FF/PD back and forth is overall friendly or at worst good natured sparing.
I know many officers. Some are good, some are not good. Most are somewhere in the middle. The youngest, smallest ones have in my experience been the ones closer to the stereotype. I refer to these as "25 year olds with their first mirrored shades and a gun" and are dangerous to themselves as much as the public they insult. Most though, grow up and become good natured and humble just like we all try to.
Cops are people, and suffer the same foibles as the rest of us. For them, like all others, power is a drug to be taken in small doses.
When you give a little man a little power, you create a big problem.
The problem with quotes on the internet, is that nobody bothers to check their veracity. -- Abraham Lincoln
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 interactions between a citizen and a policeman/woman, it isn't reasonable to grant the ability to legally record what occurs to the officer but not the citizen. The officer is already the one with more power in their relationship. Without the citizens being able to monitor policemen/women, the relationship between power and privacy becomes greatly imbalanced, and abuses will occur with greater frequency. There are more than enough historical examples (and a few in the news right now) that illustrate why monitoring the force that monitors us is necessary.
"Filming police officer not invasion of privacy * The U.S. Court of Appeals ruled that the state of Washington's Privacy Act does not prohibit filming a police officer, allowing a civil rights lawsuit against the officer to advance." http://www.rcfp.org/news/2004/1105johnso.html --- End Paste --- Though it doesn't directly apply to PA. it sets a strong precedent which can be cited by someone arrested in other locations. The Police in the performance of their official duties have no expectation of privacy and therefore this law does not apply.
Great idea! You go first. Be sure to come back here and post about how it went when you arrest the police chief. Or should I say, have someone you know come on here and post since you won't be able to get to a computer from your jail cell.
for the last 6 years, they have given this admin a VERY free ride. They will not take this on, because it will open another can of worms. In particular, US PATRIOT act. You did note that it gave the police the right to videotape what they are doing, but does not give us the right to see that video. If ACLU makes headway, then the bloggers will go after it, and then the press. As it is, they are headed in the same direction as CDs; immaterial.
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
"When you give a little man a little power, you get a big problem"
Little refers to the character of the man, not the stature. Clearly it also refers to your ability to understand metaphor.
The problem with quotes on the internet, is that nobody bothers to check their veracity. -- Abraham Lincoln
In the Public Domain aren't there to be no expectations of privacy. I know this was used by the defense in some nude shots of girls on the street in mardi gras for something like Girls Gone Wild, when they were being sued by the girl (I might be wrong on the particulars but it was something of the sort.) So, considering it was outside in the public domain why should the cops be any different. When in public expect to be watched/listened to. I thought wiretapping came into effect when privacy was expected i.e. inside ones own house.
There is no expectation of privacy. That is why police are allowed to look INTO the visible parts of your car (ie, through the windows, etc) without probable cause or a warrant.
Presumably, that's why they also can tape a traffic stop.
I seriously doubt the Constitution would stand for government employees to have GREATER protections and expectations of privacy when performing official government duty.
Personally I've been harassed by our local stormtrooper wannabes (small town police). That stopped when I made it clear that I carry a tape recorder and will record any and all interactions.
Corporatism != Free Market
...How many police do you know?
I've seen asshole people and nice people. I've seen asshole cops and nice cops. They're people with good sides and bad sides, just like everybody else.
A cop helped me push my broken-down car off the road into a diner parking lot nearby. In a separate occasion, after my car was hit by an SUV, the cop gave me a lift. A cop escorted my pregnant mother to the hospital. Get a grip, I have no doubt that there are police who abuse their power, but to say that they're somehow inherently evil is simply ridiculous.
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.
I haven't read the PA statutes and I'm not going to take the time to do that and dig through case law on it, but generally the way it works is you have to make someone aware of it, so that they can consent or not consent. So like on the phone call when it notifies you it might be recorded, you are free to hang up, or if a business has signs up saying the record you are free to not go in. In public, well who knows? Kind of a grey area. Comes down to a balance between the lack of expectation of privacy (you have no general expectation of privacy in public) versus the fact that you can't very well tell people to just not go out in public.
My guess is that the argument would be that provided the person is doing a reasonable job to make you aware they are recording (obvious equipment, signs, etc) then your consent is implied, unless you say something. However if you say "You need to stop recording me," they have to comply.
Now as a practical matter, shit like this isn't going to court for public recording unless it involved someone powerful, like the police. However the law is probably such that it IS illegal to keep recording (audio at least, maybe video too) if someone tells you to stop.
Really the answer is just better laws. The whole one party idea really takes care of it. You can't record a conversation that you aren't present for, without permission. However if you are there, you can record. Makes good sense, as you could be writing it all down, or remembering it or whatever. While it wouldn't stop the police form illegally taking your camera or something it will stop them from trying to use the courts to stop you from recording them. It is legal, no matter if you are covert or not, so long as you are a party to what you are recording.
So now I'm a felon for listening to two neighbors yell at each other? Wow.
If he broke a wiretapping law, what wires was he tapping? Also, by entering a public place, then you are willfully giving your consent to being videotaped. Police officers are no exception.
I just think that these cops are trying to squirm out of the jam of having a display of their unprofessional attitude caught on tape by arresting the driver as intimidation for documenting their public indiscretions.
Seriously, if you want to cover up bad actions, try a less obvious way than by arresting the person who videotaped your PUBLIC outburst.
Knowing Google's lust for data collection, the Soviet Union is still alive and well inside the psyche of Sergey Brin....
Perhaps:
The police should not be videotaped in their interaction with the public because there exists huge potential to exploit such video as defaming of random (or not so random) people who may in fact be doing nothing wrong.
"In tonight's exclusive, we have shocking footage of heavyweight champ John Smith being placed in the back of a patrol car. Police aren't saying what it is that Smith did wrong, but our confidential sources say that he is involved in a [sophisticated money laundering scheme/cocaine binge/nasty divorce/child custody case/other unproven or private nastiness]."
Don't get me wrong. I'm generally all for all sorts of liberties and rights, whether it be of the press or the general public, but especially the much more vague right to avoid being fucked with -- in any form.
What right does a guy with a camera have to start the wheels of the rumor mill churning?
Anecdotally, I've been in the back of a patrol car for questioning. I didn't do anything wrong, and I'm not ashamed of the event. But I do not wish for it to be spun into the public eye, where I would either be forced to defend myself against the spin or admit (by silence) being guilty of something that never happened.
