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Watching the Police: Will Two-Way Surveillance Reduce Crime?

An anonymous reader writes "As surveillance technologies have matured in both their sophistication and usage, some are starting to ask the question: is it time we start using them to watch the watchers? The proliferation of dashboard cameras has reduced liability costs, provided valuable evidence, and made police officers safer. The next progression would naturally be for the camera to move out of the car and onto the officer's uniform itself. In The Verge appears a fascinating report about the company behind the non-lethal stun guns that have become commonplace around the world, Taser International, which has set out to transform policing once again – this time, with Axon Flex, a head-mounted camera with a twelve-hour battery life that officers can use to record interactions. The device is constantly on, but it only captures video of the thirty seconds before its wearer begins using it, and then both video and audio while police are speaking to a citizen. Footage is then uploaded to a cloud-based service where it can be accessed by the police department. It includes an audit trail to reveal who has accessed the information and when."

309 comments

  1. The ONLY Way this should work is... by SirGeek · · Score: 5, Insightful

    if 100% of the footage is uploaded/published on a regular basis.

    Remove the ability of a department to "lose" the info. Perhaps even send the raw footage to the AFL-CIO

    1. Re:The ONLY Way this should work is... by CanHasDIY · · Score: 5, Insightful

      if 100% of the footage is uploaded/published on a regular basis.

      Remove the ability of a department to "lose" the info. Perhaps even send the raw footage to the AFL-CIO

      Also, change

      Footage is then uploaded to a cloud-based service where it can be accessed by the police department

      to

      Footage is then uploaded to a cloud-based service where it can be accessed by the public

      It seems apparent that Internal Affairs, AKA the "Office of Paid Vacations," is a fucking joke in most municipalities.

      --
      An enigma, wrapped in a riddle, shrouded in bacon and cheese
    2. Re:The ONLY Way this should work is... by Trepidity · · Score: 3, Informative

      Perhaps even send the raw footage to the AFL-CIO

      Nitpick, but I assume you mean the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), not the American Federation of Labor and Congress of Industrial Organizations (AFL-CIO)...

    3. Re:The ONLY Way this should work is... by SirGeek · · Score: 1

      You are correct. My bad. I thought that it was not the right acronym. But I flaked !

    4. Re:The ONLY Way this should work is... by Sarten-X · · Score: 1

      Clearly the right way to counter one group of thugs is with another group of thugs.

      --
      You do not have a moral or legal right to do absolutely anything you want.
    5. Re:The ONLY Way this should work is... by jythie · · Score: 2

      Agreed. As I recall there are recurring problems with dashboard cameras 'loosing' recording as it is.

    6. Re:The ONLY Way this should work is... by fredprado · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Always. The only assured counter to violence is violence.

    7. Re:The ONLY Way this should work is... by Synerg1y · · Score: 3, Insightful

      Let's think about this for a second, lets say you were falsely arrested for rape, it happens EVERY day thanks to a certain breed of woman, would you really want that footage to immediately be uploaded for the public's viewing? Probably not.

      The police department isn't the right department to regulate the police department either, they've had enough chances. We'd need yet another government regulatory agency for this to work. It'd also make being a cop even tougher, so its a shame a few bad apples have to spoil the bunch, but we don't live in medieval times anymore either where it's acceptable to get away with vagrant abuses of power.

    8. Re:The ONLY Way this should work is... by Crudely_Indecent · · Score: 5, Funny

      I hate it when vagrants abuse their power. They do it in such a flagrant way.

      --


      "Lame" - Galaxar
    9. Re:The ONLY Way this should work is... by poetmatt · · Score: 1

      exactly. this "limited duration" thing is Taser intentionally designing this to be abused. Anyone who believes otherwise is foolish.

      Taser is the same company that produces lethal (not "safe") tasers that kill people, as well. They have no interest but $$, and safety is not a part of that.

    10. Re:The ONLY Way this should work is... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Agreed. As I recall there are recurring problems with dashboard cameras 'loosing' recording as it is.

      Just tighten down the bolts. Not a big problem.

    11. Re:The ONLY Way this should work is... by Sarten-X · · Score: 1

      Yeah... all those wars have left such great peace and happiness behind.

      --
      You do not have a moral or legal right to do absolutely anything you want.
    12. Re:The ONLY Way this should work is... by CanHasDIY · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Let's think about this for a second, lets say you were falsely arrested for rape, it happens EVERY day thanks to a certain breed of woman, would you really want that footage to immediately be uploaded for the public's viewing?

      The tape would probably consist of me laughing about the accusation, then politely asking the officer what the result from the rape kit were.

      Oh, you say no rape kit was administered? So, then, what am I being arrested for?

      Yea, don't see where that would be an issue for me (since I'm not a rapist and all).

      The police department isn't the right department to regulate the police department either, they've had enough chances. We'd need yet another government regulatory agency for this to work.

      ... and what would you call the regulatory body? The "We May Have Fucked This Up Before, But Trust Us When We Say We Won't Fuck It Up This Time" Department? Helluva acronym...

      It'd also make being a cop even tougher, so its a shame a few bad apples have to spoil the bunch

      Yea, always hear that - only a few cops are dirty, and give the rest a bad name. To that, I say - Bull-fucking-shit; if a 'good' cop sees a bad cop doing bad things and breaking the law, and doesn't immediately arrest the other officer, then the 'good' cop is just as fucked, just as wrong as the cop breaking the law. Period, end of story. It's like if you stopped at a gas station with a friend, who proceeded to get out of your car, walk in the station, steal the money from the till, and get back in your car. According to the law, YOU are just as guilty as your 'friend' for aiding and abetting his crime; why should cops, who are supposed to uphold the law, be treated any differently?

      --
      An enigma, wrapped in a riddle, shrouded in bacon and cheese
    13. Re:The ONLY Way this should work is... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Exactly, when the question is asked "who will watch the watchers?" the answer isn't expected to be "well, the watchers themselves, of course." It's self defeating (or self promoting would be more accurate).

    14. Re:The ONLY Way this should work is... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      Agreed. As I recall there are recurring problems with dashboard cameras 'loosing' recording as it is.

      OK, usually I just let this go, but dammit, getting sick of it...

      "loose" == opposite of "tight"

      "lose" == opposite of "win"

      English, motherfucker! Do you speak it?

    15. Re:The ONLY Way this should work is... by gl4ss · · Score: 1

      but it only kicks on 30 secs from when he uses it.

      this is not two way surveillance. this is "evidence from things I want evidence about" for the copper.

      --
      world was created 5 seconds before this post as it is.
    16. Re:The ONLY Way this should work is... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Interesting

      Why NOT up the ante? Police blotters SHOULD be Public Information. Why should be video be any different?
      If someone makes a false accusation, they always were making it publically by telling a cop. In this case, the accusation would be not only public knowledge, but the stakes would be so much higher. If you lie to a cop, you are making not only a false official statement, but you are making a documented false statement. If that is proven to be false, then the party that is lied upon can hang you out to dry.

      The exceptions to government transparency laws MUST be very few and only in very specific instances.
      What government reveals should never be driven by what people want or don't want exposed, public policy should ALWAYS be driven by the fact that government MUST be (enforceably so) transparent.

      i.e. If private info shouldn't be revealed, then public policy should be crafted so that the Government doesn't get it.

