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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..."
Police deports your first post to siberia.
record store clerks, the checkout counter at the grocery, fast food transactions, buying lottery tickets, paying tax bills, trying on clothes in the store changing room...
oh wait....
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.
Start here.
http://reason.com/archives/2010/12/21/how-to-record-the-cops
46 & 2
The Chicago artist Chris Drew was charged with a felony and faces 15 years imprisonment for making an audio recording of his own arrest:
http://www.c-drew.com/blog
http://www.wellesparkbulldog.com/news/chris-drew-granted-a-continuance-in-free-speech-trial
http://chilaborarts.wordpress.com/2010/01/01/why-is-it-a-felony-to-record-your-own-arrest-c-drew/
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!
Contempt of cop that is.
This is the link to the actual article. The link in the summary leads to a details-free summary.
Drill baby drill - on Mars
...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.
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. 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. That being said, the same officer buddy is in favor of red light cameras, the nanny state, and airport scanners that see through your clothes. You can't have it both ways in a free and just society. You can't give the police the ability to watch everyone while denying the public the ability to watch the police. 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. If the police officer is innocent he has nothing to fear from the surveillance, that's the line they have been feeding the public in general so it's fitting for it to fly back in their faces.
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.
Its not the video recording that is the issue, it is the audio. There are states where you cannot record audio without both parties being aware of the recording. Believe it or not, this is done for your protection. Thus, if you are like the biker who got pulled over while using a helmet cam, my advice would be wearing a T-shirt that states by being in your presence you are agreeing to be audio recorded.
I believe the key to recording the Police is never to let Andy Summers solo for more than one measure. All the musicians went a little wild with the improvisations on the recent reunion tours and I think the songs suffered for the lack of restraint.
Breakfast served all day!
There is a related opinion piece on Salon.com right now:
The government's one-way mirror
You're not old until regret takes the place of your dreams.
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!
I know I am being Captain Obvious by saying this but filming the police keeps them honest. In times when police are prone to abusing their authority, there needs to be a check to their power. Police don't like it for obvious reasons but a film could potentially exonerate a police officer wrongfully accused of a crime.
Perhaps eyeglass-mounted cameras and a video-in connector on the cellphones.
Build your own energy sources from scratch. http://otherpower.com/
After RTFA the one question I have is what's the difference between a civilian using a camera without the officers consent and it being a federal crime for wiretapping and the cameras used in police cars that show up on Cops and all the other out-of-control-crazy-driver videos? Does the same apply to network television such as to catch a predator? I just don't understand why it's okay for the police to do it, but when a civilian does it its a crime.
Umm, why not Give Radley Balko some credit, he has been writing on this for quite some time and the article linked is just a summary of his article: http://reason.com/archives/2010/12/07/the-war-on-cameras
There can be one. It's easy - you just have to convince enough people to vote for you, then enough of your fellow legislators to agree with you, and you can pass any law you like. Go to it.
If you were blocking sigs, you wouldn't have to read this.
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!".
Has anyone stopped to ask why otherwise decent people would be posting videos that put the police in such a bad light? I have said this before, and I will say it again: there is no conspiracy amongst criminals to discredit the police, we do not live in a comic book world. These are ordinary people posting videos that make the police look like violent thugs; that means that ordinary people have a problem with the police.
Personally, I do not think it is all that surprising that so many people have a problem with the police, given the size of our prison population and the fact that the police cannot turn the other cheek when it comes to enforcing our numerous laws. The police are the face of law enforcement, and by extension of the law itself, and so people who discredit the police are acting out of a general distaste for the current state of the law. I think a good first step toward repairing the relationship between the citizens and the police would be to repeal many of the laws that have landed so many decent people in prison cells (I would say innocent, but in a technical sense, they are not innocent).
Palm trees and 8
There's a couple reasons:
1) What force is appropriate depends on the situation. If you are standing peacefully, following all instructions, almost no force is appropriate. They can grab hold of you and handcuff you if you are being arrested, and guide you in to their car, but that is about it. Anything else is probably excessive since you are offering no resistance. However if you come at them swinging, well then a good deal more force is authorized. They can fight back to subdue you. Doesn't mean any amount of force is ok, doesn't mean they can beat the crap out of you, but getting physical is fine in that situation. This increases again if you use or threaten lethal force. You pull a gun and threaten them, they are justified in shooting you.
So context matters in that what the civilian did before can make a difference. You show just the police being rough with someone as they take them down and restrain them, without showing the person throw punches first, it changes the perception of the event.