Just a thought.
Kid-proof tablet..
The assholes are *hooding* people now when they arrest them in a lot of places. HOODING THEM. Guess what comes next? For a clue, check the headlines.
They are the brainwashed mouth breathing steroid addicted psychopathic stepchildren of the foreign corporate wars mercenaries. That's right, the same mentality (and now a lot of the same "people", that's the number one recruit for the pig forces, ex military with combat experience) that brought you abu ghraib and the genocide in Fallujah is bringing you officer friendly and the local "anti terrorist" SWAT teams, complete with full auto, silencers, and armored vehicles. Police follow orders, orders come down from the top to always protect the status quo and the power brokers.
Look back in history, WHEN have cops been on the right side when it came to civil or human rights? NEVER, NOT ONE TIME YET, they have always fought against the people on orders from the powerful, once all is said and done. Racial discrimination was wrong, yet every time some cop was ordered to protect the status quo of racial discrimination-they did so, violently.
The nam war was based on total lies, tonkin gulf never happened, and the draft that was illegally continued after WW2 and used to send young kids off to fight in corporate wars for profit and murder millions was obviously unconstitutional and illegal and morally bankrupt, yet every single time the cops protected the status quo power brokers against the people.
Now we have them enforcing so called "free speech zones" (hello, can ANY cop even READ and comprehend at a third grade level?? the Bill of inalienable rights, ever hear of it??) and arresting folks with cameras in a public place? What do you expect from paid mercenaries? That's their mercenary gig, follow orders from the rich and powerful, and now make sure there is never any evidence that might be used against them. Just call it "security". Mumble the word "terrorism". Anything they do is jow "right, legal, lawful". Anything..
YOU can get pulled over for speeding or blocking traffic, the ultra rich and powerful dudes in government and their corporate string pullers get POLICE ESCORTS and YOU have to make way to let them by. Get it yet? A lot of -places it is "illegal" for you to be armed for self protection, but some rich asshole like that fat pig mayor in new jerk city, who says you can't protect yourself and his pig mercenaries would arrest you for it, has round the clock armed 24/7 protection. See it yet? See how it works? Some group of transnational disloyal corporate execs can get together and scheme which new set of people will be losing their jobs and incomes and get full complete pig protection at their "trade conferences", but people trying to protest against that are "terrorists" now "radical extremsists" who's groups "need to be infiltrated to gather intelligence". The pigs don't care, because they know THEY will get their mercenary blood money paycheck from their corporate masters even when YOURS goes kaput. See how that works? And YOU pay for that, even if your job gets jobjacked, you will still have to pay your "property taxes" so that they can pay the pigs to keep you in thralldom. If the cops were really for the people, they would march in and arrest those WTO conmen traitors-but they sure don't, do they?
We just had that article the other day where the MAFIAA goons hired cops to act as official raid people. Can YOU go hire cops and just raid some of the MAFIAA offices looking for evidence of industry collusion and price fixing and payola, which we know go on?
Cops are disgusting mercenaries. That they occasionally help out some poor schmuck in a pickle is barely 1% of their normal function (I'll grant that 1%, but no more, not any longer), and even that 1% is fading fast now. They could give crap one if you get robbed or mugged, exploited or hoodwinked by corporate cons, just boring paperwork to them.
The US is now a
Yup, the police can recognize an asshole a mile away. They deal with them all the time. In my experience a little bit of courtesy is all that is needed to get superb treatment from a cop.
Excuse me, but please get off my Pennisetum Clandestinum, eh!
sadly, this is not the beginning of an "in soviet russia" joke
Snowden and Manning are heroes.
what happens when the police issue the command: "Turn off that camera" ??
is that a lawful command? is that a reason to be arrested for "resisting arrest" or "obstruction of justice" ??
The fuzz as you call them have a dangerous mindset. Most of them abuse their position. Every time I see a cop on the road here in miami, he or she is speeding.
I can understand being in a hurry, we're all in a hurry. Still, they're not allowed to speed unless their lights and sirens are on.
I know a bunch of cops. Most of them are tragically unintelligent. One of them, while being both intelligent and highly skilled, is a complete racist. That's sad.
Every cop I've ever met has been a bully. The only time they act like they're supposed to is on the television show "COPS".
They have no choice on there.
They're using their grammar skills there.
WTF??!!
Are the mods all 12?
If anything it deserves a +/-1 Sarcasm mod.
Insightful?!
Damn.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
Sounds like you need more enforcement so the speed of the traffic matches the speed limit.
Justice is the sheep getting arrested while an impartial judge declares the vote void.
Heheheh. I knew that was coming. No, it didn't. But of all the cars that I had driven, it was the best-looking and newest car I'd been "seen" in so if there was any opportunity of being given the benefit of the doubt, that was it.
Police can be assholes independently of any citizen actions. I was getting a slow flat that I didn't notice immediately. Later I was told I'd run over a spike which caused the leak (covered under tire warantee!). I was starting to notice the steering was getting less responsive -- driving on a curvy 4-lane highway. At first I thought it was a fluke or maybe I wasn't paying attention, but paying full attention, it became difficult to avoid going into a center divide, and the tire blew the rest of the way then. I calmly signaled to get over in outer lane (no loss of control of vehicle), pulled over at a turnout. I was followed when pulling over by an off-duty cop who thought I was "inebriated". At that point, I wasn't quite sure what had happened (had I hit something? (no), did my tire or car hit the center divide and that's what caused the blow out? (no). I was on my way to a doctor's appointment. Was a hot day and was wearing a skirt, light top and middle-to-low height sandals (not flats, but not high heels -- fine for shopping in, but not taking outdoor hikes in). The policeman called fellow pigs to the scene and convinced them I was under the influence of "something".
I was quite cooperative, told them any meds I was taking (none of which would have caused impairment -- had been taking them for long time). On the side of the road, on rough gravel and on a hill side, they had me trying to walk the straight line in the mid-heeled sandals that, at best, might be comfortable to walk in, but not pirouette on an incline and rough gravel. So they decided to arrest me. Then they refused to allow me to get a jacket, sweater, or any warmer clothes. Even lied to me, saying they'd get my bag (they didn't) so I could put on a jacket. They then took me downtown and my car was towed. The breathalyser on the scene was negative, but that wouldn't have showed effects of other drugs. Downtown they took a pee test AND a blood test (both, a week or two later came back negative). But meanwhile, they locked me up for 8 hours to "sober up" (since they couldn't get the blood and urine tests back for a few to several days). Locked up, down in basement, where it was 65 degrees -- and I was dressed for 80's and sunny.
