Mass. Court Says Constitution Protects Filming On-Duty Police

Even in a country and a world where copyright can be claimed as an excuse to prevent you from taking a photo of a giant sculpture in a public, tax-paid park, and openly recording visiting police on your own property can be construed as illegal wiretapping, it sometimes seems like the overreach of officialdom against people taking photos or shooting video knows no bounds. It's a special concern now that seemingly everyone over the age of 10 is carrying a camera that can take decent stills and HD video. It's refreshing, therefore, to read that a Federal Appeals Court has found unconstitutional the arrest of a Massachusetts lawyer who used his phone to video-record an arrest on the Boston Common. (Here's the ruling itself, as a PDF.) From the linked article, provided by reader schwit1: "In its ruling, which lets Simon Glik continue his lawsuit, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the First Circuit in Boston said the wiretapping statute under which Glik was arrested and the seizure of his phone violated his First and Fourth Amendment rights."

Comments

constitution also protects:

[Anonymous Coward]

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Re:constitution also protects:

[Anonymous Coward]

constitution

Re:constitution also protects:

[Hazel Bergeron]

constitution

Seriously, though, the First Amendment is the biggest con in modern politics. In America, everyone thinks they're free because they believe that the right to speak is more important than the right to be heard.

Re:constitution also protects:

[shentino]

Your right to speak stops at your neighbor's earplugs.

Especially if that voice isn't a fellow citizen, but a government that wants to indoctrinate you.

I have as much right to open my mouth as you do to close your ears.

Re:constitution also protects:

[Darkness404]

You have no right to "be heard" and such a "right" means destroying other people's freedoms. The right to refuse to support something is just as much of a right as it is to support something. For example, if you disagree with the Ku Klux Klan's message, you don't have to support them, you don't have to give to them financially, etc. On the other hand, if there was a right "to be heard" it would mean that everyone would have to pay money to support the KKK's message, otherwise it would infringe on their rights. What we (should) have now is a better balance, the KKK is free to say what they want, people are free to support them if they wish, but you don't have to listen to them if you don't want to and you certainly don't have to financially support them.

Re:constitution also protects:

[Chris Tucker]

"Taxation is legalized theft, no more, no less."

Say the person who benefits from the city fire department, police department, highway department, health department that enforces sanitation and public health regulations, the water and sewer, departments that provide safe water and take away sewage, the diverse Federal departments that ensure clean safe food, safe medicines, keep aircraft from colliding in mid air, will carry a letter from coast to coast for you in a few days for less than half a dollar, etc etc etc.

Don't bother to quote Ayn Rand or any other libertarian bullshitter at me. The ONLY quotation that matters is this:

Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr.: 'I like to pay taxes. With them, I buy civilization.'

Re:constitution also protects:

[TubeSteak]

I have as much right to open my mouth as you do to close your ears.

I bet you've never read your local noise ordinances.
Some jurisdictions will specify decibel levels and distances (no more than X decibels at Y feet),
while other jurisdictions will use language like "loud, unnecessary, and unusual noise" or
"causes discomfort or annoyance to any reasonable person of normal sensitiveness".

Feel free to get up on your soap box, just don't be so loud as to disturb the peace.

Re:constitution also protects:

[anagama]

Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr.: 'I like to pay taxes. With them, I buy civilization.'

I know my taxes aren't buying any type of civilization in the middle east, despite the trillions going there. In fact, my tax dollars are doing the exact opposite by creating anarchy, pollution, death, and destruction. If those things are the hallmarks of civilization, well, you can keep it.

Most everything you list is a local function BTW. Maybe the world be a better and safer place if government was not allowed to be so large. The scale of death and destruction my county could cause is a mere fraction of that my country is causing, and my county could still build roads and put out fires (I live in a donor state BTW, without the Feds, we'd have MORE money for these things than we do now).

Re:constitution also protects:

[Darkness404]

But yet most of those things can be, and should be, provided by private enterprise and would be better suited to private enterprise.

Taxation buys civilization at a much higher price and at a much lower quality than what private enterprise can do. While there is a use for court systems, and armed forces to protect the country along with limited (elected) police officers, such things can be paid for in a much better way than the current tax based on income, instead it should be paid like everything else, based on use.

Taxation is exactly a form of theft when you look at it for what it is.

Lets say a man comes up to you and demands your car and threatens you with bodily harm, surely we can call him a thief. Lets say 2 men come up with you and do the same thing. Does it stop being theft? Lets say 3 men come up to you, take a vote on if you should have your car, and all three of them vote to take your car and you are the lone dissenter. Is it still theft? What if 10 people came in much the same way and took your car and left you a bicycle. Is it still theft? How many people need to be in a mob for it to stop being theft? Surely even if 100 people came, took your brand new 2011 Porsche and replaced it with a 1988 Honda, it would still be theft, correct? Taxation is much the same thing, it is still theft no matter how many people are in the mob trying to take your property.

Re:constitution also protects:

[shentino]

the purpose of taxes is to supply public goods that a) everyone wants, b) nobody wants to pay for, and c) whose benefits cannot easily be denied to those who choose not to pay.

Re:constitution also protects:

[Dunbal]

That's the theory. Now look at the practice, yeah? Reality is what we object to.

Re:constitution also protects:

[Anonymous Coward]

Without taxes to pay for police and defense, a lot more people would take your property. Large scale services like utilities require either a unregulated monopoly, a regulated monopoly or a government agency. Do you really believe an unregulated monopoly would work better for providing you power and water? Private fire protection was tried and failed miserably. Do you really want all of your neighbors houses blazing away because they don't have fire protection? It's a really really bad idea, only someone who has no idea of history would propose there is no need for government or that a government can somehow run with no money. Don't want to pay taxes? Buy a sail boat and eat fish for the rest of your life. No one is stopping you.

Re:constitution also protects:

[moortak]

Says the guy on the internet, a creation funded by those tax dollars.

Re:constitution also protects:

[ColdWetDog]

Reality is what we object to.

You know, you can take that statement several ways....

Re:constitution also protects:

[Anonymous Coward]

And it didn't truly flourish beyond the limited bubble of military and academia until private companies -- not the government -- began making it cheaper for the average person.

Your point?

Re:constitution also protects:

[Chris Tucker]

NO MORE CALLS! We have a winner!

Re:constitution also protects:

[Herkum01]

This is about the dumbest argument I have ever heard for avoiding taxation!

Re:constitution also protects:

[Chris Tucker]

Randroids with mod points. As inevitable as death and taxes.

Re:constitution also protects:

[Thing 1]

It's not an argument, it's a definition. You don't argue with facts.

Re:constitution also protects:

[SecurityGuy]

Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr.: 'I like to pay taxes. With them, I buy civilization.'

Cute, but fallacious. SOME taxes buy civilization. Some are simply squandered. Some buy oppression, including of those who pay the taxes. Some buy wars we didn't need. There's also a lack of causality. If a building falls on you tomorrow, we still have civilization. Something like 50% of USians don't pay taxes (ok, federal income) and yet we still have way more government than many of us want. Those of you who don't think that are, in my not so humble opinion, just ignorant of how the sausage is made. It also assumes paying taxes is the only way to get civilization, or the best. It makes as much sense as "I like amputations. With them I remove splinters from my fingertips." or "I like chemotherapy. With it I slow or stop cancer." In both cases the end is great, but if there's a way to do it with fewer or no amputations, less or no chemotherapy, or lower or no taxes, that's obviously much better.

The no-nonsense version of this quote would be "I like civilization, and I accept some taxation as the price we have to pay for it."

Re:constitution also protects:

[cheekyjohnson]

Yeah. Those invisible exceptions to free speech sure are nice.

Re:constitution also protects:

[causality]

Randroids with mod points. As inevitable as death and taxes.

To answer the objection to that sig about taxes... taxation is done by force or threat of force. If you don't pay your taxes, armed men will come to take your assets eventually. If you resist these armed men, they will use force up to and including lethal force. We call them IRS agents or we call them police. In any other context this is known as robbery. The fact that the theft is legal and the proceeds taken by theft are often put to beneficial uses that serve a commn good does not change the fact that it is theft. You might steal your neighbor's TV, sell it, and donate 100% of the money to charity; you'd still be a thief. It's really that simple. We continue to use this model mostly because we have not yet implemented one that is more viable, not because it is inherently virtuous.

Ayn Rand's writings were the greatest gift ever ... not to those whose political views tend towards the maximization of liberty and the minimization of coercion and hierarchy ... but paradoxically she is most useful to those who want to dismiss such views. Think the burden of proof is on the person who recommends coercion by force or threat of force (otherwise known as police power)? Well you're just another Randbot, and we'll call you names like that to avoid explaining why we think our position is superior.

I hate to break it to you but what is now called (small-l) libertarian thought has been around for a long time. The Founding Fathers with their distrust of government, love of liberty, and general view of government as a necessary evil have this kind of philosophy. Also, Rand was a staunch materialist; there are lovers of freedom such as myself who reject a materialist view. I also have the non-Randian belief that logic is a tool, it's a stunningly versatile tool, yet like all tools there are situations where it does not apply. But no, we're all just mindless droids and labeling us as such lets you remain safely within the boundaries of your comfort zone where your own view never needs to be tested against other incompatible ideas.

After all, anyone who feels a need to name-call, pigeonhole, label, marginalize, and smugly dismiss other views is only demonstrating their personal security and the correctness of their own position. Right? People like me who cultivate an openness to new ideas and a willingness to entertain notions with which we disagree prior to dismissing them, well obviously we have no idea what we're doing. One day we'll learn. One day.

Re:constitution also protects:

[Pseudonym Authority]

But yet most of those things can be, and should be, provided by private enterprise and would be better suited to private enterprise.

Yes! I would love for the police and prisons to be more privatized! Please sign me up for this new order of corporatism! You so enthralled me with that that I didn't even bother to read the rest of your post t be bought hook, line, and sinker just like you!

Re:constitution also protects:

[WrongSizeGlass]

Parent is on point with this post. They are referring to this from earlier today.

Re:constitution also protects:

[Oxford_Comma_Lover]

> Maybe the world be a better and safer place if government was not allowed to be so large.

Smaller governments might have prevented the civil war at the cost of allowing slavery. The fourth amendment and the right of minorities to vote and be treated equally under the law would not exist in much of today's United States. For almost every non-technological advancement that has been made to our society as a whole, someone has argued against it on the platform of states' rights.

Smaller governments are also, in some ways, more susceptible to bribery. It costs less to bribe a smaller government and it is more likely that the people policing for bribes know the people getting them. I know states that are corrupt through-and-through on local levels. Washington is bad in a lot of ways, but there are still rules about bribes that if you break them, you are supposed to go to jail, and sometimes you actually do.

Re:constitution also protects:

[Cito]

Taxpayers already pay money that indirectly supports hate groups like the Farrakan's Nation of Islam, or the KKK, or [insert group here]

everytime they wish to rally or hold a function they usually have to obtain a permit. That permit usually comes from chamber of commerce or some other city/state ran building in the town they are in. Which state/city workers are paid with taxpayers money.

Therefore regardless if you don't want to pay to hear them, taxpayers already pay for them via protest/rally/public speaking permits.

So even though I support the Militia and I hate Nation of Islam and a few other groups as a taxpayer I am still paying for those other groups indirectly via the permit system this country requires.

Yea you have the illusion of free speech.... as long as you purchase a license to obtain free speech in public.

License is a really dirty word. Especially if defined in the government's dictionary, look it up in Black's Law Dictionary used by the government for defining words such as address (you will learn anyone with an address automatically becomes a corporate citizen under black's law)

anyhow a license is a permit that gives you permission to do what is otherwise illegal.

So ask your governments why must you get a licensed permit to protest, why must you have a drivers license even with constitutional right that transportation be unhindered, or even moreso why must we have a marriage license.

under the government's dictionary used to define words legally, license is pretty fucking scary

and yes all tax payers support KKK, Nation of Islam, Militias, Religious sects, neo nazi rallies, etc. Since they must all purchase permits to hold such rallies, those workers handing out the permits and the building that houses it and all are paid for by tax payers.

So no there is no real freedom of speech.

True freedom of speech, even offensive, is achieved in it's greatest form in anonymity.

Re:constitution also protects:

[Darkness404]

And the only reason the internet was created by the government is because it was simply the only organization with enough computers to create the internet.

Re:constitution also protects:

[Kreigaffe]

That's dumb.

I can't force you to listen to me, but you can't force me to shut up.

That's sort of how rights work. It's a hands-off approach. The right to be heard is not a right -- it is not freedom. The right to be heard can only be construed as forcing people to listen to things they don't want to, and that's not.. that's just.

You're dumb.

Re:constitution also protects:

[Oxford_Comma_Lover]

It's not an argument, it's a definition. You don't argue with facts.

Of course you don't. If someone else accepted the facts, they would already have your position.

Re:constitution also protects:

[Oxford_Comma_Lover]

It's not an argument, it's a definition. You don't argue with facts.

Of course you do. The facts given by another party may not be the facts as you see them.

We will leave the idea of objective facts aside, since they are rarely used in arguments of any kind--even the selection of the rare objective fact is usually just a rationalization of a policy position already taken.

Re:constitution also protects:

[tragedy]

Private companies which are currently doing their best to unmake the Internet and turn it into an AOL redux.

Re:constitution also protects:

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm a bit surprised to see such a condescending post from you.

Ayn Rand has as much insight into economics as L. Ron Hubbard has into religion... none at all.

Having an open mind is one thing, but if your brain falls out of your head, you've gone too far.

Re:constitution also protects:

[ravenshrike]

Since persistently loud levels of noise damage a person's ears, noise ordinances are just a nicer infraction than the assault charges your neighbors could have you up on.

Re:constitution also protects:

[ravenshrike]

Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr.: 'I like to pay taxes. With them, I buy civilization.'

Given that Holmes was a progressive of the stripe who would fully approve of Obama's domestic policies, the fact that he loved taxes is hardly a shocking revelation.

Re:constitution also protects:

[Anonymous Coward]

But no, we're all just mindless droids and labeling us as such lets you remain safely within the boundaries of your comfort zone where your own view never needs to be tested against other incompatible ideas.

Good for you, using your head like that. However, there's a difference between people who read Rand, people who agree with Rand, and followers of Rand.

For a group that claims to value reason and the sovereignty of the individual mind, I've never met a group of people so intolerant of dissent than (big-o) Objectivists. If you don't agree with all of Ayn Rand's positions, you're not just wrong, you're dishonest (evading) and evil and you must be banished. Suits me, I'd be happy if I never had speak to a Randroid again.

Re:constitution also protects:

[znerk]

"Taxation is legalized theft, no more, no less."

Say the person who benefits from the city fire department, police department, highway department, health department that enforces sanitation and public health regulations, the water and sewer, departments that provide safe water and take away sewage, the diverse Federal departments that ensure clean safe food, safe medicines, keep aircraft from colliding in mid air, will carry a letter from coast to coast for you in a few days for less than half a dollar, etc etc etc.

Don't bother to quote Ayn Rand or any other libertarian bullshitter at me. The ONLY quotation that matters is this:

Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr.: 'I like to pay taxes. With them, I buy civilization.'

No quotes, huh? How about a headline?

Firefighters watch as home burns to the ground

You can keep your civilization.

Re:constitution also protects:

[Anonymous Coward]

Police and fire departments are funded mainly through property taxes and local sales taxes, NOT federal income tax. Yet, people always trot out the police and fire excuses to justify all taxes. Sorry, no.

Re:constitution also protects:

[Anonymous Coward]

The statement under question is "Taxation is legalized theft", not specifically federal income tax. So police, fire departments, and education are state and local taxes. Military defense is federal taxes.

Re:constitution also protects:

[residieu]

Did you read that story? The people whose house burned did not pay their fire department fee. Basically they were given the option of paying this tax, and did not. As a result, their house burnt down. This is exactly what would happen if the fire department were not tax supported at all.

Re:constitution also protects:

[immaterial]

I'm confused, because it sounds like you're disagreeing with the GP and yet your link is a perfect support for his argument (and against the libertarian privatization argument). That fire department was NOT funded by taxes. Unlike the neighboring counties, that county voted not to have a taxpayer-funded department and instead people had to BUY coverage from a city fire department. This guy chose not to buy said coverage. Welcome to Libertopia.

Re:constitution also protects:

[khallow]

Did you read that story? The people whose house burned did not pay their fire department fee. Basically they were given the option of paying this tax, and did not. As a result, their house burnt down. This is exactly what would happen if the fire department were not tax supported at all.

And it is a system that works.

Re:constitution also protects:

[khallow]

Say the person who benefits from the city fire department, police department, highway department, health department that enforces sanitation and public health regulations, the water and sewer, departments that provide safe water and take away sewage, the diverse Federal departments that ensure clean safe food, safe medicines, keep aircraft from colliding in mid air, will carry a letter from coast to coast for you in a few days for less than half a dollar, etc etc etc.

Call his bluff. Take away the goodies and the taxes. The thing is that taxes are compulsory. It doesn't matter if you do good things with the money or not. You are still taking money by force. If it were any party other than government, it would be theft or extortion.

Re:constitution also protects:

[simcop2387]

I don't know, I'd say they both have the exact same insight. That both can be used to control people, though I haven't figure out what her angle could have been. Hubbard's should be fairly obvious.

Re:constitution also protects:

[Lord Kano]

Say the person who benefits from the city fire department, police department, highway department, health department that enforces sanitation and public health regulations, the water and sewer, departments that provide safe water and take away sewage

I don't know about where you live, but where I live we pay for water and sewage. Thankyouverymuch.

LK

Re:constitution also protects:

[Anonymous Coward]

Obviously it doesn't work if it results in the community losing valuable property because some petty-minded bureaucrat failed to see the purpose of such public services - that the community has a vested interest in NOT letting the house burn down, regardless of who owns it or whether they paid their fees?

Seriously, the guy offered to pay whatever it costs to put out the fire but they let it burn down anyway just to prove a point. Maybe in your mind that's justifiable, but as Wanda put it, "Was that smart? Was it shrewd? Was that good tactics? Or was it STUPID?"

Re:constitution also protects:

[khallow]

A single instance of losing a house is not a serious measure of the success of the approach.

that the community has a vested interest in NOT letting the house burn down, regardless of who owns it or whether they paid their fees?

Why should the community have a vested interest here? The person isn't paying for an expensive service. If they buckle under and saved his property, then there'd be more people not paying next time. This approach keeps the fire fighting service funded and hence, saves property.

Seriously, the guy offered to pay whatever it costs to put out the fire but they let it burn down anyway just to prove a point. Maybe in your mind that's justifiable, but as Wanda put it, "Was that smart? Was it shrewd? Was that good tactics? Or was it STUPID?"

It was simply the right thing to do. I don't see this Wanda paying for the service so her opinion is worth its weight in words.

Re:constitution also protects:

[Chris Tucker]

"I know my taxes aren't buying any type of civilization in the middle east, despite the trillions going there. In fact, my tax dollars are doing the exact opposite by creating anarchy, pollution, death, and destruction. If those things are the hallmarks of civilization, well, you can keep it."

This IS a participatory democracy, you know.

Feel free to participate by instructing the Hired Help in D.C. as to your wishes for how your tax dollars are spent.

Feel free to participate by running for office locally.

Re:constitution also protects:

[Chris Tucker]

As previously stated:

This IS a participatory democracy, you know.

Feel free to participate by instructing the Hired Help in D.C. as to your wishes for how your tax dollars are spent.

Feel free to participate by running for office locally.

Re:constitution also protects:

[anagama]

Nobody in my local government is wasting trillions on war so I don't have any need to displace them. As for "instructing the hired help in D.C." -- I'm not in the class of people with a few million to drop at a candidates feet, so none of the candidates are my hired help, rather, I'm just one of the annoying proles they can safely ignore and rob.

Re:constitution also protects:

[Chris Tucker]

In other words, you're just a lazy fuck, sitting on his ass, while the country goes to hell.

Got it.

Re:constitution also protects:

[drsmithy]

Taxation is exactly a form of theft when you look at it for what it is.

Taxation is theft in the same way laws are oppression.

Re:constitution also protects:

[znerk]

Did you read that story? The people whose house burned did not pay their fire department fee. Basically they were given the option of paying this tax, and did not. As a result, their house burnt down. This is exactly what would happen if the fire department were not tax supported at all.

Did you read that story? It wasn't a tax, it was a fee levied by the fire department for "protection". Any other "protection" schemes ring bells? How about the fact that it was an optional fee because they didn't live in the city? How about the fact that the trucks showed up anyway, and then stood there?

Also, at what point is it ok to stand there and watch while someone's entire life burns to ashes in front of you, when you're leaning against a truck full of water while You do it? when it's your JOB to put out fires?

Imagine how that felt, to see the fire trucks pull up, sirens and lights blaring, and then all the firefighters get out and stand there watching everything you own burn down, while you beg and plead with them to save some fraction of it.

Let me know where you live, I'll bring a lawn chair and marshmallows... and I doubt I'll be alone.

Re:constitution also protects:

[znerk]

Disagreeing, yes. They claimed all kinds of things that taxation supposedly paid for. I posted a link with a different story to tell. If you couldn't tell the difference, then I'm sorry for your reading comprehension skills, and you should apologize to your teachers.

Re:constitution also protects:

[Hazel Bergeron]

Ah, the no true flourishing Scotsman fallacy, a camp version of the original.

Re:constitution also protects:

[Hazel Bergeron]

you can't force me to shut up.

So you can write what you want in my paper/blog/site/notebook/whatever?

Freedom of speech will always belong to the owners of the presses. A man in a totally privatised country has by default no voice at all, because he has no right to stand anywhere to speak. And a man in a country with some public land has his right to "free" speech limited to that land and under the regulations in force on that land.

For some reason this is obvious to anyone outside the US, but very hard to explain to anyone inside the US. It's like the value of the First Amendment is some religious thing indoctrinated in youth.

Re:constitution also protects:

[moortak]

That doesn't matter to my point at all. You are reaping the benefits of the taxes of others. As long as you are accepting the benefits of a taxed society taxes have a lot more in common with a commercial transaction than theft.

Re:constitution also protects:

[flappinbooger]

As previously stated:

This IS a participatory democracy, you know.

Feel free to participate by instructing the Hired Help in D.C. as to your wishes for how your tax dollars are spent.

Feel free to participate by running for office locally.

So, either become a lobbyist, a large donor or vote.

I think that a lot of people might be feeling a little disenfranchised across the board here in the USA, namely many people who voted in the last presidential election. Many of those who voted for "change" didn't get anything like what they thought they were voting for. Many who didn't vote for "change" got "change" anyway. Those who voted for a third option (neither for "change" or against "change") didn't get what they wanted either.

Many people are also upset because the "change" is changing things on a massive scale even though the polls are saying that the vast majority of people don't want "change" to change those things at all.

I'm not talking specifics here I'm talking observed results of efforts to do what you are saying we should do.

Instructing the Hired Help in DC is a nice idea but seems to fail as a concept once they actually reach DC.

