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NH Man Arrested For Videotaping Police.. Again
OhPlz writes "Back in 2006, a resident of New Hampshire's second largest city was arrested while at the police station attempting to file a complaint against officers. His crime? He had video tape evidence of the officers' wrongdoings. According to the police, that's wiretapping. After world wide attention, the police dropped the charges. His complaint was found to be valid, but the evidence never saw the light of day. Well, guess what? Round two. There are differing reports, but again the police arrested Mr. Gannon and again, they seized his video camera. This time it's 'falsifying evidence' because he tried to hand off the camera, most likely to protect its contents. If there's the potential of police wrongdoing, how is it that the law permits the police to seize the evidence?"
What do you mean police wrongdoing? Can you use those two words in a sentence?
... I reckon "die" is all that's left.
Dog is my co-pilot.
Evidence of what? Evidence of him having videotaped officers? This makes as much sense as when the police arrest someone on the sole charge of "resisting arrest." He was resisting arrest. Why were you arresting him? For resisting arrest. Do they really think anyone buys that?
We are moving at an avalanche pace towards a police state!
It's quite obvious. Cops are here to serve and protect, themselves, above all else. You don't take videotaped evidence of police wrongdoing to the police, that's the last thing you do. You think there would have been riots in LA had there not been a helicopter overhead filming police beating the shit out of Rodney King? Dashcam footage of that beating would have never seen the light of day. First thing you do when you have video evidence of police wrongdoing, you upload it to the internet. Plain and simple.
Once when I was 16 and a huge smartass, I yelled, "I smell bacon!" out the window of a car I was a passenger in. There was a cop on the side of the road that had someone pulled over. I see him drop everything, run back to his car and get back into it. I thought there was no way he would ever catch us, and anyway I thought yelling out the window was not illegal. He didn't try to catch us - instead he radioed ahead to someone else who pulled us over within a few minutes. The cop comes up to the car, says, "Which one of you yelled, 'I'm going to kill you fucking cops'"? We played it off like it was the radio and said nobody yelled that out the window. Anyway, they took all our names, made us get out of the car, the whole nine yards. For yelling, "I smell bacon" at a cop. I guess we were luck we didn't get beat up, tazed, maced and put in jail like this guy.
I'm a big tall mofo.
If people, especially authorities can't be recorded when in public, then there is nothing to prevent them from abusing their authority, doing anything they wish, and lying about it. I most places around the US, the police video tape the public every time they stop a vehicle. The public has the same right, no matter what laws they try to create or enforce to prevent you from taping them. When they're in public, you have the right to record their actions. If not, then you're already living in a police state.
make imaginary.friends COUNT=100 VISIBLE=false
I imagine if this guy was waving a gun around, instead of a video camera, he'd be dead right now.
We need a "National Record the Police in Public Day". I think that a public event like this would enforce the point far more strongly that the police losing an occasional lawsuit.
This time it's 'falsifying evidence' because he tried to hand off the camera
Preserving it is falsifying it? Orwell had nothing on this.
Those who would give up essential liberty to purchase a little temporary safety, deserve neither liberty nor safety.
The feature I love most about Google+ is that, as soon as I take a picture or a video on my Android phone, it is immediately uploaded to my Google+ account, without any further action on my part. Suddenly, having control of the device isn't enough to guarantee that you have control of the data.
NASHUA – Maybe Michael Gannon shouldn’t have given lip to two police detectives that afternoon.
But Gannon claims he wouldn’t have said a word on July 1 if a detective – unprovoked, Gannon said – hadn’t shouted something at him as their unmarked police car passed by on Canal Street.
Sounds like a couple of douche bags yelling at each other. The police should not be yelling anything at anyone unless it is part of their job and Mr. Gannon should just learn to ignore stupid comments. If either of these two people had the slightest bit of decorum, it would be a non-issue.
However, Mr. Gannon will win. The police don't seem to have much of a case to stop him in the first place. And while being a douche is dumb, it is not against the law.
Linux O Muerte!
I wonder how long before there will be iphone and android emergency apps which record a video
and instantly upload (stream) it to the internet. I suggest the names: Evidence, Police Check Mate, Truthful
Police, Little Brother.
If you develop this app please *do not* credit me with the idea...
Fuck The Police
Among these are abuse of "wire tapping" laws which must be reformed in states that require two party consent. Recording public events is not and should never be considered wire tapping. Where is the wire? Where was it being tapped?
This case needs to go to trial and speedily. Police dropping charges only means that they are free to continue their harassment and terrorizing.