It cost me $40 for a taxi ride at midnight to the lot where they had towed my car where I had to pay over $200 for an after-hours "release". I put the spare on the car in 10 minutes and was on way home. Then I had to deal with a DUI charge that I wasn't guilty of. I had to hire a lawyer to deal with the court issues, since otherwise, they'd want me to be in court 45 miles away at 8am to enter my plea. The lawyer was able to talk to the DA's office the morning of the trial. They found nothing in my blood other than the 'scripts I'd told them about and they decided to drop the charges. They refused to return my prescriptions -- and ran me around in circles trying to get them from the police -- who eventually refused because, they claimed, they were not doctors and it would be illegal for them to return my prescriptions as they were not doctors -- I'd need a court order.
At this point I was out $250 for the night I had to get home from jail and another $1200 down to the lawyer. The court order to return my meds would have cost, minimum, another $800-1000, so gave up that idea and just went into the pharmacy for refills a bit early.
So I'm out $1500 due to some cop thinking my "flat tire" causing steering problems was me being "DUI" -- no recourse to get the money. I found out 3-4 years later (!!!) when I went to get insurance on a new car, that the cop at the scene had reported it to the DMV as an accident. The asshole cop didn't even check to see if my car had any scratches on it -- and the tire had no side-wall damage (as would be the case if I brushed against the center divide). Nevertheless the idiot recorded it as an accident which caused me to have to do some explaining to my insurance company to supposedly tell them about my "accident". I didn't know anything about an acc
It sounds pretty easy to take care of with just a little forethought?
!!! WARNING !!!
Security Camera Area
This area is covered by a security camera that records images and audio.
Your continued presence on this property / in proximity to this vehicle /
and/or engaging property owners, residents, guests, bystanders, pedestrians
or entities within this area / drivers and/or passengers in or around this
vehicle / in any fashion shall be considered legal consent to permit the
recording of the likenesses, images and/or voices of yourself and your
associates, partners, guests, spouses, children, pets and/or entities out
of camera range but within audible range of the recording device, for any
purpose including but not limited to personal, commercial and/or legal use.
If you do not consent to being recorded in this fashion then you must present
a warrant declaring that the owner and/or one of their family or guests is
under arrest and/or the property under surveillance is being secured pursuant
to the terms dictated in the issued warrant, or you and your associates, partners
guests, spouses, children, pets and/or entities must depart the designated
security area without delay.
IANAL, but I think that pretty much covers the issue of "informed consent"?
Now, just make this into a sign for your property and a window sticker for your car.
Done and dusted!
[End Of Line]
Perhaps you should consider contacting the guys at Justin.tv. I don't care about them in the least, but it sounds like their tech might be useful to you.
Police Record You
In the United States, traffic engineers may rely on the 85th percentile rule[3] to establish speed limits. The speed limit should be set to the speed that separates the bottom 85% of vehicle speeds from the top 15%. The 85th percentile is slightly greater than a speed that is one standard deviation above the mean of a normal distribution.
The theory is that traffic laws that reflect the behavior of the majority of motorists may have better compliance than laws that arbitrarily criminalize the majority of motorists and encourage violations. The latter kinds of laws lack public support and often fail to bring about desirable changes in driving behavior. An example is the federally-mandated 55 mph (90 km/h) speed limit that was removed in part because of notoriously low compliance.
Most U.S. jurisdictions report using the 85th percentile speed as the basis for their speed limits, so the 85th-percentile speed and speed limits should be closely matched. However, a review of available speed studies demonstrates that the posted speed limit is almost always set well below the 85th-percentile speed by as much as 8 to 12 mph (see p.88) (13 to 19 km/h). Some reasons for this include: Political or bureaucratic resistance to higher limits. Statutes that restrict jurisdictions from posting limits higher than an arbitrary number.
In addition, it says that a lot of the time the safe speed is actually HIGHER than the design speed. Read it.
-Glitch "We all know Linux is great...it does infinite loops in 5 seconds." - Linus Torvalds
Power trip? Uh... Yeah.
Be sure to obey all speed limits, (no matter how stupid they seem) here in PA - especially in small towns. This form of revenue is common here and a lot of cops here have this kind of attitude. I'll be interested to see how this particular case goes down, but I have a feeling it'll be much like the nearby Mechanicburg justice system I experienced a few years back: "Well... That's some good proof there, but I'm going to find you guilty." (judge turns to officer) "So Jim, how's the wife and kids these days?"
"...Well, there's egg and bacon; egg sausage and bacon; egg and spam; egg bacon and spam; egg bacon sausage and spam..."
Cause you a damn honkey!
It is my understanding that this audio was only recently "discovered." I can assure you during my military service I NEVER received an order to fire my weapon like that. Maybe "Ready, Aim, Fire" or "Contact [direction], Fire" ...never something like "Get Set! Point! Fire!" They just aren't ligitimate weapons commands. It sounds to me like some agitator wanted to add it and just messed it all up. He may be able to fool someone who has never been on a weapons range, but not anyone who has actually put rounds downrange.
I have never ever, ever met a good policeperson. Not even mediocre.
Ditto! I've never met a good policeman, a mediocre policeman, or even any policeman at all. They just don't come around my village..
You just got troll'd!
I don't mind so much the giving of the ticket. It's the pointless/loaded questions like "Why were you driving that fast?", and "Do you know how fast you were going?", and being lectured at as if I were their retarded 6 year old step-child.
Aside from my two tickets, I've been pulled over a few other times, and in every case but one, the office has fit the typical power-drunk asshole stereotype. We have people out there to enforce them, and we hope that they will do so fairly. We shouldn't hope it. We should demand it.
Police officers are a necessary evil, and must be watched.
I don't always use unix-like operating systems; but when I do, I prefer FreeBSD.
Cohesion? Were you maybe going for coercion?
If they're not doing anything wrong they have nothing to worry about, at least that's what politicians and the Police say every time civil rights groups complain about the public being CCTV'd everywhere they go.
Hmmmmmm..... Deep fried and look like Squirrel.
I'm going to have to look into the law in question, but it seems that the intent of the prohibition on wiretapping is to protect the privacy of citizens.