I like your last option though. Running for local office. How many of the people who typically have had the time to do so have that time because they aren't particularly busy doing anything else constructive? lol, get a bunch of slashdot types running for office. SLASHDOTTERS UNITE! LETS TAKE BACK THE USA!

Re:constitution also protects:

[Anonymous Coward]

And it didn't truly flourish beyond the limited bubble of military and academia until private companies -- not the government -- began filling it with advertising.

FTFY, you're welcome.

Re:constitution also protects:

[Sir_Lewk]

Hahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahaha

[breaths]

ahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahaha... ...sorry, it's just that that is hilarious. Hilarious because you are thinking exactly how they want you to think. So long as the general population really believes what you believe they will be able to continue to o as they wish, business as usual.

You know what would actually be a sensible democratic system though? If you think your country should go to war, you fund it yourself separately. Wars funded solely by war bonds or donations. Good luck ever seeing this implemented.

Re:constitution also protects:

[Anonymous Coward]

Yep. The story shows what happens when you decide *not* to tax people to cover the costs of a fire department. (You end up with a few cheap-skates who decide it's not worth the money, and then complain when something bad happens to them.)

Had there been a tax (rather than a voluntary fee), the man would have paid it, and the firefighters would have tried putting out the fire, rather than arriving and making sure it didn't spread to the homes of the people who *had* paid the voluntary fee.

captcha: rebuking

Re:constitution also protects:

[Dog-Cow]

Well, there's a reason that Freedom of the Press is included in the first amendment. Remember, the amendment declares that Congress shall make no law forbidding or hindering Free Speech. It does not say that Congress must facilitate it.

Re:constitution also protects:

[Sir_Lewk]

So, what are you doing?

Re:constitution also protects:

[Anonymous Coward]

Remember, the amendment declares that Congress shall make no law forbidding or hindering Free Speech. It does not say that Congress must facilitate it.

The actual wording is "Congress shall make no law ... abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press..."

So obviously it applies to the people who own the presses. I would categorize the "right to be heard" as the right to be free from censorship in voice and print, i.e. nobody can stop someone else from hearing/reading your words.

"Tell me, what good is a (paper/blog/site/notebook/whatever) if you are unable to speak..?" </agentsmith>

Re:constitution also protects:

[s73v3r]

Do you actually have a right to be heard? What if I don't want to listen to you? Should I be barred from changing the channel, or walking away, or simply zoning you out?

Re:constitution also protects:

[s73v3r]

Good. Why should you be able to make loud enough noise to where I can't sleep?

Re:constitution also protects:

[s73v3r]

Taxation is legalized theft, no more, no less.

No it fucking isn't. You agreed to pay those taxes when you moved into the area. Ignoring that fact shows you to be a fucking retard.

Re:constitution also protects:

[s73v3r]

No. Fucking no. Private enterprise is good for most things. Functions of government are NOT one of them.

Taxation is exactly a form of theft when you look at it for what it is.

An agreement whereby I agreed to pay a portion of my income or purchase to the government in exchange for the ability to live there and many services it provides? Yeah, totally sounds like theft.

Lets say a man comes up to you and demands your car and threatens you with bodily harm, surely we can call him a thief. Lets say 2 men come up with you and do the same thing. Does it stop being theft? Lets say 3 men come up to you, take a vote on if you should have your car, and all three of them vote to take your car and you are the lone dissenter. Is it still theft? What if 10 people came in much the same way and took your car and left you a bicycle. Is it still theft? How many people need to be in a mob for it to stop being theft? Surely even if 100 people came, took your brand new 2011 Porsche and replaced it with a 1988 Honda, it would still be theft, correct? Taxation is much the same thing, it is still theft no matter how many people are in the mob trying to take your property.
--

None of that is anywhere close to applying because... YOU AGREED TO PAY TAXES WHEN YOU MOVED INTO THE AREA You agreed to follow the laws of the locality when you moved there. Those laws include taxes. If you don't like it, then you're saying that a localities laws shouldn't apply to you. If they shouldn't apply to you, then why should you get to live there and enjoy the benefits, protections, and services that they provide? Why do you get to prevent the right of a people to rule themselves?

Re:constitution also protects:

[s73v3r]

So? How does that change things in the least? Or are you still too stubborn to admit that government can actually do things, and do them efficiently.

Re:constitution also protects:

[s73v3r]

You do when those facts are completely wrong. You are entitled to your own opinions. You are not entitled to your own facts.

Re:constitution also protects:

[s73v3r]

taxation is done by force or threat of force.

No it isn't. No more than any other law or agreement is enforced.

Do you honestly think that if you didn't honor your agreement to pay for the gasoline you pumped into your car, that there would not be a use of force to compel you to?

Re:constitution also protects:

[s73v3r]

Ahh yes. The story which shows how PRIVATE FIREDEPARTMENTS WORK.

The story is about a family who didn't pay their Fire Department fee, and so paid for it. Something that you idiots clamoring for private fire departments seem to forget would be happening.

Re:constitution also protects:

[s73v3r]

it was a fee levied by the fire department for "protection". Any other "protection" schemes ring bells?

Yeah. The EXACT SAME THING a private fire department would levy on people. Do you honestly think that a private fire company would not do the same?

Imagine how that felt, to see the fire trucks pull up, sirens and lights blaring, and then all the firefighters get out and stand there watching everything you own burn down, while you beg and plead with them to save some fraction of it.

I would imagine it'd feel the exact same as when a private fire company does it. Oh wait, because they're private, they're saintly and holy, and would put the fire out for free.

Re:constitution also protects:

[s73v3r]

They claimed all kinds of things that taxation supposedly paid for. I posted a link with a different story to tell. If you couldn't tell the difference, then I'm sorry for your reading comprehension skills, and you should apologize to your teachers.

No, your teachers need to be beaten with a stick for the poor job they did with you. Read it again. He had an OPTIONAL FEE that he would have had to pay to get fire protection. He was NOT paying taxes to get fire protection like most people.

Re:constitution also protects:

[s73v3r]

The thing is that taxes are compulsory.

If by compulsory, you mean compulsory in the way that not committing rape and murder are compulsory, then I guess so.

Re:constitution also protects:

[s73v3r]

However, at the same time, they are citizens just as you are, and they have the right to speak on public lands, just as you do.

Re:constitution also protects:

[Anonymous Coward]

Yeah, private prisons are great. Please, we need more of this! Gotta keep showing that quarterly growth!

Re:constitution also protects:

[Anonymous Coward]

So the only people allowed to complain are the politicians and lobbyists themselves?
Got it.

Re:constitution also protects:

[DickBreath]

> You have no right to "be heard" and such a "right" means destroying other people's freedoms.

I agree with the point you are making about not being able to force other people to listen. But I would phrase it differently. I must disagree with the portion I quoted.

Consider this: You have the right to speak all you want, as long as it is after I arrest you and put you in a soundproof cell. Once imprisoned for disagreeing with my new state policy, you can't claim I am infringing upon your right to free speech. You are free to speak. I'm just not going to let anyone hear you.

When put that way, maybe you want to reconsider how you phrase it about a right to be heard. You don't have a right to force other people to listen, but maybe you should have a right to be heard.

Re:constitution also protects:

[Anonymous Coward]

Moved into the area? Really? That's the best you can do?

"You agreed to pay those taxes when you chose to be born."

Re:constitution also protects:

[khallow]

Or compulsory as being forced to pay for someone's boondoggle because he bribed the right politicians. Civilization isn't just about preventing rape or murder. It's also about fancy and low risk ways of taking other peoples' stuff.

Once again, call his bluff. Stop weaseling around. The theory behind government is that you need an organization to ride herd on humans, which involves compulsory taxation and the resulting corruption. The libertarians claim to have an alternate way, but people piddle in fear at the mere thought of trying it out even in a small location. Crazier stuff (such as 20th Century Communism) has been tried on vast scales so what's the big deal?

Re:constitution also protects:

[Hazel Bergeron]

Do you have a right to petition government for redress of grievances? Well, yes. Sorta. That was the idea, anyway. Still true, if you have the money to buy an ear. We call them `lobbyists'.

So, yeah. Some people have the right to be heard.

Re:constitution also protects:

[Anonymous Coward]

You agreed to pay those taxes when you moved into the area.

I don't recall agreeing to pay ANY taxes, ever.

I do recall being told it's required by law, though.

Re:constitution also protects:

[Anonymous Coward]

Why should the community have a vested interest here? The person isn't paying for an expensive service.

Because letting the place burn will undoubtedly end up costing more than a paltry $75. And the goodwill squandered over the owner can't be measured in dollars.

It was simply the right thing to do. I don't see this Wanda paying for the service so her opinion is worth its weight in words.

No, the right thing to do - the prudent thing - the moral thing - would be to put the fire out anyway, and then fine the guy for causing an unnecessary danger. Just like Search and Rescue will charge you for the cost of fishing you out of the tide or pulling you off a mountainside - after they rescue you. Oh, and I'm sure the neighbor who actually paid his protection money was happy to see the fire department stand idly by and let his house catch fire. Stupid.

Everybody with a conscience or a communal bone in their body knows it was the wrong thing to do. That's why it provokes outrage: you don't deny aid to a neighbor in an emergency, holding their safety and property for ransom when you are perfectly able to help.

Unless, of course, you're a petty-minded dick who has a twisted sense of "justice." Why don't you go live in a treehouse somewhere if you don't think you feel no responsibility to help your neighbors. When floods come and everyone else is filling sandbags, you can stand there and smugly refuse to lift a finger until they pay you. When a tornado rips through town, you can gleefully charge a fee to your neighbor trapped under their collapsed house. You can smirk at the gunshot victim lying bleeding in the street and say "not my job."

Re:constitution also protects:

[Chris Tucker]

Reading Slashdot.

How about you?

Re:constitution also protects:

[Darkness404]

Because it doesn't show that the government can do something and do it efficiently, it only shows that someone with a lot of money and a lot of computers spread across a geographical network can create a worldwide network.

Re:constitution also protects:

[Anonymous Coward]

And the only reason the internet was created by the government is because it was simply the only organization with enough computers to create the internet

You don't need a lot of computers to create the backbone of the internet. IIRC, they tested the first TCP/IP packet network with just 2 computers.

The reason it was created by the government is that the military had a need for a robust network that could survive an enemy attack, and could work with different types of computers - goals that no private company put any priority on. It cost more only because it had to be mil spec.

Of course IBM or DEC could have done it too - the hardware and the brainpower were there. It doesn't mean that the government can't do things better than private industry in some cases. In fact, the whole history of government programs seems to grow out of needs that private industry couldn't or wouldn't address. The majority of it was built by private contractors anyway. Of course adding government red tape on top will increase the cost.

I think the real problem with tax money is the same as with any source of revenue - those receiving it come to take it for granted and think of things they could do... if they just had a little more money... over the years it builds a lot of cruft.

Re:constitution also protects:

[znerk]

it was a fee levied by the fire department for "protection". Any other "protection" schemes ring bells?

Yeah. The EXACT SAME THING a private fire department would levy on people. Do you honestly think that a private fire company would not do the same?

Actually, I was referring to the infamous mafia line of "it would be awful if something were to happen to your store", spoken by one of the pair of thugs or goons standing in said store with an expensive object balanced precariously on the edge of a shelf.

Imagine how that felt, to see the fire trucks pull up, sirens and lights blaring, and then all the firefighters get out and stand there watching everything you own burn down, while you beg and plead with them to save some fraction of it.

I would imagine it'd feel the exact same as when a private fire company does it. Oh wait, because they're private, they're saintly and holy, and would put the fire out for free.

I never said they should put the fire out "for free"... and as a matter of fact, the guy in the story offered to pay "whatever it took" for them to put the fire out.

Also, as other posters in this thread have pointed out, by not putting the guy's house out, they allowed other paying customers' property to become endangered, and even damaged. They stood there and not only watched his house burn, they watched it light his neighbor's house on fire, as well... and that guy DID pay the "tax".

Search and rescue will cheerfully charge you after the fact for being dumb enough to need rescued. They don't require you to be paid up on some sort of "life saving" insurance to do so, and they don't stand there and argue with you about how much it's going to cost to bring your broken body down from the ledge on the side of the cliff.

Is it really your point of view that a FIRE DEPARTMENT should stand by and let someone's house burn down while that someone stands there and offers to give them whatever they want in return for saving it?

Is it really your point of view that it's ok for them to let someone else's house catch on fire because they're not going to save the first house? Even if the second house was owned by someone who DID pay for "protection"?

You're a terrible human being, with no sense of duty to your community, and no sense of right vs wrong. Sorry for being ad hominem, but... wow. You take the cake, and knock the rest on to the floor because the other dinner guests didn't pay you for it. Good job.

Re:constitution also protects:

[znerk]

Good business would have been to show up, tell the guy he didn't pay for the fire protection, and give him a dollar figure he would need to cough up before they would put out the fire... not to show up and stand there with your thumb up your ass while you watch his house burn.

I'm willing to bet that the private fire department has a hard time getting *anyone* to pay their "protection fee" next year. I know I wouldn't... I'd instead invest in a few fire extinguishers, and maybe a hose connection at that tree in the backyard, so I could deal with it myself instead of paying some thugs' extortion racket.

Re:constitution also protects:

[znerk]

And as a matter of fact, if I worked at that fire department, I'd have been fired for disobeying a superior's direct order, because I would have saved that man's house, fee or no. We can always go to court later to settle up the bill.

If I worked for that fire department right now, I'd be ashamed to leave my house, for fear my neighbors would see me.

This is like a doctor refusing to perform a life-saving operation because you don't have insurance.
I hope the man and his family sue the fire department, all of its employees, and most especially the fire chief for deliberate and malicious dereliction of duty.

Re:constitution also protects:

[Kreigaffe]

Don't be intentionally dense -- no, I can't write on your paper/blog/site/notebook/whatever, not without your permission.

That would be an invasion of your rights. That would be FORCING you to allow me to scribble on your stuff.

You cannot, however, stop me from writing in my own paper/blog/site/notebook/whatever. And I can't stop you from doing the same in your own.

And I can't force you to read what I write, and you can't force me to read what you write.

That's how rights work. If something involves forcing anyone to do anything, it's probably a violation of the target of that force's rights -- unless the force is being used to prevent that person or entity from exerting force over another person or entity in a violation of that third party's rights.

You might be thinking of how protesters are often shut down and their "right to free speech" violated? Here's the deal. Very, very infrequently is that actually what's going on -- typically those "protesters" are, in fact, violating the rights of everyone else because they believe their right to be heard supersedes the right of others to freely travel and engage in commerce.

So, yeah. Giant protest, human chain across a roadway? That's not exercising freedom of speech, that's, well. Hah. That's terrorism. That is -- let's just go whole hog here -- a bunch of entitled trustafarian wankers who think their private agenda is more important than me getting to my job, or me getting to the store, or me getting to a friend's house or even my own house.

That's not freedom of speech. They are infringing the rights of others, and are RIGHTFULLY removed and prevented from their petty little public temper tantrums. They're trying to FORCE others to hear their speech. That's not freedom of speech -- that is tyranny.

Hell, look at this.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Juan_(street_protester)

I've seen that guy. He hasn't been shut up. Wanna know why? He doesn't force anyone to pay attention to him. He doesn't interfere with anyone's right to travel freely or engage in commerce. He is crazy as hell, but he's got one thing right. He understands freedom of speech. He understands that he can say the craziest shit he wants to, and he's within his rights to do so -- so long as he does not infringe upon anyone else's rights. He does not, and so is not stopped from exercising his right to free speech.

For some reason this is obvious to any rational human being -- and a few irrational ones -- but is very hard to explain to entitled little snots who have been grown with the notion that they are special and have a right to be heard.

There is no right to be heard, only a right to speak.

That's the only way you can have freedom -- anything else involves the imposition of force on unwilling parties.

Re:constitution also protects:

[Hazel Bergeron]

The question is whether the right to free speech should supercede the right to private property. In your tedious ramble you've assumed a "no" without even bringing up the point.

But in most jurisdictions, the answer is "yes, sometimes". For example, in Britain political parties satisfying certain criterion are granted equal airtime on certain television channels - so a mainstream political party and the racist BNP will both get their evening slots on the main channels (quite rightly - even though I disagree with the BNP I think only harm can come out of its opinion being pushed underground while the usual corrupt but well-funded parties are able to carry on their meaningless droning). They have a right to be heard. In the Californian state constitution, the right to free speech is considered a positive one, so canvassers can walk around Walmart giving out leaflets and Walmart has no right to eject these people. They have a right to be heard.

Finally, there is the right which every vaguely democratic government supplies: the right to vote/petition. This is a very important form of the right to be heard and means that your speech influences government behaviour which in turn determines the laws of the land. Good luck ignoring the voice of the people when they give their opinion at the ballot box or form lobby groups. The US certainly grants these rights to be heard.

Re:constitution also protects:

[s73v3r]

No, they don't. They have the right to petition the government, but that doesn't extend to making other people listen.

Re:constitution also protects:

[s73v3r]

It was an implied agreement. Like it or not, when you move into an area, you agree to follow their rules. One of those rules is taxation.

Re:constitution also protects:

[s73v3r]

Good business would have been to show up, tell the guy he didn't pay for the fire protection, and give him a dollar figure he would need to cough up before they would put out the fire

You mean extortion?

Re:constitution also protects:

[s73v3r]

This is like a doctor refusing to perform a life-saving operation because you don't have insurance.

Which is how things work in the privatized system. You really want to extend that to more areas of life?

I hope the man and his family sue the fire department, all of its employees, and most especially the fire chief for deliberate and malicious dereliction of duty.

Because he decided of his own free will he didn't want to pay the fee when asked, and he only decided he'd be willing to when it was too late?

According to privatization and the "Free Market", he got what he deserved.

Re:constitution also protects:

[s73v3r]

No, and your entire premise is retarded. Taxes are not theft, and they are not "extorted". There is no more force used to collect taxes than there is to collect any other debt or enforce any other law. By repeating this stupid and ridiculous line, you are saying that no laws should ever apply to you, because you're "special", and apparently you can trump a people's right to self govern.

Re:constitution also protects:

[Anonymous Coward]

Your POV totally ignores the distinction between emergencies and normal situations. If the guy failed to pay his sanitation fee and his garbage piled up, no harm done.

When you're talking about danger to life, property, and community the rules are different - but since you apply the same blinkered yardstick to everything and money is your only concern, it will cause pain to someone. Hopefully to you, at some point.

Re:constitution also protects:

[khallow]

Because letting the place burn will undoubtedly end up costing more than a paltry $75.

A firefighter response costs more than $75.

And the goodwill squandered over the owner can't be measured in dollars.

There's another label for this value, "worthless".

Re:constitution also protects:

[khallow]

No, and your entire premise is retarded.

A sign your argument isn't based on fact or reasoned argument.

There is no more force used to collect taxes than there is to collect any other debt or enforce any other law.

First, willful failure to pay US federal taxes is a federal felony. Not so with private debt. This is a really big thing to get wrong.

Debt is limited in extent by what you owe while taxes are at best proportional to what you earn. Debt is fixed, taxes are open-ended. That's another similarity with theft and extortion which depends on what is there to steal.

And laws can be just and unjust. They tend to be enforced the same. So the degree of enforcement for taxation isn't an indication of its legitimacy.

apparently you can trump a people's right to self govern.

Ummm, and what's so bad about that? That should be the case. The peoples' right to "self-govern" should like any potential form of tyranny stop when it starts imposing on my rights beyond the minimum necessary for a civil society. So sure, have punishment for rape and murder. Don't have punishment because I don't pay into the latest pension fund scam (Social Security in the case of the US).

It's worth noting at this point that the US Constitution does, particularly in the Bill of Rights, trump a peoples' right to self govern.

Re:constitution also protects:

[Hazel Bergeron]

Yeah, you don't have to listen to the legislative process. And you can ignore the laws which result from it. And close your eyes and ears to the official instructions which result from those laws. They don't apply to you. You don't have to listen.

Good luck!

Re:constitution also protects:

[Danse]

Because it doesn't show that the government can do something and do it efficiently, it only shows that someone with a lot of money and a lot of computers spread across a geographical network can create a worldwide network.

It shows that government can do something unbelievably valuable, that others can't or won't invest in. We've all benefited immensely from it though.

Re:constitution also protects:

[causality]

taxation is done by force or threat of force.

No it isn't. No more than any other law or agreement is enforced.

Do you honestly think that if you didn't honor your agreement to pay for the gasoline you pumped into your car, that there would not be a use of force to compel you to?

There's a key difference.

The gas station owner had to pay for the gasoline he owns before he could sell it to me. He did useful work to earn that property. When he bought that gasoline from a refinery, it was a mutual, voluntary transaction. Both the refinery wanted to sell the gasoline at that price and the gas station owner wanted to buy the gasoline at that price. No coercion. When I stop at the gas station and put 10 gallons into my car, I am voluntarily choosing to purchase that much at that price and the gas station owner is voluntarily choosing to put up for sale that gasoline at that price. No coercion. The money with which I purchase the gasoline was earned by another voluntary arrangement in which I performed useful work at a negotiated rate.

If I tried to take gasoline from the gas station owner without paying for it, that he did not tell me I may have for free, I am violating his wishes. I am unilaterally engaging in a transaction that does not have mutual consent. He did not consent for me to take it for free. By taking it anyway, I am effectively coercing him into an arrangement he does not want to be in. Thus, I am depriving him of his property rights.

Because in your hypothetical scenario I would be, without provocation, depriving the gas station owner of his property rights, it makes sense for the government to use force against me to stop this crime. That's one proper role of government, to prevent a person from using force or fraud to deprive another of natural rights.

With taxation, the difference is that the government is not trying to persuade me to give that money. Then it would be a mutually voluntary arrangement. Then it would not be theft. The government is taking it by threat of force, and the threat is very real. I would be a fool not to pay when they tell me to. If I have a problem with Big Macs I can choose not to purcahse McDonalds products. If I have a problem with fighting offensive overseas wars against countries that are no threat to us, because I believe them to be murder, I am not given a choice - I still have to financially support (effectively purchase a share in) those wars.

You have to get over this idea that there is something special about government, that its actions do not need to be justified morally/ethically the same way you would want an individual to be able to justify his or her actions. Government is just an abstraction of human beings and their actions. If it is theft for me to take someone's property against their will for what I believe is a really good reason, it is theft when government does the same. To say it is different in principle when government does it is the same thing as saying that "might makes right" since government has lots of armed men to carry out its wishes.

Government is special in one way: it is the only entity legally allowed to use force to achieve its goals. To any thinking man, that means it needs *more* justification for its actions compared to someone who does everything voluntarily, not less. To suggest otherwise is effectively a form of worship, a deification of government because you can imagine no force greater. When you call these things what they are, they become much more clear.

Re:constitution also protects:

[Anonymous Coward]

Hey! You made Olbermann's "Worst Person in the World." Congratulations!

Re:constitution also protects:

[s73v3r]

If you didn't notice, I was arguing AGAINST privatization.

Re:constitution also protects:

[s73v3r]

First, willful failure to pay US federal taxes is a federal felony. Not so with private debt. This is a really big thing to get wrong.