    17. Re:The ONLY Way this should work is... by triffid_98 · · Score: 2

      ...and the recurring problems with officers purposely positioning their cars so the dashboard cameras can't see what's going on.

    18. Re:The ONLY Way this should work is... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      but we don't live in medieval times anymore either where it's acceptable to get away with [fl]agrant abuses of power.

      Indeed. We live in modern times where it's acceptable to hide evidence regarding whether or not you're abusing power.

    19. Re:The ONLY Way this should work is... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Appeasement isn't a very sound foreign policy either, Prime Minister Chamberlain...

    20. Re:The ONLY Way this should work is... by Jah-Wren+Ryel · · Score: 1

      Let's think about this for a second, lets say you were falsely arrested for rape, it happens EVERY day thanks to a certain breed of woman, would you really want that footage to immediately be uploaded for the public's viewing? Probably not.

      Is the video of the arrest any worse than the public record of your arrest permanently attached to your name?

      --
      When information is power, privacy is freedom.
    21. Re:The ONLY Way this should work is... by triffid_98 · · Score: 1

      OTOH, your own helmet cam should prove you completely innocent when the case goes to trial.

    22. Re:The ONLY Way this should work is... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      ... So I take it you think surrendering to an oppressive aggressor is preferable? Blame them for the wars, not those who would defend themselves.

    23. Re:The ONLY Way this should work is... by The+Grim+Reefer · · Score: 1

      Let's think about this for a second, lets say you were falsely arrested for rape, it happens EVERY day thanks to a certain breed of woman, would you really want that footage to immediately be uploaded for the public's viewing?

      The tape would probably consist of me laughing about the accusation, then politely asking the officer what the result from the rape kit were.

      Oh, you say no rape kit was administered? So, then, what am I being arrested for?

      Yea, don't see where that would be an issue for me (since I'm not a rapist and all).

      And this is about the point when the system "malfunctions" and you resist arrest and have to be subdued with a couple of love taps upside your head with a nightstick. Oh snap! While the officer was cuffing your half conscious ass he found a nontrivial amount of cocaine and an unregistered firearm on your person. Amazingly the video and audio pick up again while he's politely requesting you to "please watch your head sir" while putting into the back of his cruiser.

    24. Re:The ONLY Way this should work is... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Here's the thing - the courts are concerned with the contents of the evidence, the public isn't so restrained.

      That laughing bit you put up there? Unless you can guarantee that's not going to be perceived as a smug I-think-I-got-away-with-it reaction, then be prepared for character assassination. Ever here of "convicted in the court of public opinion"?

    25. Re:The ONLY Way this should work is... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I hate it when vagrants abuse their power. They do it in such a flagrant way.

      my sides!!!

    26. Re:The ONLY Way this should work is... by Holi · · Score: 1

      As an American I have to ask, When was the last time we were defending ourselves?

      --
      Sorry, teleporters just kill you and then make a copy. A perfect, soul-less copy.
    27. Re:The ONLY Way this should work is... by Nadaka · · Score: 2

      We need a serious Ombudsman organization here in the US. People who represent the people against the abuse of authority and have to power to take on the police and force them to respect the law and the rights of the people.

    28. Re:The ONLY Way this should work is... by Minwee · · Score: 1

      Appeasement isn't a very sound foreign policy either, Prime Minister Chamberlain...

      I know that quote! John F. Kennedy, October 28, 1962, right?

    29. Re:The ONLY Way this should work is... by Trick414 · · Score: 1

      The device is always recording. When the officer activates it, it starts recording audio and video immediately. It also grabs the 30 seconds of video prior to activation.

    30. Re:The ONLY Way this should work is... by Nadaka · · Score: 1

      I think we should up the ante. Any officer found guilty of infringing the rights of the people he is sworn to protect should be executed for treason.

    31. Re:The ONLY Way this should work is... by Hatta · · Score: 1

      Let's think about this for a second, lets say you were falsely arrested for rape, it happens EVERY day thanks to a certain breed of woman, would you really want that footage to immediately be uploaded for the public's viewing? Probably not.

      I'll take my chances getting tried in the court of public opinion, if it means the cop that kicks my ass gets tried in an actual court and sent to prison.

      --
      Give me Classic Slashdot or give me death!
    32. Re:The ONLY Way this should work is... by jklovanc · · Score: 1

      I guess you missed Mahatma Gandhi who freed an entire country without violence. Countering violence with violence fails many times as well. Just look at the War on Terror. That does not seem to be working to well.

    33. Re:The ONLY Way this should work is... by Obfuscant · · Score: 2

      What government reveals should never be driven by what people want or don't want exposed,

      In some parts of the world the government serves the people, not the other way around. At least, it is supposed to. To claim that what the people want is irrelevant is, well, pushing us further towards the upside down model that people here seem to dislike.

      Since the police are often involved with people in ways that would be violations of privacy should a normal person do it (such as execution of a search warrant), then there are clear and compelling reasons why "all video of everything they do" should NOT be the rule regarding what is made public.

      Even just allowing an officer into your house to discuss an issue would result in a video of the interior of your house available online for everyone to view. Now, I suppose you could take a hard line and say "if you don't want your privacy violated like that, don't allow officers into your house", but people who need a burglary investigated might call you callous and, frankly, a moron. The idea that private discussions with a cop need to be held in police headquarters if you don't want your personal space videod and online is also rather moronic.

    34. Re:The ONLY Way this should work is... by jklovanc · · Score: 0

      WW2, Cuban Missile Crisis, Iraq wars (the US economy would have been ruined if oil was cut off), Afghanistan (decreasing terrorist attacks on US soil). Defending does not always mean preventing enemies from taking your land.

    35. Re:The ONLY Way this should work is... by Grygus · · Score: 2

      Everyone is always defending themselves, that's the magic of combining Selfishness with Point-of-View.

    36. Re:The ONLY Way this should work is... by steveg · · Score: 1

      It kicks on 30 seconds *before* he uses it. Presumably it's recording all the time but throwing everything older than 30 seconds away, up until the time it's triggered.

      Or are you concerned that it doesn't store everything? That's a reasonable concern, but constant recording might have some practical problems, like storage capacity or how to find significant footage in amongst the donuts.

      --
      Ignorance killed the cat. Curiosity was framed.
    37. Re:The ONLY Way this should work is... by Obfuscant · · Score: 1

      Is the video of the arrest any worse than the public record of your arrest permanently attached to your name?

      Yes.

      And the video of your questioning prior to the arrest is much worse than the report of that questioning that says only that "subject is not a person of interest due to alibi and lack of motive".

      "Hey, look Martha, ain't that our next door neighbor sitting in the chair at the cop shop being in-terry-gated for those local robberies? I always said he was up to no good... let's go key his car to show him we don't want none of his kind around here..."

    38. Re:The ONLY Way this should work is... by therealkevinkretz · · Score: 1

      Whether or not you think it's wrong that arrests are public record - they are. They are regardless of the arrestee's innocence or guilt. So no, that's not a good reason to not allow public access to things that are publicly accessible.

      I agree that some police departments have proven to be unfixably corrupt. They are in a small minority, though. To think that a new federal agency would either have the authority to regulate state and local police departments (they don't) or that it would be effective (it wouldn't) would be a mistake.