2) 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. I'm not saying "Let the cop off scott free," but also don't punish them lkke you would a cop that just hits someone on no provocation.
Now none of this is to say "ban recording of the police," but it is something that has to be considered in terms of admissibility of evidence and use and so on. People can edit their video for their own ends. Perhaps along with laws allowing the recording of police, there needs to be a requirement that for the video to be used in any kind of disciplinary or criminal action it has to clearly show the events leading up to the problem. So if a video shows a person and a cop talking for a bit, and the cop suddenly gets violent, that is usable. However if a video just shows a scuffle, it is not.
9 out of 10? Wow, is that a real statistic?
Here in Norway it's apparently about 25%... Maybe there's something to this thing about treating employees decently?
I'm a dreamer, the world is my playpen. But hey, I'm a serious person, I can't dream all the time.
If you have a shirt or car-sticker that clearly states that you're recording does that cover you or will the cops just see that as perverting the course of 'justice'?
... if they have nothing to hide.
Sauce for the goose and all that.
Drill baby drill - on Mars
Coming from the Twitter feed, I hoped for some behind the scenes tales about making records with Sting.
Irregardless of whether police should or should not be recorded...
Making it legal to do so will result in creating a new form of paparazzi that chase down any and all police action. Anyone with an imagination should be able to think of a reason that will not be a good thing.
Can you imagine unnecessary people involving themselves in;
A high-speed police chase?
A hostage scenario?
A drug bust that turns violent?
Not only will these people trying to get that that video footage be putting themselves in harm way, they will be splitting the attention of the officers to ensure their safety.
On another point, when these officers are being recorded, so are the suspected criminals, and possibly even victims. What about their privacy rights? What about justice not being served when a criminal gets his case thrown out for video evidence going viral on the internet before his trial, turning the jury pool against him?
What about someone recording a simple traffic stop? Do you want your face all over the internet for speeding?
I am all for law enforcement accountability, my suggestion is that they be recorded by devices on their person, for review by a 3rd party created for that purpose for review of actions.
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).
I thought this might be about a new album.
Color me bummed.
This is a sig. It is like every other sig in the world, except that it is mine, and it is different.
Has anyone read the novel Earth by David Brin. Senior citizens in the year 2048 are safe from attack and harrassment because they have video cameras in their glasses that stream directly to the internet.
The police, most of the time, are arresting people who need to be arrested. Those people tend to lie. So there is this huge bias: if the suspect says one thing, the cop says something else, most of the time the cop's version gets more weight.
But this makes a huge problem when a cop is willing to just make stuff up. The authors of the Constitution never imagined personal video recorders, but I am certain they would approve of their use by citizens as a check on government power.
All that said, I would support a law making it illegal to record police officers and post their images, names, home address, list of family members, etc. on the Internet. Police officers are entitled to some privacy when off duty, and I really don't want to see criminals start targeting the families of police officers to discourage them from making arrests.
But it must be legal to record one's interactions with any government agents, and it must be legal to introduce that recording in court as part of one's defense.
If you read the article linked from Bruce Schneier's posting, you will find that courts have actually ruled that an interaction with a police officer and a citizen is not "public" unless there are lots of other people around. So, if there are plenty of witnesses to corroborate your story, you can legally record the police; but if it is just you and the cop, it's a felony to record the police. That's just insane and must change.
I have also noticed that often, when I read about a really egregious incident involving the TSA or law enforcement, the government officials involved will claim that the citizen was acting "aggressive" or "provoking trouble". And as the article says, official recordings that might prove things one way or the other seem to go missing sometimes.
Citizens must be allowed to record their interactions with government, and at a minimum use the recordings in court as part of their defense.
steveha
lf(1): it's like ls(1) but sorts filenames by extension, tersely
I can almost guarantee this guy is a total asshat... and was a real jerk when he requested the court reporter. I've met the type before as I also work on cars frequently. The fact of the matter is, if you live in town, you can't have a dozen doner cars sitting on your lawn. You also have to mow your lawn, shovel the sidewalk, and not blare your music at 3am. If you don't like it, move to the country. So he was guilty of everything until he got nailed with the bullshit felony. The Judge in question probably knows all the cops involved, as well as the poor clerk that had to get screamed at by the jerk. Then thought himself clever for coming up with a way to scare the crap out of the guy. This crap will get thrown out by a higher court and the asshat guy will feel more empowered. Way to go Judge.