I fail to see much difference, as when you owe a private debt, they're either going to bring criminal charges of theft against you, or they are going to bring the court system into it for breach of contract.

Debt is fixed, taxes are open-ended.

Wow, you couldn't have put that more backwards if you tried. You even contradicted it in your previous sentence, when you said that debt is limited only by what you spend. In contrast, taxes are proportional to what you owe, meaning they are pretty limited.

That's another similarity with theft and extortion which depends on what is there to steal.

Only if you're stupid enough to make that comparison.

Ummm, and what's so bad about that? That should be the case. The peoples' right to "self-govern" should like any potential form of tyranny stop when it starts imposing on my rights beyond the minimum necessary for a civil society. So sure, have punishment for rape and murder. Don't have punishment because I don't pay into the latest pension fund scam (Social Security in the case of the US).

And there's NO EVIDENCE OF THAT HAPPENING. Seriously, people like you are completely fucked in the head, and extremely selfish to boot. "Oh, look at me, I'm special! I'm better than everyone else, so I don't have to follow the rules!"

And in case you forgot, YOU AGREED TO PAY INTO THAT PENSION FUND. You agreed to follow the rules by continuing to live here. Had you not, then you would not be welcomed here.

Re:constitution also protects:

[s73v3r]

Wow, you went full retard with that one, didn't you?

Again, you have NO RIGHT to make a private citizen listen to you. Your contrived example doesn't work, as that's not a citizen expressing their right to speech. Not to mention that just because you might not choose to listen to what the laws are, that doesn't mean you aren't bound by them. Ignorance of the law is no excuse.

Re:constitution also protects:

[Hazel Bergeron]

that's not a citizen expressing their right to speech

It's a citizen expressing their right to be heard, which is what's being discussed here.

Not to mention that just because you might not choose to listen to what the laws are, that doesn't mean you aren't bound by them. Ignorance of the law is no excuse.

Exactly. Because citizens have a right to be heard via processes of voting and petition. And you must listen to this in the sense that you must, at the very least, hear the law which results. In your most lazy, pathological form of participation in democratic government you can ignore everything which happens before or after the law, but don't whine if your non-participation results in a country you don't like.

You can't directly check whether people have heard and processed something about the opinions of their fellow countrymen. You can give everyone an exam - I hear many countries have citizenship classes for childen and immigrants - but that gives merely the right to be heard and potentially ignored. The suffrage, petition and legislative processes give the right to be heard and have your words taken into account.

Bad luck, dude. As long as people are willing to express themselves via official methods, even in the US you have to listen to what people around you think. The libertarian dream of everyone thinking the same inconsistent way is, fortunately, just that. The country is much better than you wish it were :-).

Re:constitution also protects:

[Kremmy]

Who are edging closer and closer to being at real risk of being shut down on the basis of the content that passes through their pipes. They've only narrowly avoided the bullet by handing over their customers whenever they can. The ISPs trying to pull AOL redux are Big Media, and the rest of them are being screwed like all of us. What do we do?

Re:constitution also protects:

[khallow]

I come back to the Intarwebs after a couple of weeks away, and what do I find?

First, willful failure to pay US federal taxes is a federal felony. Not so with private debt. This is a really big thing to get wrong.

I fail to see much difference

I already told you the difference. Federal felonies are a far more serious matter than civil remedies.

That's another similarity with theft and extortion which depends on what is there to steal.

Only if you're stupid enough to make that comparison.

You meet that threshold quite handily, for example, by arguing that felonies are equivalent to civilian court things like fines and such.

Ummm, and what's so bad about that? That should be the case. The peoples' right to "self-govern" should like any potential form of tyranny stop when it starts imposing on my rights beyond the minimum necessary for a civil society. So sure, have punishment for rape and murder. Don't have punishment because I don't pay into the latest pension fund scam (Social Security in the case of the US).

And there's NO EVIDENCE OF THAT HAPPENING. Seriously, people like you are completely fucked in the head, and extremely selfish to boot. "Oh, look at me, I'm special! I'm better than everyone else, so I don't have to follow the rules!"

No evidence that what should happen does actually happen? That's what's called "injustice".

And in case you forgot, YOU AGREED TO PAY INTO THAT PENSION FUND. You agreed to follow the rules by continuing to live here. Had you not, then you would not be welcomed here.

Oh look, yet another difference between taxation and debt. Most ways to incur debt require formal authorization (usually the signing of a document) by all relevant parties. You "agree" to taxation by not running or resisting hard enough. You know what other activities work that way? Theft and extortion.

So to summarize, you've accused me of being stupid, selfish, and insane. You have yet to show the most important claim, namely, that the original poster's comparison of taxation with theft is in any way inappropriate or incorrect.

typo?

[Anonymous Coward]

lawer?

Re:typo?

[shugah]

Someone who goes to cort

Re:typo?

[Anonymous Coward]

You know - your legal council.

Re:typo?

[TheInternetGuy]

Yes
Lawer, as the opposite of Lawlesser
Any fool (no not just me), could understand that.

Re:typo?

[WrongSizeGlass]

Someone who goes to cort

... and is not a yoot

Re:typo?

[Oxford_Comma_Lover]

And carries a beef.

I really really hope this is appealed

[Anonymous Coward]

All the way to the Supreme Court, and we can have a final ruling that recording public officials in public is, you know, legal.

Re:I really really hope this is appealed

[_0xd0ad]

They'll never permit that to happen. No, it'll get settled with a victory in some lower level court that won't matter. You can't appeal if you win.

Re:I really really hope this is appealed

[blair1q]

Depends on what charges the cop stands to face, or how big a dick the state's lawyer is.

If they don't appeal, the law is what this Appeals court just decided it is.

And just from reading TFA it looks like this court based its opinion on other decisions, so it's unlikely things are going to go the other way.

Expect the state to let this rest. The legislature who passed this law, and the governor who signed it*, fucked up.

* - I bet it was Romney. He seems like the sort of constipated dickhead who'd think preventing the public from telling each other about what the government is doing is a good idea.

Re:I really really hope this is appealed

[shentino]

Especially since actions taking place in public do not have participants with a reasonable expectation of privacy.

It is one of the meanings of the word "public".

Re:I really really hope this is appealed

[gnasher719]

They'll never permit that to happen. No, it'll get settled with a victory in some lower level court that won't matter. You can't appeal if you win.

You should have read the fine article. It is amazingly strong. This was not about a guy being arrested and then found innocent in court. This is about a guy suing the police for being arrested and winning the case.

First, the judge said that the right to film a police officer, or any other official, while doing their duty in a public state is so evidently guaranteed by the First Amendment that the judge doesn't even have to refer to any case law. And it is so clearly legal that any police officer arresting you for it is not just making a mistake, but breaking the law.

Second, the judge said that the Massachusetts wiretapping law is about _secretly_ recording. Interestingly, it has nothing to do with the police's right to privacy or not, and nothing to do with consent to the recording, but the only important thing in Massachusetts law is whether the recording is done secretly or not. So a secret recording could be illegal. An open recording, like this man did, with a phone in open view of the police men, is absolutely legal. And it is so obviously legal that a policeman arresting you for wiretapping in this situation is not just making a mistake, but breaking the law.

So what we learn: You can record a policeman doing his job in a public place, but you have to do it openly.

Re:I really really hope this is appealed

[bth]

You really don't want that....SCOTUS will likely rule that only corporations can legally record public officials.

Re:I really really hope this is appealed

[Smallpond]

If the government thinks it's necessary to record my overseas phone calls me and touch my junk at airports in order to stop terrorism, then the natural conclusion is that the government needs to be equally open. It consists of the same kind of people as me, just as (un)likely to be terrorists. Therefore, I need to see what they are doing. No more secret meetings. No more closed negotiations. No more situations that I can't record what's happening to me. In a democracy we don't have a separate ruling class with different privileges.

Re:I really really hope this is appealed

[sexybomber]

Unless we're living in Bizarro World, the cop's not going to get charged with anything. Why would the DA punish one of his own thugs? A more likely scenario, if the law is eventually held unconstitutional, is that the cop in question might draw a civil suit under 42 USC 1983 (establishes civil liability for those who violate the civil rights of others "under color of law"), but it'd probably settle out for the cost of the phone stolen and Court costs incurred, which can be billed to the taxpayers. Either way, everyone's getting off essentially scot-free.

Re:I really really hope this is appealed

[blair1q]

Why would the DA punish one of his own thugs?

DA's are elected. Cops aren't.

Re:I really really hope this is appealed

[spire3661]

Actually in a democracy thats EXACTLY what you get. What you meant was in a REPUBLIC, we dont have a yada yada yada. Democracy jsut means one man one vote, it provides no checks against the Strong buying/bullying the Weak's vote.

Re:I really really hope this is appealed

[canajin56]

If there's one thing I've learned from watching 10,000 cop procedurals, it's that if the DA dares charge even en ex-cop with anything, all the other cops will "lose" evidence resulting in a 0% conviction rate, and then he won't get reelected because he'll seem incompetent. Somehow the cops don't get reprimanded for losing evidence and botching investigations and contaminating evidence. Also somehow DA's threaten to not press charges as a way to punish cops for not towing the line, so I guess the absurd "We'll let criminals go and that'll make YOU look bad but not us!" threat can be used both ways? Or maybe TV doesn't reflect reality all that much? WHO KNOWS.

Re:I really really hope this is appealed

[LVSlushdat]

Finally, a judge who isnt off in la-de-da-liberal-land.. Of course since this isn't the SCOTUS, it only applies to the 1st Circuit area. This would need to be ruled by SCOTUS or all of the circuit/appeals courts to apply nationwide.. Now we ALL KNOW thats not gonna happen.

Re:I really really hope this is appealed

[shentino]

Reading the actual judgement, it appears that the CITY was the one that appealed from the district court.

Re:I really really hope this is appealed

[Lakitu]

This judge is most assuredly off in "la-de-da-liberal-land". You should probably readjust your perspective on reality to accomodate for that fact. Thanks in advance!

Re:I really really hope this is appealed

[Improv]

I think you're using definitions at odds with both common usage and political theory.

We have a Democratic Republic, one of the many forms of Democracy.

Re:I really really hope this is appealed

[R3d M3rcury]

If there's one thing I've learned from watching 10,000 cop procedurals, it's that if the DA dares charge even en ex-cop with anything, all the other cops will "lose" evidence resulting in a 0% conviction rate, and then he won't get reelected because he'll seem incompetent.

"I saw it on Law and Order, so it must be true!"

You do realize how ridiculous that sounds?

TV Shows are not real. Even the ones "ripped from the headlines."

Re:I really really hope this is appealed

[interval1066]

Of course. Its ridiculous for any law enforcement official under the jurisdiction of the US Constitution to believe that they can put a stop to people filming them. I know this because years ago I witnessed a cop trying to stop a slowly gathering protest in San Diego, California (I forget what the protest was about). A lawyer happened to be in the crowd and told the cop to back, the individual had an absolute constitutional right to protest, and if the cop persisted he'd be sued, the San Diego Muni Force would be sued, and he would do everything in his power to make sure that the cop was jailed for civil rights violations. Sounds like a typical story of these types but the experience left a big impression on me. After witnessing that I have to believe that citizens do indeed have an absolute right to film any police action. It might take a court to make sure it happens, but that's the nature of the topic in this country.

Re:I really really hope this is appealed

[artor3]

If there's one thing I've learned from watching 10,000 cop procedurals

There isn't.

Re:I really really hope this is appealed

[Anonymous Coward]

Surely you mean he's legislating from the bench. Isn't that what conservatives say anytime a judge disagrees with a law on constitutional grounds?

Re:I really really hope this is appealed

[Anonymous Cowpat]

Which judgement did you read? See footnote 2 on page 7.

Although the City of Boston is formally included in the
caption to this appeal, the parties agree that the City has no
right to immediate interlocutory appeal from a denial of qualified
immunity, as it did not -- and could not -- assert such a defense.
See Walden v. City of Providence, 596 F.3d 38, 55 n.23 (1st Cir.
2010). In referring to the appellants, then, we refer only to the
individual defendants appealing the denial of qualified immunity.

Mind you, this isn't really about the case - this is just legal wrangling to see if the officers can use the defence of ignorance to squash the entire case from the outset. As the second paragraph on page 5 notes, they have to get the argument about this out of the way before they can get into arguing the actual case about whether a violation occured.

Re:I really really hope this is appealed

[hedwards]

Now if only we can get privacy in pubic places at the airport...

Re:I really really hope this is appealed

[zeugma-amp]

I think you're using definitions at odds with both common usage and political theory.

We have a Democratic Republic, one of the many forms of Democracy.

You're right in that these days, the uninformed have an almost religious believe in "democracy". The folks who founded this country had no illusions as to its dangers. You will note that neither the work democracy, nor any forms or subset of same appears in the Constitution. However, it is stated quite plainly in article 4, section 4 that "The United States shall guarantee to every state in this union a republican form of government".

A democracy is two wolves and a sheep getting together to decide what's for lunch.

What we have here, in modern parlance is a representative republic.

Re:I really really hope this is appealed

[Anonymous Coward]

"This judge is most assuredly off in "la-de-da-liberal-land".

And you are a stupid shit, regardless of where you live.

Re:I really really hope this is appealed

[Oxford_Comma_Lover]

Specifically, the state won't risk applying for a writ of cert on this because it's a bad test case for it. For this to get to the Supreme Court, you'll need either a stupid prosecutor (or one doing the wrong thing institutionally), a set of facts more favorable to the police, or a decision going the other way on the appeals court level.

Re:I really really hope this is appealed

[Anonymous Coward]

What we have here, in modern parlance is a representative republic.

Where we elect our representatives democratically, based on whether they will vote the right way on abortion.

Worst of both worlds.

Re:I really really hope this is appealed

[Oxford_Comma_Lover]

It's still a pretty important statement for the First Circuit to say that the right to film police action in public is *clearly established* First Amendment law. Not only in terms of how the case winds up, but because most cases like this will involve a defense of qualified immunity.

Re:I really really hope this is appealed

[CrimsonAvenger]

* - I bet it was Romney. He seems like the sort of constipated dickhead who'd think preventing the public from telling each other about what the government is doing is a good idea.

You'd lose that bet.

Romney was governor from 2003 till 2007, the law in question was passed before 2003 - there were court cases involving the law in 2000....

Re:I really really hope this is appealed

[mister_playboy]

A democracy is two wolves and a sheep getting together to decide what's for lunch.

Our republic is a banker, a CEO, and a McDonald's order taker deciding on who's going to pay for lunch.

Re:I really really hope this is appealed

[CrimsonAvenger]

Hate to reply to myself, but a little more research shows that the law in question was originally passed in 1959.

If the identity of the signing governor is really important, he was Foster Furcolo (D).

Note that the law was first put into place to prevent abuse by the police of wiretapping, due to improvements in technology that made wiretapping simpler....

Re:I really really hope this is appealed

[blair1q]

Cops basically live their entire lives under suspicion of either maliciously offending the public or negligently shirking their duty. They're also responsible for evidence and accurate descriptions of what happened. The paperwork is a nightmare, and tiny errors can let real crooks go free (modulo the quality of their defense attorney).

Re:I really really hope this is appealed

[sam_handelman]

Mod parent up.

  However, I wouldn't discount the possibility of a prosecutor doing" the wrong thing, institutionally". The kind of places with an excess of bored civil rights attorneys also have an excess of activist/liberal DAs. So if the Oberlin DA gets such a case he, ight push it just to lose.

Re:I really really hope this is appealed

[znerk]

Especially since actions taking place in public do not have participants with a reasonable expectation of privacy.

It is one of the meanings of the word "public".

It's not a question of being in public... the questionable law having light shined upon it makes it illegal to covertly record a person. Unfortunately for the police, this guy was filming them "performing their duties" with the recording device in plain sight.

As an aside, most jurisdictions (at least as far as I'm aware) have no law against photographing a public official in the performance of his/her duties, and some of them even have laws specifically legalizing it.

Of course, if you're "in the way" of them performing their duties, they can always charge you with obstruction of justice... and those bruises on your face came from you resisting arrest, right?

Re:I really really hope this is appealed

[Rakarra]

If there's one thing I've learned from watching 10,000 cop procedurals, it's that if the DA dares charge even en ex-cop with anything, all the other cops will "lose" evidence resulting in a 0% conviction rate, and then he won't get reelected because he'll seem incompetent.

"I saw it on Law and Order, so it must be true!"

You do realize how ridiculous that sounds?

TV Shows are not real. Even the ones "ripped from the headlines."

The only thing those shows get right is that officers always protect their own.

Re:I really really hope this is appealed

[icebike]

All the way to the Supreme Court, and we can have a final ruling that recording public officials in public is, you know, legal.

You don't need it to go that far. I can't see any city or state wanting to contest this much higher, in light of the fact that the ruling was pretty clear. It was after all, just the officers that contested it this far. They didn't have any governmental backing, and the Boston Municipal court had already bitch slapped the officers down and dismissed all charges. I just don't see those guys having the financial backing to go much further.

Unless some other circuit rules contrary, this is the precedent that will be cited country wide.

Re:I really really hope this is appealed

[Intropy]

I'm confused. Which politicians are we supposed to accuse of not obeying the constitution this month? I know it's an even numbered month, and this isn't a leap year, but it is prime.

Re:I really really hope this is appealed

[icebike]

The state was never part of this. The appeal was made by the officers involved.

Re:I really really hope this is appealed

[ChrisMaple]

We have a Democratic Republic, one of the many forms of Democracy

We use the English language here, where adjectives precede the noun which they modify.

Re:I really really hope this is appealed

[517714]

The TSA will offer to grope you in private.

Re:I really really hope this is appealed

[Lakitu]

yes the clear response to my post is getting angry

A liberal judge on a liberal circuit appointed by a liberal president writes an opinion upholding liberal laws and calls the original arrest "baseless".

this one's for you: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cognitive_dissonance

Re:I really really hope this is appealed

[Anonymous Coward]

Surely you mean he's legislating from the bench. Isn't that what conservatives say anytime a judge disagrees with a law on constitutional grounds?

Put the crack pipe down, and step away. Seriously.

"Legislating from the bench" is what conservatives say when a judge rules, for example, that the Commerce Clause governing trade across State borders means that the Federal Government can prosecute a farmer from growing wheat for his own use in excess of a Federally-mandated quota, or that the Federal Government may mandate that private citizens purchase certain goods or services from another private citizen or corporation.

Re:I really really hope this is appealed

[rts008]

...punish cops for not towing the line,...

They have to pull barges now?

By the context of your comment, I suspect you meant toeing the line.

Or maybe TV doesn't reflect reality all that much?

That may be the understatement of the decade.

Don't 'educate' yourself via TV, it will FUBAR your mind.

Re:I really really hope this is appealed

[cavreader]

Actually the US government is caught in a catch 22 situation when it comes to airport security and monitoring international calls when at least 1 party of the call is a foreign national. If they cease monitoring the international com traffic and remove the security checks at the airports the first time another terrorist incident occurs the government will be accused of willful negligence by the same people complaining about the security measures. I think getting rid of the com monitoring would not really be that harmful to security because the people planning and executing terrorists attacks have learned the hard way to avoid cell phone and telephone communications but reducing security at airports is another matter.

Re:I really really hope this is appealed

[voss]

If the supreme course declines to hear an appeal or it is not appealed , it does become binding caselaw within the first circuit
and damn persuasive everywhere else.

Re:I really really hope this is appealed

[QuantumG]

Exactly.. it's amazing how instantly people forget everything know about language when having pointless semantic arguments.

Re:I really really hope this is appealed

[Joce640k]

They'll never permit that to happen. No, it'll get settled with a victory in some lower level court that won't matter. You can't appeal if you win.

Yep. They're just holding out for a bigger bribe.

Re:I really really hope this is appealed

[Anonymous Coward]

Don't bother, americans have a democrat party and a republican party. These names, republican and democrat, should only serve as names used to identify which party you're talking about. They're an accident of history. However, in america they have become part of the debate. That's why they waste their time arguing democracy is the opposite of republic and whether the US is a republic or a democracy even though it is both as you rightfully noted.

Re:I really really hope this is appealed

[Anonymous Coward]

Don't 'educate' yourself via TV, it will FUBAR your mind.

There's nothing wrong with educating yourself via TV. It's no worse than educating yourself with books. However, just as you shouldn't use a book from the fiction section as your source of education, neither should you uses a TV show in the fiction category as your source.

Re:I really really hope this is appealed

[_0xd0ad]

Whoever loses is permitted to appeal. But they can easily prevent a case like this from creating too much precedence and keep it out of the higher courts by simply giving a token settlement to Glik. He won't be able to appeal, the city will opt not to appeal, and that will be the end of it.

Re:I really really hope this is appealed

[Anonymous Coward]

Ah, read the ruling, Glik brought suit against the officers and the city for infringing his First and Fourth Amendment rights. The officers claimed qualified immunity, the Appeals Court has denied that claim, so Glik's lawsuit can proceed.

Re:I really really hope this is appealed

[Anonymous Coward]

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Re:I really really hope this is appealed

[Anonymous Coward]

Libertarianism is a lone wolf arguing the sheep initiated force by entering his territory and are therefore fair game to kill and eat.

Re:I really really hope this is appealed

[Improv]

Are you under the impression that the only form of democracy is direct democracy? There are other kinds, such as *cough* democratic republics.

Re:I really really hope this is appealed

[ZombieBraintrust]

Its also important to note that the court didn't rule the law was bad. They ruled that it didn't apply here. The law only applies to sercret recordings. Secretly recording the police is a different ballgame. You would likely need a warrent to legally do that. This guy did everything in the open though. He held up is camera phone where everyone could see it and recorded the crime scene. He wasn't hiding behind a bush. The phone wasn't deguised as cake. He was acting as the press. And the press have the right to record crimes scenes.

Re:I really really hope this is appealed

[ZombieBraintrust]

Yeah the state dropped charges pretty quick. No jury is going to prosecute someone for recording the police.

Re:I really really hope this is appealed

[ZombieBraintrust]

It was already pretty high. This ruling was at the appeals court. It applies to the whole circuit. There is already another circuit that ruled contrary. I think the one in Califorina went the other way. So either of those cases can be appealed to the surpreme court.

Re:I really really hope this is appealed

[Anonymous Coward]

But the Police Union would have the financial backing to push it and might to "Protect" the Officers!

Re:I really really hope this is appealed

[ZombieBraintrust]

This was an appeals court ruling. They already screwed up. This ruling is precedence for the entire circuit now.

Re:I really really hope this is appealed

[Anonymous Coward]

* - I bet it was Romney. He seems like the sort of constipated dickhead who'd think preventing the public from telling each other about what the government is doing is a good idea.

A half-assed search of session laws during the Romney years shows that MGL c 272 s99 was untouched. Not that Romney is a saint, of course.

Re:I really really hope this is appealed

[Nadaka]

wait, you actually think they only monitor transnational phone calls?