    39. Re:The ONLY Way this should work is... by Immerman · · Score: 1

      What ever do you mean? At this very moment we're in Iraq defending our petroleum-related profits and preventing those dastardly Chinese from being able to make a better offer as an oil pipeline route.

      --
      --- Most topics have many sides worth arguing, allow me to take one opposite you.
    40. Re:The ONLY Way this should work is... by Capt.DrumkenBum · · Score: 2

      Afghanistan (decreasing terrorist attacks on US soil).

      I think you mean increasing, not decreasing.
      You might want to consider that most of the people throughout the works who hate America, do so for VERY good reasons.

      --
      If I were God, wouldn't I protect my churches from acts of me?
    41. Re:The ONLY Way this should work is... by Obfuscant · · Score: 1
      And if the cop didn't "kick your ass" but simply investigated the false charges, you'd be perfectly happy with your frank discussion of the night you spent with "that certain breed of woman", including details of who consented to what and when, appearing online for your current girlfriend/wife/children/employer/friends to see?

      You're ok with that because of the slim chance that you'll get beaten up by police and want the video to prosecute that?

    42. Re:The ONLY Way this should work is... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      WOW! Dumbass. I was accused of rape by my fucktard ex girlfriend, Andrea. Her "rape kit" showed no sign of forced sex. I was charged anyway. Not with rape. But with sexual assault.

      Thankfully, my lawyers dragged it out for a year and the lying cunt's story changed enough the charges were dropped. Your snarky remark about rape kits wouldn't play out that way in real life.

    43. Re:The ONLY Way this should work is... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      The original complaint was against the video being uploaded for everyone to see.
      You are only making a better case for all the video to be uploaded all the time.

    44. Re:The ONLY Way this should work is... by dkleinsc · · Score: 4, Interesting

      Or strategically moving to a location where the camera can't see. For example, look up the dashboard footage of the shooting of John T Williams in Seattle: SPD officer Ian Burke sees Williams committing the heinous crime of walking across a street, yells at him to stop, leaves the camera frame, and then shoots Williams 4 times in the back and side. In the ensuing investigation, Burke successfully claimed self defense and avoided all criminal responsibility, even though he was the only person at the scene who did anything remotely violent. This even though the eyewitnesses (including one that courageously confronted Burke immediately) said that Williams presented no danger to them or to Burke.

      --
      I am officially gone from /. Long live http://www.soylentnews.com/
    45. Re:The ONLY Way this should work is... by Obfuscant · · Score: 1

      Whether or not you think it's wrong that arrests are public record - ... no, that's not a good reason to not allow public access to things that are publicly accessible.

      I'm sorry, but when did "speaking to a citizen" (the language of the summary) become "arrests"? Do you really think that every interaction the police have with people is just to arrest them? How do they know who to arrest if they don't speak to the victims and witnesses, none of whom apparently deserve any privacy or respect from you. Why should the video of a knifing victim, for example, taken by the cop's helmet cam be made public? How about that fresh murder scene with the body still there? Would you say that the video of the cop delivering a baby, taken from the perspective of a helmet cam, also be made public? Would you want a video of your wife in such a situation out on the web?

      And before you say "don't take the video", you better know that the video WILL be taken in such interactions just to protect the cop from later charges of improper or incorrect actions.

    46. Re:The ONLY Way this should work is... by Culture20 · · Score: 2

      Better than a fragrant way...

    47. Re:The ONLY Way this should work is... by Culture20 · · Score: 1

      FCC, you can thank them for your [TV] not blowing our your ear drums when your TV switches to commercial.

      I thought Congress had to craft a specific bill about that because the FCC wasn't doing its job in that regard.

    48. Re:The ONLY Way this should work is... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      The tape would probably consist of me laughing about the accusation, then politely asking the officer what the result from the rape kit were.

      If you're being arrested, they're not going to stand there and play "20 questions" with you about it. They have a warrant, they are arresting you, and aren't going to provide you with any of that information until after you're booked and formally charged. You'll need a lawyer to get those answers ahead of time.

      Yea, don't see where that would be an issue for me (since I'm not a rapist and all).

      That guy who let you fuck his ass in the men's room last night? Ya he's telling the cops you raped him now.

    49. Re:The ONLY Way this should work is... by swb · · Score: 1

      The tape would probably consist of me laughing about the accusation, then politely asking the officer what the result from the rape kit were.

      I think that laughing at the police because you're smarter than them thing works well in certain novels and the first 20 minutes of "Law and Order" but in real life seldom works out the way people want.

      At a minimum it gets you put in too-tight handcuffs in the too-small back of a squad car in a position that would bedevil a yoga instructor for a half an hour or longer while the cop and his partner debate who will win the next major sporting championship.

      At worst you get the shit beat out of you and spend a couple of days in jail on resisting charges. And when you're getting revved up to sue, remember the people who hit people professionally know how to do it without leaving the kinds of marks that would impress a jury, especially one trying to explain that his situation occurred when he was being questioned as a rape suspect (a claim that the city attorney will make over and over and over).

      It's all well and good to push back against the cops, but when the rubber hits the road they hold ALL the cards and you want to be all YES SIR, NO SIR respectful or you will wish you had been.

    50. Re:The ONLY Way this should work is... by cold+fjord · · Score: 1

      War pretty much ended fascist rule in Europe in the 1940s, and the holding of slaves in the United States in the 1860s.

      Both Europe and the United States seemed to have prospered since.

      --
      much of left-wing thought is a kind of playing with fire by people who don't even know that fire is hot - George Orwell
    51. Re:The ONLY Way this should work is... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      That was an impressive display of massive ignorance on so many topics in just one post. Thanks!

    52. Re:The ONLY Way this should work is... by FuzzNugget · · Score: 1

      Wow, one of the few times you'll actually see Slashdot promoting more government... I mean, I get what you're saying, the watchers shouldn't be the ones watching the watchers, but how will yet another department solve the problem? We've seen damn-near total collusion between the police, procecutors' offices and the courts, why would you expect a "department of police oversight" to be any different?

    53. Re:The ONLY Way this should work is... by CanHasDIY · · Score: 0

      Why don't you let your balls drop before making any more arguments boy? :)

      The maturity level of this response makes one question whether or not yours have, as a matter of medical reality (i.e., surely anyone old enough for their testes to have descended would be smart enough to come up with a better insult).

      You have no understanding of any law it seems, or the fact that in a rape case you're guilty until proven innocent based on the female's statement.

      Sounds like something a rapist would say. Personally, I prefer to let the rule of law prevail, and in our society accusations must be backed with evidence. Just because you weren't smart enough to request the results of the rape kit* prior to submitting yourself to custody has no bearing on the reality of law.

      * unless you really are a rapist, in which case I can understand not wanting the rape kit evidence brought to light.

      Regulatory agencies sometimes work

      Yea, and every once in a while a blind sow finds a truffle. What's your point?

      you can thank them for your meat (largely) not having salmonella, or not blowing our your ear drums when your TV switches to commercial.

      Actually, I have the local farmers who I know personally to thank for the quality of my meats, and I do on a regular basis; they're great people. As for the TV volume issue, I have a feeling that even without the FCC there would not only be methods of evening out volumes, but that the market would self regulate, in that commercials that were offensively loud would be switched off, thus limiting the reach of the advertisement (while not a marketing goon myself, I understand how human nature interacts with a capitalist market... really, it's elementary stuff if you actually have the mental capacity to consider it).

