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Subject To a "Stop and Frisk"? There's an App For That
lightbox32 writes "The New York Civil Liberties Union released a free smartphone application on Wednesday that allows people to record videos of and report police 'stop and frisk' activity, a practice widely denounced by civil rights groups as mostly targeting minorities and almost never resulting in arrests. The app was thoroughly criticized by the New York Police Department, which said that the tool might prove useful for criminals."
If you've done nothing wrong officer, you have nothing to worry about, do you?
Please do not read this sig. Thank you.
I'm black, and I grew up in areas commonly referred to as "the ghetto" by outsiders. Luckily, I took school seriously, and I was able to escape this environment, unlike many of the people I grew up with.
Let's cut the bullshit, though. In most major American cities, it is blacks and Hispanics committing the majority of the crimes. I don't like this fact, but I can't deny it. Nobody else should, either, regardless of his or her background.
I completely understand why the police may target blacks and Hispanics. It's not about race, though. It's about targeting those who are most likely to commit crimes. It's about targeting those whose culture, not race, emphasizes violence, substance abuse, prostitution and crime.
I don't buy the line of reasoning that it's poverty that causes these people to be more inclined to partake in criminal behavior. I grew up in that very same poverty, and the only thing I did differently than many of my peers was to study hard, and avoid drugs and gangs. It was that simple. In fact, if they just avoided spending huge sums of money on drugs, many of them would no longer be poor!
I'm black, and I've traveled extensively throughout America and many other nations. I have never run into problems with the police anywhere. But perhaps that's because I don't go out of my way to wear baggy pants with the waist at my ankles, I don't wear a straight-brimmed baseball hat with the price tag still on it, I don't drive around blaring hip hop or rap music, I don't choose to talk like I'm mentally disabled, and I don't partake in crime.
Many of the people who whine and moan about being targeted by the police merely need to clean up their acts. If they don't act like criminals, and act civilized instead, then they won't raise the suspicion of the police and wouldn't be stopped. Yes, it's that simple.
Good, I'm glad it helps people predict where the police are. The police are civil servants, employees of a public institution. They have no expectation of privacy and already too many material and political advantages over the people they're supposed to "serve and protect." Considering the recent militarization of police (why does the Tampa, FL police department have an APC that looks like a goddamn TANK?), the shift toward "less-lethal" weapons that police are more willing to use regularly against people who did nothing to deserve their application, and the culture in many police departments of lie-and-deny to cover for police abuse, it's frankly about time the people had something that pushes back and that the police can't do anything to stop.
One of the most heartening things I recall seeing on this front was the police overreach at the UC Davis protests. Go watch a video of it. Once Lt. John Adrian Pike starts pepper-spraying the seated protestors, count how many cell phone cameras go up, making sure the whole world can see exactly what happened from every angle. The police chief tried to say the cops felt threatened and were penned in, but widely-available footage proved that she was lying through her teeth. Were it not for the recordings, she may have gotten away with it and dishonestly discredited the protestors' side of the story.
Between this, "Cop Recorder" (another iPhone/Android app), and Trapster, we at least are developing our own toolkit to use to force police to be accountable and considerate of the people. If it makes the police's job harder, oh well, boo-hoo, they can cry me a river. Being a cop isn't SUPPOSED to be easy and if they get fancy tech toys like tasers, disorientation strobes, and military-style body armor, it's only fair that the people get their own tools to make sure the police cannot hide their misdeeds.
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It needs a "live feed" option to put it live to some web site that records it, just in case the police seize the phone for video evidence then "lose" the video.
(-1: Post disagrees with my already-settled worldview) is not a valid mod option.
And it needs to be fast and easy. Tap the app, boom, instant video transmission and recording. During an incident is not the time to have to plow through all kinds of crap.
(-1: Post disagrees with my already-settled worldview) is not a valid mod option.
The article alluded to the ACLU keeping the up loaders info along with the video. If that's the case, the person filming could conceivably become a witness and the video used in a court case. As was noted, that could help law enforcement (or defendant claiming police abuse) defending a stop or developing a case against someone who turned out to have committed a crime.
Actually, it was the Police Commissioner saying that:
“It's one thing when providers learn what pizza or movies you like. It’s another to create a database of stops and arrests by police,” [Deputy Police Commissioner Paul Browne] said in an email statement. “On the plus side, the videos may capture images of suspects in the vicinity of a stop and be helpful to the police in that regard. Presumably, the NYCLU database will [include] the names of the videographers and provide a rich vein of potential witnesses to crimes being investigated by the NYPD and other authorities.”
Translation: we're coming after the videographers. You upload a video, expect a knock at your door from a hostile police officer, demanding to know what you saw, why you were in the area, maybe you were part of the crime, what's your alibi, mind if I look around your house, we're going to need you to come downtown and answer some questions, etc.
I'm getting really tired of hearing that $technology or $application_of_technology may be "useful to criminals".
In a supposedly free country (yeah, I know, who am I kidding?), shouldn't we always err on the side of liberty instead of trying to "pre-regulate" criminal activity?
btw, thanks for the link
"the police department purposefully targeted black and Hispanic neighborhoods and said officers are pressured to meet quotas as part of the program and are punished if they don't"
"It's taken more than 6,000 guns off the streets in the last eight years, and this year we are on pace to have the lowest number of murders in recorded history"
I could give a fly f*ck about their effectiveness, they're breaking the law to up hold the law?! String them up and hang the bodies in public as an example. What someone in power knowingly and actively ignores the constitution, they need the wrath of God to fall down on them to remind people not to do that.
Above ALL crimes, someone abusing their power and ignoring someone else's rights is the worst.
The road to hell is paved with good intentions.
Murder in a uniform is heroic, in a costume it is a crime.
"He who can destroy a thing, controls a thing." --Paul Atreides, Dune
Translation: it needs to be done as often as possible, until police learn they aren't above the law.