Re:I really really hope this is appealed

[Anonymous Coward]

Our republic is a banker, a CEO, and a McDonald's order taker deciding on who's going to pay for lunch.

Since two take government bailouts, and the third doesn't pay income tax*, the logical conclusion is they are going to make some third party pay for it.

* And please, no cute "FTFY" games. If you want to refute it, bring out some cold hard facts.

Re:I really really hope this is appealed

[spire3661]

NO, but people often put FAR much too much emphasis on the democratic part, when it is the republic part that is most important.

Re:I really really hope this is appealed

[spire3661]

I think that with such a low UID you would provide a better counter argument besides 'I dont like your semantics" The important part of 'Demoratic Republic' is the REPUBLIC part. It ensures that rights are enshrined and cannot be changed by majority vote alone. Democracy alone is an ugly thing, it is the ideals of the REPUBLIC that are most important.

Re:I really really hope this is appealed

[Smallpond]

I never said I was opposed to catching terrorists using the means necessary, I just said that if individuals have to lose privacy, then why are government employees getting increased privacy? If the government is gaining easily abused powers, why aren't we balancing this by increased monitoring instead of making monitoring a government official a crime?

Re:I really really hope this is appealed

[Anonymous Coward]

Yes, but it is not binding precedent across the entire country, unless it comes from the Supreme Court.

Re:I really really hope this is appealed

[scot4875]

A democracy is two wolves and a sheep getting together to decide what's for lunch.

I've always found this quote to be really stupid.

By that analogy's same logic, a democracy could also be 1000 sheep and a wolf voting on what's for dinner. Doesn't sound so bad now, does it? Unless you're the wolf, obviously. In that case, if you're the wolf, the best thing you can do is convince the 1000 sheep to not vote because their votes don't matter, or to pit them against each other over bullshit issues. Or both, maybe.

--Jeremy

Re:I really really hope this is appealed

[s73v3r]

Actually, you know what might be a great idea? Anytime there is a potential crime involving a law enforcement officer, a special prosecutor is appointed. Someone who is not normally a DA. Perhaps even someone who's normally a Defense Attorney. That way, there's no conflict of interest regarding the DA prosecuting cops.

Re:I really really hope this is appealed

[cavreader]

I wasn't targeting your statement I was just making a general observation pointing out the quandary we find ourselves in today. Trying to balance this security versus privacy equation is where we seem to hit a brick wall. Our current government is totally incapable of compromising on any issue facing the US today and is causing serious harm to both the financial underpinnings of the country as well as any measures related to providing reasonable security policies. The people we are electing, from all political party or ideology have totally failed to carry out their responsibilities. They have contributed absolutely nothing to the country except turmoil. Before the next congressional elections I wish every American citizen , regardless of political party, would demand the resignation of every member of both the Senate and House. The executive branch and judicial branch can maintain government continuity for a short period of time until after the newly elected representatives take office.

Re:I really really hope this is appealed

[treeves]

Whether 'pubic' was intentional or not, it's a funny.

Re:I really really hope this is appealed

[Anonymous Coward]

What about other circuits. The 1st circuit deals with a very small section of the east coast. I'm in California (9th circuit) so there's still a chance the cops here will play games and not worry about it since this ruling was not within their circuit. That's why such things need to be finalized with the supremes so it's made loud and clear that we have a constitutional right to record public officials in public places while they're on duty.

Re:I really really hope this is appealed

[icebike]

Yes, but it is not binding precedent across the entire country, unless it comes from the Supreme Court.

Yes it is binding, unless and until a different Federal District has a different ruling. The US is one country.

Re:I really really hope this is appealed

[icebike]

Until there is a decision by another Circuit, this ruling serves as precedent for the entire country.

ONLY if a different circuit rules contrary is there any need for SCOTUS to get involved. Its very rare for you to have one right in one part of the country and a lesser right in another. It does happen, but such things are quickly appealed. The equal protection clause (14th) has long since been applied to the Federal level as well as original state level. There is no other Appeals court ruling as directly on point as this one in any other circuit.

Re:I really really hope this is appealed

[cbiltcliffe]

Now if only we can get privacy in pubic places at the airport...

I'm having a difficult time figuring out whether that's a typo, or exactly what you meant to say...

Re:I really really hope this is appealed

[Improv]

What makes you think that "Republic" means enshrined rights and democracy doesn't? You're treating Democracy and Republic as terms at ends with each other, which is really not how they're used in political theory.

Re:I really really hope this is appealed

[Anonymous Coward]

Democracy alone is an ugly thing, it is the ideals of the REPUBLIC that are most important.

All "democracy" really means is "rule by the people," so I don't know why you have such a bug up your ass about this.

Re:I really really hope this is appealed

[kurzweilfreak]

How much do they charge?

and so they learn

[X0563511]

The police just learned an important lesson: Don't charge lawyers with the stupid rules you use to get away with shit.

Re:and so they learn

[Anonymous Coward]

So only lawyers can film the police doing shit now?

Re:and so they learn

[Anonymous Coward]

No, this story is about a lawer.

Re:and so they learn

[hedwards]

More or less, the legal system in the US has gotten to the point where you really need to be a lawyer in order to understand when you're breaking the law.

Re:and so they learn

[Freddybear]

That's what we get for electing so many lawyers to write the laws.

Re:and so they learn

[Anonymous Coward]

Lobbyists write the laws.

Re:and so they learn

[Anonymous Coward]

That's what we get for electing so many lawyers to write the laws.

And then meekly accepting as legitimate the notion that ignorance of incomprehensible body of law is no excuse.

Re:and so they learn

[steelfood]

Not to understand when you're breaking the law, but when you're not breaking the law. And more importantly, it requires a lawyer to get out from any repercussions. Because while we laymen may not be breaking the law and know it, they can still harass us and make our lives difficult. And the only ones who are even remotely capable of defending themselves from that kind of behavior are lawyers. And even then, it still takes an ungodly amount of time, effort, and expenses.

Re:and so they learn

[blair1q]

and we hire the lobbyists.

stop buying gasoline if you don't like them.

or at least stop buying so much gasoline

Re:and so they learn

[hairyfeet]

That's not true! You can also be very very rich and get justice as well! Everyone else is royally fucked though. I used to live down the street from the county courthouse and used to sit in and watch the proceedings but frankly it got too depressing. the ones that finally broke this camel's back was when a rich guy walked in, it was his NINTH bust for under the influence of booze AND drugs, and his FIFTH hit and run! What did he get? they gave him a $10k fine and actually THANKED him for his fucking time! The next one was a poor guy for his second pot possession charge. they gave him 3 years.

Anyone who thinks the courts in the USA aren't as crooked as any third world really ought to set in on some trials for a couple of weeks. there they will quickly see a pattern, rich can do anything, poor go to prison for less than a tenth of what the rich guy does. it is like that old saying, steal $500 go to jail, steal 500 million become a senator. The thing is so tilted now in favor of the elite it isn't even a bad joke anymore, it is just pathetic and sad.

Re:and so they learn

[Anonymous Coward]

False, though it would seem that way if your sole source of information consisted of news headlines.

Re:and so they learn

[anagama]

I can't recall where I heard this, though I spent some time trying to tease that out with google the other day, but it's really a great tool for understanding what happens anymore:

The poor and middle class live under the rule of law, while the rich rule by law.

Re:and so they learn

[Anonymous Coward]

doesn't anyone see the real problem as being that the cops are not trained to know what your constitutional rights are?!

Re:and so they learn

[Anonymous Coward]

No, they've learned the real lesson, stay away from lawyers, even if it means letting them get away with murder. If Joe Average was the culprit, his sentence would have been measured in years in courts and eventually prison (which would be a relief since bankruptcy was imminent with all those lawyer fees).

Re:and so they learn

[Dunbal]

In ancient Rome the plebs were not allowed to study or know the laws, but they of course were not allowed to break them and suffered punishment, even death when they did. We'll be at this point soon.

Re:and so they learn

[PJ6]

That's what we get for electing so many lawyers to write the laws.

Oh come now, that's like complaining that we use programmers to program.

If you're tempted to remark that programmers tend to make lousy UI designers... that is a valid point, but it's a different discipline.

As in programming, how do we get the law ("application") into a state that it can be wielded and understood by everyman? That is entirely a matter of dedicating yourself to accessibility and the elimination of complexity. We don't have people with jobs exactly like that at the moment in law, but in a better world, it would be one of the higher callings of public servants.

In summary: the problem isn't that we use lawyers to write law, but rather other important functions concerning law are neglected.

Re:and so they learn

[Anonymous Coward]

btw, my captcha for that post was "sadism" ha ha ha.

Re:and so they learn

[MarkvW]

Many judges have deep and long lasting friendships with the lawyers that appear before them.

In my community, a few years a judge (now dead) heard cases where the best man at his wedding was the defense lawyer.

One day, the judge made a ruling that the defense lawyer did not like. The defense lawyer--on the record--accused the judge of being biased against him (because he was bending over too far backward to be fair). The lawyer then left the courtroom in a huff.

What did the judge do? Did he get a fucking clue and disqualify himself from the case? Noooooo. The judge ran out into the parking lot and brought the lawyer back into the courtroom. The judge then reversed his decision.

This kind of thing is not rare.

Re:and so they learn

[Oxford_Comma_Lover]

More or less, the legal system in the US has gotten to the point where you really need to be a lawyer in order to understand when you're breaking the law.

And the lawyer in question will have to do a lot of research before he knows it, and even then he may not be sure. (Except in the rare case where the law happens to be in his area.) There are a lot of laws, and a lot of regulations further defining them, and a lot of law that's unsettled because a particular case has never come up before.

Re:and so they learn

[Oxford_Comma_Lover]

That's what we get for electing so many lawyers to write the laws.

If engineers wrote the laws, do you think they'd be *easier* for people to understand?

=)

Re:and so they learn

[Oxford_Comma_Lover]

Anyone who thinks the courts in the USA are as crooked as any third world country is wrong. They're heavily stacked in favor of the wealthy as a consequence of allowing people to select their own representation, combined with a respect for status among members of the bar. But they are, for the most part, not bribed by the rich every time the rich get a parking ticket, for example. When you call a law firm in the United States, chances are the law firm is not paying off the judge. That's not true in a lot of places.

Although there are also underdeveloped places that have some remarkable judiciaries, or that have some very reputable members.

Re:and so they learn

[drinkypoo]

With the quantity of laws, their illegal obfuscation, and the ongoing compromise of our education system, we're already well past that point.

Why come you got no tattoo?

Re:and so they learn

[micheas]

The SCOTUS does have a member that is effectively being bribed. Clarance Thomas

His defense is that he would be as rabidly pro corporate if his wife was not receiving hundreds of thousands of dollars from people with issues before him.

Scalia and Kagan also have some questionable income sources, but not as egregious as Thomas.

Replacing Thomas with someone like Judge Bork might not change the decisions of the court much, but would greatly reduce the appearance of corruption.

But, the perception of the US Congress being bought and paid for might be reduced more by increasing the number of members of the House of Representatives to much closer to the constitutional limit of no more than one representative per 30,000 people (excluding native amercians). The current number of 435 representatives is arbitrary and fixed to maximize the power of individual representatives. would reduce the need for legislative aides, reduce campaign expenses and allow people to run for congress by knocking on their neighbors doors.

So, yes, America has a veneer of legitimacy over our government, but if you think the average American has more say over his/her government than the average African, you might be unpleasantly surprised.

Re:and so they learn

[znerk]

More or less, the legal system in the US has gotten to the point where you really need to be a lawyer in order to understand when you're breaking the law.

Nah... we're all breaking the law, more or less. The trick is to have enough money (or know enough of the right people) to get away with it.

Re:and so they learn

[znerk]

That's what we get for electing so many lawyers to write the laws.

And then meekly accepting as legitimate the notion that ignorance of incomprehensible body of law is no excuse.

Precisely.

Re:and so they learn

[znerk]

Anyone who thinks the courts in the USA are as crooked as any third world country is wrong. They're heavily stacked in favor of the wealthy as a consequence of allowing people to select their own representation, combined with a respect for status among members of the bar. But they are, for the most part, not bribed by the rich every time the rich get a parking ticket, for example. When you call a law firm in the United States, chances are the law firm is not paying off the judge. That's not true in a lot of places.

Although there are also underdeveloped places that have some remarkable judiciaries, or that have some very reputable members.

How do you figure? I saw a woman come into court for a (second) DUI, pay a monstrous fine, and then schedule what day she would like to go to jail.

Anecdotal evidence aside, it's getting a bit out of hand.

Re:and so they learn

[demonlapin]

Actually, there's a book (haven't read it, just heard about it) that explores the problems that arise from having a legal system in which judges are all former lawyers and systematically favor the legal profession over all others. Part of that is the complexity of the law, like those awful parts of federal law that delegate rule-making authority to executive departments while giving full force of law to those rules.

There's nothing inherently wrong with having lawyers write the law, but there are many things wrong with the system we have. One of the most insidious is something I know from hospitals. Because they receive federal money (from Medicare), they are subject to federal regulation. Some of the laws criminalize conduct that is contrary to the hospital's policies. That's right: break a minor rule in the employee handbook, and the remedy isn't getting fired (which would be extreme, but justifiable). It's being sent to jail.

Re:and so they learn

[demonlapin]

Here's a hint: as long as government is of any meaningful size, it's going to control a lot of money. Those who run it are going to become rich if they are not already, because they control the money and where it goes. "The rich control government" is a truism.

Re:and so they learn

[ChrisMaple]

Lawyers in the legislature is a clear conflict of interest and ought to be illegal. It is in their interest to make laws incomprehensible to anyone not trained in the arcane literature of legalism. It is their interest to use words that have one meaning in a legal context which is completely divorced from or opposite to the meaning in common conversation. They pass laws to make sure their buddies have to be hired for anyone to get through the legal morass, and to ensure their own employment if they lose an election and have to go back to work.

Re:and so they learn

[Anonymous Coward]

I personally know someone who paid off a judge and a D.A. to get out of serving time. His attorney knew the judge and D.A. He would ask for $20,000 here and there to go to lunch with them. Cost about $100,000 altogether but he was definitely looking at some serious jail time otherwise.

Re:and so they learn

[ChrisMaple]

You are proposing a House with 10,000 members. It would be completely unworkable, and would tend to result in secret cliques writing laws (even more so than now.) I suggest you read C. Northcote Parkinson.

Re:and so they learn

[khallow]

I personally know someone who paid off a judge and a D.A. to get out of serving time.

Do you have names? It's not a very serious claim without names.

Re:and so they learn

[Jane Q. Public]

I agree that it is a conflict of interest. Lawyers are paid to understand the law... that has no bearing on whether they write good laws. If anything, it results in bad laws.

Contrary to what GP said, it is not like "hiring programmers to program". A better simile is: it's like hiring people who use word processors or PowerPoint to program. The fact that a lawyer might be good at using the legal system does not imply that he or she would be any good at all at building or maintaining one, any more than a typist is good at computer repair.

Re:and so they learn

[micheas]

Parkinson's Law is more or less the current situation.

The house is probably about 10,000 people with legislation being drafted in secret. So even if your prediction comes true it really wouldn't be a change.

The idea that the US has anything close to direct election of congressional representatives is sort of laughable on certain levels. City/town councils have not insignificant number of members that are members of minor parties, but as the offices represent larger numbers of people the diversity of views fades, and the interests of the wealthy become more represented.

The downside to my proposal is that it is not happening unless a constitutional amendment is passed, and it would have to be passed without the support of congress. Unless there is something bordering on civil unrest due to the lack of supervision of the banking industry (which seems unlikely, being as it hasn't already happened.) I don't see the populous being motivated to gut the house of it's fiefdoms and reduce the prestige and power of members of the house of representatives to that of today's staff aide.

Re:and so they learn

[smellotron]

That's what we get for electing so many lawyers to write the laws.

If engineers wrote the laws, do you think they'd be *easier* for people to understand?

I imagine more engineers than lawyers value indentation, curly braces, and text-based version control. In my experience legal text reads just like any other algorithm, but the implementation language is terribly suited!

Re:and so they learn

[Oxford_Comma_Lover]

If you are serious, report it. That is a pretty big deal, the kind that makes national news and the kind of people whom the justice system does not *want* in power.

Re:and so they learn

[Doctor Faustus]

Engineers would use formal symbolic logic, plus an informal summary. Yes, that would be easier to understand.

Re:and so they learn

[fl_litig8r]

I've seen this problem all the time in my civil right practice. Most of the time it's LEOs arresting someone for disorderly conduct without knowing that the First Amendment trumps the state criminal statute in almost all cases except those where the person is practically inciting a riot.

Re:and so they learn

[Anonymous Coward]

But, the perception of the US Congress being bought and paid for might be reduced more

"Perception" is not close to being accurate. Its a FACT Congress is bribed daily. They are so ballsy about it, they literally legalized it. Go learn about super packs. They exist solely to allow politicians to be bribed and to hide who is bribing them. To create a super pack is to publicly announce you can be bought for the right price. If you are in favor of super packs, you are literally in favor of bribery.

Sorry, but factually speaking, EVERY politician with a super pack is bought and paid for. It is, by definition, legalized bribery. No ifs, ands, or buts.

Re:and so they learn

[hairyfeet]

To whom? The crooked judges? The crooked cops? You wanna know what happened to the last snitch in my area? Think Fargo only with the guy being alive at the time!

Look up "the meth highway" and be prepared to shit thyself. Here we have cops living like Tony Montana, with wives driving navigators and cops living in homes with Italian marble. You think they can afford THAT on a $29k a year salary? get fucking real!

The game is COMPLETELY rigged, anybody that lives on the highway KNOWS this. They have seen scum pay their way out of nasty charges, they have seen decent people get royally fucked because they were poor. this is common knowledge, hell they don't even try to hide the bribery anymore. I could tell you where to go every Friday to watch the cops count their money in their squads cars, they are THAT reliable. Nobody says shit or does shit because who are you gonna say it to? The last one that got chipper shredder went to the Feds, the feds let it leak to state, state let it leak to local, local "took care of the problem" end of story.

Re:and so they learn

[Oxford_Comma_Lover]

You have two options. The FBI and the Media.

http://www.fbi.gov/news/stories/2010/march/corruption_032610

If you leak it to the media where you can go to watch the cops count their money in their squad cars, some of them will do this thing called "reporting." It sometimes involves cameras. You can also by a hidden camera and walk by.

Great News!

[ohnocitizen]

This is great news, especially since wiretapping statures are commonly used in other states to suppress people's attempts to record police actions.

It's a special concern now that seemingly everyone over the age of 10 is carrying a camera that can take decent stills and HD video

That makes me optimistic, if we see a shift in the law accompanied by the reasonable expectation that *anyone* could potentially be carrying a recoding device, perhaps we will see a moderation in police behavior.

Re:Great News!

[Neurotrace]

Agreed. One only needs to make a quick YouTube search for police brutality to know that police behavior is under moderated. Now there's no almost no excuse for "your word against mine" kind of cases.

Re:Great News!

[yog]

Yes, there have been quite a few reports of people being arrested and their cameras confiscated merely for videoing the police. I applaud this decision and I do hope it causes these statutes to be struck down once and for all.

Generally I'm on the side of private citizens' right to record events, and the police should never be doing anything that makes them shy about being recorded.

It must be said, though, that to do their job in the real world, police do have to occasionally cajole and threaten people into confessing. It's not due process but realistically it needs to be done. If everyone fought every charge in court, there would be a total logjam. A cop, coming upon a suspect at the scene of a crime, can sometimes intimidate them into 'fessing up without a lot of hassle and expense, and frankly without that we'd have a lot more crime.

So, I hope citizens bear this in mind when taping officers of the law. There's some similarity to the embedded journalists on combat squads in urban warfare situations like Iraq where Marines bursting into a room and discovering a militant lying on the floor holding a white flag will go ahead and frag him out of fear he's got a grenade or suicide belt on him, a common enough occurrence. The journalist will slavishly record the scene, then report it as Marine brutality against an unarmed opponent. Presto, you now have guaranteed more dead Marines.

Re:Great News!

[Anonymous Coward]

A cop, coming upon a suspect at the scene of a crime, can sometimes intimidate them into 'fessing up without a lot of hassle and expense, and frankly without that we'd have a lot more crime.

Yeah, that whole due process thing is a lot of hassle. Glad cops have some leverage to marginalize it.

Re:Great News!

[bhagwad]

How convenient. Trading your rights for freedom. Textbook case of compromise.

Re:Great News!

[ohnocitizen]

It's not due process but realistically it needs to be done.

Citation Needed.

Frankly a single instance of a cop using either illegal coercion or force on a citizen who is only suspected of a crime is an unwelcome sight in a country that aspires to rule of law and liberty.

Re:Great News!

[Torodung]

While I essentially agree with you, the moderation of police behavior is likely to lead to lower effectiveness, at least while they change all their SOPs to meet the new expectations. The laws and procedures regarding internal affairs were not written for an inverse surveillance society. They were written with the cockroach model in mind, if one offense gets to internal affairs, it's likely there are hundreds that went unnoticed or unreported.

So it's good news, not great. It's certainly a change, and fresh air, but I think the police still need some latitude to make quick decisions in situations that would likely make the both of us soil our underwear. Sometimes they are going to be wrong, and we're going to see a whole lot of that in footage, analyzed thoroughly over days, when the officers in question had only milliseconds to make their analysis.

And the good news is that calculated abuse of authority in less tense sorts of situations will be curbed. I hope.

But to make it really "great" news, we need to moderate our attitudes and behavior toward the police, too.

--
Toro

Re:Great News!

[Darkness404]

Let's face it, years of "crime" drama on television has warped our sense of reality. There are very, very, very few cases where someone is obviously doing evil and the police are somehow powerless to stop it. On the other hand, there are many, many, many cases where the police are the ones doing evil, harassing everyday citizens with nearly boundless power. This is despite the fact they have nearly no checks and balances that every other person in authority has.

Re:Great News!

[DarkVader]

The job of the police is to attempt to enforce the law. When they break the law in a misguided attempt to "do their job", they're not doing their job at all, they've become criminals. And they're not just ordinary criminals, they're extremely dangerous criminals who are virtually immune to any threat of prosecution for their crimes. So, in the real world, we have a lot more crime, because the police decided to take an expedient instead of actually doing their jobs. There's a reason we now call them the biggest street gang in America. And THAT is what people should bear in mind when taping cops.

As for your marine murdering a man with a white flag, I can't imagine how you could possibly justify that as being acceptable. The journalist is the hero in that case, because by broadcasting the cold-blooded murder of a man lying on the floor with a white flag, he's likely to save the lives of many people. With any luck, the footage will be used at the marine's trial, and the murderer will hopefully get to spend a good chunk of the rest of his life in prison. Well, unless his commanding officer ordered the murder - then we should trade a lighter sentence for the murdering marine for his testimony convicting the officer for war crimes and crimes against humanity.

Re:Great News!

[demonlapin]

we need to moderate our attitudes and behavior toward the police

They get to arrest people and throw them in jail for any reason, or no reason at all ("resisting arrest" is a remarkably stretchy statute). Burden's on them.