So what's odd is that the policemen were acting in a public capacity, yet Kelly is being charged with a law intended to protect the privacy of private citizens. Don't get me wrong, cops are private citizens when they're off-duty.
But when on-duty, they're instruments of Government, who are employees of the taxpayer.
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.
This seems so stupid. Most wiretap laws require you to intercept the sound via a wiretap. There was no wire to tap in this case. I think they should prosecute the cop and the prosecutor for obstruction of justice, intimidation, false arrest and RICO violations. Put the prosecutor in General Population. I think this is an abuse and the prosecutor, cops should be taught the lesson to not abuse their positions.
Why can't the same logic be applied to private citizens. For instance, if the person taping had informed the officer that he was recording the officer, couldn't there be implied consent since the officer didn't vacate the area?
Also, what difference does it matter who is recording whom? If the cop is allowed to record a traffic stop, a citizen should be able to record the same traffic stop.
This entire situation scares me a great deal.
I think the cops are in the right on this one. Why? The cops are only enforcing the law. The law basically says that no one can record conversations of others except police during police interviews. Why is thie a good thing? Think little. If you had the right to record conversations of others, then you would. You and other slashdotters aren't the problem. It's that if you have the right, then companies would have that right. (See where I'm heading with this.)
If companies were allowed to record converstations, then places like walmart, target, and gas stations would add audio recordings to their video tape survillance. Right now, it wouldn't be useful, but I could see "them" actually developing the tech to convert audio converstations into easily searchable text. (Heck, you might even be ID'd by your voice.) Would you want a world where every converstation that you had was recorded by whomever owned that building? You go to the gas station, and its recorded, you go to a Walmart type store and all your converstations are recorded, you go to any government building and every converstation that you have is recorded.
The law sounds like it was trying to prevent that which is a good thing.
You do realize that you're completely ignoring the context of the pamphlet don't you?
"'defenders' of the Constitution" does not mean the same as "Defenders of the Constitution". You're pretending it does.
You go on to make the same ridiculous mistakes with each of your supposed quotes from the pamphlet, and in doing so ignore the context.
You're the worst kind of liar.
I am not wealthy, and I've met three nice policemen and one ass.
I was at a festival and found a 2 year old boy alone in the street, lost and afraid. I brought him to a policeman who immediately made an announcement to find his mother, and was very good with the little boy.
My friend wrecked her car on a back road into a tree because of gravel, and I was with her. We needed a policeman to come interview us and file a report before we could have the car towed. He was polite to us.
At a college cafeteria I left my things while I got a plate of food and was robbed of my wallet, keys, and cell phone. The police at the college successfully retrieved my belongings within the hour.
The only time one was rude was when I wrecked my car and was in the hospital and in shock, and a policeman thought it was necessary to come into my hospital room and start asking me dozens of questions.
"if only i had known i would have been a locksmith." -albert einstein
Don't you ahve to put a notice when videotaping someone? I think this is how stores and private property get around the law. So with that, just put a bumper sticker on the car that says activities within this car are taped and monitored at all times. Then when you get pulled over, turn the camera on. The cop has notice and if he doesn't want to be videotaped then maybe he shouldn't be pulled over. If you give him notice and it's within your own property then i don't think he can tell you to turn it off. of course he'd probably tell you to get out of the car and definately give you a ticket.
It amazes me in the U.S. the amount of faith people put in law enforcement. Many cops are little better than the criminals they police. And there are whole departments (New Orleans, I'm looking in your direction) that are either in direct alliance with criminals or actively extorting them. Anyone stupid enough to think that cops obey the law DESERVES that nightstick up their ass.
SJW: Someone who has run out of real oppression, and has to fake it.
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.
That is pretty anecdotal and you are talking about traffic cops. Treat them nice and they will generally be cool. Now if you ever deal with cops in a major city then your mileage may vary. I personally like the cops in our city in a sense they don't do that much sometimes. I've run red lights in front of them before by accident and they didn't lift a finger.
On the other hand I've heard stories that at the clubs they'll watch people get the crap beat out of them without lifting a finger either.
Of course in a city of 300 murders per year... (I'll let you figure out which one)
Anyways, I had to get a local lawyer once in the South who told me that the cop involved in a certain case lies on the stand and he has had to deal with him before. They did an illegal search on my car and not finding any illegal materials, pursued other charges and even disregarded the original reason they pulled me over for (which was speeding) but everything worked out ok for me since I wasn't living in the state at the time.
So again... Depending on where you live your mileage may vary. I've heard nightmare stories from friends in NYC about police abuse, but again... All anecdotal like mine and your stories and pretty much not a scientific study.
"I am the king of the Romans, and am superior to rules of grammar!"
-Sigismund, Holy Roman Emperor (1368-1437)
Sounds like they need to raise the limit (I'd prefer to do away with them totally, but, not much a chance of that..too much revenue for the cops with speed limits/traps).
Light travels faster than sound. This is why some people appear bright until you hear them speak.........
Just like the cop told them they were being videotaped (probably as a form of legal disclosure), they probably could have just told the police that he himself was being videotaped and then it was not undercover or spying on the cop?. That the guy needs the consent of the people he video on a public place (and a public officer of the law), I really wonder if that is needed. IANAL of course.
Cops are a reflection of their jurisdiction and how "scruffy" you look. If they are in a place where they are used to bullying the locals and you look like someone they can bully: THEY WILL BULLY YOU. Cops can and will hassle criminal law professors for no other reason than walking while black.
They will do whatever they think they can get away with.
They will quickly get "offended" if you don't seem sufficiently cowed.
Your only real protection is appearing as if you may be the mayor or one of his relatives.
A Pirate and a Puritan look the same on a balance sheet.
I used to live there. The police loved to harass me while on my bicycle, obeying the law too. I was harassed on several occasions. One was when I was straddled on the bike on a blocked-off road for some carnival (not riding, mind you). Another I was finishing a ride at dusk, and a cop pulled up behind me at a red light and used his PA system to tell me I had to walk because I didn't have a light on (never mind that none of the cars at the red light had their lights on yet either, and there were a couple of people illegally riding bikes down the sidewalks). I miss the trails up there, but certainly not the police force.
An axiomatic presumption of this law is that the parties involved have the option of terminating the conversation upon being notified that it will be recorded. That's not the case here: under no sane conditions would the officer say "oh, if you're going to record the conversation then we're not going to have a conversation" and walk away.
