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US Justice Dept Defends Right To Record Police
Fluffeh writes "In recent times, it seems many Police Departments believe that recording them doing their work is an act of war with police officers, destroying the tapes, phones or cameras while arresting the folks doing it. But in a surprising twist, the U.S. Justice Department has sent letter (PDF) to attorneys for the Baltimore Police Department — who have been quite heavy handed in enforcing their 'Don't record me bro!' mantra. The letter contains an awful lot of lawyer babble and lists many court cases and the like, although some sections are surprisingly clear: 'Policies should prohibit officers from destroying recording devices or cameras and deleting recordings or photographs under any circumstances. In addition to violating the First Amendment, police officers violate the core requirements of the Fourteenth Amendment procedural due process clause when they irrevocably deprived individuals of their recordings without first providing notice and an opportunity to object.' There is a lot more and it certainly seems like a firm foothold in the right direction."
About goddamn time we get a voice of reason and someone "higher up" on our side. Not that it'll make a damn bit of difference. "Protect and Serve" is a joke. Cops don't care and won't care. I imagine the mantra from cops now will be "What photos? I never saw any."
Everything you know is wrong, Just forget the words and sing along.
Dear Justice Department,
We disagree.
Sincerely,
The Police Departments of America
The elephant in the room is that they rarely have a good reason to delete the recordings. Why would a police officer not want his work recorded?
(The rare reason: It violates the privacy of a citizen who is involved.)
I'd say arrest the whole department on conspiracy charges.
They stand together, they can hang together.
The reality is if they do it again they'll be put on suspension with pay for 6 months. Easiest vacation ever.
It's a sentence. Just because we have insisted on simplifying everything down to where those who can barely read at a 2nd grade level can "understand" it, that doesn't mean that complex sentences that express a sophisticated set of connected ideas are invalid.
The police harassment of photographers won't really end until either:
1) A settlement over this costs a city a Whole Lot of Money (>$100,000.00 + all lawyer fees).
-or-
2) A police officer goes to jail for at least a year over this.
Until then, threatening letters, especially from this Justice Department, are little more than toilet paper.
"It's the height of ridiculousness to say for those 9 lines you get hundreds of millions."
If they are doing nothing wrong, then they should not have any problem whatsoever allowing recordings.
The shepherds did so well protecting the flock that the sheep no longer believed that wolves existed.
It's great how when something good actually happens in the US the comments on Slashdot are still mostly negative.
The existence of these letters and their public nature will make it basically impossible for any police department in the country to win a case in which they are accused of illegally destroying a recording. The legal arguments are handed to us here, by the DoJ no less. This creates a huge financial incentive for states and cities to make sure that their officers are not destroying recordings, and as they say, money talks. This seems like a good move which saves the administration from having to arrest police officers while accomplishing basically the same goal.
"In recent times, it seems that many Police Departments believe that recording them doing their work is an act of war with police officers destroying the tapes, phones or cameras while arresting the folks doing it, . . . . . "
Remove the comma after 'times' and put it after 'war'.
It's simply very poor sentence construction so typical of the younger generation. Did none of you pay attention in English class?!?
"That wouldn't be a federal crime. " Incorrect, it would in fact be a violation of both the 1st and 14th. The FBI is tasked with investigating civil rights violations by police departments, which this is. Glad I could educate you.
Why? Because there is no gray area here. Nobody has a right NOT to be recorded in public.
The US Justice Department HAD to act because local DAs gave them no choice. Every DA that thought arrests and confiscating/destroying video was an acceptable response to the public recording of LEOs should be disbarred. They are either to incompetent or corrupt to hold office.
I was recently at a US border crossing office where I saw a posted notice, as well as being informed verbally, that it is against the rules to have any electronic device inside the office. What many people don't realize is that the courts have repeatedly agreed with the notion that border officers have much broader powers than police. You can find yourself detained, searched, your possessions searched (including your computers and phones electronically searched, etc) and it's all 100% legal. Let's suppose we agree with the principle that because it is a special crossing meant to protect the country that the officers then have special powers. Fine. But, shouldn't it also hold that because these officers have special powers then they should also allow video and audio recordings even more?!
I can see a point on privacy, but inside an office talking to an offcer across the counter, one doesn't really have an expectation of privacy.
In fact, why doesn't the government itself *require* all interesactions by authorities be recorded? It just seems like good common sense.
City police are only one of many police forces in the US. There are plenty of others out there, many that offer better jobs in terms of less danger and more pay. For example if you've ever been around non-military federal government buildings, you'll find they are guarded by police, not some mysterious quasi-military force or something. That's right, the security guards at the CIA for example are police, uniformed ones in fact.
Well needless to say, those people have to be good. Not only do they need to be vigilant in their job, but they'd better be good at being respectful to people at well. The CIA is not going to be amused at all if one of their security cops assaults their analysts or case officers or something. However for that there are compensations. Nobody is very likely to actually try anything there, your on the job danger is very low, same as pretty much any other office worker. You get to deal with people who are generally nice to you all the time, not people who are hostile, crazy, on drugs, etc.
So that also is part of it. The best police are able to get better jobs with better agencies. Those agencies can afford to be more selective about who they hire. That leaves less talent for regular city police.
I am not saying that the police shouldn't be recorded, they should, but I can understand why even if they aren't doing anything wrong they don't like it. First off it just kinda sucks to get recorded when you are doing work. I think if I came in to your cube/office and setup cameras to record you all day long, you might get a little mad at me and the "if you are doing nothing wrong" argument won't help mollify you.
Then there's the fact that given enough recording time, you are going to do something that makes you look bad/stupid/mean/whatever. If I roll camera on you long enough, I can find something taken out of context that won't look good for you. Just how it goes. We are not perfect angels all the time. Enough footage and you'll slip up with something you say or do that you wouldn't want the world to see.
Finally there's the fact that people recording may not have your best interest in mind, may want to make you look bad, and thus will edit things to try and show you in a bad light.
So I can understand why they don't want to be recorded and it isn't just because they want to get away with shit. Even people who are on the up and up don't like it. However, they need to deal with it.