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Cop Seeks Wiretapping Charges For Woman Who Videotaped Beating
An anonymous reader writes "A police officer who was disciplined for his role in the beating of a Massachusetts man (many broken bones in his face and permanent partial blindness) is looking to bring criminal wiretapping charges against the woman who caught much of the incident on video. The officer received a 45-day suspension for the beating. He does not appear to deny anything that happened in the video, but he apparently thinks it shouldn't have been filmed."
The full video being available in the second link, but it looks it's being taken on a public street, where police officers should have no expectation of privacy.
On another note, the individual referred to in the summary (identified in the stub-of-an-article as Michael Sedergren), was not the guy who beat Jones senseless, but in my personal opinion, he's just as dirty, and should have been fired, too.
FTFA:
“They’re really just trying to intimidate and silence her, but whether she’s charged or not (the tape) can still be used in court,” said attorney Shawn P. Allyn, who represents Jones in a civil rights lawsuit against the police in U.S. District Court.
Case and point. Guy is a complete dirtbag.
vos nescitis quicquam, nec cogitatis quia expedit nobis ut unus moriatur homo pro populo et non tota gens pereat.
on how wiretapping is the same as recording video.
Mostly because of the following appeal to emotion type argument:
"The police face dangerous people every day, and need to be able to respond to percieved threats accordingly. Enforcing more strict controls over police escallation of violence places our public servants (The people who protect us from violent offenders) at risk. You dont want to be responsible for letting criminals run loose because you prevented the police from reacting, do you?"
This argument bears a superficial resemblence to the "Support our TRUUPES!" argument:
"Our men and women in uniform fight to protect our freedoms from dangerous terrorists overseas. If you dont support our men and women in the armed forces, you are selling out our country, and are complicit in the terrorist's cause."
Both provide "Enforcement" agencies with Carte Blanc to do pretty much watever they feel like, because if you disagree with the tactics or reasons for their activities, "You are a criminal/terrorist sympathizer."
No self-respecting politician with any hope of being re-elected will act on either agency in any fashion besides a stern wrist slapping, because of the danger of violating the de-facto taboo that these appeals to emotion invoke, regardless of how desperately these entities actually need such corrective action. (This is why the GITMO prisoner torture was downplayed, and why "Wiretapping" charges keep getting lodged against citizens reporting and recording instances of police wrongdoing.)
Additionally, the egregious activities of these agencies work hand-in-hand with power hungry parent entities (City, State, and Federal governments), because slowly escellating violence against both foriegn and domestic entities desensitizes the public, and allows for greater abuses of power at higher levels without causing moral panic or alarm.
Without some form of mass moral outrage against these practices, and I mean *RIGHT NOW*, there will be no going back and this country will continue to fast-track toward a police-state.
I think it is time for another Amendment to the Constitution. The Bill of Rights discusses a great amount about the OUTPUT of citizens, but little regarding the INPUT...mostly because at the time of the founding it was impossible to -record- such things. The only means was to write about experiences, what someone heard, saw, smelled, tasted, or felt. However that equation has been altered greatly in the past 150 years, starting with photography. Yet the citizenry's right to secure backup of the human sensory system (or electronic record that corresponds to the human sensory system) has not been recognized accordingly.
Photographers are still fighting photo bans, and dealing with unconstitutional charges that result. And that is for the oldest form of "record keeping"! There are still outright bans on audio in many states, though video--due to its similarity to still photography--is in a somewhat legal limbo.
This is going to require an Amendment to fundamentally enumerate and incorporate the human right to record the environment. That should not extend to electrical interception (true wiretapping) or electronically-assisted interception (unidirectional microphones and telephoto lenses), but simply to the environment as presented to the human in place, at human levels of perception. Although "photos can lie", human beings should not be hamstrung to the subjective judgement of character (he said, she said) when significantly more accurate measurements are available. If the citizen has a 5th Amendment protection against self-incrimination, they should certainly have a right to provide individualized proof of innocence!
Scott
"Hokey religions and ancient weapons are no match for a good blaster at your side, kid."
He'll win, easily.
It's illegal to record audio of people without their express permission in Massachusetts. Period. Doesn't matter where.
About the only exception is if it's blatantly obvious that you're being recorded, which has been taken to mean "news team" - in other words, an absolutely gigantic, impossible-to-miss camera, or a large microphone, like TV reporters carry with the station logo on it.
Otherwise, it's "wire tapping."
Ridiculous? You bet. Going to change? Hah!
Incidentally, as far as I know, you're allowed to take video of people in public places. Just not the audio.
You are in a maze of twisty little relative jumps, all alike.
The Law should not be applied equally to cop and civilian. Penalties should be HARSHER when the authorities break the law, and the benefit of the doubt should not apply, because law enforcement officers are charged with avoiding even the appearance of impropriety. This idea is usually expressed as "the color of authority", and it is an essential and traditional safeguard of Liberty.
Yes, the rules are absolutely different when you carry the awesome power to kill in a split second. They are, and they should be.
Cops shouldn't solicit charitable donations from businesses, because it looks like protection money. Military officers may not sleep with their subordinates, because it looks like "command rape." The FBI shouldn't be assembling dossiers on political activists, because it looks like oppression.
These used to be commonly accepted ideas before we gutted public education and Fox News began blaring propaganda 24/7.
He put his boots up on the table and made a face. "The sig," he smirked. "You can waste your life in search of the sig."
Interrogation room
Cop: *pushes a blank piece of paper to the man sitting in the chair
Innocent Person: "What's this? You want me to write a confession?"
Cop: "No, those are your rights."
"Here in America we have the corrupt neo-cons/tea*, the corrupt DAs and the corrupt police that support these kinds of actions"
I can't tell you distressing and frankly offensive I found this sentence to be.
As politically conservative as they come, and a proud Taxed Enough Already activist, I deeply believe in the bedrock value of the "Rule of Law" and insist that the U.S Constitution be recognized and upheld as the highest law of the land at all levels of government.
Police Officers who cannot embrace or be trusted with the truth (like a video of their own actions) should find themselves permanently unemployable in any law enforcement capacity as they clearly have forgotten that in their roles as Police Officers, they are servants and protectors of the People, not overlords.
"A microprocessor... is a terrible thing to waste." --
GeneralEmergency
Damn you horribly biased, agenda pushing slashdot summary writers!
The officer received a 45-day suspension for the beating..
No no no no nooooo. The officer who did the beating was fired and is facing criminal charges. It is one of the officers who stood by and watched that got the 45 day suspension.
Just for the record, I think this wiretapping charge is bullshit and I think all the cops involved should be punished appropriately. But the summary makes it seem like a cop only got a 45 day suspension for assault with a deadly weapon, which is incorrect and borderline flame bait.
If what I just said sounded like a troll, it was probably just a failed attempt at humor.