If the cop wins in this case, we could very well see criminals getting surveilance recordings thrown out of court for the same reason: they weren't notified that their "conversation" was being recorded. Unintended consequences...
Can we get a "-1 Wrong" moderation option?
...not that I would compare the skill and training of paramedics to surgeons, but the attitude can sometimes come from the same place. The training and pressure under which they must do their work means it has to attract people with confidence in abundance and the ability to make snap decisions.
;-)
I've also heard them referred to as "paragods".
I'm not an EMT, just a firefighter (well, a fire officer). If they're stuck somewhere, I'll get them out. If they're on fire, I will put water on them. After that, they're someone else's problem.
The problem with quotes on the internet, is that nobody bothers to check their veracity. -- Abraham Lincoln
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.
I don't mind so much the giving of the ticket. It's the pointless/loaded questions like "Why were you driving that fast?", and "Do you know how fast you were going?", and being lectured at as if I were their retarded 6 year old step-child.
The reason they do that isn't to lecture you. It's to get you to make some sort of admission of guilt that they can use against you later. In New York our State Troopers (who have absolutely no history of corruption at all), now have thermal printers in their cruisers. They will print the ticket and the supporting deposition directly off and then hand it to you. If you make a statement like "I was late to work", it will be included on the supporting deposition and will be used against you if you can't reach an agreement with the DA and want your day in court.
You are pretty much damned if you do and damned if you don't. You probably have less then a one in ten chance of talking your way out of a ticket -- kiss that chance goodbye if you lie to them or refuse to own up to the fact that you were speeding. But by owning up to that you provide an admission of guilt that they will be all to happy to use against you later. My reaction to a traffic stop depends on the police agency involved (some are nicer then others), the attitude of the cop and how badly I was speeding. If I sense that it's an asshole cop and I'm getting the ticket anyway then I'm not going to tell them anything. There's no law that says you have to engage in a conversation with them.
Aside from my two tickets, I've been pulled over a few other times, and in every case but one, the office has fit the typical power-drunk asshole stereotype.
The city cops here (Binghamton) are fairly chill -- unless you lie to them or otherwise piss them off. I blew through a red light once (saw the green arrow for the next lane and thought it was mine) on my way home. I'd had two beers. Officer asked me if I had been drinking -- told him yes, I just had two with some friends. He let me go -- didn't even ticket me for the light. Had I denied it, with beer on my breath and having just left a bar at 12:30AM, I suspect that I would have been breath tested (I would have passed, but that's not the point) and ticketed for running the light.
The other story of course are the state troopers. The last time I got a ticket from them he was a complete power-tripping dickwad asshole, who completely stereotyped me based on my car (an old beater), asked to search it (I told him no, he didn't push it beyond that), and went so far as to write a selt-belt ticket because my lap belt was unbuckled (car had automatic belts for the shoulder straps). He refused to believe me when I told him that I unbuckled it to get my wallet out for my drivers license.
I want peace on earth and goodwill toward man.
We are the United States Government! We don't do that sort of thing.
let me guess... you are white?
when my wife and i were dating, she was in a pretty bad car accident. she slid on some rainslick pavement early in the morning and rear ended a car, which in turn rear ended another car. she was cited and had to appear in court. she was nervous about the appearance so i went with her to the courthouse.
on her court date, they heard all of the cases for things that happened on that day. her maiden name began with a W so she was one of the last to be heard so we got to sit there thru all of the other cases on the docket for that day. she pleaded no contest and had to pay some fines and court fees, but there the judge gave her nothing severe for causing the accident.
one interesting case was this black guy who was at the scene of the accident and not paying attention to the cop directing traffic (rubbernecking the accident presumably) and didn't stop when the cop told him to. the cop says he had to jump out of the way of the car (the black dude says he couldn't have been going more that 5mph) and so the cop has the guy get out of the car. then the cop says he smelled weed and so he searches the car and finds a roach in the ash tray.
the guy gets a 30 day suspended sentence for posession, his license revoked for 6 months, and has to attend a drug treatment program. he also can't apply for any work-related driving priviledges until he has completed the program and passes a urine test for drugs.
my wife remembered the guy because he was on the hood of his car getting cuffed and patted down when she got out of the ambulance after being check by the paramedics. so, the guy is clearly not the smartest dude on earth if he's smoking weed in his car and not paying attention to the cops, but i am not sure he needs a police record or to suffer for 6 months. it's not like he crashed into two other people or anything.
so that day, a white woman gets a fine and some court costs for causing a 3 car collsion that could have killed herself and at least two other people, and a black man loses his license and gets a drug conviction for not paying attention to a cop directing traffic at the sccident caused by the white woman.
that's why there is so much conflict between african americans and the police in cincinnati. that's why most people hate cops and the legal system in general.
sarcasm:
-noun
1. harsh or bitter derision or irony.
It says so right here on my ticket that cameras and recording equipment are strictly forbidding so I'm guessing they can at least kick you out of the statdium.
Oh well, see you at the concert tonight!
Davo -- Free speech, free software, AND free beer.
I wish we had speed cameras EVERYWHERE. Cops would not have to do dangerous patrols, we'd just mail people their tickets. AND EVERYBODY THAT EXCEEDED THE POSTED LIMIT BY 1 MPH WOULD GET A TICKET. EVEN COPS. EVEN JUDGES. And it would take about one week of this for everyone to realize that the posted speed limit is STUPIDLY LOW. If there was 100% enforcement of traffic laws, we'd quickly weed out the ones that are unnecessary.
If we can't fully monitor cops to ensure their compliance with the law, then we need Robocop. A cop who doesn't let his ego get in the way of justice. A cop who arrests everybody that breaks the law, even my hot blonde girlfriend, or the chief's brother.
I'd happily pay my traffic ticket fine if i knew that everyone else who had done the same violation had to pay, too. But right now, I look "too ethnic" to be let go with just a warning that other "special" people get.
No, there are no good cops. There may be good experiences with cops, but that's irrelevant. I know how to deal with cops, I've never been on the bad side of one. I stay polite and respectful, and I've gotten out of a few scrapes with warnings, and gotten a couple (deserved) tickets.
But I know that the man there with the gun would take my freedom, my livelihood, and everything else I hold dear if he suspected for a second that I smoked pot. That is impossible for me to respect. What's so dangerous about the cops is that they are power divorced from conscience. It's their job to enforce the bad laws with the good laws, and as a result I live in more fear of the cops than any other group of criminals.
