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Recording the Police
Bruce Schneier says "I've written a lot on the 'War on Photography,' where normal people are harassed as potential terrorists for taking pictures of things in public. This article is different; it's about recording the police: Allison's predicament is an extreme example of a growing and disturbing trend. As citizens increase their scrutiny of law enforcement officials through technologies such as cell phones..."
The arbitrary application of existing, irrelevant laws to cover actions which the powers that be find convenient to criminalize offers proof that the rule of law is dead, that people are afraid to speak and act against it, and that we now have rule by force. It will take conscientious effort by a large part of the population to peacefully reverse this disturbing trend.
.....in a public place." - SCOTUS. It applies to the cops as well. They have no reason to believe they should be unrecordable when they are out on the road or on the sidewalk. Besides: They record us all the time, with cameras installed in their cars and taping during confessions.
My AC stalker: " I personally agree with your posts most of the time, but that won't keep me from modding you troll"
The link is to a stub article with no real content on Bruce's blog that just points to the real article:
http://reason.com/archives/2010/12/07/the-war-on-cameras
Bruce has useful articles sometimes but it isn't any more legitimate for Bruce to use his blog as gateway page to real articles than anyone else trying to scam hits for content that isn't theirs.
Had you RTFA, you would know Schneier's reasoning for making it legal to record the police, and you would consequently realize that those reasons would not apply to your counter-examples, thus rendering your rebuttal useless.
Prosecutors are able to get away with these bad faith prosecutions because of a doctrine called "prosecutorial immunity". We need a way to hold these prosecutors responsible for their actions, that will require the abolition of prosecutorial immunity.
Give me Classic Slashdot or give me death!
...this of harassment by the Detroit PD which is the reason why our gov't officials want to make videotaping of LEOs illegal.
Yet further evidence of our (as in US) slow slip into the grips of a police state.
A recent Canadian survey shows that people, while they overwhelmingly still support the police, do not support them as much as they used to.
We have had several police abuses of power that came to light only because of video. The worst was the killing of a Polish man at Vancouver airport. Also we had the beating of innocent people during demonstrations at the recent G20 meeting in Toronto.
An officer has been charged in one of the G20 beatings because video made it possible to identify him.
The disturbing thing is that the police stood in solidarity with their brother officers in their own Mafia style code of silence. Only one officer could be found who was willing to identify those seen in the videos.
It won't take too many more incidents before the population turns on the police. They have had the benefit of the doubt until now. At some point that will end. The police, if they knew what is good for them, should embrace video as a tool for cleaning out the goons who should never be allowed to wear a badge.
So the government can illegally wiretap its citizens with no punishment. But a citizen can be arbitrarily thrown in jail for recording a cop? This sounds like a story that would come out of the former East Germany. Not the United States of America.
I work with an ex police officer and he's pretty set against 'civilians' recording police, in his eyes its another way to get innocent police officers in trouble since a lot of the videos that have implicated officers in the past have lacked any context. This makes sense because a clip showing police brutality could be part of a longer incident where the suspect resisted arrest and tried to hurt the officer.
Then a court of law will sort it out.
Your cop friend, frankly, sounds like a thin-blue-line, don't-mess-with-the-brotherhood asshole. He should realize that accountability is a *good* thing. Well, assuming he cared about cops actually being held accountable.
I think a better solution, that nobody in law enforcement would like, would be to put cameras on police officers and also allow the public to photograph them. That way in a court of law you have evidence that can provide context to any side videos in play
Absolutely! As you say, there is a *very* obvious solution to this problem: When a cop is involved in a law enforcement action, *the police record themselves*. Problem solved.
But, of course, that would involve transparency, and cops actually, possibly being held accountable for their actions. And who really wants that?
So it's the old "sure I kept clubbing him, but you gotta believe me, he resisted arrest twelve minutes before the camera started rolling" defense, eh?
Breakfast served all day!
Police brutality, by definition, is never warranted, regardless of context. Police exist solely to apprehend people, and the courts are used to administer punishment. And if a video is taken out of context, the courts will decide what to do. The idea that a recording might be misused as evidence in court is no reason to ban it entirely. This is likely why many police departments are starting to use surveillance devices on officers' uniforms and tasers, it protects everyone's rights involved. It only makes sense that a civilian be able to record any interaction as well.