      Of course you're probably just going to reply with some dumbass remark that makes no fuckin sense, so... have at it!

      Nah, you seem to have a monopoly on that market, and I have no intention of usurping your dominance. Cheers.

      --
      An enigma, wrapped in a riddle, shrouded in bacon and cheese
    54. Re:The ONLY Way this should work is... by The+Grim+Reefer · · Score: 1

      The original complaint was against the video being uploaded for everyone to see. You are only making a better case for all the video to be uploaded all the time.

      It doesn't matter. As long as the person being monitored has physical access to the equipment, it will not be reliable. I suspect it will take about 2 hours after this is implemented until you will be able to order jamming equipment to screw with it. And less than a week until someone finds a way to receive the data that shouldn't and perhaps another week until a different video stream can be sent in place of the one on the camera.

    55. Re:The ONLY Way this should work is... by Obfuscant · · Score: 1

      As an American I have to ask, When was the last time we were defending ourselves?

      Yes, yes, a thousand times yes. The only reason for US involvement anywhere is if we ourselves are in personal danger. The hell with allies or the powerless who seek our aid in ridding themselves of oppression. We got ours, they should get theirs on their own.

      It's a shame we didn't apply that isolationist policy in WWI and WWII. Japan would have been secure in knowing we would not interfere with their plans for China and we wouldn't have been drawn into defending ourselves in the Pacific. The equivalent to the exceptionally wonderful EU would have existed by 1945, and there would be no question of whether Turkey could join or not. They wouldn't want to, but they'd "join" anyway. Serves them right -- after all, who names an empire after a foot stool? There wouldn't have been decades of the "East/West Germany" problem. Greece wouldn't be allowed to go bankrupt. There would be no Israel to have to worry about, and Palestinians would have a true Motherland. The UN wouldn't be sucking up so much prime New York City land because we wouldn't be a part of that.

      Yes. Isolationism is the way to go. We'll get off your front lawn as long as you stay off ours and we won't care whose front lawns you are on or what you do there.

    56. Re:The ONLY Way this should work is... by CanHasDIY · · Score: 1

      WOW! Dumbass. I was accused of rape by my fucktard ex girlfriend, Andrea. Her "rape kit" showed no sign of forced sex. I was charged anyway. Not with rape. But with sexual assault.

      Those are two separate charges, and you've unwittingly proven my point - when the rape kit showed no signs of forced intercourse, the rape charges were dropped.

      --
      An enigma, wrapped in a riddle, shrouded in bacon and cheese
    57. Re:The ONLY Way this should work is... by cold+fjord · · Score: 1

      American forces withdrew from Iraq several years ago.

      The Chinese already enjoy the major benefit of Iraq's oil.

      China Is Reaping Biggest Benefits of Iraq Oil Boom

       

      --
      much of left-wing thought is a kind of playing with fire by people who don't even know that fire is hot - George Orwell
    58. Re:The ONLY Way this should work is... by Culture20 · · Score: 1

      Randomize that 30 seconds up to several hours or just leave the recording on at all times, otherwise you'll have cops counting to 30-mississippi before turning on their cameras after doing something naughty. Better yet, have dispatch or a third party turn their cameras on.

    59. Re:The ONLY Way this should work is... by CanHasDIY · · Score: 1

      The tape would probably consist of me laughing about the accusation, then politely asking the officer what the result from the rape kit were.

      If you're being arrested, they're not going to stand there and play "20 questions" with you about it.

      Considering the bulk of your response, I'm going to go out on a limb and guess that your interactions with cops have been less than pleasant due to your own attitude and response to their inquiries.

      A piece of advice: when interacting with police officers, you get a lot more consideration if you're polite and congenial; "Fuck you pig" doesn't earn you a lot of friends in law enforcement.

      --
      An enigma, wrapped in a riddle, shrouded in bacon and cheese
    60. Re:The ONLY Way this should work is... by fredprado · · Score: 1

      He didn't free anything, my friend. UK gradually lost political and economic interest in India. That granted them independence, not any pacifist sweet talk. Had UK still interests in India it would only achieve independence through blood war, just like US.

    61. Re:The ONLY Way this should work is... by Obfuscant · · Score: 2

      Personally, I prefer to let the rule of law prevail, and in our society accusations must be backed with evidence.

      Actually, no, they don't. Accusations need only an accuser. Conviction is supposed to require evidence, but "beyond a reasonable doubt" depends a lot on who is accusing and how believable they are compared to you.

      Your statement that you would laugh at the accusations of rape makes you look to the people investigating the accusation like you think rape is something funny, and that is how it would be presented to the jury if it got that far. "This person thinks that the rape of a woman is something to laugh at." "Uhh, no, wait, I was laughing at the thought that I would do such a thing... really, that's what I was laughing at."

    62. Re:The ONLY Way this should work is... by cold+fjord · · Score: 1

      No, it is decreasing, at least from its potential at the time. The US managed to head off a number of major terrorist attacks. Al Qaida decided to cancel others on their own.

      There are people around the world that have their own agenda unrelated to American actions. This includes Al Qaida. If Europeans hadn't defeated the invading Turk armies at the gates of Vienna, this wouldn't have been a problem. You would probably already be Muslim. As it is, they plan to keep fighting until they reestablish the Caliphate dissolved in 1923, conquer the world, and convert the world to Islam. If you aren't a Muslim now, you or your descendants will be in their crosshairs unless they are defeated.

      The Future of Terrorism: What al-Qaida Really Wants

      --
      much of left-wing thought is a kind of playing with fire by people who don't even know that fire is hot - George Orwell
    63. Re:The ONLY Way this should work is... by Required+Snark · · Score: 2
      The Bakersfield Calif Sheriffs Department killed a man while taking him into custody. Witnesses alleged that excessive force was used.

      http://www.latimes.com/local/lanow/la-me-ln-kern-sheriff-fbi-beating-death-20130514,0,7559565.story

      http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/05/15/david-silva-police_n_3280663.html

      One woman frantically called 911, telling the operator: "The guy was laying on the floor and eight sheriffs ran up and started beating him up with sticks. The man is dead laying right here, right now. I got it all on video camera and I'm sending it to the news. These cops have no reason to do this to this man."

      Two cellphones were confiscated by the sheriffs. Although they did get search warrants, they effectively held the witnesses with the video hostage until they gave up the phones. The warrants were not issued until after the cellphones were in police possession. When the cellphones were returned, one of the videos had been deleted. The owners of the cellphones said they watched both videos and at least one other person saw them as well.

      Because of the obvious conflict of interest, the FBI is looking at the case. They also examined the cell phones. They have not made any statements so far.

      Kern County just paid out $4.5 million for a very similar beating death that occurred in 2010. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kern_County_Sheriff's_Department

      You don't need a crystal ball to know how this will turn out. There will be an internal review that will "exonerate", i.e. whitewash, the cops and no charges or internal disciplinary actions will occur. The family will sue and get a big settlement. It will be resolved without going to trial, so there will be no transparency. The sheriffs office will maintain that they acted professionally and obeyed the law. A statement identical to this one will be issued: "Chief Deputy County Counsel Mark Nations says the jury's findings and the amount awarded to the family are excessive." That was the response to the settlement that was just awarded.

