Slashdot Mirror
Police Officers Seek Right Not To Be Recorded
linzeal writes "When the police act as though cameras were the equivalent of guns pointed at them, there is a sense in which they are correct. Cameras have become the most effective weapon that ordinary people have to protect against and to expose police abuse. And the police want it to stop. Judges, juries, and legislatures support the police overwhelmingly on this issue, with only a few cases where those accused of 'shooting' the cops being vindicated through the courts."
But don't...
The police and the courts should bear the following in mind when considering the recordings:
"If the police are doing nothing wrong, then they have absolutely nothing to fear from being recorded".
Unfortunately the "recording" of police should not be left entirely to police owned CCTV systems. Because those systems can malfunction at the most inconvenient times, causing the images to disappear right when, for example, someone called Charles de Menezes gets shot in the head for his crime of wearing a jacket on a warm day.
While the police have a job to do, and most of them do a damned good one at that; they are still human beings. And as such not infallible and not immune to all sorts of temptation - from wrongly kicking someone in the face who probably deserved it (but deserving has no place in law), to covering one's or one's buddy's ass in an ugly situation, these things can and DO happen. People should not be punished for recording something that is happening - especially in a public place or in the privacy of the recorder's own home. The Romans coined the saying: "Quis custodiet ipsos custodes?" The government cannot be trusted blindly. There lies the path to tyranny.
Seven puppies were harmed during the making of this post.
One last tidbit from the article worth reading
For the second time in less than a month, a police officer was convicted from evidence obtained from a videotape. The first officer to be convicted was New York City Police Officer Patrick Pogan, who would never have stood trial had it not been for a video posted on Youtube showing him body slamming a bicyclist before charging him with assault on an officer. The second officer to be convicted was Ottawa Hills (Ohio) Police Officer Thomas White, who shot a motorcyclist in the back after a traffic stop, permanently paralyzing the 24-year-old man."
The ACLU has taken at least two cases in that area.
The Maryland motorcycle case: "This prosecution by the Maryland State Police and Harford County State's Attorney is profoundly dangerous, and seems meant to intimidate people from making a record of what public officials do," said David Rocah, Staff Attorney at the ACLU of Maryland. "It is hard to imagine anything more antithetical to a democracy than for the government to tell its citizens that they do not have the right to record what government officials say or do or how they behave."
The video is on YouTube.
You're wrong yourself. We have all rights not explicitly given to the government. The Bill of Rights just codifies a few of the most important ones. The Constitution explicitly says that any rights not given to the government are retained by the people.
Don't believe anything I say. I crash test crack pipes for a living.
It is an odd paradox that the further people are removed from having used the ammo box the more they see it as some sort of solution to tyranny. Ask Randy Weaver's wife how well that worked out. Or David Koresh.
I have considerable deployment time as a scout sniper in the USMC and I regularly shoot in long range tactical matches. Usually place well. Knowing what I know about the force capability of even the national guard, I have 0% interest in joining some kind of armed insurrection put together by a bunch of weekend shooters with instruction jackets that consist of having watched a Magpul video and accumulated 1000 posts on gun forums.
People who don't know their stuff think it sounds really awesome printed on a flag or the like, but those of us who've seen the elephant hope you all concentrate really hard on the first couple of boxes.
"Sacrifice for the good of The State" - The State
The bicyclist being slammed by the officer. The officer shooting the biker at the traffic stop.