That assumes the video doesn't mysteriously go missing or the camera doesn't mysteriously malfunction during crucial moments. Both have happened before.
Right, but the aspect where police can record themselves is complemented by the public being able to record them as well. We need -both-.
That way if the "public" produces video that casts the police in a bad light, the police can contribute their video that puts it into context. There is nothing the public will be able to record that that will harm an innocent officer because he'll have his own "alibi tape". And the argument against the public recording them goes out the window.
Now your comment that police may withhold video that is 'damaging' to their position is bang on, but then we'll have the public recording to work from. And if the police camera that exonerates them "failed at that crucial moment"... the courts can sort it out, with an annotation that perhaps they should invest in cameras that "work better" for their own protection.
In many States, citizens possess the power of initiative, where laws can be presented directly to the people.
A law that decriminalizes recording law enforcement officers acting within the scope of their duties or acting during their working hours (and immunizes the same conduct) is something, I suspect, that the general voting population would support.
If you care, get out there, conspire with others and ACT. I guarantee that you will be surprised at your results.
Look at what the no-tax freaks accomplished. It IS possible--don't let the naysayers with their weak arguments keep you down. Look at the crime victims' bill of rights that many states now have--those generally come from citizen activity!
There is almost zero downside to political activism of this sort in the US. You won't get killed (like you might in some other country) and you are likely to face negligible negative consequences. The worst that can likely happen is that you will fail. But think of all that you will learn in the process: Media manipulation . . . public speaking . . . organization . . . logistics . . .. That experience will make you more effective the next time . . .
And then you will be a politician, my son.
Now, get off my lawn!
And let's not kid ourselves; the reason you have cameras on store clerks is because store clerks steal. There's this stereotype that convenience stores are always getting robbed. Trust me, though, when I worked at a 7-Eleven as a kid, the camera wasn't pointed straight down at the register because that's where they thought I would be standing when I was robbed at gunpoint. The cameras are there for theft prevention, and nine times out of then the thief is an employee.
So if it's OK to use cameras to prevent store clerks from committing crimes (or document them), why is it not OK to use cameras to prevent police officers from committing crimes (or document them)? Not only do police officers sometimes commit pretty heinous crimes, including robbery and battery, but I would argue that just about any crime committed by a police officer is more serious than one committed by a store clerk, both because of the abuse of authority and the breakdown of societal values that inevitably occurs as a result.
Breakfast served all day!
Well, if you apply a little logic that defense seems a lot more probable than 'I was minding my own business doing nothing wrong and the officer started clubbing me.'
It does, huh? Apparently you didn't watch any of the news coverage vis a vis the G20 demonstrations... innocent people beaten and/or arrested by cops rendered unidentifiable by their "safety" equipment, thus rendering them immune to prosecution.
In short: I trust a cop about as far as I can throw them. Anecdotal comments like those in the OP only make me *more* suspicious.
Because of this, I will consider the police and prosecutors to be liars until proven otherwise.
If the cop had to shoot a guy because "he was resisting arrest", the cop better have an unaltered video of it happening because I will consider him to be a liar without it. You see all these type of cases in news where all the police cameras failed at the same time and it happens when the police used questionable force on a suspect.
It's one sided. Only they are allowed to video and as a result, they can control which video is available.
Until this horseshit of prosecuting citizens for recording of police ends, then as far as I'm concerned, the police are lying until proven otherwise.
Someone gets their ass kicked by the cops, well there better be video showing that it was necessary.
If the cops don't like it, then they can get another job. My local police are constantly turning applicants away so there's no problem replacing any cry baby cop who says "it's rough out there!".
Seriously? So a guy is on the ground and the cop is beating him, and beating him, and beating him, and nowhere is the suspect seen trying to resist except to cover his head with his arms so he won't be knocked unconscious, you're going to accept the defense that it's OK because we just happened to miss the part where the guy was resisting arrest? How long does a police officer have to beat a suspect before they're considered to be subdued? The argument doesn't even have to me "I was minding my own business doing nothing wrong" -- if I was on a jury watching the videotape, I would convict a police officer for beating a guy for twelve minutes even if I knew the guy had committed a crime.