      Every cop in California knows about this. They now have a new number one priority: destroying cellphone video evidence of anything they do. Don't be surprised when cops start attacking and arresting people with cellphones so they can delete videos.

      If you record the police acting badly, leave the scene as quickly as possible. Upload the video and/or take it to the local news immediately. The people recording in this case thought that by calling 911 and telling the dispatcher about their recording that it would stop the beating and save a life. The actual result was that the officers involved will literally get away with murder.

      --
      Why is Snark Required?
    64. Re:The ONLY Way this should work is... by Obfuscant · · Score: 1

      when the rape kit showed no signs of forced intercourse, the rape charges were dropped.

      Here's a clue. Consensual sex would show up on a rape kit, too, and there's no way to know the difference. "I didn't protest or fight back because he said he'd kill me if I did ... I did say 'no'..."

      But congratulations, your interrogation is now on You Tube for everyone to watch, and the part about the charges being dropped, well, that didn't happen until later so it's not in that video. Still happy with the video being made public?

    65. Re:The ONLY Way this should work is... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I guess you missed Mahatma Gandhi who freed an entire country without violence. Countering violence with violence fails many times as well. Just look at the War on Terror. That does not seem to be working to well.

      The war on terror isn't a war to end violence. It's an government stimulus plan.

    66. Re:The ONLY Way this should work is... by Genda · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Time and time again its been shown that the very act of policing changes human behavior, the impact it has on human psychology is profound and predictable. People who are responsible for "controlling", "managing" or "policing" groups of people that have been psychologically "Othered", tend to use unacceptable force, show dramatic loss of sympathy, empathy and compassion, and in general commit the kind nasty primate behavior we all have taboos against doing in normal polite society.

      The requirement is to first weed sociopaths and psychopaths out of police work, not doing that is a recipe for disaster. Next police education should include STRONG training in human behavior with a healthy shot of brain science and an appreciation for how the human brain (and its impact on the human mind) is impacted by a steady diet of "Keeping the Bad Guys at bay." There should be regular counseling, absolutely should be recorded police behavior, if nothing else to get a better handle on keeping our police mentally healthy and operationally effective. By the way, the police don't happen in a vacuum. The same ultra moralistic, hyper vigilant, religious rite (spelling intended) American subcultures that have put express lanes on their death rows and don't even blink twice at the fact that they've done a piss pour job of sorting the innocent from the guilty (the common heard refrain is let Gawd sort them out), leads to police that shoot first and worry about your human rights maybe later? I'm not saying that a New York officer who decides to break a broom handle off in some poor innocent Haitian's rectum isn't an atrocity deserving of some version of human life sacrifice. I am saying that there seem to be entire regions of the U.S. where public attitudes point to seriously questionable ethics and commonly result in atrocious behavior as common course, particularly by authorities.

      Others have mentioned public Ombudsman Programs, awesome ideas. Recording people's behavior to enhance accountability, equally awesome. Holding society at large to greater responsibility, makes me tear up with happiness. We get the services we manage, and take accountability for. No accountability, no service (or worse, disservice.) Most of all, we train people to be great. We explain that correction isn't being judged as wrong, its the control process required to get anything from point A to point B (its simply steering.) Treat the police great, their work is difficult, dangerous and seldom appreciated. Manage their humanity, the good, the bad and the ugly. Take care of them, so they can take care of us. By the way, while you're getting the police perfect, you also want to start working on the political system, education, public sector employees, the legal justice system and doctors.

      We've pretty much proven self regulation is virtually no regulation at all. I welcome the day we have an IBM Watson for the general administration of large professional/government bodies. By all means leave the disposition of people to people, but put a computer in the mix looking out for misconduct and dirty deeds done cheap . Adding that and systemic transparency suggests a golden age of rational human services right around the corner! And yes, expect foot dragging, nobody willing relinquishes control.

    67. Re:The ONLY Way this should work is... by BasilBrush · · Score: 2

      The tape would probably consist of me laughing about the accusation, then politely asking the officer what the result from the rape kit were.

      Unfortunately such confidence can only be displayed by someone who never has sex with anybody. That's why you got modded insightful for it on Slashdot.

    68. Re:The ONLY Way this should work is... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      this is what the courts and legislature are for Unfortunately, the courts are historically unwilling to allow civilian access to "government" monitoring, and the legislature is too willing to fund the monitoring but not provide any means or procedures to provide public access. I've run across this repeatedly when traveling, when airport or bus surveillance would reveal who walked away with or damaged my equipment, but they were utterly unwilling to provide access except to police, who could not be bothered to request the footage.

    69. Re:The ONLY Way this should work is... by Hatta · · Score: 1

      I expect the slim chance of me getting my ass kicked by police is a lot fatter than the slim chance of me getting falsely accused of rape. And I'm secure enough in my relationship that false allegations don't threaten me at all. Maybe your significant other doesn't trust you, but I shouldn't be at risk of police beatings because of your relationship problems.

      --
      Give me Classic Slashdot or give me death!
    70. Re:The ONLY Way this should work is... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Appeasement isn't a very sound foreign policy either, Prime Minister Chamberlain...

      I know that quote! John F. Kennedy, October 28, 1962, right?

      A day which will live in Infamy.

    71. Re:The ONLY Way this should work is... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Yea, always hear that - only a few cops are dirty, and give the rest a bad name. To that, I say - Bull-fucking-shit; if a 'good' cop sees a bad cop doing bad things and breaking the law, and doesn't immediately arrest the other officer, then the 'good' cop is just as fucked, just as wrong as the cop breaking the law. Period, end of story. It's like if you stopped at a gas station with a friend, who proceeded to get out of your car, walk in the station, steal the money from the till, and get back in your car. According to the law, YOU are just as guilty as your 'friend' for aiding and abetting his crime; why should cops, who are supposed to uphold the law, be treated any differently?

      But it's the society that's fucked up, not the policemen. The US has a seriously fucked up society that feeds the lawyers and perverts the law enforcement, and creates a lot of criminals.

    72. Re:The ONLY Way this should work is... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Yep, the same way the USA lost political and economic interest in Vietnam, and just packed up and left...

    73. Re:The ONLY Way this should work is... by Obfuscant · · Score: 1

      but I shouldn't be at risk of police beatings because of your relationship problems.

      You aren't in danger based on any of your hypothetical musings about my relationships.

      And I'm secure enough in my relationship that false allegations don't threaten me at all.

      I'm a potential employer. I see the video of you being interrogated about the rape. I'm your child. My friends show me and laugh. I'm your lawyer and I thank you for helping me put my kids through college. And for a boat. Thanks for being secure.

      I expect the slim chance of me getting my ass kicked by police is a lot fatter than the slim chance of me getting falsely accused of rape.

      At the point the false accusation has been made, your chance of being falsely accused is now 100% and your chance of being beaten is still less than 1. I guess you being happy with your interrogation over a false charge being immediately available to the public should cancel out all my concerns about privacy.

    74. Re:The ONLY Way this should work is... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Not to say that Burke was innocent, but you conveniently left out that Williams was holding a knife at the time of the confrontation.

    75. Re:The ONLY Way this should work is... by Blue+Stone · · Score: 1

      The real problem there is that the State is corrupt, and is happy to arbitrarily execute its people.

      It's a level of rottenness that goes much deeper than anything a camera will fix.

