Slashdot Mirror
Citizens Spy On Big Brother
An anonymous reader writes "Citizens of the world are striking back at 24/7 state surveillance by pulling out their cameraphones and filming inept officials, deadly healthcare lapses and thuggish cops. So-called Sous-veillance is seeing more and more people posting damning footage of official misdemenours to sites such as YouTube to shame them into action." I wonder what happens if you inform a cop that you are recording him when he pulls you over.
Oh..that's simple...camera mysteriously gets dropped and smashed on the ground (probably while you are being slammed against the car), and you get charged first with obstructing justice...with more charges to follow later as they have time to think them up.
Light travels faster than sound. This is why some people appear bright until you hear them speak.........
This is great. I just hope people don't stop once it all is made illegal.
Developers: We can use your help.
You might be considered a terrorist if you record the police. Wouldn't be the first time.
"The courts might not work anymore, but as long as everyone is videotaping everyone else, justice will be served."
Marge Simpson
One simple rule for its versus it's
Who watches the watchers? The point becomes moot when everyone is a watcher.
ad logicam Claiming a proposition is false because it was presented as the conclusion of a fallacious argument.
Use a hidden camera - a really small "bullet" camera. If nobody can see the camera, nobody can talk about it, nobody can demand you stop using it, nobody can demand destruction of the footage. Or, use a wireless bullet camera to broadcast the footage to a separate location where the recorder is based. Then, if the camera is found, the recording may not be.
Why oil price increase equals economic trouble (Score: Interesti
I wonder what happens if you inform a cop that you are recording him when he pulls you over.
Almost all of them will ask you to stop recording.
Some will physically block the camera.
Very few will try to take your camera from you.
Police (and security guards) will do this with varying levels of anger and threats.
The only two things that matter are:
1. You are on public property
2. You are not filming/photographing something you legally cannot (like a port or inside a mall)
[Fuck Beta]
o0t!
Everyone the authorities swore did something wrong.
And it gets worse- humans actively remap their memories to make them feel better. 10 years after these incidents, the police probably really DO believe their initial lies.
I've seen it in others and I've seen it in myself and I'm more careful of it than most (or at least I remember that I am! ;) )
Police should be required to video tape everything they do and lack of video evidence should be a strong case against them.
People (not just police) have been shown to lie a lot more than we used to think. We need to change our systems of justice to fit reality.
She was like chocolate when she drank... semi-sweet at first and then increasingly bitter.
"I wonder what happens if you inform a cop that you are recording him when he pulls you over."
Beats me, but apparently it's more fun (and career-lethal) to film him without notification.
In some states it is illegal to film a government official.
Not that it will help them once it gets on youtube, but first you have to get it on youtube and not confiscated by the police.
What would you do if you filmed a cop beating someone and they asked for the video camera? If you answered anything but give the camera over, expect to be in pain and most likely jail.
"Only one thing, is impossible for god: to find any sense in any copyright law on the planet." Mark Twain
Wonder why they didn't mention Shooting Back?
Watch this Heartland Institute video
I was catching a bus from Walthamstow Bus Station, part of a busy transport interchange in East London. On my way I saw the police kicking the living crap out of someone. I went up to start filming, and was told by a "Community Support" officer not to take pictures. I asked what law I was violating, and was met with the witty answer of "the law that says you can't film that over there". Right then. Seeing no point in continuing this conversation while the man continued to be smashed around by the Metropolitan Police, I went to the other side of a toughened glass barrier, stood on some chairs and started filming from there. It was at this point that I was grabbed by two officers and stopped and searched under the terrorism act, 2004. Unfortunately, as I shut the shutter on my K800i, all footage was lost :(
They're actually allowed to arbitrarily search anyone in London under this law, arbitrarily, as it's designated a zone of terrorist threat or somesuch. The mistake the officer searching me (whos full details I do have) claimed that I had been filming covertly. Standing on a chair holding a camera above my head, I'd not felt this to be covert, so I submitted the "stop and account" slip to the Independent Police Complaints Commission, who handed the investigation back to the local force, who stalled the investigation for long enough that the CCTV had been erased!