Give me Classic Slashdot or give me death!
If I understand it correctly, the wiretapping law requires that the recorded persons have an expectation of privacy. The police are video taping any stop. How can they claim they have an expectation of privacy if they themselves are taping the stop?
You exceeded the speed limit on your way to work today. I guarantee it. Did you get a ticket? No, because law enforcement is arbitrary and subject to the whims of the enforcers. They could track your GPS cell phone or EasyPass and know every time you were speeding. But if they actually gave out a ticket every time someone broke their stupid laws, the laws would quickly get repealed and then they'd have no traffic fine revenue. So they'll keep selectively shaking us down.
i am confused on the aspect of race in this instance. Did the cops fail to check your wifes car for drugs because she is white, or did they fail to charge her with posession because there were no drugs in the car.
It seems that both people were punished fairly under current law. If you are smoking weed in your car and get caught, then expect to get a drug related or dui type of penalty. If you cause an accident, expect to get fines and court fees.
An accident is just that \, an accident. Smoking pot while driving requires significantly more intent.
Bad boys, bad boys,
whatcha gonna do
whatcha gonna do when civilians film you?
[WHACK! THWACK! SMACK! THUMP! THUMP! THUMP!] "He resisted arrest."
That's what they're gonna do.
Kwisatz Haderach
Sell the spice to CHOAM
This Mahdi took Shaddam's Throne
First Assistant District Attorney Jaime Keating said case law is in flux as to whether police can expect not to be recorded while performing their duties.
Fuck that shit
Anyone who seriously thinks that a police office performing his or her duty should be exempt from recording needs to be shot, now. This shouldn't ever be a question, the police are accountable to the people, we have the right and responsibility to make sure that they are not abusing the authority that has been granted to them. They have accepted a job with some special caveats, one of those is that they get to work under a public microscope, either deal with it or quit.
Necessity is the mother of invention.
Laziness is the father.
"The outcome hinges on whether the person had a malicious intent, Freed said."
I do not see how videotaping a police officer has any malicious intent. In fact, its merely trying to make sure the facts are reported accurately. Police officers should have no problem being recorded (both audio and visual) assuming they are doing their jobs correctly.
I hope this Judge throws out the case.
It is called a wiretapping law. What wire did this guy tap? I think they meant to charge him with ethertapping ...
.... all the police are criminals ....
A) The police have no expectation of privacy while performing their duties. They work for me.
B) If the guy recorded them without their knowledge, then they would have been unable to arrest him on the spot, in the very overt act of recording them.
There should be a law that states that anyone who possesses a video camera and has an opportunity to record the police must do so. If you think that all, or even most, police are law abiding, well intended, benevolent folks getting a tough wrap from conspiracy kooks then think again. My Father married a cop. She rose up through the ranks to be a Chief of Police. He also had many friends who were police officers (both local and state), and I can assure you that the Rolling Stones got it right
Guns don't kill people; Physics kills people! - John Lithgow as Dick Solomon on Third Rock From The Sun
Seems to me like you should be more afraid of your legislators.
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.
Funny thing is, I can admit to my legislators that I partake with little risk. A law without anyone to enforce it is just a piece of paper, and so those who enforce bad laws are just as responsible as those who write them.
Give me Classic Slashdot or give me death!
So the police don't like being filmed? Well, it's high time to use their own logic against them. If you're not doing anything wrong, you won't mind being recorded.
in every encounter i have ever had with the police, in a car or on foot, i have never had my car or my person searched, even when i was a passenger in a car that was pulled over for drag racing in I5 in seattle. white people's encounters with the police often go swimmingly. black people's encounters... not so often.
also, he didn't get a DUI.
sarcasm:
-noun
1. harsh or bitter derision or irony.
This is an obvious case of taxpayer dollars hard at work. Does anyone here know of the reason for the Revolutionary War? Seems like a case of taxation of without representation. I just wonder how bad it has to get before another revolution comes to a head.
I regret that I only have one mod point to give per post.
i don't know about paramedics, but i work with surgeons, and i have to say that while the surgical field may attract confident types, it's mostly those with obsessive, competitive, and/or perfectionist personalities that end up surviving the program. one does not complete a surgical residency. you have to survive it. i say this because the handful of washouts from the program that i have seen looked like they had suffered some sort of trauma.
the process is pretty simple: take a super over-achiever and run them thru a brutal course that qualifies them to make life and death decisions and you have the recipe for arrogance on a stick.
don't get me wrong... if i need a heart transplant, don't hand me over to just anybody... sign me up for the obsessive perfectionist that has outclassed all of his peers. if he reminds his peers of this fact on a daily basis... what do i care?
getting back on topic, i think that cops, paramedics, and ER types hear and see the same situations over and over and they probably can't see each person as unique anymore and aren't as likely to be compassionate. your car accident/fire/assualt is unique to you, but just part of the daily grind to people who handle that stuff for a living. you can only bust so many real gangbangers before you start to think that all minority teens are in drug gangs. you can only treat so many junkies before you start to think that every one is just trying to score pain meds.
i know something similar happened to me... when i worked on a helpdesk i vowed i wouldn't be one of those "reboot your computer" types and that i would actually try to fix things for people and not treat everyone like they were an idiot when they called. after a year of telling 90% of the idiots that called to reboot their computers, i became just that.
sarcasm:
-noun
1. harsh or bitter derision or irony.
I wont even think of denying the existence of DWB. I just dont think it applies to this situation in any way. If the black man is pulled over for driving a more expensive car than an officer feels is allowed for the darkness of skin, and bogus crimes are invented for the reason of the investigation, DWB. If someone is driving slow enough (5 mph) that an officer can several times say or yell stop before having to give up on the idea of verbally controlling traffic, then a questioning may ensue. In this case, the cop may or may not have smelled weed, but he found it.
I have had issues getting pulled over and searched for my appearance when i was not dressed up to polic expectation.
I have seen people complain that they get followed through stores because of how they are dressed, and when asked to change their clothes to see if it is a racial thing, reply that they cant change how they were born. Now, the clothes you choose to wear and the race of you parents are entirely different issues, and I believe that you story is blurring these same lines.