      --
      Corporation, n. An ingenious device for obtaining individual profit without individual responsibility. - Ambrose Bierce
    76. Re:The ONLY Way this should work is... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      A cop is a public employee on public business and the public should have total access to all information at all times. The percentage of rogue or rotten cops is much higher than the public suspects. There are many wonderful cops so don't get me wrong. But to suppose that 25% are off the wall, corrupt or mentally ill is pretty real in many cities.
                                As for arrested for rape that means that the cops had some evidence that a complaint had at least some evidence behind it. Interviewed is quite different than arrested. I don't know whether we should care about some mullet head who thinks that an interview points to guilt as obviously if there is an interview and no arrest takes place the complaint is invalid.
                                In the past few years police radio transmissions have become more and more difficult to access by the public. They justify this as required for tactical purposes but frankly it probably needs to be totally open as well. There is a great deal of crime that is hidden in order not to panic the public. People being randomly shot by some idiot driving about in your neighborhood is very much your business and that information frequently is never reported to anyone in any way in real time or much later.

    77. Re:The ONLY Way this should work is... by tlhIngan · · Score: 1

      Let's think about this for a second, lets say you were falsely arrested for rape, it happens EVERY day thanks to a certain breed of woman, would you really want that footage to immediately be uploaded for the public's viewing?

      The tape would probably consist of me laughing about the accusation, then politely asking the officer what the result from the rape kit were.

      Oh, you say no rape kit was administered? So, then, what am I being arrested for?

      Yea, don't see where that would be an issue for me (since I'm not a rapist and all).

      You realize that sexual assault is one crime that you can be accused of and never be acquitted?

      It doesn't matter if the justice system throws out the charges. Once you're accused, you're guilty. Maybe not in a formal court of law, but in the court of public opinion.

      And your laughter will probably be taken as some sort of smug response as in "oh look, he really did it! He's laughing it off!". (In fact, there's NO response you can do that won't be found as "you're guilty").

      False accusations of sexual assault have killed careers and destroyed families and many have had to move in order to at least begin life afresh (though, thanks to the Internet...).

    78. Re:The ONLY Way this should work is... by Hatta · · Score: 1

      You aren't in danger based on any of your hypothetical musings about my relationships.

      If your fears prevent constant recording of police, I stand a higher risk of being assaulted by them, since they know they can get away with it.

      At the point the false accusation has been made, your chance of being falsely accused is now 100% and your chance of being beaten is still less than 1.

      And after you've been beaten by the police, the chance of you having been beaten by police is 1. What does that have to do with anything?

      I guess you being happy with your interrogation over a false charge being immediately available to the public should cancel out all my concerns about privacy.

      Assault is far more serious than an invasion of privacy.

      --
      Give me Classic Slashdot or give me death!
    79. Re:The ONLY Way this should work is... by fredprado · · Score: 1

      Nope USA never had economical interest in Vietnam. From the start it was a political proxy war between the two power blocks in the cold war.

      On the other hand, British domination over India had very strong economical motives. After WWII UK was devastated and trying to pick its pieces together. It couldn't force control over a country as big as India anymore. India become independent simply because UK couldn't afford trying to control it anymore. And after UK recovered it wasn't viable, conducive to UK political interests or even possible to try and enforce rule over India again.

    80. Re:The ONLY Way this should work is... by Shaman · · Score: 1

      [quote] It'd also make being a cop even tougher, so its a shame a few bad apples have to spoil the bunch[/quote]

      I'm not sure what country you live in. In the countries I live in and have visited, the cops are typically the worst of society and regularly break the law with impudence.

      --
      ...Steve
    81. Re:The ONLY Way this should work is... by Obfuscant · · Score: 1

      If your fears prevent constant recording of police,

      You're creating a fictional "relationship issue" to use as an excuse, and that's your problem, not mine. My "fears" are called "the right to privacy", which includes privacy when I have a police officer in my house investigating a crime I've reported. That you're happy having every interaction with the cops uploaded to You Tube as soon as they happen, well, that's also your problem and should not become mine.

      Assault is far more serious than an invasion of privacy.

      You do realize that they'll simply do it with the camera lens obscured, while the invasion of privacy will happen any time they interact with a citizen in any way. Maybe you don't care. If you are that scared of the cops, maybe you should ... I dunno. "Trod upon the rights of your fellow citizens" isn't the option I was looking for.

    82. Re:The ONLY Way this should work is... by Crudely_Indecent · · Score: 1

      You, sir, are awesome!

      --


      "Lame" - Galaxar
    83. Re:The ONLY Way this should work is... by AmiMoJo · · Score: 1

      How on earth is that response "assured"? You could quite easily end up making it much worse for yourself.

      --
      const int one = 65536; (Silvermoon, Texture.cs)
      SJW, n: "Someone I don't like, and by the way I'm a fuckwit" - AC
    84. Re:The ONLY Way this should work is... by amRadioHed · · Score: 2

      Obviously the officer shouldn't have shot John Williams, but how is this an example of an officer strategically moving off camera? He was already off camera when he first tried telling the guy to put the knife down because that's where the guy was. There's nothing unusual about him being off camera in this case.

      --
      We hope your rules and wisdom choke you / Now we are one in everlasting peace
    85. Re:The ONLY Way this should work is... by briancox2 · · Score: 1

      With the increase of surveillance, I resist having the knee-jerk reaction to completely stop it. After all, technology is rarely stopped completely because of ethical concerns.

      Instead, the solution to prevent the ethical concerns brought about are to embrace the technology. We could also add surveillance of all government offices and complete public access of all surveillance not part of a criminal investigation to the Bill of Rights. That would be a truly free society.

      --
      We should learn what we need to know about issues, before we decide what we need to feel about them.
    86. Re:The ONLY Way this should work is... by avandesande · · Score: 1

      I like having the camera maintaining a buffer and then saving it when it 'hears' a gunshot.

      --
      love is just extroverted narcissism
    87. Re:The ONLY Way this should work is... by ArcadeX · · Score: 0

      First requirement would be to find more money to accomplish all this. Just paying cops better would bring more capable people in.

      --
      An I.T. motto in the hands of an idiot is a dangerous thing...
    88. Re:The ONLY Way this should work is... by Raenex · · Score: 1

      As long as the person being monitored has physical access to the equipment, it will not be reliable.

      Such a convenient dropout would be room for reasonable doubt, especially if there was a pattern of this kind of malfunction. Also combine that with "two-way" surveillance, where the citizens routinely video tape and upload, and there would be much less routine bullshit.

    89. Re:The ONLY Way this should work is... by Raenex · · Score: 1

      Your arrest and trial for rape would be public record anyways. What's this big deal about the cop interview video? And the answer to any questions about rape or any other crime from a cop is, "I have been advised to never talk to the police without a lawyer, and invoke my right to remain silent."

    90. Re:The ONLY Way this should work is... by Raenex · · Score: 1

      Not to say that Burke was innocent, but you conveniently left out that Williams was holding a knife at the time of the confrontation.

      I hate it when these assholes always leave out essential details to make their case look worse than it is. (I'm quoting from the Anon, but replying to the original asshole).

    91. Re:The ONLY Way this should work is... by Anubis+IV · · Score: 1

      Also, change

      Footage is then uploaded to a cloud-based service where it can be accessed by the police department

      to

      Footage is then uploaded to a cloud-based service where it can be accessed by the public

      Two words: domestic disturbance.