In 1980s America, Ukrainian-born comedian Yakov Smirnoff made jokes contrasting life in communist USSR with life in the United States.
The More You Know!
- None can love freedom heartily, but good men; the rest love not freedom, but license. -- John Milton
In Maryland, the police recently got their asses handed to them.
http://weblogs.baltimoresun.com/news/crime/blog/2010/09/motorcyclist_wins_taping_case.html
I am very small, utmostly microscopic.
The reason is we all slip up, or goof off, or whatever while working from time to time. None of us like the idea that something like that is forever committed to tape, subject to review and so on. I mean how would you feel if at work your employer wanted to watch you all the time? Not like cameras in the halls, but a camera on you, and on your computer, that all the time they wanted to record what you did, and have the ability to review it at any time for things they find fault with? I bet you'd be against that, even though you are probably a perfectly upstanding employee with nothing to hide overall. It is just uncomfortable the idea that you'll be recorded all the time and someone could look over everything you do.
So I understand where it comes from, even in people who are otherwise perfectly upstanding. It isn't necessarily a "I need to protect my bad behavior," thing it is just "I won't want someone running over everything I do with a fine tooth comb," thing.
For sure we need to allow private citizens to record the police. In general I think we need to have 1-party wiretap/recording laws which basically means someone involved in the exchange needs to be aware of the recording. So you can carry around a tape recorder on your person and record what is around you, since you are a party to it by virtue of being there, but you can't plant a record in someone else's house since you are not a party. Many states have laws like that, all of them should move to that.
In terms of recording the police all the time, maybe if a way can be found to do it and protect confidentiality. Something like video is stored at a 3rd party encrypted, and yet a different group holds the decryption keys. So more or less the video can only be had with a court order. A court subpoenas the video and the keys, it is decrypted by the court and then used for review. That way someone would have to have a specific time, place, and so on in mind and some sort of reason that it should be opened for review, it wouldn't be a situation where someone could just go and get all snoopy on it for no reason.
Too bad all of the "anti-government" Tea Party wusses don't have the balls to actually fight government corruption. Perhaps one day they will step outside of the propaganda they swallow up willingly (even pay for) and actually do some good for the common man. But until the cycle of corporate-generated propaganda is broken, there will have to be Nazi-style crackdowns for there to be a chance of the US populace putting down the remote and going outside.
While they are raking in record profits and bonuses as the rest of the nation sinks further into poverty, they aren't going to willingly give up the police state that allows their quarterly reports to look so good.
I thought the USA was the land of the free, a place with respect and enforcement of the rule of law; a place where rulers and law-enforcement officials could --and should-- be held accountable for their actions; a place where abuse of power by authorities was frowned upon and punished. Maybe I got the wrong USA.
2019 is going to be the year of Linux on the desktop.
For a moment, lets set aside this is an obviously an abuse of power.
There are TV programmes of Cops with Cameras and in Patrol Cars on the satallite everyday.
So this Judge is saying every one of those Cops is a criminal.
Who watches the watchers ?
da da da dum indeed.
Reason has an article about recording the cops today:
http://reason.com/archives/2010/12/21/how-to-record-the-cops
Also, if you search on site, they have had multiple articles on the legal aspects of recording cops. Just use the search feature.
People should be allowed to record the police, because people should be allowed to record in general. More or less you should be allowed to mount a camera on your shoulder and record everything you see. I'm a big fan of 1-party wiretap/eavesdropping laws. You should be allowed to record your own experiences, and you should not have to get permission from everyone to do that. As a natural result of that (though maybe it needs to be explicitly stated) a citizen should be able to record any interaction with the police they have, or any they observe.
However that is different from having it so that everything the police do is always automatically recorded. I'm not saying I'm 100% opposed to the idea, just saying I see issues with it that need to be addressed.
Saying "Anyone can record stuff," is one thing. Saying "The police are to be monitored 24/7," is another.
More crap of "You have to hold one view or the other!" No not so much. I understand both sides of the issue. Abuse of police power is a serious issue, and one that needs to be worked on. Most first world countries are actually pretty good in this regard, including the US, when you look at it in a historical and world wide perspective, but they need to strive for perfection, even though that can never be fully reached.
However I understand that the police are human too, and that their needs need to be respected as well. This is particularly true given that it is a shitty job in a lot of way and doesn't pay stellar. I'd sure as hell never take a job as a police officer.
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?