People need to make copies of their videos before presenting them as evidence anywhere. One should go to the FBI, others to news organizations and still more somewhere online. (There must be a service somewhere that allows hosting of large encrypted files which can then be made available to all with a key file kinda like the wikileaks thing.)
All of this wrong really gets under my skin sometimes. When you have to defend yourself against police, things have gone way too far.
Sorry but this dude is asking for it. He has a similar last name to the bad guy from the Zelda games. The cops are doing us a favor. Think of the children!
Wiretapping? Why not call it tax evasion, or driving while under the influence of drugs? They all have absolutely nothing to do with videotaping police.
What "wire" was "tapped"?
... we'll have sufficient bandwidth that video shot from a mobile device can be uploaded straight to the web, with only a brief "buffering" stop on the actual filming device. Then they can confiscate the device as much as they like, but the video will be beyond their grasp due to the technical difficulty of 1) figuring out where it went, 2) getting the host to take it down, and 3) doing so before the original filmer (or friends) can spread copies of it all over everywhere.
Shortly after that, some bright lad will suggest jamming devices to disrupt the transmission, which will pose all kinds of problems for them, such as disrupting their own signals. So then they may try short range hand-held EMP devices, which will work great right up until they fry somebody's pacemaker. Meanwhile, people will busily be miniaturizing the technology even further, so that observers could be filming the cops' activity without any obvious sign of it.
And eventually they'll give up and conclude that they'll just have to put up with being filmed by whoever happens to be standing around.
Ah, technology.
The current situation in New Hampshire is only a difference of degree, no a difference of kind, from anonymous officers. If it the word of a uniformed cop against a civilian, and there is no other evidence, then the cop wins. It takes either a lot of witnesses, or a video to show that a cop is lying. If you let the cops stop video, you have no effective rights.
Why is Snark Required?
What this guy needs to do is put out a call for a flash mob to show up - hundreds of people all videotaping at the same time. Let the police try to confiscate every single camera lol. Make sure to videotape the guy videotaping the police, and the police confiscating the camera.
When the police try to turn out in force, scatter to the four winds, then upload the videos to several different places, make offline backups, etc.
They could just throw in a conspiracy charge also if he did that.
The way to get around all of this "wiretapping" crap, aside from a judge who beats some common sense into police chiefs with his gavel, is simple:
A small red led, either flashing or continuous, on the recording device, or.....
A t-shirt that says "Audio / Video Monitoring In Progress", or both.
If you want to cover your ass while driving, place a reflective sticker right next to your license plate that reads: "This vehicle equipped with active audio / visual recording devices.". The officer won't be able to claim, unless he is blind, that he didn't see the duly posted notice. Hell, you'd even be able to see it on the officer's dashcam recording. Be vague yet accurate and truthful to the officer if he asks you about being recorded (don't be a total dick, especially if you really did run the stop sign and are trying to cover your ass, as it will look bad in court).
Officer: Am I being recorded? .....
Driver: Yes, that is why I posted the sticker on my car, right next to my license plate.
Officer: You do realize that it is interfering with my investigation and traffic stop, don't you?
Driver: No, I don't. How is it interfering with your investigation and traffic stop?
Officer: You might use the recording improperly.
Driver: Like how?
Officer: Where is the recording?
Driver: It's being streamed to servers in Havana, Cuba, with the added bonus that they don't have an extradition treaty with the U.S. It's also available streaming from Hulu, but people only watch the good ones the whole way through.
Officer: Good ones?
Driver: You know, where the cop goes ballistic about being videotaped by some bystander from 50 yards away, and then confiscates his phone and tries to arrest him on charges of wiretapping, invasion of privacy, interfering, tax evasion, lion taming, etc., then simultaneously "loses" both the phone recording and the squad car's dash cam tapes. It only works because those idiots didn't post any notice that they were recording the cops. Which is why I posted notice.
Knowing Google's lust for data collection, the Soviet Union is still alive and well inside the psyche of Sergey Brin....
When this war is over, and the vets get home, how long before some kingshit cop pushes the wrong one around? How are our troops going to like the fact our freedoms are in the toilet in spite of the fact they went to fight a war to preserve them? I am starting to think they are keeping them overseas on purpose, so that they don't have to worry about them revolting or aiding insurrections or starting them here. Our military is sworn to uphold and defend the Constitution of the United States. That means if politicians start trashing the Constitution, they have not only the right, but the duty to put a fucking bullet in their heads.
These dipshits in office keep fucking around, they will have a military coup. My generation is obviously a bunch of pussies, or else we would have lynched these fuckers ourselves. I don't know about this new generation though. The brainwashing that goes on in this country is intense as fuck. This article is yet another example of how one just stands in awe at the balls of all authority figures these days. The system is a good one, but corruption is so rampant in it, it's sickening. We are seeing corruption from the lowest levels of government to the highest.