Look, I'll accept that cops have to deal with scummy people, and that from time to time it is actually necessary to beat people up. If it's justified, however, you need to be able to back up your decision. That cell phone video may not show the whole context, but that's just a good reason for the cops to make their own videos that do come with context. And if the dash cam video goes "missing", well, members of the public are going to get suspicious about that.

Re:Great News!

[Anonymous Coward]

if you know that they are arresting you illegally, you have a right to resist up to and including homicide. that doesn't mean they wouldn't win, but you have the right to shoot them if they try to arrest you illegally.

Re:Great News!

[Anonymous Coward]

As for your marine murdering a man with a white flag, I can't imagine how you could possibly justify that as being acceptable. The journalist is the hero in that case, because by broadcasting the cold-blooded murder of a man lying on the floor with a white flag, he's likely to save the lives of many people. With any luck, the footage will be used at the marine's trial, and the murderer will hopefully get to spend a good chunk of the rest of his life in prison. Well, unless his commanding officer ordered the murder - then we should trade a lighter sentence for the murdering marine for his testimony convicting the officer for war crimes and crimes against humanity.

If you join a group that regularly blows themselves up in their attempts to kill people, then you have no reasonable expectation of your surrender being accepted unless you are naked. The international laws concerning surrender assume that you can be reasonably expected to adhere to the terms (whatever they may be) of that surrender. Terms like "once you have surrendered, don't blow up the ones you surrendered to." If you and yours reliably violate those terms, then you forfeit all protection from those laws of war.

Re:Great News!

[Jbcarpen]

Really should have logged in before posting. The AC parent is me.

Re:Great News!

[Anonymous Coward]

It must be said, though, that to do their job in the real world, police do have to occasionally cajole and threaten people into confessing. It's not due process but realistically it needs to be done.

But only to people who aren't you, right?

That's completely stupid. No the police do not have to ignore due process to get the job done, suggesting otherwise is lunacy.

like Iraq where Marines bursting into a room and discovering a militant lying on the floor holding a white flag will go ahead and frag him out of fear he's got a grenade or suicide belt on him

What do the rules of engagement say to do? If they aren't following them then yes the Marine should be held liable for his action. If the rules engagement are getting too many Marine's killed then change them, don't just ignore them.

But it's pretty clear you love the idea of authority figures crushing all the common man, why you pretended otherwise in that first paragraph is the only mystery.

Re:Great News!

[Anonymous Coward]

As soon as you get arrested and charged with something, either you risk that your Public Defender has enough time and competence to defend you well, or you've been fined many hundreds of dollars in legal fees with no appeal possible. And should you ever be convicted or plead guilty to a felony, you have very few job options remaining for the rest of your life. So yes, there need to be checks on police power...

Re:Great News!

[Sique]

And how do you know that the people you shoot are those ominous "you and yours"? You seem to adhere to the "kill them all, let God sort them out" school of warfare.

Re:Great News!

[yog]

A bunch of wanna be lawyers here. In the real world, cops have to cut corners a bit from time to time, not only to protect themselves but to protect the public.

In the real world, soldiers can't always follow rules of engagement strictly, or they'd be at a gross disadvantage against foes who have no rules whatsoever.

Of course we have to have due process. We also have to wrestle obvious perps to the ground and maybe clonk them with a nightstick to subdue them, which is brutality and "illegal". If you enforce the law to the very letter, the police would be completely hogtied and unable to act under many dangerous situations, and the public would be at risk.

So grow up and try thinking for yourself instead of ignorantly parroting some rot about due process.

Re:Great News!

[yog]

Dead cops and dead marines is your preference, coward?

Re:Great News!

[yog]

Ask any cop. Situations are not black-and-white out there; they require tremendous judgement calls, more than should be expected of anyone. When cops overreact and reach for their gun for self-protection, or draw a nightstick to subdue someone they suspect of violence, it can be construed as undue violence and it is, technically. But it's also a way to ensure their own safety. If criminals--real hardened criminals who would blast a hole in your liberal head for your wallet--knew that cops were totally bound to the rules, there'd be a lot more crime out there. It's reality, sorry to say.

Re:Great News!

[prisoner-of-enigma]

Being a former Marine myself, I can speak on this subject with some experience.

First, Marines are indoctrinated from the very beginning that harming civilians -- aka "collateral damage" -- is something to be avoided as much as is humanly possible. Expecting perfect, rational judgment by everyone, everywhere, all the time, while having bullets zipping past you and RPG's exploding a few yards away is unrealistic, but the deliberate fragging of a civilian is not only frowned upon, it's considered cowardly, dishonorable, and unbecoming of a Marine. Contrary to popular opinion, the U.S. military doesn't want a bunch of bullies running around with rank and weapons. Boot camp exists to weed out the weak *and* the morally questionable types. Some slip through; no system is perfect. But the *intention* is this kind of "person" never makes it to a point where he can be a power-tripping, gun-toting threat to an otherwise-harmless civilian.

That being said, I personally know of many instances in Iraq and Afghanistan where enemy combatants -- not in uniform, thus indistinguishable from civilians -- pretend to surrender, even going so far as to carry white flags. When Marines try to accept their surrender, they drop the flag and open fire, or their buddies open fire from concealed positions elsewhere. The use of women and children as human shields is the norm, not the exception. There are instances where women and children have turned up dead in areas where no Allied forces have operated, yet their deaths are blamed on Allied forces, the 7.62mm bullets in their bodies blamed on Allied troops wielding clandestine AK-47's instead of the 5.56mm NATO rounds in our M4's. It doesn't take a rocket scientist to divine there's probably more than a little "embellishment" coming from an opposition that knows civilian casualties cause all sorts of bad press for Western forces when a sympathetic press picks up and carries such photos without ever bothering to find out the circumstances under which they were obtained.

I agree with you that any Marine, soldier, sailor, or airman who willingly, knowingly, maliciously kills -- or attempts to kill -- an unarmed, non-threatening civilian is deserving of the harshest punishment the UCMJ can mete out and then some. Such actions tarnish all of us and make a difficult mission even harder. That said, do not be so quick to rush to judge the Marine and idolize the reporter. There's a lot more to the story than can be communicated in a headline. Never forget a reporter's best interests are served by stories that generate the maximum amount of controversy, whether that controversy is deserved or not. Unless you were there, in the room, and knew everything that the Marine knew when he pulled the trigger, you know nothing more than what the reporter told you. Knowing half the facts is often worse than knowing none of them.

Semper Fi

Re:Great News!

[bratwiz]

How convenient. Trading your rights for freedom. Textbook case of compromise.

You mean, textbook case of people repeating cliches they don't understand. The oft-cited cliche is about people "trading liberty for security and ending up with neither". What you said just doesn't make that much sense. Having rights IS what freedom is all about, so how could you "trade your rights for freedom" in any meaningful manner ??

Re:Great News!

[OzPeter]

As for your marine murdering a man with a white flag, I can't imagine how you could possibly justify that as being acceptable.

A few years ago (from memory) there was a US soldier(s) in Iraq hauled over the coals for popping some bullets into a body in a house that they had just cleared of insurgents. The press was all over them for doing this (think desecrating dead etc). About the same time I saw a doco on TV showing how English SAS were being trained for the same job. In one scene a soldier was castigated for NOT popping a couple of bullets into the body after the fact. Doing so was deemed normal practice in order to guard against people playing possum. I can imagine that the US soldiers received similar training. So IMHO it seems that the reality of war did not meet the expectations of the journalists that reported on it - resulting the US soldiers being un-necessarily being tried in public by the media.

Re:Great News!

[prisoner-of-enigma]

Sometimes they are going to be wrong, and we're going to see a whole lot of that in footage, analyzed thoroughly over days, when the officers in question had only milliseconds to make their analysis.

You hit upon a salient point with this sentence: sometimes, people in positions of authority must act quickly, without all the facts, or without hours (or days) of time to mull over all the possible permutations and implications of an action that *must* be taken -- usually when lives are at stake. Sometimes, those decisions are going to be wrong. I'm all for cutting people slack for making a bad call if they were trying to do the right thing. Shit happens. Monday morning quarterbacking is easy. Hindsight is 20/20 and all that. There is no way you're ever going to invent any human that will always make the right decision all the time. It doesn't mean you stop making said decisions.

The line is drawn, however, when individuals *clearly know* what they're doing is wrong and they do it anyway. I find it ridiculous to believe the officer who arrested Mr. Glik thought he was being "secretly" recorded and thus within his capacity to arrest Mr. Glik. His conduct -- clearly recorded and available on YouTube -- shows an arrogant, power-tripping police officer annoyed at having his possibly-questionable behavior recorded by a civilian. It shows that same officer abusing his authority, intimidating and then arresting Mr. Glik. The chutzpah of the DA is also without bounds, using a wiretapping statute that clearly does not apply and I'm damned sure the DA knew it. But they couldn't admit they'd done something wrong. They had to try to save face instead, hence the idiotic -- and now discredited -- wiretapping claim. The same would go for a Marine shooting an obviously-harmless civilian in cold blood, only with much greater penalties. You cannot defend the indefensible, and you only look like more of an asshat when you try to do so with a straight face.

Re:Great News!

[Maxo-Texas]

Not only can anyone have a recording device, but with the new utilities the recorded data is being instantly streamed to not only a safe site but potentially facebook, youtube or other web sites as an upload in realtime.

Re:Great News!

[Anonymous Coward]

"It must be said, though, that to do their job in the real world, police do have to occasionally cajole and threaten people into confessing. It's not due process but realistically it needs to be done."

You couldn't be more wrong.

And you couldn't be more fascist either.

Fuck you and the horse you rode in on, you stupid fascist fuck.

Re:Great News!

[Anonymous Coward]

There's some similarity to the embedded journalists on combat squads in urban warfare situations like Iraq where Marines bursting into a room and discovering a militant lying on the floor holding a white flag will go ahead and frag him out of fear he's got a grenade or suicide belt on him, a common enough occurrence. The journalist will slavishly record the scene, then report it as Marine brutality against an unarmed opponent. Presto, you now have guaranteed more dead Marines.

Wow, what you're using as a justifying analogy is worse than what you are trying to justify.

Re:Great News!

[strength_of_10_men]

perhaps we will see a moderation in police behavior.

I certainly hope so, but it'll be more likely they'll arrest you for obstruction or something else. Sure, it's a bullshit charge and will likely be dropped. But I think this would dissuade most people from recording too often.

Re:Great News!

[Anonymous Coward]

> ...you have the right to shoot them if they try to arrest you illegally.

Is that what they're teaching at Gun Nut School these days?

I can assure you that the curriculum in law schools and police academies is very different.

Re:Great News!

[Anonymous Coward]

"So grow up and try thinking for yourself instead of ignorantly parroting some rot about due process."

You're a clueless idiot.

Why don't you get your sorry far-right ass over to a KKK fan club forum, no one
here wants to hear you spew your extremely offensive bullshit.

Re:Great News!

[digsbo]

That's not what he said, and you're mixing domestic law enforcement with military action. Last I heard, those are two separate situations handled by two separate groups, in entirely different legal and geographic domains. Do you have a legitimate comment, or will you simply stop at extremist militarist rhetoric? Hell, even Dirty Harry thought the vigilante cops went too far...

Re:Great News!

[Fjandr]

Absolutely, 100% I would prefer them dead to abusing due process.

Re:Great News!

[Fjandr]

It's legally and factually correct to resist, even if the results aren't likely to turn out very well.

They've got you pretty well conditioned if it's your opinion you have no right to resist being abused illegally by someone in a uniform. What police academies teach is irrelevant.

Re:Great News!

[Maestro4k]

If criminals--real hardened criminals who would blast a hole in your liberal head for your wallet--knew that cops were totally bound to the rules, there'd be a lot more crime out there. It's reality, sorry to say.

Like the threat of violence stops them? They go out there no knowing they could get the death penalty and yet still do the crimes. The "real hardened criminals" are sociopaths and will not stop doing their crimes just because they may be beaten/shot/killed. Using them as a justification for police violence is akin to using the threat of terrorism to take away our civil liberties.

Re:Great News!

[morari]

Dead cops and dead marines is your preference, coward?

Yes, please! Kill 'em all!

Re:Great News!

[mrmeval]

Those magic bullets are everywhere.
http://www.thedissidentfrogman.com/blog/link/like-a-suppository-only-stronger/

Watch the video for a laugh.

Re:Great News!

[NormalVisual]

In the real world, cops have to cut corners a bit from time to time, not only to protect themselves but to protect the public

I'm in agreement with you as regards the soldier that may have to pre-emptively take action on a surrendering insurgent that has at least an even chance of being booby-trapped or bait for an ambush. There's a non-trivial chance of that happening, and odds are that the guy was actively trying to kill that soldier just a few minutes before. Also, it's during a time of war, and the situation is *substantially* different because of that. However, a cop that has to cut corners is either incompetent, or doesn't have the proper respect for the laws he's supposed to be enforcing, plain and simple. "Protecting the public" doesn't mean anything, as the police don't have a legal duty to do that anyway, as has been reinforced time and again by the courts.

So grow up and try thinking for yourself instead of ignorantly parroting some rot about due process.

That "rot" is what keeps the government in check, and you'd do well to be careful about telling people to "grow up" along with the insinuations that people don't know what LEOs experience. There are plenty of us that have family and friends that are cops or otherwise know cops personally, and talk about some of this stuff with them on a regular basis, etc. Being a cop is certainly a difficult job at times, but it's also not worthy of the awe and worship that a lot of folks seem to place on them, particularly when they're not held to anything resembling the same standards as everyday citizens regarding adherence to the law. If following the law they're sworn to enforce makes an officer's job too difficult, that's just too bad. If he can't work within those confines, perhaps another occupation would suit him better.

Re:Great News!

[Anonymous Coward]

It's legally and factually correct to resist, even if the results aren't likely to turn out very well.

You don't have the right to use deadly force even in self-defense unless you believe your life is in danger. Even then, the police are trained to respond in kind, as they are legally and factually correct to do when threatened, and they will shoot you.

So, next time the police are arresting you illegally, go ahead and pull a gun - you won't get the chance to argue your case in court.

Re:Great News!

[Falconhell]

"It must be said, though, that to do their job in the real world, police do have to occasionally cajole and threaten people into confessing."

Complete and ustter bullshit, the police must follow the law as everyone does. There is absolutely no justifiaction for such actions, and it says a lot about you that you agree with them.

Re:Great News!

[Falconhell]

"In the real world, soldiers can't always follow rules of engagement strictly"

Yeh we notice the huge number of civilians killed by US troops "accidentally"

Ther eis never any justification for police behaving illegally.

You are really fucked in the head you know.

Re:Great News!

[Anonymous Coward]

Question: how can "resisting arrest" be an arrestable offense unless the person so charged was being arrested for another charge in the first place?

Re:Great News!

[mister_playboy]

... and I take it dead strawmen are your preference?

Re:Great News!

[cgenman]

There have been a couple of cases of the internets picking up on a police officer making a wrong call that was an understandable mistake (such as a plain-clothed off duty officer pulling a gun on a motorcyclist). But by far what show up are genuine abuses: officers ruthlessly beating compliant suspects while surveillance cam operators intentionally look the other way. Unarmed men lying on the floor in a prone position getting shot in the back. Rodney King, which reflected the abusive police interactions in LA at the time. Or even this interpretation of this law itself, where your only protection against abuses is considered illegal on a BS technicality. And these show up in the destruction of evidence (collecting cell phones) and denial of evidence (the surveillance camera footage).

Personally, I think we do give officers a lot of moderated attitude. A friend had a gun pulled on him at a (15 mph) speeding stop by a trainee officer. The elder officer overseeing her pulled her aside, taught her proper procedure, and let my friend off with a non-documented warning. It was a completely non-procedure way of dealing with an officer drawing her gun without provocation, but it was handled well. I had a gun drawn on me for having a broken white plastic Halloween samurai sword as a teenager. But the professionalism of the officer never made me feel in danger.

A lot of these officers are not used to being on the internet. They're not used to the level of abuse where if 10,000 people are calling for the immediate dismemberment of you and your family, you're doing fine. Someone makes a flash video of you beating down dancing flower children, it pretty much goes with the territory. Unfortunately, most people don't have a thick enough skin for the internet, and it is sad that this may be their first exposure (except the beating down of the dancing flower children cop. That guy deserved it.)

95% of the officers I've interacted with have been professional, helpful (or at least trying to be), and safety-conscious. But some are abusive when they think they can get away with it, and the only protection we have is documentation. The moment we lose the right to document our interactions with the police, is the moment the police go from helpful to a threat. And that puts everyone, civillians and police, at risk.

Re:Great News!

[demonlapin]

"Resisting arrest" is an offense that you can be charged with and prosecuted for even if the original arrest was for a charge which was later dropped, in much the same way that Martha Stewart was convicted only on charges of lying to police. The "original arrest" is subject to very few limitations - the police can detain you without charging you with a crime for up to 24 hours (IIRC, IANAL) and if pressed can assert that you refused a lawful order. In one of those delightful twists of the law, you need not follow an unlawful order of a police officer, but what constitutes an unlawful order is not always black-letter law and is subject to review by the court - so unless the order is something like "I order you to kill that man", your chances of success rapidly approach nil.

Re:Great News!

[jafiwam]

The average person has more to fear and more interactions with a police officer than they do criminals. Police, can and do, destroy people's lives and kill them for no reason while expecting (and often getting) the backing of the state.

We'd be better off on our own than we are with the current population of pigs.

"Insure own safety"? Fuck you, "he's coming right at us! blam blam blam" is cowardice.

Any police officer unwilling to face "real hardened criminals" should quit. There are better people out there for the job. Police make money for the prison industrial complex, they do not protect the population. That's a figment of your imagination.

I am a gun toting conservative, and I hate cops for many reasons (this Slashdot article is an example) Your false cop-dick sucking faggot ass needs to stop implying you are a conservative, you are nothing more than a liar. Real conservatives don't give into authoritarians, which is what cops are when they don't follow the rules, to the letter, every time, every minute of the day.

Re:Great News!

[demonlapin]

No, the quotation is (in its earliest source):

Those who would give up essential Liberty, to purchase a little temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety.

Cited

Re:Great News!

[demonlapin]

Well, unless you're wearing a uniform, the Geneva Conventions and their protections don't apply to you. Plainclothes fighters may be shot on sight and without trial.

Re:Great News!

[demonlapin]

We also have to wrestle obvious perps to the ground and maybe clonk them with a nightstick to subdue them, which is brutality and "illegal".

No, it's neither brutality nor illegal if it's what you need to do in order to subdue even an "obvious perp". I don't like cops, but I can admit that they have some tough calls and that some people won't submit until they're beaten. I have a problem when the cops keep beating after they submit.

Re:Great News!

[geminidomino]

You don't have the right to use deadly force even in self-defense unless you believe your life is in danger.

The way these "cops harass/arrest person who recorded them fucking up" stories are popping up lately, it's rapidly becoming less and less unreasonable to consider any interaction with the police to be life-endangering...

Re:Great News!

[demonlapin]

such as a plain-clothed off duty officer pulling a gun on a motorcyclist

I'm going to assume you're talking about the motorist in Maryland. What was the "understandable mistake" that justified pulling a gun? You never point a gun at anything you don't intend to shoot. I've pointed a gun at one human being in my life - a guy wearing a ski mask in 55 degree F (13 C for you across the pond) weather who was at my back gate and trying to get in.

Re:Great News!

[demonlapin]

Actually, depending on where you live, you may in fact have the right to use deadly force if you think your property is being invaded. Where I live, I can kill someone for attempting to break into my home or car if I happen to be inside either of them at the time.

Re:Great News!

[ChrisMaple]

And how do you know that the people you shoot are those ominous "you and yours"?

By observation. By history. By knowing the culture. There's a world of difference from the relatively "civilized" wars between Western countries (the Falklands war, Grenada, etc.) and the current conflicts with Muslim societies. Open your eyes.

Re:Great News!

[znerk]

Dead cops and dead marines is your preference, coward?

Honestly? I think there's more than enough cops. Way too many, if you ask me.

Think about it for a minute. How many "law enforcement" agencies have jurisdiction over you where you sit right now? "Just a few", you might think... Let's count, then, shall we?

We'll assume, for the sake of argument, that you live inside a major city. We will also only count the offices that can legally break into your house with "probable cause", and maintain staff trained and equipped for exactly that.

1: City Police
2: County Police (Sheriff)
3: State Police
4: Federal Marshals
5: FBI

Nothing surprising so far, right?

6: Border Patrol (in a surprising large number of places that aren't actually near a "border")
7: Department of Homeland Security
8: Drug Enforcement Agency
9: Internal Revenue Service (yes, they maintain personnel for "active" law enforcement duties)
10: Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives
11: Public School District Police Department ("Resource" Officers - yes, they are real police, and yes, they can break into your house to arrest you)
12: Local College Police Department (see above)
13: Highway Patrol (admittedly a bit of a stretch, but there are several circumstances where it is perfectly legal and within their jurisdiction to "assist" in a raid or otherwise break into your home)

So in this list, there are twelve agencies (thirteen if you want to count "edge cases") that, without a doubt, are capable of breaking into your home to arrest you. These are just the ones that have jurisdiction and authority to break into your private residence, regardless of its location within the United States, to "detain" you. There are also plenty of localized "special task forces" that can be granted "the duties and privileges of rank pertaining to" law enforcement officers, if they don't already have them, for the special purpose of terrorizing^W protecting citizens. Shiny badges and guns seem to make lots and lots of people more than a little power-mad.

To make it worse, there are agencies such as the New London, Connecticut Police Department, who require their officers to be unintelligent in order to make them more likely to follow orders without thinking, and "less likely to get bored".

Youtube is full of normal, law-abiding folks who have been killed or seriously injured by those charged to protect and serve, with little or no provocation. One of my favorite clips is a Boston Area Rapid Transit Officer shooting a man in the back while he is face down on the ground in handcuffs. A favorite headline of mine is the man who died falling from a second story ledge after being tazed by law enforcement officers. Another of my favorite stories is the school resource officer who tazed a fourteen-year-old girl who wasn't even being threatening, she just wasn't doing exactly what she was told quite quickly enough.

There's plenty of reason for ordinary, average, law-abiding citizens to hate and fear law enforcement officers. We get new ones every day. How much fear, uncertainty, and doubt can this institution resist?

I, for one, applaud "dead cops and dead marines" when they overstep their bounds while applying deadly force. Enforcing the law does not place one above it.

Also, I wonder how long it will be before the surveillance society we live in is "good enough" that an audio/video record of any given subject will be available for anything and everything that person has done in the past [24 hours|7 days|30 days|ever in their life]... more importantly, is that a bad thing? Could we do away with [some|most|all] of the law enforcement [officers|agencies] at that point?

As for being a coward... well, say it to my face.
(Yes, the irony is implicit, and the internet is full of tough guys).

--
I may sound paranoid, but is it paranoia if they really are out to get you?

Re:Great News!

[Anonymous Coward]

It must be said, though, that to do their job in the real world, police do have to occasionally cajole and threaten people into confessing. It's not due process but realistically it needs to be done.