Well, if you apply a little logic that defense seems a lot more probable than...
What you seem to be missing, is that while it is certainly more probable, it's hardly a defense.
Can you be Even More Awesome?!
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.
Another strawman? As if only leftists can do wrong.
Falcon
Should there be a Law?
Would you mind if I open your trunk and take look.
Of course, I would. That's not your business
If you don't have anything illegal in it you don't have to be afraid.
I am afraid you may steal something from me.
But I am a cop.
Would you mind if I turn on the camera.
I dare you do it.
If you do not want to steal from me you do not have to be afraid..
If enithin kan gow rong it whil. (Murfey)
Fixed that for you.
New Economic Perspectives
I forget what 8 was for.
Damn, I haven't listened to the Femmes for years!
Now I've got that stuck in my head. <grin>
I recently watched The Biggest Street Gang in America. It made you wonder that if we manage to see this sort of footage then what aren't we seeing? But, sometimes 86yo grandmothers do take threatening postures towards you while lying in bed. Multiple fluffy pink pillows of death are within her easy but evil reach begging to be used against you.So of course it's best to stand on her oxygen hose and then taser her a few times until she complies. After all, as a policeman my safety comes first above all else..
The new right fascists are bilingual. They speak English and Bullshit.
Thee has long been a rule or rules against even taking a sound recorder into a federal and some state courthouses, etc. Having no place to leave mine when I arrived in another district and town by air and publiv ground transportation, I got into an argument in which I told someone I thought was a rent-a-guard tha didn't think an honest fellow would be afraid of a recorder. Turned out to be a federal judge. Tense moments. Caught flack for bringing one, with a secured prerecorded tape containing evidence the judge had asked me to bring, with the knockouts out to prevent recording over it, etc., to another courtroom. There is a rule permitting you to record certain creditors' meetings in bankruptcy unless someone hires a court reporter in which event you must turn it off nd buy a n expensive copy from the reporter if you need the info. A lot of these rules are to protect the monopoly incomes of court reporters. One problem would be if you shot video of an undercover officer that ld to his cover being blown and possible injury or death, but you would n[t have that situation in the average police-citizen interaction one would be likely to want to record.
The police should have uniform cameras that are on all the time, and which transmit to servers maintained by a non-police public body. That way there would be no doubt about who went where, said what, and electrocuted who. A break in recording would favour the accused person, not the cop, in court. With this solution it would be unnecessary to record the police ourselves. In this case, the nonconsensual surveillance of whoever the cop was interacting with would be the lesser evil compared to the current situation.
Hey OP how about linking to the real article rather then a tiny oped that gives no real detail: http://reason.com/archives/2010/12/07/the-war-on-cameras
The government at all levels is working to establish a massive database of people engaged in activities deemed "suspicious" by local law enforcement or even their fellow citizens. People who are not criminals, not engaging in any ILLEGAL activities, and aren't even suspected of any criminal wrongdoing.
http://www.salon.com/news/opinion/glenn_greenwald/2010/12/20/surveillance/index.html
(contains link to: http://projects.washingtonpost.com/top-secret-america/articles/monitoring-america)
Seems like the government has developed this idea that "protecting the United States" translates into "protecting the GOVERNMENT of the United States"(i.e. from the people). With the people now seen as an enemy from which the government needs to protect itself, any recording of government operations, employees or facilities is interpreted as a threat. Investigative journalism is now seen as "espionage". Likewise, anyone that criticizes government policy or advocates smaller, less powerful government instantly becomes a "terrorist", regardless of whether they are engaged in any sort of criminal activities. After all, if you want to shrink the government or scale back its powers in any way, you are, in a very warped way, an "enemy of the state".
Four cops pointing guns at you all say within four seconds, "Put your hands up! Get down on the ground! Put your hands behind your head! Put down the bag!"
One of the cops you don't immediately obey shoots you.
It helps catch perjury on both sides. Cops will say they kept up the beating because the person was resisting. A video of just the scuffle can show it to be a lie. If it's a lie, then a good assumption is that the cop is lying about other aspects of the incident.
Conversely, if the subject says he never fought back and the tape shows he did, then that's perjury and we don't believe much else he says about the incident.
We have judges and juries to sort out the finer points.
When guns are the most powerful weapon that the public has, they have the 2nd Amendment to fall back upon...
When information is the most powerful weapon that the public has, they have...?
Distributed Denial of APK: It takes 15 seconds to reply to him anonymously, but wastes tons of his time if we all do it.