There may have been a different level of tolerance for a different race of driver, but that is unproveable. If the city police force over time has shown systemic patterns of abuse, that will cause extra tensions. It seems that a lot of this is a person getting punished for the crime they committed.
btw, i am not always a fan of police, have seen and been punished by police on power trips, and do not believe that smoking pot is a crime ( driving while high maybe). I just cant fathom race being the only reason for this case.
Most cops are just out there doing their jobs, no need to take it out on them.
Cowardly deceitful sycophantic bullshit and nothing more.
That argument was shown to be just that at Nuremberg, please quit spouting such utter crap.
When their job is to violate the rights of the citizens of this country then they are *exactly* the ones it should be taken out on.
If there existed a cop with a scrap of honor, patriotism, or integrity, he wouldn't be a cop. Those qualities are completely incompatible with the career they chose.
They chose, as a profession, to assault the rights of the citizens of this country in order to promote the profits of the prison industry, so they have decided that the only correct course of action when faced with them is to kill the treasonous motherfuckers where they stand. *every single one no exceptions under any circumstances*. Nothing else is consistent with a free society.
That is a decision that they freely made.
Don't you fucking dare try and pretend that they aren't responsible for their criminal actions.
That utter lack of personal responsibility by delusional cowards is probably the most dangerous problem we face as a nation, and having sycophantic cowards defending our nation's enemies isn't helping. Grow up. The best possible description of you is pathetically naive and that's if you're truly stupid enough to believe the idiotic lies you just spouted.
Nope. Whacky but true. A common way to get out of a speeding ticket is to inquire if a traffic survey has been performed recently (by law, I think it needs to be done every 5 years) and if it hasn't been done within the required time then the speed limit is null and void (this does not apply to violating the absolute maximum).
Correct.
One of my friends got a speeding ticket with me in the car. We went to court, the cop had the speed survey, but according to the survey the speed limit for the road was too *low* and the case was thrown out.
Of course, they still haven't changed the speed limit to what is legal 15 years later, so they're knowingly robbing anyone who gets a ticket there and doesn't fight it. Typical of our "justice" system these days.
From the Article:
The wiretap charge was filed after consultation with a deputy district attorney, police said.
Can an officer arrest you for something that he doesn't know is a crime? Probably just knew that it pissed him off. Would be interesting to see what the officer told him when he made the initial arrest.
I recall recently waiting for my wife to come out of having surgery on her shoulder, and the surgeon came out to tell me how it went. The conversation was like this:
Me: How is she?
Surgeon: I did fantastic work, it will be terrific.
Me: So she came through it ok then?
Surgeon: Oh yes, of course.
Me: So the repair should hold this time?
Surgeon: Certainly. It's much stronger now than it ever was, I really just had to finish up what wasn't done by [the previous surgeon] and it's now perfect.
Are you seeing the trend here?
The problem with quotes on the internet, is that nobody bothers to check their veracity. -- Abraham Lincoln
This facsist police state is getting old.
Number one seems more likely, since we already know for a fact that police have done this. Do some research on groups like the black panthers before making condescending comments.
In a totalitarian police state it is.
DUh.
Most people don't even think inside the box.
Take that officer to court, and go "Where's the fucking wire being tapped? Where's the wire running right to your video camera in your cruiser? Last I checked with the FCC I'm free to do as I please with the visible spectrum when I'm on public property with my own equipment."
Then put his ass in jail for Cohesion.
Still waiting on Serviscope_minor to wake up to fucking reality and realize that Jessica Price isn't going to fuck him.
So, cops are people, but short people aren't? Fuck you, asshole.
*wags little finger*
My God, it's Full of Source!
OUTSIDE_IP=$(dig +short my.ip @outsideip.net)
Get out while it's still legal to leave. These guys might be able to smuggle your family out. Fair warning, though, the ribs up here are awful - you might hit these folks on your way out.
My God, it's Full of Source!
OUTSIDE_IP=$(dig +short my.ip @outsideip.net)
CFD339 raises some interesting points that I don't have much trouble agreeing with. His experience is limited to one city or area, though. Different PD's are run in different ways, and the PD you are familiar with can easily have a great effect on your opinion of the average police officer.
I grew up in a suburb and never liked the police. I was actually mocked in high school, in front of the rest of the class, by a cop who didn't feel like answering my (perfectly valid) question. I found the PD of our urban city to be similar for a long time.
About 18 months ago I got a job working as a tester of wireless networks (UMTS, not 802.11) in my metro area. This requires driving around in a van covered with antennas, sometimes in very strange patterns, and can look quite suspicious. My driver and I were pulled over many times, sometimes more than once in a night, in different cities in two states, by both local and state police. It was my experiences from this job that changed my views and made me realize how different things can be when you cross over into another department's jurisdiction.
Two big examples:
We had severe computer problems one night and had to repeatedly pull over, reboot, etc. then restart a certain segment. The 3rd or 4th time we pulled over a cop noticed. We noticed we were being followed while it happened two more times. I'm pretty sure it looked like we were insane or on drugs and trying very poorly to lose the officer. We pulled over again to reboot and within seconds we were surrounded by police cars, several officers getting out of their cruisers and coming up on different sides of our van. They weren't happy =) But, we politely explained what we were doing, showed them a generic explanation letter written to police officers by our parent contractor, and they were very professional throughout the whole incident. The whole thing took less than 5 minutes, and the senior officer thanked us and wished us a good night.
Another night, we had a single random problem, turned off of the main street we were on, and pulled into a small parking lot. A cop had seen us and he deliberately parked his car sideways in the lot entrance so we couldn't get out. Before even coming to the driver's door he pulled out his flashlight and gun, and walked around the van shining the light in my eyes and examining anything he could see. When he came to talk we gave the same explanation we always gave, and showed him the letter. He didn't believe us and questioned us for a few minutes. Finally realizing he was wasting everyone's time, he said the reason he "pulled us over" was the fact that there is "a lot of prostitution in the area". Okay..?
Those two incidents represent the police forces perfectly. We always acted in a polite manner and gladly explained what we were doing. State police were always professional and never needlessly rude. Local police from every suburb but mine were the same. Local police from the big city and from my suburb were frequently needlessly rude and rarely professional. They talked down to us for no reason, asked arbitrary questions, etc.
It's those assholes that deserve the blame for the public opinions of police. Some cities have asshole commissioners that allow that sort of behavior and some of their officers decide to take advantage of it.
I don't think he was justifying the shooting or anything of the sort. It was clear to me that he was just criticizing this ridiculous command to fire that according to him was released years after the fact by someone not connected to the government.