There is a big difference between a little intimidation and shooting someone handcuffed in the back of your squad car.

Re:Great News!

[Anonymous Coward]

Its just one bad apple! That's just another bad apple! That one too!

-vanguard

Re:Great News!

[znerk]

And how do you know that the people you shoot are those ominous "you and yours"? You seem to adhere to the "kill them all, let God sort them out" school of warfare.

To be perfectly honest (and despite my above posting about LEOs):

In a war, the only things that should be "illegal" are those things that cause lasting environmental damage, such as nukes and biological weapons.
I mean, seriously... if we're at war, then we're at the point where we are KILLING PEOPLE to make our point.

With that in mind, when we declared war on any of the countries we have recently been at war with, (in my opinion) we should have:

• Gone over there with a few thousand bombers with fighter escorts and bombed the living hell out of them.
• Followed that with marching a couple million troops through the country, starting at the edges and moving inwards.
• Kill any and all humans we encounter, leaving none whatsoever, regardless of diplomacy, press credentials, education, etc. If not for the fact that we should be killing EVERYONE, I would recommend targeting military and political targets with a higher priority.

I don't believe in God, so I'm not adhering to the "let God sort 'em out" mentality. I'm simply suggesting that if we care enough about the subject of our discontent and/or cultural differences to GO TO WAR, then that war should be brutal, swift, and merciless in an effort to minimize the necessary pain and suffering. If we don't feel strongly enough about it to commit genocide, then we should consider our other options.

War is horrible, war is terrible, war is abhorrent. Get it over and done with as quickly and effectively as possible, if it is necessary to begin in the first place. There is no such thing as "kicking a man when he is down", if you are killing his friends and neighbors. Similarly, there is no "surrender" in such a war. Take no prisoners, leave no witnesses. CNN can either take its chances, or leave the media blackout alone. I've got your story: "We're killing all of them as quickly as possible, while minimizing our own casualties." Atrocities and war crimes be damned.

If we're mad enough to fight, let's take the Ender Wiggin approach. If we feel strongly enough to commit genocide, then let's do it, get it over with, and move on. None of this "we're fighting for peace" bullshit, no "convert them to democracy" anthem, no "they hate us for our freedoms". I don't care why they hate us. If I don't hate them, I won't be voting to kill them all. If I personally hate them enough to kill all of them, then I don't mind toting a gun and getting shipped over there to help with the slaughter.

Personal Accountability, people. Learn it, live it, love it.

Re:Great News!

[znerk]

Those magic bullets are everywhere.
http://www.thedissidentfrogman.com/blog/link/like-a-suppository-only-stronger/

Watch the video for a laugh.

/giggle.

Thanks for the laugh.

Re:Great News!

[sjames]

I can't agree. A confession based on threats has an unusually high chance of being a false confession. We have due process so that law abiding citizens have no need to fear the police. It does us no good to eliminate civilian crimes if the means leaves citizens just as afraid of and more powerless against crimes committed by police.

As for logjams, perhaps we need to quit charging so many people with victimless crimes and focus instead on crimes that actually degrade the quality of life. That should clear the logjam nicely.

Re:Great News!

[smellotron]

Actually, depending on where you live, you may in fact have the right to use deadly force if you think your property is being invaded.

IIRC, in my state I can use deadly force in my "castle" if I believe I am in imminent danger or if I believe a felony action is imminent. I don't have my list of felonies memorized, but it appears that this offers quite a bit of leeway.

Re:Great News!

[Fjandr]

It's too bad you were afraid to log in so you won't get a notification of this response.

Quoting myself:
even if the results aren't likely to turn out very well.

You're a moron who can't read, or chooses not to in order to feel like you've gotten one over on someone.

Re:Great News!

[QuantumG]

That only applies when there's actually people in uniform who you're fighting against.. usually in some sort of declared war.

Re:Great News!

[Anonymous Coward]

I agree. You could compare it to States where it's easier for law abiding citizens to get concealed weapons permits. Crime goes down because criminals don't know who is packing heat and don't take the chance at getting shot while trying to rob someone.

Re:Great News!

[martas]

Awesome post, thanks. And this is exactly why I think a sense of honor and duty in the press is probably much more important than in the military, or police, or any of the government branches.

Re:Great News!

[dunkelfalke]

If you behave like a rabid dog, people not involved will get together and show you the real meaning of post-natal abortion.

War is something people don't like and try to avoid nowadays, but it is not possible to avoid an unpredictable genocidal maniac.

Re:Great News!

[znerk]

If you behave like a rabid dog, people not involved will get together and show you the real meaning of post-natal abortion.

War is something people don't like and try to avoid nowadays, but it is not possible to avoid an unpredictable genocidal maniac.

You obviously missed my point entirely, or TL;DR'd my post.

I am very anti-war.
I am so against it, as a matter of fact, that I believe it should be a last resort measure, and implemented only if no other solution can be found.
If it becomes necessary to implement a state of war to resolve the difference of opinion, then we are dealing with what is known as "irreconcilable differences".
The idea of war being something to be avoided if at all possible dictates logically that if war is not able to be avoided, it should be ended as quickly as possible, with as few casualties on our side as possible.

In other words, if we can't avoid the armed and deadly conflict...
"Nuke it from orbit, it's the only way to be sure."

* with the exception, of course, that I proposed that nukes and bioweapons not be used, for the reason that they are environmentally damaging and cause issues for the new occupants of whatever area was occupied by the losers.

Re:Great News!

[Thing 1]

I'm sorry, "BART" is "Bay Area", not "Boston". (Boston just lets the terrorists get on the planes, then fly them into buildings; that, and force you to pay health care at twice the national rate.)

Re:Great News!

[dunkelfalke]

I did not miss anything at all.

But by your logic the USSR should have completely exterminated the population of Germany and its satellite states in the Great Patriotic War. Even Stalin wasn't as crazy as you seem to be.

Re:Great News!

[DarkVader]

Well, desecration of the dead IS a war crime, so I can't see it being unnecessary. I'd say the hopefully accompanying court-martial would be more necessary.

Re:Great News!

[Anonymous Coward]

Probably not. Conceal Carry of guns does not stop crime. Most people do dumb stuff without thinking it thru first. Those cops involved in this in Boston will think about this next time, but others will not.

Re:Great News!

[Nadaka]

Yea, besides that, in that case the plain clothes officer jumps out of his unmarked car and shoves a gun in the guys face and starts screaming without identifying himself as an officer. That was not an understandable mistake at all. The motorcyclist and any nearby witnesses would have been well within his rights to respond with lethal force and that would have been an "understandable mistake".

Re:Great News!

[DavidTC]

It's probably worth mentioning that 'playing possum' (And playing wounded) is actually a war crime, specifically to deter people from having to run around shooting corpses.

It's a form of perfidy, aka, illegally deceiving the other side in war.(1)

However, going around shooting corpses is not a war crime. It's just discouraged. But if the other side is committing perfidy, well, you do what you have to.

I suspect you misunderstood or oversimplified what the soldier was being accused of. You're not supposed to kill wounded that are unable to fight. You can ''kill' people who are 'dead', though.

1) Please notice only certain types of deception are illegal, not deception in general. It is legal to wear the wrong rank insignia, for example.(Please check with your own military for permission before doing that.;) And it's legal to not wear a uniform at all...you lose some Geneva protections, but it's 'legal'. (Which makes the whole 'unlawful combatants' rather idiotic a term...you can fight unlawfully, but shooting at people while out of uniform is not that that.)

It is, however, never legal under any circumstances to pretend to be the Red Cross, or to pretend to dead or so wounded you can't fight...and then fight.

Re:Great News!

[DavidTC]

"Protecting the public" doesn't mean anything, as the police don't have a legal duty to do that anyway, as has been reinforced time and again by the courts.

You know, I'd have some sort of respect for 'The situation was dangerous and we did what we had to do' excuse for the police...

...if they didn't clearly do whatever the fuck they wanted whenever they wanted, even when there was no danger at all.

I.e., I'd buy 'Oh, but we had to tase him, he was a threat' a lot more if the police weren't running around trying to arrest people holding video cameras. Or fighting to keep cameras recording all interrogations.

If police want some sort of trust when they make decisions that are supposedly life and death, if they want a benefit of the doubt in those circumstances...they have to stop doing the exact same sort of shit when there clearly is no danger, but someone is backtalking or recording them or basically committing the crime of Doing Stuff The Police Dislike.

If the police only ran roughshod over everyone when there actually appeared to be some of threat, and not day in and day out, perhaps the next time they shoot someone laying on the ground in the fucking head, we might actually think it was for presenting some sort of threat.

Re:Great News!

[Psmylie]

Good lord, I'm outraged.
I mean, seriously, is that how we're training our soldiers now? To take a cartridge and simply throw it at the enemy, presumably by hand, instead of actually firing them with some sort of a gun?

I mean, maybe they're putting them in some sort of a slingshot or something, which I suppose could do some damage, perhaps even making someone lose an eye. But still, using a rifle would be a FAR more effective way of hitting targets with bullets.
:P

Yes, the above was 100% sarcasm. Maybe it's because I've actually fired a gun before, but it's hard for me to imagine anyone falling for something so obviously false.

Re:Great News!

[Psmylie]

That's my viewpoint on it exactly. Being a cop is SUPPOSED to be a dangerous job. If someone is not willing or able to take the risk while still maintaining standards of ethical behavior, then the job is not for them and I wouldn't them doing it anyway. I'd rather have NO police than corrupt police.

That being said, police officers are fully entitled to take whatever actions they legally can to mitigate the risk to the public, their partners and themselves. I wouldn't expect an officer to leap in front of a bullet for me, or anything crazy like that, or to try and arrest a bunch of gun-toting gang members while using nothing but talk and a badge.

Re:Great News!

[swb]

It's a great safety concept for civilians, but in military and law enforcement circumstances you don't always have an opportunity to point your gun at the target when you intend to shoot it without the target shooting first.

Which is why the police commonly will draw and point their weapons at a suspect without actually shooting the suspect.

And even for civilians, in self-defense situations it belies the reality that simply brandishing a firearm can often result in effective self defense without actually shooting anyone.

Re:Great News!

[Sique]

Ok, basically your take is "I don't understand them, so I can shoot them all."

Re:Great News!

[demonlapin]

When you introduce a firearm to a situation, you have escalated it tremendously. You shouldn't do that if you don't actually plan to shoot if they don't comply - as I noted, the one time I did pull a gun on someone, the situation didn't require me to shoot him - but if he had started climbing my fence you can bet your ass I'd have shot. You don't pull a gun on someone just for speeding, period, and the guy should have been thrown off the force for that stunt. What if he had tripped? I'm betting he had his finger on the trigger.

It's also worth noting that the military and law enforcement are very, very different things, with different goals, even if the two have adopted some of each other's tactics.

Re:Great News!

[cbiltcliffe]

Sique: How do you know they're terrorists?

ChrisMaple: Because they're terrorists!

Some great logic you've got there.

Re:Great News!

[znerk]

Thank you for the correction.

Re:Great News!

[znerk]

Are we seriously going to argue the ethics of killing people?

All I'm doing is removing the "slippery slope" from the debate... if something is worth killing anyone over, then why isn't it worth killing everyone over?

Re:Great News!

[Pope]

"Across the pond?" You mean Mexico and Canada?

Re:Great News!

[cbiltcliffe]

Canadian courts have said the same thing.

If you're being arrested illegally, it is within your rights to resist arrest, using whatever force necessary.

There was a guy in my city who was being arrested for possession of cocaine, or pot, or something. But the police had no reason to search him, and did so illegally. It might have been his car that was searched. Don't remember exactly.
It ended up with this guy having a board broken off a fence with a few nails in the end, waving it at police and trying to hit them with it.
Needless to say, he was charged with assaulting an officer, threatening an officer, resisting arrest, and piles of other crap.

Every single charge related to him resisting arrest was thrown out, and the police and crown (functionally equivalent to a DA in the US) were....shall we say....educated...by the judge, because they never had the authority to arrest him in the first place.

I'm pretty sure everything else was thrown out, too, as the evidence was obtained illegally.

Re:Great News!

[Thing 1]

You're welcome. I agree that a surveillance society is something we should welcome; I mean, the religious have been saying we're already living in one for centuries. ;)

YES!!!

[Anonymous Coward]

YES!!! =D

Re:YES!!!

[tqk]

YES!!! =D

WITH RESPECT TO WHAT?

fsck, I hate you idiots who've never learned to quote!!!111

Legal to record your employees.

[Anonymous Coward]

Haven't the courts found it legal to record your employees when they are on the job?

Re:Legal to record your employees.

[TheABomb]

Employees, yes. Masters, no.

Re:Legal to record your employees.

[hedwards]

Except the police aren't your employees, they are government employees. Which is definitely different and definitely an important distinction. Police couldn't function very well if they were trying to do their job where everybody out there was their boss.

Re:Legal to record your employees.

[cbiltcliffe]

Whoosh.

Just. Fucking. Whoosh.

The government consists of public employees.

See that word? Public?
They work for the public. That's you. And me. And technically, themselves.

That doesn't mean they answer directly to you, but the person doing the recording of employees in a traditional corporate environment probably isn't on the board of directors, either.

See, all it took was an earthquake

[Anonymous Coward]

All it took was an earthquake to show the judge gods will.
But instead he came to his senses and made the right decision ;)

citing out of date material is misleading.

[jcombel]

re: "Even in a country and a world where copyright can be claimed as an excuse to prevent you from taking a photo of a giant sculpture in a public, tax-paid park,"

that policy for Millennium Park was removed, permits are only required for filming crews 10 persons or larger.

Re:citing out of date material is misleading.

[a_nonamiss]

Key word: removed. That means it was at one time in place. These type of restrictions should never be in place by default, as it took a lot of effort and protest to get that provision removed. At some point in the future, people will get tired of protesting and we will be without rights by default.

Re:citing out of date material is misleading.

[Anonymous Coward]

In Paris you can take pictures of the Eiffel tower during the day, sell them and keep all the profit but if you take pictures of the Eiffel tower at night it's a whole different story : because the ligthting system is considered a 'work of art' you need permission to sell the pictures and you have to pay royalties... How absurd.

Re:citing out of date material is misleading.

[jonwil]

I remember that the computer game Red Alert 2 had to modify the name and in-game representation of the Eiffel Tower because they couldn't get permission from the French to use it.
Although the fact that they planned to have it rigged as a giant Tesla Coil may have something to do with why the French didnt like it...

Re:citing out of date material is misleading.

[jcombel]

i'll further clarify (i should have done so to begin with). it wasn't a matter of rights and protest. it was a matter of paying for it. the artwork in question wasn't owned by the city, it was leased; the city was paying for it.

taxpayers were able to enjoy the artwork as they pleased - even take photos. professionals who wanted to capitalize by taking photos paid the city for a permit, which helped the city pay for the cost of the park. professionals did not pay copyright royalties or licensing fees. this was a city revenue issue, not a copyright issue.

the restriction wasn't changed by brave, insightful protesters fighting for rights yadda yadda (there were none), it was changed by a new monetary policy.

"Overreach of officialdom"

[Anonymous Coward]

"Overreach of officialdom"? Please don't try to shield us from reality. Let's skip the sugar-coating and call it what it really is: oppression.

The relationship between government and the citizen is defined by physical force. Therefore it is prudent to speak of that relationship in terms of physical force. Terms like "over-reaching", "cracking down", and "misuse" only soften the impact of what's really happening: oppression of human rights.

Missed one...

[MickyTheIdiot]

You are missing the recent case in Rochester where a woman was arrested on her own front lawn for videotaping an arrest going on just off of her property. IIRC the D.A. decided to not bring the case to trial, but the police continued to harass the woman and a demonstration held against the arrest. There was also a news conference with one of those great police organisations going off about how the video recording makes them "less safe."

What bollocks... if the tables were turned you know the police would scream that there was no expectation of privacy on a public street... and the woman was standing on her very own lawn.

Re:Missed one...

[ebs16]

Unfortunately for the Rochester case, the woman in question happens to be an EXTREMELY annoying protester who organizes sit-ins and human chains for things as mundane as evictions and foreclosures. She is still well within her rights to film on-duty officers but her history just kind of sucks the legitimacy out of her case.

Re:Missed one...

[dkleinsc]

And the real kicker here is that police who are doing their jobs correctly have it very much in their interest to have all encounters they have with the public filmed. Why? Because then there's no dispute as to what happened.

So that leaves 2 major reasons why cops don't want to be filmed:
1. Juries are more likely to believe cops than civilians, so any disputes as to what happened during a police-citizen encounter favor the police by a wide margin.
2. Bad cops obviously don't want to get caught, and good cops often choose to cover up for bad cops. Why, I'm not sure - any good cops want to weigh in on that problem?

The good news is that any ordinary citizen can help solve the first problem, by taking your turn in jury duty and not automatically assuming the police are telling the truth.

Re:Missed one...

[Sique]

You don't lose your rights by being a pain in the ass. The legitimacy of her case is untouched by her being a loud protester of all trades.

Re:Missed one...

[Anonymous Coward]

Bad cops obviously don't want to get caught, and good cops often choose to cover up for bad cops. Why, I'm not sure - any good cops want to weigh in on that problem?

Good cop here. They'll fucking kill me if I don't back them up.

Re:Missed one...

[NormalVisual]

The legitimacy of her case may still be intact, but the willingness of people to listen to her certainly isn't. If you cry wolf enough times, no one will pay attention to you, and you end up hurting your own cause.

Re:Missed one...

[NormalVisual]

Why, I'm not sure - any good cops want to weigh in on that problem?

Ask Frank Serpico.

Re:Missed one...

[fyngyrz]

No, it doesn 't. Period.

Re:Missed one...

[jeffrey.endres]

good cops often choose to cover up for bad cops. Why, I'm not sure - any good cops want to weigh in on that problem?

Doesn't that by definition make them bad cops?

Re:Missed one...

[gmhowell]

Which is all bullshit. Go see what Larry Flynn has to say about the 1st amendment. Basically "if it protects my filth it certainly protects regular folks."

Re:Missed one...

[jafiwam]

Then you should quit. You obviously don't have the stomach to do what is right. That's OK, but stop pretending you do, and stop telling people you do by putting on the uniform every day.

Re:Missed one...

[demonlapin]

good cops often choose to cover up for bad cops. Why, I'm not sure

I am not generally a fan of cops. However, they do a difficult and occasionally dangerous job (though it's a lot less dangerous than many would have you believe). When they send out the call for "officer needs assistance", they don't want to end up like Russell Crowe's character in American Gangster with "no officers available to help".

Re:Missed one...

[demonlapin]

Don't know why this is modded funny, it's the truth.

Re:Missed one...

[Arterion]

I think anyone who'd protest evictions and foreclosures, given the criminal actions on the part of banks that both caused the problem AND profited off it, should be considered a hero. I'd be much more apt to listen to what she had to say, because she's not just sitting on her ass wringing her hands about how bad things are. I honestly wish we had so much protesting that you needed a SWAT team to evict a family from a home because daddy lost his job and can't afford the mortgage on unemployment.

Re:Missed one...

[Anonymous Coward]

The responsible police officers I've talked to love having a camera on them and are much more indimidated by the journalists who lie than the teenagers who youtube. The journalists are artists at manipulation and have a financial incentive to get cops killed, while the teenagers don't have much less ability and reward for creative editing. Said anonymously as a guy still pissed at Chris Drew of the New York Times for wasting my time in an interview when every single sentence in his article was a lie.

Re:Missed one...

[Anonymous Coward]

A cop who "covers up" for another cop's wrongdoing IS a bad cop. He can't be trusted to uphold the law if he covers up for someone BREAKING the law.

Re:Missed one...

[QuantumG]

Except she's not "protesting" anything. You have a right to peacefully assemble and petition your government for grievances. You don't have the right to invade private property, bar entrance to private property or create a public disturbance.

Re:Missed one...

[cheekyjohnson]

If you cry wolf enough times

Perhaps she wasn't lying but was merely acting upon causes that she found worthy. Just because you disagree with some of her actions doesn't mean that she was lying.

Re:Missed one...

[NormalVisual]

I wasn't suggesting she was lying, merely that she was pursuing causes that most people would find trivial.

Re:Missed one...

[Painted]

Yeah, there's nothing funny about his comment.

To the OP:
So what can be done about this? Do we have to accept the old adage that "90% of bad cops give the rest of 'em a bad name" (bad cops being truly bad cops and those who cover up for them)? Is there really no recourse?

Re:Missed one...

[jackbird]

There's a long and storied history of people protesting evictions and foreclosures, and frankly, with all the bullshit going on in the current foreclosure mess (robo-signings, banks foreclosing on homes they don't hold a note to, etc.), maybe she's on the right side of history.

Also, equal protection under the law, etc.

Re:Missed one...

[ebs16]

I agree, I'm just pointing out that trouble she causes for the public perception of the "photographing police" cause. Average Joe will will see her on TV and categorize the issue as one for extremists rather than one we can all get behind.

Re:Missed one...

[Anonymous Coward]

Sorry, I just can't let that go. So, the only real cops we have are the bad ones. You 'good' ones just lay down and take it. Isn't your whole claim to power to protect and serve? You're not protecting us, just yourself. No cop at all.

Always love to see the Slashdot spin

[93 Escort Wagon]

With respect to the sculpture in Chicago, the "don't photograph with permission of the sculptor" statement was specifically with regard to commercial photography since the sculptor retained copyright on his work. I'm not actually sure even that would stand up in court, since it's a public space (just like you don't need permission to photograph people in a public space, even though it's still a good idea) - however I can understand the thinking behind it.

With regard to the police arresting Michael Gannon for "wiretapping", they returned his equipment when they figured out they didn't have a legal leg to stand on (apparently he's still waiting to get the tapes back though). I agree the Nashua N.H. police need better training - as well as someone to teach them how to behave professionally, even when dealing with slimeballs - but the summary makes it sound like what they did was legally supportable in the United States, when obviously it's not.

This is one of the reasons people should be reading newspapers, or at least spending five minutes Googling for information when stuff like this comes up - so many people have trouble separating truth from internet memes because they don't bother to read past the headline.

Re:Always love to see the Slashdot spin

[shentino]

He should sue the police department and get an injunction forbidding them from retaining his tapes, or at least putting forth a legal excuse to hold the tapes.

Re:Always love to see the Slashdot spin

[prisoner-of-enigma]

How do you know he didn't do that already and the case is still stuck on a docket somewhere?

Re:Always love to see the Slashdot spin

[hedwards]

With respect to the sculpture in Chicago, the "don't photograph with permission of the sculptor" statement was specifically with regard to commercial photography since the sculptor retained copyright on his work. I'm not actually sure even that would stand up in court, since it's a public space (just like you don't need permission to photograph people in a public space, even though it's still a good idea) - however I can understand the thinking behind it.

We had a similar controversy about our Troll under the Aurora Bridge in Seattle, that one was resolved on the side of the public because the statue is owned by the city. And as a result anybody that wishes to take photos of it or climb around on it is free to do so.