Don't think so? Take a look at Britain with this hacker scandal. Britain has always struck me as being a bit more reserved and cultured and for that much corruption going to the highest parts of it is dismaying. We KNOW we have super ambitious, money grubbing, stab your kids in the back with a butter knife for a dime, kind of people here in power. To think it's not 100 times more corrupt here is living in La La Land. We literally ARE the wild west.
Here is how I see it playing out. Dumbfuck Republicans and Democrats will fuck this up and the government will go fucking broke belling up. This is going to threaten the sovereignty of the United States in way you can't fucking imagine. I hope to fucking shout that we still have some people in high command in the military that Constitutionally say "FUCK YOU", arrest the entire lot of them, and we hold emergency elections to replace them. In the mean time, they lock the entire country the fuck down. Meaning nothing comes in, we tell ships coming this way, fuck off or we sink you. Planes, everything has to be turned back unless the military O.K.s it.
The economy will go WTF as Wall Street pisses it's self. But it will prompt local manufacturing to start up. Which will be good for the economy of the little people. The multinational cocksuckers will be fucked, Wal-Mart will not get to fuck us with all the cheap shit from China. We can uncap untold amounts of oil wells here and gas will be so fucking cheap even I will not bitch about the prices.
The bad news, lots of people will die. There will be panic, riots, more riots, cultural clashes if not mini-wars. There will of course be a split in the factions of the military, so probably up to half of it will be fighting with the other half and the UN. Fuck the UN, they will be here trying to beat down OUR military that is doing the coup. So the UN troops will come to know the horror of what we do to foreign troops in our land. If any survive they will tell horror stories for hundreds of years about our savagery, making anything out of darkest Africa, or South America, or even Hollywood, look pale in comparison to. I am talking about shit that would give Hannibal Lecter and Colonel Kurtz a nervous breakdown.
The whole world will collectively piss it's self. After all, when it comes to nukes we invented the game, which means we have plenty of them around. And we have plenty of crazy fuckers who would use them on OURSELVES in a heart beat. That means when we are over the rainbow, batshit crazy, fighting it out with each other, that if you fuck with us, we will probably nuke you shitless, then get back to the business of fucking each other up.
People have been seething pissed for decades now. Cops are under some impression that they could survive the public deciding to off the entire lot of them. Frankly they don't h
Take the Red Pill.
I run a youth program. We have HD security cameras covering all of our premises (not the bathrooms). We have caught police misconduct more than once with those cameras.
Back in May we had a police officer from the next town over come in to "talk" with one of our teens about a crime that "they may have witnessed". When I got this call, my next call was to 911 to put on record that this was going to go on (standard policy for us, any time a police officer calls to interview a kid in our program, a staff member calls 911 to put it on the record. We find this stops a lot of police abuses, along with our ready access to lawyers). When the police officers came, the two of them tried to strong arm the kid out the door. We flatly refused to allow the teen to be taken to the police station to be questioned, and told the police officers that they would need to arrest the teen and read them their rights before we would allow them to leave (and that the teen was then invoking the right to a lawyer). They were not happy - they even accused me of not 'playing ball'.
When they started shoving the teen and talking about how the teen had just hit the officer (to be clear, the teen never touched the cop, the cops flatly made it up), and that was grounds for arrest, I physically stepped between the cops and the teen (I am 6'1, 220, a third degree black belt in Tie Kwan Do and like to lift weights) and informed them that the interview was over, and they were to leave. My volunteer assistant (who works part time as a judge at the state Department of Education!) called 911 at that point - calling 911 also activates the audio recording of all of our cameras, as well as an auto backup of our cameras to the law office next door.
Long story short, it was a weird stand off until local police arrived - the two cops having their hands on their guns, my telling them they had to leave or be escorted out. When local police arrived (with whom we have a generally good relationship) we informed them that our security cameras had caught the whole thing and we wanted the two cops arrested for assault. The first thing the local cops wanted to do was take the recording device and arrest the teen. When I said that it was no problem, our system recorded to three redundant devices, one of which is at our lawyers office, suddenly they didn't want to take the teen, and couldn't get out of their fast enough.
We sent a copy of the video to the DA's office, asking for an investigation, another copy went to the lawyer we set the family up with to represent this kid, and a third to the police department of the next town, with a letter from our lawyer stating that we would not allow any officer from their department to enter our premises or interview any of our kids without the programs lawyer present.