I thought the popo's were Public Servants.
Public. wonder what that means?
If the gov can put fucking camera's on light poles, and where the fuck ever they choose, I will use my right to take pictures of what the fuck I want to. Including cops, including government officials.
I don't go for hypocrisy. Oh hell no. What's good for the gander is good for the geese.
Mainly when the courts hold the word of police as being truthful, even though the police are taught how to lie when dealing with suspects (which i should point out, any time the cops talk to you, you are a suspect).
But the gov is in some serious trouble. And really, really fucking stupid. How do they think that with all this new tech they got to spy on us, we won't use it to spy on them?
This is is why having an open government is the only way to go. Because man is naturally a shit head that will steal, use power to better themselves and walk the fuck all over anyone that lets them. Is all man like that? No, but enough is that we need to have a system where we watch them and they know they are being watched, to keep them inline.
Still waiting for that day to happen though...
Be seeing you...
My existence does matter - to me, at least. I'd like to make sure my daughter doesn't have to be deprived of her daddy, because some creepy little fuck, like you, decided to commit suicide and take a few other innocent people out along the way.
Mine doesn't because I will die one day. It's like when you work on an engineering project all night... then your CAD program crashes and you didn't save. One day I will be able to speak 6000 languages, beat anyone in Go, build nuclear reactors that neither shutdown nor breed weapons-grade nuclear materials yet still recycle spent fuel into fresh fuel... and then nothing. All those abilities vanish as the electrical processes of my brain shut down.
One day you'll cower in your home because you don't want your daughter to lose her daddy. You'll stay there when the US government rolls over college students with tanks and suppresses the news, closing your ears to the whispers of dissent. You'll watch your coworkers and your neighbors disappear, taken by the police for heinous crimes for whispering such things... and believe it must be something more heinous. And you'll huddle down out of sight.
20 years later, they'll come for your daughter when she's barely in her 40s, and strip her away from your grandkids.
And the whole time, you'll shout about the dissenters, you'll distance yourself from anyone who questions the authority of your protective government, you'll learn to be afraid of THEM ... and be glad when they vanish in the night.
That's your future. That or a bloody revolution. Whichever one comes, I'll be out there fighting in it. It'll start when they come for someone and I have to stop them... or when someone else decides it's time to stop them and the mob refuses to be beaten down. It's all a matter of timing; now is not the time.
I doubt the mob will ever come. I don't doubt I'll live to see them come for those outspoken with undesirable political opinions though.
Support my political activism on Patreon.
Because google is just so hard to use, isn't it...
police shoot Mayor's dogs
Police shoot teenager over stolen PS3
police no-knock shooting
Actually, if you're looking to avoid such issues, you might want to try someplace other than Vancouver. It's not a *bad* place compared to other metropolis-sized places, but there have been a lot of issues with increasing gang violence and also some issues with police (I've heard more than a few about police getting in people's faces about cameras, in fact).
Van is a nice place, but it's also a coastal metro, which means there's a lot of nasty stuff that flows through the docs, and also the nearby border (both ways, I'm not going to blame the US on that).
You might find more luck in other major cities... as long as they're not Toronto :-)
As an ex-public servant myself, I'd say that given a choice, I would pretty much demand to be recorded every minute I was on the job. And for years, in some places, I was. Security cameras all over the ceiling, in a building off-limits to the public. The point of them being there was so that if I ever got accused of something, I could call up the security camera logs and the computer access logs in my defense.
Does that mean that the public should have been able to record me? Given that I was paid from the public purse, and was doing work which would eventually affect members of the public directly, I'd say hell yes - during the hours I was on the clock, anyway. And presumably with the caveat that any information of a sensitive nature (records of individuals etc) I had to look at in the course of my work would be blurred out or otherwise not appear in readable or decodable form on the video.
Not all public servants spend a lot of time outside the ivory towers, but on the occasions I did the public appearance thing, I would have been A-OK with people taping me. Sure, I'm no movie star, but if I was representing the Department then I was hardly going to being painting myself blue and streaking down Main Street towing a giraffe. And if I had been, then maybe I shouldn't have been getting paid out of the public purse for doing so, hmm?
So yeah. I'm all for recording cops - and other recipients of public funds - while they're clocked in and meant to be serving the public. If they don't like it, they're free to carry their own camcorders and record right back.