The rest is history, I'm afraid. There are wranglings going on with my MP regarding this, but should I be in such a position again I'll be damn sure to make certain that the footage is saved.
citizens with cameras is an idea that destroys the outdated orwellian dystopian fantasy so many posit as their philosophical starting point when evaluating trends in the modern world
"big brother" as a viable concept is dead. "1984" is pure fiction. it will never come to pass. the citizens merely use the government's own tactics and technology against them
long live "little brother"
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rodney_King
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
Actually, it's more like, if you are watching a cop beat the snot out of someone, excessively, for little to no reason, what do you think they will do when they see you filming them doing it? Most people are not willing to find out.
"When life gives you lemons, don't make lemonade. Make life take the lemons back!" -- Cave Johnson
Comment removed based on user account deletion
Not in my jurisdiction. Too bad about yours.
We barely have seatbelt laws here. Phone? Fine. Camera? Fine. Shotgun rack? Fine. Bought the shotgun at a gunshow with no ID? Fine.
Do a video at your own risk. However, only very rarely does a police officer respond negatively to an individual that is polite when pulled over, is sober, and doesn't provoke the officer. It's a self-fulfilling action to believe that police officers will react negatively; they're human and IMHO aren't going to react negatively without provocation. Then tell it to the judge. Or suffer the consequences of provocation.
When I was young I called cops pigs. Then I came to understand what cops have to put up with. Some are still way too brutal. But most are just trying to keep the peace. Traffic cops I have problems with, but I keep quiet and polite during a trafffic stop, then beat my tickets anyway and don't drive like a raving Type-A idiot. Others have different results.
---- Teach Peace. It's Cheaper Than War.
Forget Sousveillance, you want Seussveillance. You have to wear a big long stripey jumper and speak in rhymes.
'Excuse me officer, would you mind,
would I be fined, maligned or confined,
if I were to tape your daily grind?
Sir, I'd like to believe,
that you and me we've
both come to perceive
That your job affords you - the responsibility to be true!
(I couldn't conceive of a way you'd
deceive me my friend, aggreive or bereave!)
A hasty repreive!; My hypothetical weave
does you an injustice. (And speaking of justice)
Enough of confession: let's return to my question.
I got impression of obsession with oppression.
Is this a true fact, or idle digression?
Would recording your good self be found a transgression?
Am I a free man?
or need I grab my tape, my cape and escape?'
Why aren't the 'good cops' turning in their corrupt, violent and evil coworkers?
Sorry, until I see more exposure of bad cops from within their departments, I'm lumping the 'good cops' in with the bad cops.
Sympathizers you know? Kinda like how we bomb the houses of people who help Iraqi Insurgents, even if they aren't actually insurgents themselves.
Aiding and abetting the enemy: abuse of authority.
Blar.
My uncle was a sheriff for many years, (just retired) and I asked him what is was like dealing every day with people giving you shit, hating you, spitting at you, calling you names, etc..
He told me it didn't bother him much, it was just a part of the job, and that assholes will always be assholes. The part of his job he hated was the psuedo "victims". IE, you're called to a house for the 3rd time that month for domestic violence, and the woman wants YOU to stop the man from beating her, cause she's a victim. Of course, she would always go back to the same guy, and a few weeks later, the whole cycle would repeat. He really hated those situations, or any domestic violence, because you have so much emotional crap you have to deal with as a cop on the call.
What are we going to do tonight Brain?
Don't confuse using force to subdue a violent person at a public venue with using undue force. I have been to clubs, raves, concerts, protest rallies, ball games, and other public gatherings. I have not seen the police use undue force. Meaning, when someone gets out of hand, the police/security subdued the person by immobilizing them, usually with a pile, cuffing, and moving the person out of the way.
In the cases where I have seen police use batons or tasers, the person was striking out violently. That seems justified (or more justifiable).
Of course abuse happens, maybe more often then we see on the news because victims don't report it (fear of reprisal), but it is not, I believe, a common occurrence.
And people in authority who abuse their authority, should be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law.