Re:Always love to see the Slashdot spin

[vux984]

With respect to the sculpture in Chicago, the "don't photograph with permission of the sculptor" statement was specifically with regard to commercial photography since the sculptor retained copyright on his work. I'm not actually sure even that would stand up in court, since it's a public space (just like you don't need permission to photograph people in a public space, even though it's still a good idea) - however I can understand the thinking behind it.

Don't photograph X in public place because copyright is held on X should NOT stand up in court.

HOWEVER, the ability to publish the photograph could reasonably be argued as copyright infringement without the sculptors permission if the photograph is deemed a derivative work. (which if the sculpture was the subject of the photograph is not unreasonable).

Re:Always love to see the Slashdot spin

[Anonymous Coward]

Regarding photographing a statue, I have two words. Derivative work Perhaps spend five minutes on Google, as you suggest.

Re:Always love to see the Slashdot spin

[smellotron]

With respect to the sculpture in Chicago, the "don't photograph with permission of the sculptor" statement was specifically with regard to commercial photography since the sculptor retained copyright on his work.

The problem is that the restriction was applied based on equipment. If you had a nice camera, you were assumed to be a professional taking a for-profit picture. That was the problem: enforcement of the copyright should have been done at profit level (find and shut down offenders), not at the photographing level (alienate tourists).

Re:Always love to see the Slashdot spin

[Anonymous Coward]

I think the reasoning about photographing copyrighted works of art in public places (such as the statue in question), is more about commercial usage or endorsement of product xyz. Pretty much any situation that would lend to making money for someone other than the sculptor.

The difference is, a vacation photo of the wife and kids for your wall/facebook/scrapbook, is ok. Taking a photo of said statue for a postcard to be sold at a corner-store or a gallery print, not ok (without a release).

Re:Always love to see the Slashdot spin

[Anonymous Coward]

Copyright doesn't cover transformative works. The sculptor has copyright on the sculpture a 3d object. If I made a replica of the sculpture that would be copyright infringement but a photograph a 2D interpretation of a 3d object is a transformative work. The sculpture should have no rights to the photograph, it is a separate work. If the sculptor wants to retain that much control he should not allow his work to be displayed in public . . .

Re:Always love to see the Slashdot spin

[Anonymous Coward]

So if I put a sculpture or picture on the back of my car, the police will be violating the copyright law when their front facing video camera captures it during a traffic stop. They can charge me $100 for a speeding ticket, and I can charge them $270,000.00 per frame of the video. Can I have them arrest themselves?

Re:Always love to see the Slashdot spin

[Anonymous Coward]

if it is a "public" sculpture all bets should be off. I'm assuming the work was paid for by the city (I don't know the statue in question)... then copyright should be transferred to the city as a work-for-hire and since it is owned by the city (thus the public) and put in the public space there *should* be no copyright (should in a normative not legal sense).

Of course, when should common sense, or even just normal sense stand in the way of stupid BS.

Re:Always love to see the Slashdot spin

[DavidTC]

Don't photograph X in public place because copyright is held on X should NOT stand up in court.

Why the fuck not?

What happens if someone is performing a copyright play in a public place? Do you think you have the right to record that and make copies?

What if someone is showing a 'movie in the park'? Do you have the right to record that and make copies?

What if someone is airing music live over the public radio waves? Do you have the right to record that and make copies?

I'm a little baffled here as to the objection. I understand the whole 'copyright on sculptures' area of law is a bit obscure compared to other parts of copyright that get talked about here, but, seriously:

No, you do not have the right to make copies of copyrighted things even if they're in sitting in public.

Now, in this specific circumstances it appears it was the city that owned the copyright, and it's perfectly valid to complain about whatever policies they set up, just like it would be perfectly valid to complain that they wanted me to pay for making copies of city law or something. That's a fairly stupid and annoying revenue stream.

And, believe it or not, there are exceptions to copyright that allow 'incidental' images of copyrighted things showing up in the background, so it's possible the city was over-zealous in enforcement. And you can complain about that.

But it's not a copyright objection. Sculptures do, in fact, have a copyright, which, yes, can restrict people from taking pictures of them. Just like paintings and photographs.

Re:Always love to see the Slashdot spin

[vux984]

Why the fuck not?

Because copyright has no authority to prevent you from MAKING a derivative work. Period.

What happens if someone is performing a copyright play in a public place? Do you think you have the right to record that and make copies?

Right to record: yes. Right to make copies: no. (*1)

What if someone is airing music live over the public radio waves? Do you have the right to record that and make copies?

Right to record? Yes. (Its called time shifting a broadcast and its been recognized as legal forever. This is why VCRs and DVRs and casset players with a record button have been legal for decades...)

Right to make copies? No.

What if someone is showing a 'movie in the park'? Do you have the right to record that and make copies??

Right to record, yes. Right to make copies? No.

No, you do not have the right to make copies of copyrighted things even if they're in sitting in public.

Yes, actually you do.

And, believe it or not, there are exceptions to copyright that allow 'incidental' images of copyrighted things showing up in the background...

You can take a picture of anything you want in a public space. Copyright law doesn't prevent you from making derivative works. That's simply not one of the exclusive rights it grants rights holders. Period.

*1 They can ask you not to record it, and they can refuse to perform while you sit there pointing a camera at them if you decide to be a douche about it. And if you upload it to youtube they'll be able to get it taken town for copyright infringement.

But they can't legally stop you from recording.

The Supreme Court Corporate Five

[HangingChad]

Will likely have a different opinion. To them the constitution only applies to corporations.

Re:The Supreme Court Corporate Five

[MickyTheIdiot]

With so many calls for constitutional amendments for irrelevant things I still can't understand why there is no movement for an amendment to end this abomination called corporate personhood.

Re:The Supreme Court Corporate Five

[Anonymous Coward]

Will likely have a different opinion. To them the constitution only applies to corporations.

Wow, what an insightful statement. You must be a college graduate.

Re:The Supreme Court Corporate Five

[luke923]

Since there's no corporate entity at stake, I don't see how this is relevant -- even if your assumption is correct.

Re:The Supreme Court Corporate Five

[Anonymous Coward]

There is: movetoamend.org. Just don't expect coverage of it on the corporate media.

Re:The Supreme Court Corporate Five

[Anonymous Coward]

The only way that will happen is an article V convention called by the states, a con-con, or a second american revolution.

Re:The Supreme Court Corporate Five

[Pseudonym Authority]

Are you implying that being a college graduate is a bad thing? The anti-intellectualism runs deep in you.

Re:The Supreme Court Corporate Five

[Attila Dimedici]

I was going to tell you that there was no longer a Supreme Court Corporate Five, but I see that Anthony Kennedy did indeed side with the "liberals" in Kelo V. New London where they decided that eminent domain allows the government to take private property for the purpose of giving it to a corporation. Everything I have heard about Sotomayer and Kagan lead me to believe that they would rule in favor of the corporations in a similar case. Just as everything I have heard (and in particular their rulings since they have been on the Court) suggest that Alito and Roberts would rule against them in that sort of case.

Re:The Supreme Court Corporate Five

[ChrisMaple]

Whoosh. Are you completely ignorant of the widespread evidence that in addition to education, colleges are home to indoctrination?

Re:The Supreme Court Corporate Five

[Anonymous Coward]

Are you completely ignorant of the widespread evidence that in addition to education, colleges are home to indoctrination?

Where's the evidence you speak of? And don't just provide links to blogs written by nobodies who happen to dislike what they heard in college classrooms.

Re:The Supreme Court Corporate Five

[QuantumG]

And then what? You think you're going to seize their assets and begin the great worker revolution or something? Heard of offshoring? Watching how much faster it happens as soon as a government turns against industry.

Re:The Supreme Court Corporate Five

[QuantumG]

Sounds like someone didn't go to college.. or even live near a college.

Re:The Supreme Court Corporate Five

[luis_a_espinal]

Will likely have a different opinion. To them the constitution only applies to corporations.

citations plz.

Re:The Supreme Court Corporate Five

[luis_a_espinal]

Since there's no corporate entity at stake, I don't see how this is relevant -- even if your assumption is correct.

Relevance is irrelevant among the /. fanboys.

Re:The Supreme Court Corporate Five

[Anonymous Coward]

Ha. Sounds like someone needs to go back to school and learn what 'evidence' means. (Hint: it's not hearsay)

Re:The Supreme Court Corporate Five

[Politburo]

So corporations are some kind of benevolent dictator?

Re:The Supreme Court Corporate Five

[the eric conspiracy]

OK, so you end corporate personhood.

What do you substitute as a legal mechanism that allows you to sue or apply contract law or criminal law to a corporation after you do this?

Re:The Supreme Court Corporate Five

[scot4875]

And then what? You think you're going to seize their assets and begin the great worker revolution or something? Heard of offshoring? Watching how much faster it happens as soon as a government turns against industry.

So ... do nothing, for fear of retaliation? Hope it all works out in the end? That seems like a great plan.

--Jeremy

Re:The Supreme Court Corporate Five

[bill_mcgonigle]

To them the constitution only applies to corporations.

Despite a pretty bad track record, such a broad brush doesn't help advance anything. Heller and McDonald are two that come to mind that dealt specifically with an issue of individual rights.

Re:The Supreme Court Corporate Five

[Xaositecte]

personal accountability from the CEO and shareholders?

Re:The Supreme Court Corporate Five

[Anonymous Coward]

YES!

Where's the fallout?

[AK Marc]

So, when is the arresting officer going to be charged with violating the civil rights of the videographer? Don't police make some sort of oath to uphold the law, and this ruling makes it clear that the officer violated the law, thus breaking their oath, shouldn't that get them fired as well?

The real issue here is "government violates the law with impunity and nobody cares."

Re:Where's the fallout?

[Darkness404]

Such things will happen so long as we don't elect our police officers and they are only responsible to their superiors which are also... police officers.

Re:Where's the fallout?

[blair1q]

when is the arresting officer going to be charged with violating the civil rights of the videographer?

When the videographer gets around to it.

Re:Where's the fallout?

[Nyder]

So, when is the arresting officer going to be charged with violating the civil rights of the videographer? Don't police make some sort of oath to uphold the law, and this ruling makes it clear that the officer violated the law, thus breaking their oath, shouldn't that get them fired as well?

The real issue here is "government violates the law with impunity and nobody cares."

The video taper should take the police officer(s) to civil court then.

what, wait for the government to do it? you kidding? like the prosecutor is going to want to charge police officers, the same people the prosecutor works with, with criminal charges for video taping people. Will rarely happen.

But damn, take the piggies to civil court and you then you might start seeing change.

Re:Where's the fallout?

[praksys]

This case is a big deal because the court ruled that the right to record stuff like this was "well established" which in turn means that official immunity does not apply so the public officials involved can be sued for damages as individuals. That is about the best outcome possible.

Re:Where's the fallout?

[nameer]

That is what this decision is! The title of the suit is:

SIMON GLIK,
Plaintiff, Appellee,
v.
JOHN CUNNIFFE, in his individual capacity; PETER J. SAVALIS, in
his individual capacity; JEROME HALL-BREWSTER, in his individual
capacity; CITY OF BOSTON,

Glik is filing a law suit against the officers individually and the city of Boston alleging a violation of his civil rights. The defendants claimed that the officers have qualified immunity and are not subject to a law suit. The appellate court has said here that "No, you did violate the rights and have no qualified immunity." Now Glik should be able to proceed with the law suit and get damages. My guess would be that after this ruling there will be a settlement, as it doesn't look like the defendants can win the civil suit without immunity and with the evidence so clearly spelled out by the appellate court.

Re:Where's the fallout?

[ThePeices]

An oath is not a legally binding contract, and cannot be enforced by law.

Re:Where's the fallout?

[hedwards]

Which is why for some things like hate crimes the federal government is allowed to step in on what would normally be a state charge if the local law enforcement can't or won't enforce the law.

It's definitely not ideal, but it's hardly without precedent for a corrupt local sheriff's office or police department to refuse to enforce laws when convenient.

Re:Where's the fallout?

[Anonymous Coward]

Read the summary; this is a ruling for the lawsuit that the videographer brought against the police and city for violating his first and fourth amendment rights.

Re:Where's the fallout?

[Anonymous Coward]

Fuck that. If it can be reasonably demonstrated that the police officers in question violated the law, then they can face the music in criminal court like everyone else.

Re:Where's the fallout?

[Anonymous Coward]

Such things will happen so long as we don't elect our police officers and they are only responsible to their superiors which are also... police officers.

How will electing policemen help? We already elect county sheriffs and we end up with the likes of Joe Arpaio. You want beat cops to be politicians too? I think that would be worse.

I have been acquainted with many good police officers. The worst cop I ever had a run-in with was just a hard-ass, not an evil bastard.

For most of the country, there are a few bad apples spoiling the barrel. Some municipalities are really bad, but most are not.

The problem is, the police must be held to a higher standard. They have to be accountable to the very people they serve, not protected from them. They should be paid more, and have better benefits, and there should be more of them.

But when they go bad they should be put in prison and left to rot.

Re:Where's the fallout?

[demonlapin]

An oath is not a legally binding contract

IANAL, and am willing to believe you, but why is it not, if it is freely taken as a condition of employment?

Re:Where's the fallout?

[AK Marc]

The videographer has some ability to influence a civil suit, but little, if any, to do with the criminal suit that should have been filed before the court even ruled.

Re:Where's the fallout?

[AK Marc]

like the prosecutor is going to want to charge police officers, the same people the prosecutor works with, with criminal charges for video taping people. Will rarely happen.

Which is my point. "government violates the law with impunity and nobody cares." You are cheering for the government to violate the law with impunity. Why doesn't it make you mad? Why aren't we gathering up our arms and marching into the police station demanding that they hand over the cop responsible? "It was just a little violation." There is no such thing. A dirty cop is a dirty cop, there is no "barely dirty". And the system is dirty. The only one here who broke the law is the cop. There is a court finding stating that he violated the videographer's civil rights, yet he runs around planting drugs and beating children with impunity. The system doesn't exist to watch the watchers. There's just enough of a shadow of a system to claim there's IA to make sure to keep civilians out of judging the justifiability of shooting incidents, no cop wants that. Yes, I think the prosecutors should be lining up to take a hard line on crime, even if the criminal is a cop. Otherwise, all cops are criminals. The only question is whether they are the kind to commit a violent felony (false impeisonment, violating civil rights, assault) or whether they are participating in the felonious coverup. When all cops are criminals, we'd be better off without them. So, why aren't we lining up to lynch the cop that falsely arrested the guy with the camera, and shoot any cop that gets in our way? That'd be more law and order than we get with the criminal cops we have now.

Re:Where's the fallout?

[AK Marc]

Violating civil rights to arrest someone who broke no law seems to be a crime. So why isn't it being prosecuted, rather than being handled in civil court only? The cop arrested an innocent person because the cop doesn't know what civil rights are. That should get him fired, but instead, the city is protecting him.

Re:Where's the fallout?

[AK Marc]

So the civil judge states "the defendant's criminal actions are criminal and so egregious that they wipe off any protections from liability" and yet there are no criminal charges filed. Why is this not a criminal case with the officers involved and the chief on trial for their violent crimes against this innocent man?

Re:Where's the fallout?

[Arterion]

From what I can tell doing some brief research, private prosecution used to be common, but in the U.S. is it unheard of. According to wikipedia, the last documented case with a private prosecutor was in 1975.

I believe the SCOTUS ruled on a case last year that touched on the issue, but they declined to address it.

Re:Where's the fallout?

[Anonymous Coward]

I hope Glik has a good door and lock on his house.

Re:Where's the fallout?

[Anonymous Coward]

Do you think a lawyer will accept a settlement instead of utter and decisive victory in court.

Re:Where's the fallout?

[Nyder]

like the prosecutor is going to want to charge police officers, the same people the prosecutor works with, with criminal charges for video taping people. Will rarely happen.

Which is my point. "government violates the law with impunity and nobody cares." You are cheering for the government to violate the law with impunity. Why doesn't it make you mad? Why aren't we gathering up our arms and marching into the police station demanding that they hand over the cop responsible? "It was just a little violation." There is no such thing. A dirty cop is a dirty cop, there is no "barely dirty". And the system is dirty. The only one here who broke the law is the cop. There is a court finding stating that he violated the videographer's civil rights, yet he runs around planting drugs and beating children with impunity. The system doesn't exist to watch the watchers. There's just enough of a shadow of a system to claim there's IA to make sure to keep civilians out of judging the justifiability of shooting incidents, no cop wants that. Yes, I think the prosecutors should be lining up to take a hard line on crime, even if the criminal is a cop. Otherwise, all cops are criminals. The only question is whether they are the kind to commit a violent felony (false impeisonment, violating civil rights, assault) or whether they are participating in the felonious coverup. When all cops are criminals, we'd be better off without them. So, why aren't we lining up to lynch the cop that falsely arrested the guy with the camera, and shoot any cop that gets in our way? That'd be more law and order than we get with the criminal cops we have now.

I'm not sure exactly what your problem is here, but you fail at comprehension.

I suggested that instead of waiting for the government to step in and protect your rights, that you (or whomever is in the situation) takes the police officer to civil court.

How does that make you think I'm cheering the government on?

No, really, explain yourself. Because I'm here thinking your a fucking retard or something, because nothing that i posted should lead anyone to the idea that I am cheering the government to violate the law with impunity. I can't believe someone could be as stupid as to even come up with that conclusion from my post. This is a troll, right? I've fed the troll? That's pretty good, you got me. Here I am thinking your the stupid person alive on this planet, and here i am being trolled.

good one, you got me.

Re:Where's the fallout?

[Anonymous Coward]

Wrongo. You can't "force" someone to do their job by way of an oath they took... but you can fire their asses for breaking it. Look up "Loyalty Oath."

BTW, a verbal contract or oath is binding in US Maritime Law. That's the only place I know of.

Re:Where's the fallout?

[AK Marc]

How does that make you think I'm cheering the government on?

You defended a system that refuses to police its own members, advocating abandonment of the criminal system for criminal matters because we shouldn't expect to see justice for crimes from the criminal justice system. You are resigned to that being how it "should" work. That's no better than cheering the governemnt on as it beats innocent people in the street. Everr hear "All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing." By advocating doing nothing in the broken criminal system, you are supporting the triumph of evil. Whether your action is standing by or grabbing some pom poms and actively cheering for evil, the result is the same, so it's not worth the effort to distinguish between them.

Thank the founding fathers...

[zbobet2012]

For the court system. Hopefully the supreme court refuses to hear this thereby granting this the force of precedent.

Re:Thank the founding fathers...

[pauljlucas]

Hopefully the supreme court refuses to hear this thereby granting this the force of precedent.

It already has precedent in the First Circuit. As for the rest of the country, I don't think that the SCOTUS refusing to hear a case automatically makes anything a precedent for all circuits. They have to hear the case for that to happen.

Re:Thank the founding fathers...

[Anubis IV]

Hopefully the supreme court refuses to hear this thereby granting this the force of precedent.

They'll hopefully refuse to hear the case, but it won't establish the nationwide precedent that I'm guessing that you're hoping for. In most cases where the Supreme Court denies a writ for certiorari, they do so without statement, which according to a line they've reiterated many times, "imports no expression of opinion upon the merits of the case." In such cases, the precedent would only maintain force of law within the circuit that it originated from (see fifth paragraph in that section), rather than applying nationwide. The Supreme Court only tends to hear cases such as this one in order to resolve differing opinions between circuits.

(Apologies for any misapplied terms. IANAL, but had merely stumbled upon this factoid a few months back whenever something else with the Supreme Court came up here.)

Evenly

[Anonymous Coward]

Even in a country and a world where copyright can be claimed as an excuse to prevent you from taking a photo of a giant sculpture in a public, tax-paid park, and openly recording visiting police on your own property can be construed as illegal wiretapping, it sometimes seems like the overreach of officialdom against people taking photos or shooting video knows no bounds.

'Even' in a world that dismal, things can sometimes seem bad? Does anyone proof read this crap?

Federal Court - Big difference

[saihung]

This isn't a Massachusetts court. This is a federal court that actually knows what the 1st Amendment is, and more importantly thinks that it matters. The Supreme Judicial Court, which is the Massachusetts high court, has had its chance to look at this law more than once, and has come to the wrong conclusion every time. It took a federal court to realize what any moron should know - that prohibiting citizens from recording public officials doing their jobs on a public street is an invitation to abuse.

Re:Federal Court - Big difference

[SkyDude]

The SJC in MA is not just 'any' moron. They are in a class of morons of their own.If you're from MA as I am, then you know what I mean.

Re:Federal Court - Big difference

[Torodung]

Moreover, if the State doesn't appeal this decision to the U.S. Supreme Court (and win the appeal), it will be available as precedent in the other circuits. A ruling in federal court has a lovely snowball effect. Common law FTW!

Re:Federal Court - Big difference

[Anonymous Coward]

Only if the other circuits adopt it, rather than simply reason to the opposite conclusion.

Re:Federal Court - Big difference

[Loadmaster]

The ruling would constitute persuasive authority in other circuits not precedent. I'm in the 10th circuit, so if I had a case like this I would say something along the lines of "Although this issue is one of first impression in the 10th Circuit, the 1st Circuit recently examined this very issue. In CASE X it was held that . . .." It just tells the court that this circuit hasn't seen the issue, yet, and the other circuit[s] that have held a certain way. It doesn't mean they have to follow it.

Re:Federal Court - Big difference

[Anonymous Coward]

You're not quite correct.

From the ruling, linked directly in the summary:
"Likewise, the court found no probable cause supporting the wiretap charge, because the law requires a secret recording and the officers admitted that Glik had used his cell phone openly and in plain view to obtain the video and audio recording."

So don't think this means you can just record the cops, since there are a lot of things you might do which they can claim makes it "secret".

However, everybody is missing the most important part of this case. Police will not pull these kinds of stunts on TV News crews or reporters from established news outlets; they pick on the people who they don't think can stand up for their rights. And that's the core of the issue. To which the court also noted:
"The First Amendment right to gather news is, as the Court has often noted, not one that inures solely to the benefit of the news media; rather, the public's right of access to information is coextensive with that of the press."
If an "official member" of "the press" is allowed to do it, so is everybody else. As the court has often noted.

This isn't as significant as people are making out

[terraformer]

This ruling is in line with Comm v. Hyde. There is NOTHING new about this ruling, at least regards the recording issue. There is nothing wrong with OPENLY recording cops in MA or anyone else who are speaking in normal voice in public. By being in public, they are forfeiting their privacy. This is inline with 4th Amendment thinking.

In technical terms, the above is 3rd party recording that is not considered 3rd party eavesdropping because there is no REP (reasonable expectation of privacy).

Now, what this ruling DOES bring as new is the cops who think that they have veto power over your OPEN recording of them are now on notice, in federal court you have zero shelter from the liability of arresting someone because you don't like that they are recording you in public. This is new. The cops are not being granted qualified immunity and are on the hook for the damages of denying Glik his rights by improperly arresting him. That is a step in the right direction.