I've read a number of your comments in this story, and I understand your thoughts and frustrations. I'm curious, though: why are you jumping to violence? Why not try to affect change through the system? I would preemptively guess your response to be something along the lines of, "the system is broken beyond repair," or "the system is rigged to prevent those who aren't part of the elite from getting in and making change." But is it true? I hear a lot of people complaining about politicians and corruption in the system, yet very few seem willing to challenge them by taking up the job themselves.
Yes, I'm very well aware that politics these days seems to favor the wealthy, or those with preexisting ties to the political world. It's probably why we have career politicians and political families. Despite that, nobody seems to even try.
Why not try it? Start a new political party, or even a loosely-organized politically-motivated organization. Start by taking on government at the local levels, and then move upward. Sure, it'll be difficult - difficult to outlast the established political organizations; difficult to keep your party united; difficult to bear the various expectations of the population you serve; and difficult to accomplish your goals with the limited power of what ever office you and your colleagues hold. Those are the limitations of the system.
However, you're saying that you would be willing to make the ultimate sacrifice, yet you would not be willing to try and work through the system? How can you and others like you declare the system to be broken, when you have not tried to work through it yourself?
Damn, I love this site! Email-n-Archive. Yesterday's news never grows stale:); just increases the potential for on-going dialogs destined for dusty bins in the wastelands of cyber-space. I seldom post, sometimes reply, enjoy reading doc_ruby when he chooses to comment. But.
I'm 2 days past on this thread and expect no one to even make it this far down the line; I know I'm stopping somewhere short of 100th post.
So, this is probably no more than referential afterthoughts for my internet SERP.
First, I havent come yet to any reference to copwatch (google them), but those folks have been fighting this battle for some time now. Join and support their efforts, for starters. Freedom to record should not be analgous with freedom to monitor.
I despise, ok, dislike, the idea of surveilance keeping people honest, let alone the injustice of it's present one-sideness. I also remember that th e root of this evil was to allow the discretion and better judgement 'being there' provides. Otherwise, talk about an indifferent asshole creating machine! Like Rockefeller and 3-strikes carved in a stone. Robocops. Robocourts are bad enough. I can see how cameras could be the delta that bridges both extremes; sadly so.
But talk here fails to recognize that the act of photographing law enforcement (er, pubic-safety) and being willing to suffer the indignity of the experience come what may, is a close as it gets to having that velvet revolution! (batteries not inclued, some hackery required)
I'd like to believe in my heart that most cops can be fair and do not like being in adversarial
situations any more than I do.
But they need to stop being seen as a Revenue Stream more than public servant. From the DMV to ICE to the CCA. Removing laws that cannot be uniformly enforced, holding everyone equally accountable to those that remain; with punishment measuring up to the damages incurred. Seems simple to me.
If that happend then, as others have stated earlier on, we could better isolate actual behavior from presumed intent, separate disorderly from intoxication, and maybe get back to a place where you actually feel safe calling for a cop when you need one.
Might as well rant on - so good luck with that.
You may think: "what's this guy on? I hold LEA in the highest regard, donate to their charities and trust their better judgement in tight situations." .com gnome-spys have passed it around twice. The poor are naughty and the (entitled) rich are nice!
To which I'd reply: "You need to get out more, find out if you are who you think you are." Cuz the fact is that Santa's making a really, really, big list; his
It's coal for us peons to stay warmed in the night
Cuz the database says so and Infragard is always right.
This is not the country i remember or even think it is. Its upside-down land, all expertly manufactured and wrapped in pretty colors. FOX world as Greek tragedy. I'm glad I chose no kids; i'd surely be a horrible parent: Question Authority! "Is it true?", "Think for yourself!" They'd probably never fit in until maybe 20's and what a bleak reality they would probably face.
Can a legion of /.'ers and netizens stop this train? You betcha! Will they be willing to do it before they themselves feel the pain? Not likely. .ch factories?
How is GMAC getting cherry-picked by Cerberus related to big profits in GM's
Why are the fundamentals of corporatism intended to devalue your labors to 0? Hello Globalism. Good-bye American Dream. Privatization peddlers:1 commonweal:0
30 years of blatant corruption and greed, nickle-n-dimed into insolvancy. Slowly bled-out, a frog in the stew-pot.
I've been doing the simple thing for the past 8 years; nearly homesteading. People are comming together, slowly, to find alternatives. Think local, discover your roots, get dirty. Try conscious eating, try killing your next meal.
Re-learn what it means to be independent vis-a-vis your relationship with the land and all its inha
resist propaganda