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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.
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.)
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.
"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.