Breakfast served all day!
Arguably, if the cops are recording it too, they can show the context you didn't see in the shock vid on YouTube. I fail to see why the cops are against this; it's nice to be able to prove you're telling the truth when you have the public calling for your blood.
93rd rule of Slashdot: No matter how obvious my sarcasm is, my comment will be taken seriously by someone.
What's the matter? Are you a cop? Are you afraid that somebody will record you and catch you not doing your fucking job up to standards?
Anybody that doesn't like the idea of cops being recorded apparently encourages them to be corrupt and incompetent.
In a sense, the police represent the public face of the law itself. If people are losing their confidence in the police, it is because they are beginning to lose their confidence in the law being just. Here in the United States, I would hardly think that is surprising, given our enormous prison population and tendency to criminalize harmless behavior that large portions of the population engage in. I cannot speak for Canada, but in the USA, we imprison so many people that only Nazi Germany and the USSR have us beat -- we actually imprison more people now than China, all convicted under our legal system.
The police do not want to be videotaped because after so many years of enforcing the sort of laws that created this situation, they know that there are people out there who want to discredit the police. The police know that their job is unpopular and they do not want the citizens to have the ability to make the police look bad. They know that they are not just going after bad people. They know that they are losing the support of the population, and that in many cases they are sent on patrol in areas where they have already lost that support.
Palm trees and 8
Getting more to the point, a police officer holds the special right to employ coercion (meaning physical force) against you (not in defense, but in offense). No private individual or organization holds that right, and thus a police officer is automatically more deserving of extreme scrutiny (not to mention how they're supposed to be working "for us" in the first place, supposedly not the other way around).
It's not "the government" or even police who are trying to make you believe they are ethically superior. It's been an ongoing theme from the right-wing "law and order" crowd for decades. You hear it constantly from conservative media. You're constantly hearing about how they love law enforcement, how those who are accused of crimes are always guilty (of something) and how the police are "doing a very difficult job for very little pay".
You get the same stuff about the military. We always hear how the military are "the best and brightest", which really hasn't been my experience. The new convention is that whenever a caller says they're in the military, you'll hear "thank you for your service" and fawning praise for every knucklehead who walked into a recruitment office and signed up. It's because "they are protecting our freedoms" which is a load of crap. You don't "protect your freedom" by invading some shithole halfway around the world, you protect your freedom by...videotaping the po-lice for chrissake. They believe deference must be paid to the judgment of people who've put on a uniform, because I guess it makes them feel a little less like the soft, privileged lard-asses that they are. We heard this constantly from Republicans during the debate over the repeal of DADT: "We'll vote for it when the military leaders say we should vote for it" and how we have to protect our fighting men from...the licentious gay soldiers who will have nothing better to do in the middle of a firefight except stare at the butt of the guy in front of them. Wait, what? We have civilian oversight of the military, but the civilians charged with that oversight suddenly have nothing to say. Except when military leaders (chairman of the joint chiefs, secdef, etc) say "OK, we ought to repeal DADT, then the argument became "we should ask the enlisted men". When the enlisted men said "It's OK with us" the argument became "We should only ask the people who hate queers".
The whole idea of deferring to law enforcement or the military is anti-American. The Founders decided that we'd have a civilian-led military for very good reason. Because the judgment of someone who wants to pick up a gun and leave home to go out and fight bad guys just can't be trusted. The same thing with law enforcement. There are places in the world where the police are the absolute power in a community, but in this country, they work for the civilian government, not the other way around. And ultimately, the civilian government is us.
So it's our goddamn civic duty to keep on eye on law enforcement and the military. There's a good reason that most people don't want to become cops or soldiers, and the ones who do bear watching.
You are welcome on my lawn.
You do have to account for human emotions. If you expect the police to be perfect inhuman robots that never react emotionally, then you are an idiot. So if someone punches a cop in the face and the cop hauls off and punches them, that has to be considered.