The problem here is if you are recording your interaction with a cop, what does that cop have to do to stop your recording? "Detain" you, that is what. Once they do, for their "safety" of course, they now control your recording equipment and can turn it off. Nothing in the above ruling changes this. They can do this, beat you to a pulp, or just ignore you to illustrate both extremes, and there will be no record of it.

What has not changed is Comm v. Hyde which makes 2nd party recording a privacy issue. This is not the case in 38 other states but here in MA, people are presumed to have a REP right from secret recording even when the recorders are privy to what is being said. That is absurd if you dissect it, but that is where Hyde dropped us. So for an example, if party A has a conversation with B, A can't record it because B supposedly has a REP privacy right yet A has heard everything B said. They were having a conversation for christ's sake. B gave up their privacy to the statements once they engaged in said conversation. So A can detail the conversation to whomever will listen but if B denies what was said or that the conversation even took place, it becomes a he said, she said situation. Now, who does this protect? It protects B. It protects liars, cheats and thieves. Because it allows them to lie about what took place. There is a line in Hyde where the SJC basically acknowledges this by stating to allow surreptitious recording of cops will allow the citizens to monitor and find corruption.

To borrow and paraphrase cop's own words...

[Anonymous Coward]

"What are you afraid of if you have nothing to hide...pig?"

surveillance camera?

[Anonymous Coward]

What happen if I got my surveillance camera on the road where the police is on duty? This mean the can arrested me? for owning the video?

Re:surveillance camera?

[demonlapin]

If you recorded any audio of the officer, yes.

Laws like this are why surveillance cameras in stores are video-only.

Re:surveillance camera?

[gnasher719]

Laws like this are why surveillance cameras in stores are video-only.

Please read the PDF with the judge's ruling. It quotes case law that when there is a surveillance camera openly visible in a store, then neither video nor audio recording are secret, and therefore don't fall under wiretapping law, and therefore are legal. It also states quite clearly that if I point my phone at you in clear view, then any photos, video recording _and_ audio recording that my phone makes are _not_ secret and therefore don't fall under wiretapping law.

Re:surveillance camera?

[Anonymous Coward]

I mean camera in my property, pointing toward the road.

Re:surveillance camera?

[demonlapin]

And all of that case law came from people who got in trouble recording audio. Even if they were eventually vindicated, it's easier from the store owner's point of view to avoid any possible misunderstanding.

oops

[sexybomber]

Yes, I know it's bad form to reply to yourself, but I neglected to RTFOpinion... had I done so, I'd've seen that this case is a 1983 suit, and we're long past settlin' time. F*ck the Police!

Re:oops

[sumdumass]

You're still off a bit. This case is more recent, circa 2007. It references a 1983 law and cases which brought the law into existence as well as recent cases that drive the point home. but the case comes from actions that happened on October 1 2007.

However, this isn't about whether the cops did wrong or not with this ruling. It's about whether they believed they were in the right at the time of the actions. You see, many law enforcement and government officials have an immunity to prosecution and civil suits if their actions were intended to be lawful but are somehow not. An example of this in action would be a cop speeding with his lights and sirens on to get to an accident scene and render assistance and getting into an accident of his own. He would be removed from liability for the accident and insurance would take care of property damage. But if he was speeding like that to get back to the station for shift change, then he's liable for all the crap you or i would be liable for should be do the same.

So the guy involved filed a suit, the cops said- we have immunity-, the judge said no you do not-, they appealed-, the appeals court said, not only do you not have immunity, there is good reason to believe you knew you were violating the constitutional rights of this kid when you took the actions you did.

The title of this story is a bit misleading. While the appeals court said there is a right to film police in public while on duty, it said so in the respect that the lawsuit against the police can go forward. But on another note, it pointed to where this constitutional right to film the cops has already been well settled by other case law and indicates that any law attempting to suppress it would meet the same problems their claim to immunity met.

Re:oops

[ravenshrike]

By 1983 suit he meant a suit which fell under the law in question. When it occurred doesn't matter.

Re:oops

[Anonymous Coward]

No, he didn't. It's clear he thought this case was from 1983 and was "long past settlin' time."

Re:oops

[fl_litig8r]

The 1983 in question is 42 U.S.C. 1983. It is the vehicle by which you can sue state and local government officials for Constitutional violations. Federal officials get sued under a Bivens claim, which is named for the first case to recognize such an action.

When a LEO gets sued for false arrest/excessive force, you can bet it is a 1983 case.

Re:oops

[DinDaddy]

But if he was speeding like that to get back to the station for shift change, then he's liable for all the crap you or i would be liable for should be do the same.

We can only wish that is what would happen.

I hope that the fascist Nazi Rat-fuck..

[Paracelcus]

And the state of Mass get sued for so much that the people finally see the reign of terror that is being visited on the American people is un-American and un-sustainable!

Re:I hope that the fascist Nazi Rat-fuck..

[Anon8---)]

A republican might argue that not supporting the police force is un-American...

If you must video police...

[SwedishChef]

IANAL but reading the ruling made it clear to me that in states where wiretapping laws imply that it be done secretly then it's important to hold your recording device in plain sight. Many states define audio wiretapping in terms of "intercepting" the audio which this appellate court has determined to mean "secretly". The ruling states that since Glik was holding his cell phone in plain view then he was not doing anything in secret and thus was not wiretapping. You don't have to annouce that you are taking pictures or videos, however. Just holding it where the officers could have seen it is sufficient. But if they ask you if you are taking videos or pictures or recording then you should probably answer truthfully. YMMV so check your state's laws before relying on this ruling.

Of course, if officers cannot see it they would be unlikely to arrest you. So apparently just by them noticing the device would be evidence that it was not done in secret and therefore not wiretapping and therefore not "probable cause" for an arrest.

Re:If you must video police...

[Anonymous Coward]

I wonder when we will started getting screened entering public builds for carrying concealed recording devices?
Or when state and local governments will start issuing permits to individuals to carry concealed recording devices?

Re:If you must video police...

[ZombieBraintrust]

It would prevent people from using hidden cameras. If your cought recording the police with a pin hole camera pointing out of a back pack they can arrest you in MA.

Who will watch the watchers?

[mrflash818]

We conclude,
based on the facts alleged, that Glik was exercising clearly-
established First Amendment rights in filming the officers in a
public space, and that his clearly-established Fourth Amendment
rights were violated by his arrest without probable cause. We
therefore affirm.

Huzzah.

A victory for the following states

[erroneus]

According to the Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Court_of_Appeals_for_the_First_Circuit

The states covered by the USCoA for the First Circuit are:

        District of Maine
        District of Massachusetts
        District of New Hampshire
        District of Puerto Rico
        District of Rhode Island

Re:A victory for the following states

[Anonymous Coward]

Rulings by a federal appeals court aren't bound to the court's jurisdiction...

Re:A victory for the following states

[Anonymous Coward]

The states covered by the USCoA for the First Circuit are:

                District of Maine
                District of Massachusetts
                District of New Hampshire
                District of Puerto Rico
                District of Rhode Island

One of these things is not like the other.

Double standard?

[Anonymous Coward]

Whats never made sense to me about these arrests is that many municipalities and police departments are putting up cameras everywhere (in the interest of preventing crime, but nevertheless, on public land and with taxpayer dollars). The blatant double standard when they become upset about you recording them in public just doesn't hold up.

Court ruling what its opinion accidently said.

[Anonymous Coward]

It said that this is what makes the difference from a police state and not.

Glad to see the court could plainly see we are a police state.

Go ahead try to film cops good luck with that.

Technology will make 24 hour recording ubiquitous

[Anonymous Coward]

You can already buy a HD pencam for about $30 on Ebay, with about an hour of recording, and really good quality video, what's it going to be like in five years' time? Probably eight hours battery life, and eight hours of recording, in a tiny camera which you can wear all day, and nobody can see it (i.e. a button cam or pen cam). How are the scum in power going to stop this? They can't. We will be able to catch them 'in the act' wherever they are. There will be nowhere to hide.

Re:This isn't as significant as people are making

[prisoner-of-enigma]

Now, who does this protect? It protects B. It protects liars, cheats and thieves.

Which would explain why Massachusetts, above and beyond all other states, put such an idiotic law in place in the first place. Any state that would send Ted Kennedy to the Senate for 47 years has a vested interest in protecting liars, cheats, and thieves.

Re:This isn't as significant as people are making

[Anonymous Coward]

wow. Just wow.

Am I reading comments on slashdot?

Don't get those hopes up too high...

[Anonymous Coward]

don't get your hopes too high: bush/cheny supremes will overrule.

It is NOT a Mass. Court

[Anonymous Coward]

A federal court is never a state court........fix the title of the post.

uh whoops

[drinkypoo]

I meant "unnecessary" obfuscation. But edit fail.

Re:uh whoops

[Thing 1]

Not necessarily; I remember a decade ago or so a building code was attempted to be copyrighted by the firm that drafted the law. Yes, a legal firm attempted to be a for-pay Xerox machine, for something for which ignorance of it means you could end up with a big fine. From what I recall, it didn't fly, but made a lot of noise.

Re:This isn't as significant as people are making

[Fned]

A can't record it because B supposedly has a REP privacy right yet A has heard everything B said.

So?

The recording has not one goddamn thing to do with A hearing everything B said. It has to do with C,D,E,F,G,AAA,QQ and fucking ZZTop hearing everything B said. They were not who B was privately speaking to.

Sure, A can tell everyone what B said, but it is a perfectly reasonable expectation that if C,D,E,F,G,AAA,QQ and ZZTop want to hear what B said from his own lips, they ought to have been there when he said it.

Whether you agree or not, it's definitely a privacy issue. If you were speaking with your doctor or shrink, would you be okay with them secretly recording you?

Filming!?

[Anonymous Coward]

Um... what about more modern techniques like videotaping or recording to digital media? If recording to film is all that's supported, it will only be trendy art students recording police on their vintage cameras.

Not Sure.

[znerk]

"My girlfriend was a 'tard. Now she's a pilot."

Satire, warning, or prophecy?

Ask me again in 100 years.

"or at least stop buying so much gasoline"

[Anonymous Coward]

That part about the Prius.. that's a joke, right?

The tapes!

[Anonymous Coward]

The tapes were all the police wanted anyway. It allows them to prevent anyone from seeing how they behaved.

Re:This isn't as significant as people are making

[caitsith01]

So for an example, if party A has a conversation with B, A can't record it because B supposedly has a REP privacy right yet A has heard everything B said. They were having a conversation for christ's sake. B gave up their privacy to the statements once they engaged in said conversation. So A can detail the conversation to whomever will listen but if B denies what was said or that the conversation even took place, it becomes a he said, she said situation. Now, who does this protect? It protects B. It protects liars, cheats and thieves. Because it allows them to lie about what took place.

Interesting comments although I disagree with the above. It is perfectly reasonable to not want part of a conversation to be recorded without your knowledge or consent. Privacy does not stop at one individual - a conversation between two people can also be private.

I also think you have an unrealistic view of human relationships if you think that the constant threat of secret recording wouldn't make our interactions awkward at best, and unmanageable at worst.

For example, you might in a private conversation with another person choose to express views which are unpopular, or offensive, or in some other way not views you would choose to express to a larger audience. You might tell someone something off-the-record in a conversation which you would never put in writing. A person secretly recording you takes away your right to choose your audience if they then republish the recording.

Look at in on the flipside. What is the problem with simply telling someone you are going to record them? Then they may choose how to proceed, instead of you misleading them (because most humans assume that they are NOT being recorded at all times, so your non-disclosure is misleading).

A federal system...

[Anonymous Coward]

Which is why, frankly, our federal system was supposed to be a pyramid. The tiny little federal government has just a *few* über-powers, while the state governments below have broader general powers. And it kinda worked that way -- I never said it was perfect -- up until the New Deal and later courts' incredible loophole expansion of the Commerce Clause. Checks and balances, not just within the government, but between them as well.

Reading cases like Wickard v. Filburn (1942) or Gonzales v. Raich (2005) makes me want to wretch.

Re:This isn't as significant as people are making

[jafiwam]

You forgot drunk. ;)

Lawyers fucks police and FOP in the ass

[ancient_kings]

That's one assfucking I would pay to see. Good for him! Don't SETTLE. FUCK THEM LONG AND HARD!!!

Re:This isn't as significant as people are making

[terraformer]

A & B were having a conversation in my example. Read it again.

There is no privacy expectation for B once they state something to A. Period. They chose to divulge the information and once they do that, they lose their privacy right. Think of it this way, imagine a suspect tells the cop "I did it" and the cop testifies to this effect. The suspect has no right to privacy from the cop and those words can be used against them. However, if the cop records this conversation with the suspect, under the logic of Comm v. Hyde, the suspect has a privacy right and the recording can't be used against them.

Re:This isn't as significant as people are making

[terraformer]

Oh and to this:
If you were speaking with your doctor or shrink, would you be okay with them secretly recording you?

Yes, I would. I am already expecting them to be discriminating. I don't have a problem with them recording so long as they accept the responsibility to protect the recordings.

Re:This isn't as significant as people are making

[terraformer]

So for an example, if party A has a conversation with B, A can't record it because B supposedly has a REP privacy right yet A has heard everything B said. They were having a conversation for christ's sake. B gave up their privacy to the statements once they engaged in said conversation. So A can detail the conversation to whomever will listen but if B denies what was said or that the conversation even took place, it becomes a he said, she said situation. Now, who does this protect? It protects B. It protects liars, cheats and thieves. Because it allows them to lie about what took place.

Interesting comments although I disagree with the above. It is perfectly reasonable to not want part of a conversation to be recorded without your knowledge or consent. Privacy does not stop at one individual - a conversation between two people can also be private.

I also think you have an unrealistic view of human relationships if you think that the constant threat of secret recording wouldn't make our interactions awkward at best, and unmanageable at worst.

For example, you might in a private conversation with another person choose to express views which are unpopular, or offensive, or in some other way not views you would choose to express to a larger audience. You might tell someone something off-the-record in a conversation which you would never put in writing. A person secretly recording you takes away your right to choose your audience if they then republish the recording.

Look at in on the flipside. What is the problem with simply telling someone you are going to record them? Then they may choose how to proceed, instead of you misleading them (because most humans assume that they are NOT being recorded at all times, so your non-disclosure is misleading).

A) In 38 states your conversations can be secretly recorded without your knowledge. Humanity has not crumbled under the weight.
B) "Privacy does not stop at one individual". Correct, but it requires the consent of all of those people to maintain the privacy. You are trusting the other party to not repeat what you said, therefore you trust they won't use the recordings.
C) "You might tell someone something off-the-record in a conversation which you would never put in writing." Security via obscurity. If you don't want anyone to know you think it, don't write it or speak it.
D) "What is the problem with simply telling someone you are going to record them?" Because in interactions with people with authority, they can use this to force you to stop doing so. See my original post. The right to record conversations you are a party to is a defensive one.

At the end of the day, the prohibition on 2nd party recording is to protect liars, cheats and thieves by removing the ability to accurately capture evidence of the conversation one was a party to and does nothing for privacy.

Re:This isn't as significant as people are making

[caitsith01]

A) In 38 states your conversations can be secretly recorded without your knowledge. Humanity has not crumbled under the weight.

A bit less privacy wouldn't cause society to crumble but would still be a bad thing. Ref: Soviet Union.

B) "Privacy does not stop at one individual". Correct, but it requires the consent of all of those people to maintain the privacy. You are trusting the other party to not repeat what you said, therefore you trust they won't use the recordings.

Yes, but also because it creates the inherent doubt of "my word against yours". Anyone can claim that something was said, a recording proves it with a much, much higher degree of reliability.

C) "You might tell someone something off-the-record in a conversation which you would never put in writing." Security via obscurity. If you don't want anyone to know you think it, don't write it or speak it.

...or just don't let them record it and tell them in person. Which is a tried and true technique used by people since, I would guess, writing was invented. What if I do want them to know what I think, but I don't want them to record it and republish it? Would it be ok with you if I am concerned about secret recording in that situation?

D) "What is the problem with simply telling someone you are going to record them?" Because in interactions with people with authority, they can use this to force you to stop doing so. See my original post. The right to record conversations you are a party to is a defensive one.

Since when is there a positive "right" to record conversations you are a party to? You seem to have a lust for entrapment - presumably you would enjoy living in a panopticon-type society where everyone records everyone else. Personally, I prefer a society where people can't covertly record one another in private interactions.

At the end of the day, the prohibition on 2nd party recording is to protect liars, cheats and thieves by removing the ability to accurately capture evidence of the conversation one was a party to and does nothing for privacy.

Yes, liars, cheats. Confiders. Penitants. Those seeking advice. Those seeking support. Those seeking comfort. Whistleblowers. People engaging in conduct which, while not wrong, would be judged by many. Those trying to show empathy or build camaraderie.

To be honest, your views on all this seem quite sociopathic to me. Human interaction is built on trust. Secret recording of conversations utterly destroys the scope for trust.

It is of course a totally different question as to whether police should be subject to secret or open recording. I happen to think that so long as they are acting as instruments of the state, they should be subject to recording. But private citizens should not without their informed consent.

Re:This isn't as significant as people are making

[caitsith01]

Oh and: a recording creates an independent record of a conversation. You can trust the other person as much as you like, but that record exists beyond their mind and can, and in some cases will, be obtained by third parties who were not part of the original implied agreement about the level of privacy of the conversation.

I mean, what if your confidant dies? Is arrested themself? Has their house burgled? Loses the recording? Forgets about it? Stores it in the fricking all-singing all-dancing data cloud?

re:

[Anonymous Coward]

now go after this officer: http://www.lvrj.com/news/exclusive-police-beating-of-las-vegas-man-caught-on-tape-120509439.html

Police beating of Las Vegas man caught on tape

When Mitchell Crooks checked out of the county jail last month and checked into a Las Vegas hospital, the 36-year-old videographer knew he had a fight on his hands.

His face was bloodied and bruised. His $3,500 camera had been impounded by police, and he faced criminal charges for battery on a police officer.

One month later, things have changed for Crooks.

The Clark County district attorney's office has dropped all charges, and Crooks has retained an attorney of his own. The Metropolitan Police Department has opened an internal investigation into the Las Vegas police officer, Derek Colling, who Crooks says falsely arrested and beat him for filming police.

And his camera -- which captured the entire March 20 altercation between Crooks and Colling -- has been returned.

Re:This isn't as significant as people are making

[Thing 1]

a conversation between two people can also be private.

Seriously? Really, only in the sense that "two men can keep a secret if one of them is dead" style of privacy... And as far as behavior goes, just look to the religious who know that their God is recording every one of their words and deeds, and still manage to act like scum. Would they change knowing that a human was also recording?

Lets start disarming police

[Nelson]

That's part of the solution. I'm not sure how many people are killed by the police every year (maybe 8-10 in Colorado alone) but if they don't want to be recorded, then the masses should vote to disarm them, give them pepper spray and nothing else.

legal vs. illegal

[Anonymous Coward]

When did the US turn into a society that has to pass laws to make things legal. Didn't it use to be they passed laws to make things illegal?

no wires

[ILongForDarkness]

were tapped in the making of this video.

...we don't have a separate ruling class...

[seekertom]

small pond said this: "If the government thinks it's necessary to record my overseas phone calls me and touch my junk at airports in order to stop terrorism, then the natural conclusion is that the government needs to be equally open. It consists of the same kind of people as me, just as (un)likely to be terrorists. Therefore, I need to see what they are doing. No more secret meetings. No more closed negotiations. No more situations that I can't record what's happening to me. In a democracy we don't have a separate ruling class with different privileges." I say this: Get the friggin' 28th amendment put into place. Until we do, what smallpond said will never happen... there will always be closed doors, rooms of negotiation that are often against us, and a ruling class above us. Corrections to our society, when they are about the corruption in govt, MUST come from us at the lower levels, a grassroots movement. If you do not get moving and start talking this 28th about, it'll never happen, and we'll stay as we are, until they make it even worse. The 28th amendment is or best hope! jmho

Poor article summary

[tarp]

The article summary should not refer to the court as a "Massachusetts court." That means a STATE court of Massachusetts. This is a FEDERAL APPEALS COURT which just happens to be located in Boston.

It's Always Police

[asauceda]

How come firefighters never go out their way to harass people taking pictures or videos of a fire and rescue. Or EMS employees freaking out after having their picture taken after helping out an accident victim. Maybe it's because they're actually their job and doing it correctly. And they're doing it for the public good, not for some ego trip.

How about "in-flight recorders" for cops

[John Jorsett]

I've long thought that police officers should be required to carry video and/or audio recorders (portable radios already exist that have that feature) that continuously record their actions, and that any interactions with the public that are captured by those recorders have to be made public if the person recorded requests it or it was highly in the public interest (a judge would have to rule on that).

TV != reality

[TiggertheMad]

If there's one thing I've learned from watching 10,000 cop procedurals, it's that if the DA dares charge even en ex-cop with anything, all the other cops will "lose" evidence resulting in a 0% conviction rate, and then he won't get reelected because he'll seem incompetent.
What reality are you living in? Supposing that the cops actually did this, why would any DA not immediately haul the fool who tried to pull this up on evidence tampering charges? The DA chooses to press charges against people he can get convictions against. If cops that are breaking the law aren't getting charged, chances are it is simply because the DA doesn't see a case.

Re:This isn't as significant as people are making

[tobyknudsen]

This ruling is in line with Comm v. Hyde. There is NOTHING new about this ruling, at least regards the recording issue. There is nothing wrong with OPENLY recording cops in MA or anyone else who are speaking in normal voice in public. By being in public, they are forfeiting their privacy. This is inline with 4th Amendment thinking.

For this reason I sponsored a voter Initiative Petition (three of them) for the MA 2012 ballot to amend MGL ch272 S99:

http://www.mass.gov/?pageID=cagoterminal&L=3&L0=Home&L1=Government&L2=Initiatives+%26+Other+Ballot+Questions&sid=Cago&b=terminalcontent&f=government_initiativepetitiontracking&csid=Cago

Chapter 272, section 99, subsection (D) , item 1 is modified by inserting the following paragraph after paragraph (f):

g. for persons to record a public official in the course of performing his duties in a public place. For the purposes of this definition, a ‘public place’ is any venue where said public official does not have a reasonable expectation of privacy.

One word: Perjury

[Anonymous Coward]

So if that oath is not legally binding, and cannot be enforced by law, why perjury?

And if an oath cannot be binding, why are contracts?

The news is outdated, should be ammended

[Anonymous Coward]

The Slashdot news link "copyright can be claimed as an excuse to prevent you from taking a photo of a giant sculpture in a public, tax-paid park" seems to be obsolete by six years now. I clicked on this alarming news to see it, failed to notice it was from August 12, ... 2005 (!), quoted it on a forum, and soon enough people was telling me how wrong I was:
http://gochicago.about.com/od/attractionsandlandmarks/ss/millennium_park_6.htm
It is right from Slashdot to keep the outdated news from 2005, what is wrong is for timothy to quote it in 2011 pretending it's still actual.
-Ignacio Agulló Sousa