      Police officers are regularly in private residences or other such locations, and releasing videos they take in those private areas would frequently be entirely inappropriate. If there's a domestic disturbance call, they may step into the residence and see a victim in a bloodied and humiliated state that the victim would prefer never be seen by the public. And you can't forget about murders either. Few people want images of their spouse's, parent's, or child's death to become fodder for public consumption. We definitely want those videos to exist so that they can be used as evidence, but those videos should not be made publicly available on a routine basis.

      Decency concerns aside, there's also the practical side of it. Thieves and other ne'er-do-wells would be mining it as an information source for the best houses to target, since the police would effectively be doing the legwork of casing the places for them. Even if you don't invite the police officer inside, they'd still be able to see plenty of stuff from the front door, and they'd be able to both cover more ground and do so far less suspiciously than a "door-to-door salesman" whose visits were followed up by burglaries a few weeks later and whose face at least some of the people would remember.

      No, thank you.

    92. Re:The ONLY Way this should work is... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      And you conveniently left out it was a pocketknife he was using to whittle. He wasn't threatening anyone with it.

    93. Re:The ONLY Way this should work is... by Archangel+Michael · · Score: 1

      Can you cite a single instance of this happening, even remotely like this? If not, you're completely delusional about how often it occurs.

      You think cops carry random amounts of drugs at all times, and unlicensed untraceable guns too? You might want to seek professional help.

      --
      Agent K: A *person* is smart. People are dumb, stupid, panicky animals, and you know it.
    94. Re:The ONLY Way this should work is... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Let's think about this for a second, lets say you were falsely arrested for rape, it happens EVERY day thanks to a certain breed of woman, would you really want that footage to immediately be uploaded for the public's viewing? Probably not.

      Considering that arrests are already publicized in newspapers, yes. I don't see how any further harm could come from a video record.

    95. Re:The ONLY Way this should work is... by Qzukk · · Score: 1

      Just because you weren't smart enough to request the results of the rape kit

      They'll have the results back just as soon as you provide some DNA to them, which they're now authorized to collect on your arrest.

      --
      If I have been able to see further than others, it is because I bought a pair of binoculars.
    96. Re:The ONLY Way this should work is... by Qzukk · · Score: 2
      --
      If I have been able to see further than others, it is because I bought a pair of binoculars.
    97. Re:The ONLY Way this should work is... by The+Grim+Reefer · · Score: 2

      Can you cite a single instance of this happening, even remotely like this? If not, you're completely delusional about how often it occurs.

      It all depends on where you live I suppose:

      http://www.truth-out.org/news/item/4558:former-narcotics-detective-admits-drug-planting-common

      http://www.ocweekly.com/2006-11-09/news/training-day/

      http://rt.com/usa/planting-utica-car-pocket-215/

      http://www.nytimes.com/2011/11/02/nyregion/brooklyn-detective-convicted-of-planting-drugs-on-innocent-people.html

      http://www.copblock.org/1059/a-cop-planting-a-crack-pipe-caught-on-video-was-just-a-prank/

      You think cops carry random amounts of drugs at all times, and unlicensed untraceable guns too? You might want to seek professional help.

      No, not all do. But ones in shitty areas do more than either of us would like to believe. Just do a simple Google search for police planting evidence. I've worked with law enforcement in the past and was friends with many cops. For the most part they are decent people. But their are always exceptions. Acting like a cocky little shit like the poster I was replying to is a sure fire way to find out what kind of officer you are dealing with. How do you think the officer in this video would react to it:

      http://lukescorner.net/video/police-caught-threatening-to-beat-and-plant-drugs-on-man

      I don't think anywhere near a majority of officers do. But if you are in a shitty area of NY or LA, you can bet your ass they are there. If you don't think so, you better seek professional help in removing your head from your ass.

    98. Re:The ONLY Way this should work is... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Herp derp. I'm Archangel Michael. I think the government is bad and abuses its power.

      But not the police! They're a Force For Good(tm)! And not the armed forces either! They're also a Force For Good(tm)!

      It would be easier to take you seriously if you'd choose a principle and stick to it.

    99. Re:The ONLY Way this should work is... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      > Nope USA never had economical interest in Vietnam.

      Uh, that was sarcasm you're giving a straight reply to.

    100. Re:The ONLY Way this should work is... by fredprado · · Score: 1

      If that was sarcasm that was a very poor attempt at that.

    101. Re:The ONLY Way this should work is... by fredprado · · Score: 1

      Not really. Submission to aggression leads only to further abuse. Fighting back even if unsuccessfully is always better.

    102. Re:The ONLY Way this should work is... by Belial6 · · Score: 1

      He isn't saying that his SO doesn't trust him. He is saying that his SO will find out that her trust is misplaced. I am not arguing for or against by point this out. I am just trying to bring you up to speed on what you are actually replying to.

    103. Re:The ONLY Way this should work is... by Mr.+Freeman · · Score: 1

      Those records are already public! This camera just provides video of the arrest.

      --
      -1 disagree is not a modifier for a reason. -1 troll, flaimbait, redundant, overrated are NOT acceptable substitutes.
    104. Re:The ONLY Way this should work is... by Belial6 · · Score: 1

      Finding the footage is trivial. It isn't like you don't have any idea when the incident happened.

    105. Re:The ONLY Way this should work is... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      The problem is a lot of police officers are from a military background, they were in the service and or served. Police training is also military like, a take "no prisoners" or "no bull sh**" attitude. This has nothing to with society.. If you cannot keep you wits about yourself you should be thrown off the force.

      Police for the most part bitch and moan over what they consider "a waste of there time" they are delusional, I guess they think they will be running into a Bank Robbery, or any shootout, single handed and wipe them out.

      They do not deal with this type of work, and they do not deal with violence in general on a minute by minute bases, the problem isn't society either, anytime you put anyone into a position of power they abuse it, add to that the ability to pretty much do whatever they want, when they want and you see the end result. You can have all the BS human conditioning training you want, which has been in place for years to some degree or another, do to previous abuse of police behavior, the end result still becomes abuse of power.

      I question any study, more so when it comes to police and the impact of society on there behavior, simply because you have too many people that "trust" or are trying to stand up and excuse there behavior. You find the same attitudes in the military, because you want them to be that way, you find soldiers that are respectful and those that flat out hate and hold that anger.

    106. Re:The ONLY Way this should work is... by sjames · · Score: 1

      That's why citizens should want the cops on camera at all times.

    107. Re:The ONLY Way this should work is... by sjames · · Score: 1

      Yea, don't see where that would be an issue for me (since I'm not a rapist and all).

      The problem is 'rape after the fact'. That is, where after a consentual act, she decide she shouldn't have cheated, or that you aren't her type when she's sober, etc and so it becomes rape. The rape kit won't help you with that one.

    108. Re:The ONLY Way this should work is... by sjames · · Score: 2

      And replaced with 'rape charges lite'. Half as hard to prove but with nearly all of the life destructive power.

    109. Re:The ONLY Way this should work is... by sjames · · Score: 2

      WW2 certainly, we and our allies were after all attacked.

      So, how'd the Bay of Pigs workl out for us?

      Oil from Kuwait? Not more than a drop in the bucket.