That only works one way. If I react emotionally to a cop, I'm going to jail for a long time, and that's the best I can hope for. Nothing will be considered. Worst case, the thin blue line arranges for me to be beat either by cop or by inmates at the holding cell.
So why is it that you only cut slack to the cop, who is trained, armed, and paid to be professional, and not to the citizen, who is none of those things, and will not get the benefit of the doubt?
You hear it constantly from conservative media. You're constantly hearing about how they love law enforcement, how those who are accused of crimes are always guilty (of something) and how the police are "doing a very difficult job for very little pay". ... We always hear how the military are "the best and brightest", ... deference must be paid to the judgment of people who've put on a uniform, ...
What is especially curious is that this sort of praise for the police and military seems to come from the same people who keep telling us that the government can't ever do anything right. They don't seem to be aware that the police and military are pretty much all government employees, working from some of the biggest government bureaucracies that exist.
So which is it? Are government employeess always incompetent and untrustworthy? Or are the police and military above suspicion?
(My personal conjecture is that they're all just humans, with pretty much the same foibles and failings -- and successes -- as the rest of us. But what do I know? I do suspect that we might learn something about the truth if we monitor them and make their activities public knowedge. Maybe we could hire the wikileaks folks for that data-collection task? ;-)
Those who do study history are doomed to stand helplessly by while everyone else repeats it.
Well then clearly they have nothing to hide.
This is really apples and oranges. Surveillance on store employees is always OK, because the store is private property, so if the store owner wants to record stuff in his own property, that's his right. How anyone could make an argument against private surveillance inside a private business, I have no idea.
Police recording, however, generally concerns recording their activities in public spaces: on sidewalks, on streets, etc. There's two issues here: 1) in public spaces, how can there be any expectation of privacy? Some stupid States might have laws against photographing people in public, but such a law is stupid. If you're in public, you have no right to expect privacy. If you want privacy, go someplace private, not out on a street with hundreds of people surrounding you. Police officers in public shouldn't have any more expectation of privacy than anyone else standing on the street. 2) the police are government agents, and the government is supposed to be accountable to the People. If these uniformed government agents (who are not secret agents, unlike certain sectors of government that require secrecy) are in public, their actions should be allowed to be recorded by third parties, in order to maintain that accountability. If we lose accountability of the Police to the People, then we might as well give the Police brown shirts to wear.
This makes sense because a clip showing police brutality could be part of a longer incident where the suspect resisted arrest and tried to hurt the officer. I understand that in the heat of the moment a person who feels their life is in jeopardy may use force which seems excessive out of context.
NO. If a guy is shooting at police they have a right and a responsibility to do everything to stop him including kill him.
Once he is disarmed, cuffed and on the ground, immobilized, rendered harmless, then any physical attack - kicking, punching, using a night club on him - IS POLICE BRUTALITY.
Police do NOT get to exact revenge, they do not get to punish. They do not get to hit a suspect to "blow off steam" or release their adrenaline or frustrations.
ANY video of an unarmed, restrained, immobile person UNDER CUSTODY being struck is a video of police brutality and IS IN CONTEXT. It doesn't matter what preceded it, even if the fucker just shot a baby in the head.
It certainly is understandable that a person who just had his life in danger might react that way and lash out at a subdued attacker, but it's not legal, and it should not be tolerated because otherwise cops have become judge and jury and warden.
It's called professionalism. It needs to be trained in, it needs come down from supervision, and cops who have undergone stressful situations need debriefing and even counseling. If a cop CAN'T handle that, and has to hit restrained person, then the job is not for them, period. They just don't have what it takes, or rather what we should demand it take.
If you're a phone rep and you get a complete obnoxious idiot on the line who drives you nuts for an hour, you do NOT get to swear and scream at them to let out your frustrations. You take a few minutes after the call to cool off.
Cops needs to be expected to be professionals held to a high standard, NOT just "the boys" who are basically OK hanging out playing with guns and protecting people but who get a little out of hand during stressful situations.
This space available.