I heard something going on behind my apartment complex. I looked out the window, and a cop was beating a guy in the face with a collapsable baton. He continued doing this for a couple minutes, then walked the guy back to the car, face bloody and crying, and drove off like it was nothing. Even at that time I was thinking to grab our family video camera but didn't do it. Knowing what I know now, face strikes are never to be used as they can most often be fatal, he didn't call for any backup, so the man wasn't resisting... Just messed up all around, even if the guy "had it coming". Other than that, I've never had any problems with police and they have been angels (rolls eyes).
I've read Slashdot for the last 5 years, and now I start posting... Go figure
You don't tell the police that they are being filmed. You just quietly film them, and when they do something inappropriate you give the tape to the local TV station and sue the department into the ground. This strategy has three advantages. First, it will be a hell of a lot harder for the DA to charge you with wiretapping when you are a local celebrity. Second, you might get something for your trouble.
Finally, and most importantly, it will force the police to behave as if they were being filmed all of the time because they just won't know who that one tinfoil hat dude is until they are being fired for beating him.
weirdest thing I ever saw: scientology advertising on slashdot.
Q. I wonder what happens if you inform a cop that you are recording him when he pulls you over.
A. The case of Brett Darrow, Missouri:
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-2715792117793977759&
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=5591813350444656353&q=source:010563705515560372049&hl=en
http://www.prisonplanet.com/articles/september2007/100907Motorist.htm
Any other questions?, I got a whole folder dedicated to "official" ABUSE.
Related:
http://episteme.arstechnica.com/eve/forums/a/tpc/f/174096756/m/128000201931?r=261000401931#261000401931
~hylas
There are a lot of authoritarian fuckwits who can't stand it when people stand up to authority. They are small minded bullies who worship power, think humans are basically evil, and must be beaten into civility. The idea of these 'evil' humans refusing to take their beatings frightens them, because a human who hasn't been beaten into submission is a free and therefore dangerous human.
I'm being a little harsh here, as authoritarianism is actually a mental virus. If you've ever mentally beaten yourself up for a perceived failure instead of simply noting it and refocusing on how you want to be, you are very likely infected with it yourself. People infected with the virus do not need to coordinate their actions consciously, yet work together to spread the virus through abuse and fear mongering.
Always try to be impeccable with your words and thoughts and do not use them to harm yourself or others. Use reward, not punishment, to motivate yourself and others to behave in positive ways. Punishment will never create new and positive behaviors.
- None can love freedom heartily, but good men; the rest love not freedom, but license. -- John Milton
The thing about kids is you can't make it all about them. If they think the only one they're hurting when they misbehave is themselves, they calculate the cost/benefit.
Once a kid is a little older, if you play it so they're not the only one benefiting and losing, they start to realize that other people are depending upon them to do what's right. Kids want more than anything to fit in socially...even if the social group is their parents (especially when young).
The problem is that many parents don't see why they should be inconvenienced by someone else, even if it is their own kid, so they isolate the negative consequences to the child. But that doesn't give the kid a sense of his effect on his local environment...or it mitigates it somewhat, so the kid learns that his negative behavior only affects himself (the same is often true of good behavior—parents naturally want their little angel to get all the credit when they do the right thing, so they try to direct all the benefit that way).
Example: A kid is acting up in a restaurant. Hopefully, the parent did the right thing in getting the child excited about going to the restaurant as a kind of plus, so just being there is a fun experience. The parent should: (1) tell the child once that if they don't settle down, they'll pay the bill and leave immediately, food or no food and then (2) do it. Most parents won't follow through without a big to do, because they themselves want the meal. But this isn't the right answer—the right thing to do is get up and go, and suffer the consequences of your kid's bad behavior with them. Make sure they know your skipped meal is no fun either, but they had the chance to fix it and there's no going back.
If the kid learns early that there are inflexible rules of the universe, and once you run afoul of them the path is determined and quickly followed, they shape up quickly. If parents don't have the will to pursue the behavior they want and not settle for less, however, in the end no one gets what they want.
but have you considered the following argument: shut up.