His statement could allow for some inbred officer panicking and shooting himself and leading to student being shot. I don't think he touch on the method or intent just that supposed command to fire was off quite a bit. And you don't have to be in the military to know what the firing commands were 40-60 years ago. The movies use real people who served in real wars and real military operations. Surely we would have heard that terminology somewhere from someone other then this source. Up until the 70's early 80's a movie star got goody points with the public for serving in the military and acting like he was proud of it. I don't think it would have been an oversight if it wasn't mentioned in any major movie.
Now, I agree with your assessment on the practical reasons. I grew up in ohio not too far from Kent state. I have gone there for Halloween parties and to hang out with high school buddies who went to college there. This is the actual second time I have heard of the command to fire supposedly being said like that. And these two instances are the only two time I have heard someone was ordered to be fired on. The story around campus and from a history teacher was that someone though a janitor with a broom on a roof of a distant building was a person with a gun and when that soldier reacted, it started a chain reaction that ended up with 4 dead in Ohio. That has been the official story except the janitor was a sniper and they were shooting tear gas into the crowds, the by standers who weren't part of the demonstration back this up.
There were a lot of students and teachers who weren't part of the demonstrations watching from the buildings. Some of those student became teachers and one of them was my 8th grade history teacher who was the influence of several friends who attended Kent state university. Her recount as a student was the first I heard of it outside the the song 4 dead in Ohio. When she pulled out her own pictures of the event and passed them around class, she told us stories about how to get teargas out of your cloths and what soap to use to deaden the sting. We got one hell of a feeling about how real it was and a far more vivid lessen then a book lesson would give.
Actually, I do like the taste of cop dick. I don't want to throw personal experience on you or anything like that...but maybe you should try it before you knock it. It should also be noted that I'm not trying to protect anybody. What happened at Kent was clearly wrong. If given a blatantly illegal command [ie... kill unarmed civilians] there is no protection under any law for someone who obeys it. The WW2 Nazi trials back this up. I was just stating that the phrase was not right for the command.
the question isn't was the guy guilty, he totally was. the question isn't did guy deserve something. he totally did. the question isn't even did the cop do anything illegal. i am sure the search was perfectly legal. the hypothetical question is would the situation have escalated to the point of arrest if the driver was white?
if the driver was white, would the cop have pulled him out of the car or just told him to watch where he was going? if he was white, would the cop have lectured the guy and let him go? if he was white would the cop have tossed his car? if he was white and the cop tossed him, would he have looked hard enough to find a single roach? if he was white, would the judge have thrown the book at him the way she did? the case certainly isn't clear cut, but it still seems kind of fishy to me.
i am sure the office was well within all the guidelines for the whole incident, but would that incident have played out at all if the guy was white?
my problem in this case isn't that the cops use probable cause to find illegal things to bust people on... that's what probable cause is for. my problem is that they don't use probable cause as often on middle class white people.
sarcasm:
-noun
1. harsh or bitter derision or irony.
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.
What a farce. Those officers were not wanting to get caught in their illegal activity. Their is all this is about. Unless the American public gets their collective head out of their ass they're going to lose their democracy. Osama wins. G.W. Bush has brought shame on our people and I'm not going to argue with his pin headed supporters.
so that day, a white woman gets a fine and some court costs for causing a 3 car collsion that could have killed herself and at least two other people, and a black man loses his license and gets a drug conviction for not paying attention to a cop directing traffic at the sccident caused by the white woman.
So the white woman was in an accident and was treated as such while the black guy was caught for possession and treated as such. What exactly is the problem with that??>
We should not be nervous around the people we are paying to protect us. There is something wrong when that's the case.
Maybe what's wrong is you. I don't know anyone that is nervous around police. Well, sure, if a cop is behind me I do tend to drive a little more carefully, but not because I'm nervous about the cop or what he might do to me--I just don't want to deal with the 10-15 minutes involved in getting pulled over.
The 10 or so cops I've dealt with in 4 different states were all polite and professional. When I was young, I even called the police once because someone was trying to hack my BBS and they sent a police officer over to my house that took the time to talk to a 14-year old "SysOp." When I worked at McDonald's as a manager and there'd be a suspicious car out, we'd call the police and they'd come over and talk to whoever was parked in our parking lot at midnight so we could securely leave the restaurant after closing at midnight.
I'm sorry if your experience has been different. And I don't believe that all police are good people. But I simply cannot agree with you that "most" people "loathe cops." I don't know anyone who loathes cops. YMMV.
So you haven't had a bad run-in with the law.. yet. Good for you, I hope that stays that way. But that doesn't change any of what I said. People attracted to the job solely for power, low requirements of brains and education, No useful oversight whatsoever. Arrest first and ask questions later. A "tell it to the judge" mentality. No citizen recourse. Selective enforcement of frankly stupid laws. This is a pattern of behavior and the nature of the job attracts the last people who should have such a job. A few "polite and professional" cops dealing with a teenager or manager doesn't count for much, especially since in such cases they're not there to hassle you. I think you slow down in front of cops because you know they can royally screw you if you make the slightest wrong move, or just because they feel like it. You don't really expect anyone to believe the only motivation you have is the minor inconvenience of a "10 to 15 minute delay", do you?
mirrorshades radio -- darkwave, industrial, futurepop, ebm.
When a public citizen on public land is told to turn off her or his camera, it is called coercion, and is illegal.
> The safest speed to drive is the same speed as everyone else -- by driving a substantially different speed you create a hazard, whether that speed is higher or lower than that of everyone else.
WRONG!
That would be true if we lived on a giant, perfectly smooth parking lot, frequented only with cars travelling the same direction as you. THAT'S WRONG!
In the real world, deer, bicyclists, Amish carriages, city busses, children, parked cars, garbage trucks, overturned tractor trailers, trains, ditches, rockslides, road construction, and chickens crossing the road all travel at a speed ungoverned by the speed limit. By exceeding the speed limit you're limiting your ability to react to the unforseen, and increasing your danger and the danger to those around you.
Also, you overestimate the hazard of getting hit from behind by travelling below the speed limit. I've seen bicycle safety studies that show that overtaking cars hitting bikes from behind are only 3% of bike-car accidents. Given a cars greater speed, greater visiblity, and greater survivability after a crash, its probably less than 1% for car-car.
They have that already. Just move to the UK.