"Case in point is all the dark horse instigators the left places at right-wing events with the sole intention of causing an "incident" that might reflect badly on the organizers."
I think you need a citation for that. I did a quick Googleing of your claim and came back with nothing. Even after trying to reword it in different ways in an attempt to get better results. So, I tried reversing it, and glaringly, the opposite understanding of what you're claiming seems to be the actual case.
http://www.komonews.com/news/local/81376642.html
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/07/17/AR2008071701287.html
I thought about listing several of the ones I found, but it actually became overwhelming, These two are just more recent cases, sorry but I don't have time to go all the way into it, but from the looks of it, this has been going on for a really long time. You might want to revise your understanding after going over this. Here's some additional reading if you have time.
http://scholar.google.co.jp/scholar?q=police+agitators+infiltration+of+anti+war+protests&hl=ja&as_sdt=0&as_vis=1&oi=scholart
Maybe because organised crime could find a lot of uses for a database of the faces of police officers?
If organized crime cares, it can just buy copies of HR documents on each police officer. Or if the mafia has nothing better to do, they may send some kids to take photos of officers and then follow them home. Over time they will get everyone, and it's 100% legal.
Besides, police officers interact primarily with lawbreakers. They already show them their faces and their badges. A LEO in Las Vegas has no reason to be worried that some geek in China will see his face. That LEO better be worried that a local gangbanger saw him and followed him home. And you don't need a camera for that; binoculars would be far more effective.
Police objects to recording of their actions for only one reason: their actions can be used to hang them. Everyone makes mistakes. Raise your hand everyone who hasn't exceeded the posted speed even for one second on your way to work today. Won't be many hands raised, unless you all rode bicycles. Now imagine that the car automatically fines you each time when the number '65' changes to '66'. It wouldn't be worth going to work. In case of police, their errors (regardless of the reason) *also* can have them punished, fired or accused of a crime. Naturally they don't want this to happen. Neither do I or you, but we can't forbid others from seeing our misdeeds. Police can, currently, but that's wrong. If some officers say "we do dangerous work, with gun in hand, so if we shoot a family dog or a kid now and then we shouldn't be accountable." If they can't do their job safely and within the law they should quit; and if the whole police force quits then Wild West, here we come, for better or for worse.
How many of them get a lower wage because of the "tip"?
comment first, facts later. http://chem.tufts.edu/AnswersInScience/RelativityofWrong.htm
What is especially curious is that this sort of praise for the police and military seems to come from the same people who keep telling us that the government can't ever do anything right. They don't seem to be aware that the police and military are pretty much all government employees, working from some of the biggest government bureaucracies that exist.
I respect those who voluneteer for our armed forces, follow our duly elected civilian leaders, and protect our country. Even if that means they are deployed in cases which they may not agree with, or even are unjust/unwarranted. I respect them because it takes courage to volunteer for dangerous, low pay jobs in support of your country. I respect them even if I disagree with the politicians who sent them to war.
I consider myself conservative/libertarian, and despite my respect for the milatary, and in some capacities law enforcement, I absolutely believe that neither group is above the law.
1. There is absolutely no circumstance that comes to mind where it should be illegal for a civilian to record his/her own interaction with the police. If the police question/talk/harass/interrogate me, and I have the ability to record it, it should absolutely be protected 100%. If you are a member of law enforcement, you simply have no right to privacy with respect to the people you are interacting with. Furthermore, if you are properly enforcing the law, you have nothing to fear!
2. It should additionally be absolutely protected for third parties to record police interactions, as long as it occurs in a public forum -- streets, parks, building lobbies, open resturants, etc. A law enforcement official enforcing the law in a public forum has no expectation of privacy whatsoever, period.
Unfortunately, I see no long term path that can take us effectively towards this goal. Our best hope is a number of hard-fought battles in a federal court.
That's a load of horseshit. I was working at a 7-Eleven, yes. It was shitty hours for shitty pay. On the other hand, they respected me, a 17-year-old kid at the time; they gave me some responsibility and some work experience; and they paid me promptly every two weeks. Then again, it was shitty hours for shitty pay. But you know what? I'm not a fucking thief.
Breakfast served all day!