      Afghanistan wasn't a problem for us until we started throwing our weight around over there (even more than before).

    110. Re:The ONLY Way this should work is... by AmiMoJo · · Score: 1

      Statistically running is the safest option. Better still don't antagonize people in the first place.

      --
      const int one = 65536; (Silvermoon, Texture.cs)
      SJW, n: "Someone I don't like, and by the way I'm a fuckwit" - AC
    111. Re:The ONLY Way this should work is... by jklovanc · · Score: 1

      The Bay of Pigs was a fiasco because the US president pulled the plug without telling the Cuban counterrevolutionaries.

      Kuwait was the first step or did you forget the appeasement issue in WW2. Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, etc were on the list. It would have been much harder to stop Saddam if Saudi Arabia had fallen before action was taken.

    112. Re:The ONLY Way this should work is... by jklovanc · · Score: 0

      Decreasing the number of terrorist training camps has an impact on the number of trained terrorists available for operations.

    113. Re:The ONLY Way this should work is... by XcepticZP · · Score: 2

      Oh yeah, let's throw money at the problem. That's a brilliant idea, except for the fact that we already throw more than enough money at them. The problem is that it get's wasted way before it gets to the low level peons you call LEOs.

    114. Re:The ONLY Way this should work is... by jklovanc · · Score: 1

      How about the Fall of the Berlin Wall?

      I also think that pictures and reports of beatings and killings of non violent protesters had a part to play in freeing India. The general British public just couldn't associate themselves with such violence so close to the fall of Hitler.

    115. Re:The ONLY Way this should work is... by sjames · · Score: 1

      Iraq barely managed Kuwait. I doubt very much it would have had as much success with Saudi Arabia.

      In any event, what was the excuse for the second Iraq war again?

    116. Re:The ONLY Way this should work is... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Even Winston Churchill admited that a commercial embargo in the early 30's would had prevented WWII. And I say, a sensible discusion on the Versailles Pact in 1929 would have avoided the nazi party AT ALL.

    117. Re:The ONLY Way this should work is... by Hatta · · Score: 1

      My "fears" are called "the right to privacy", which includes privacy when I have a police officer in my house investigating a crime I've reported.

      And how does that affect you in a way that's even remotely as severe as being beaten by the police? "oh no, my dirty kitchen will be on CopTube" is not a serious concern. "oh no, I'm being arrested for assaulting that cop's boot with my face", THAT's a serious concern.

      That you're happy with letting cops get away with police brutality is your problem and should not become mine.

      You do realize that they'll simply do it with the camera lens obscured

      Ah, so because we can never eliminate all police brutality, we should never try to eliminate any? Why does that only work for crimes committed by police?

      "Trod upon the rights of your fellow citizens" isn't the option I was looking for.

      Nor was I. Why are you so eager to trod on our rights to a police force that obeys the law?

      --
      Give me Classic Slashdot or give me death!
    118. Re:The ONLY Way this should work is... by fredprado · · Score: 1

      You can`t always run from violence, and many times you can you have to pay the price of having things taken from you and people you care about harmed. And please, not antagonizing a person who is inflicting physical harm in you is certainly not a very good idea. As you are you would make a great slave, my friend. Learn to man up an stand for yourself.

    119. Re:The ONLY Way this should work is... by fredprado · · Score: 1

      Commercial embargos more often than not start wars, they don't prevent them. Sometimes the threat of receiving greater violence than you are capable of inflicting due to economical limitation does, though. Keeping your potential enemies in the stone age kind of does it too, but you can't really do it to everyone and forever.

    120. Re:The ONLY Way this should work is... by 0111+1110 · · Score: 1

      LEOs are not your friend.

      --
      Quite an experience to live in fear, isn't it? That's what it is to be a slave.
    121. Re:The ONLY Way this should work is... by 0111+1110 · · Score: 1

      At worst you get the shit beat out of you and spend a couple of days in jail on resisting charges

      At worst? Are you serious? Cops murder people on a regular basis for showing disrespect and resisting arrest is the least of the charges you could be facing. Try "assault and battery with a deadly weapon", "heroin possession with the intent to distribute", and many many more. You could be facing 10 years or more in prison. Not 2 days.

      --
      Quite an experience to live in fear, isn't it? That's what it is to be a slave.
    122. Re:The ONLY Way this should work is... by 0111+1110 · · Score: 1

      You mean the helmet cam that was accidentally smashed into little pieces while you were "resisting"?

      --
      Quite an experience to live in fear, isn't it? That's what it is to be a slave.
    123. Re:The ONLY Way this should work is... by Archangel+Michael · · Score: 1

      Reading the first link, it is clear that the cops were crooked, but planting (pun not intended) 600 pot plants on the isn't one of the charges. It is clear that they (the cops) perjured themselves, but planting evidence didn't seem like that was one of the charges. Illegal Search, lack of probable cause etc ....

      Not remotely like planting evidence. Done reading your examples.

      Randomly stopping someone and planting evidence doesn't happen. Targeting people and planting evidence probably does happen. I was referring to the former, not the latter. Making the leap shows lack of logic.

      --
      Agent K: A *person* is smart. People are dumb, stupid, panicky animals, and you know it.
    124. Re:The ONLY Way this should work is... by Archangel+Michael · · Score: 1

      Yeah, because that is exactly what I said. Talk about DERP.

      --
      Agent K: A *person* is smart. People are dumb, stupid, panicky animals, and you know it.
    125. Re:The ONLY Way this should work is... by 0111+1110 · · Score: 1

      The cop who beat me and nearly killed me makes over $70,000 a year or about 4-5 times what I make. I don't think the problem is that the money doesn't reach the thugs with badges. It reaches them just fine.

      --
      Quite an experience to live in fear, isn't it? That's what it is to be a slave.
    126. Re:The ONLY Way this should work is... by therealkevinkretz · · Score: 1

      You're right, all police interaction isn't an arrest, and it all wouldn't be suitable for public observation. But that an interaction is an arrest, or an interview, or a baby delivery, isn't what makes something subject or not subject to public recording. IANAL but the biggest factor in an event being classified that way is where it occurs. Do you lose your expectation of privacy in your home if circumstances arise that permit police to enter without your permission? I don't know. I assume there's more of one in an office than outside in the street - maybe depending if the office is a place of business open to the public. I don't know. Or in a car - do you have an expectation of privacy in a car?

    127. Re:The ONLY Way this should work is... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      For a second I thought you meant the important John T. Williams...

      http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Williams

    128. Re:The ONLY Way this should work is... by Sumtingwong · · Score: 1

      By the way, the police don't happen in a vacuum. The same ultra moralistic, hyper vigilant, religious rite (spelling intended) American subcultures that have put express lanes on their death rows and don't even blink twice at the fact that they've done a piss pour job of sorting the innocent from the guilty (the common heard refrain is let Gawd sort them out), leads to police that shoot first and worry about your human rights maybe later? I'm not saying that a New York officer who decides to break a broom handle off in some poor innocent Haitian's rectum isn't an atrocity deserving of some version of human life sacrifice. I am saying that there seem to be entire regions of the U.S. where public attitudes point to seriously questionable ethics and commonly result in atrocious behavior as common course, particularly by authorities.

      Wow, great generalizations like this certainly need more mod points, especially when they are "insightful."

      --
      Word!
    129. Re:The ONLY Way this should work is... by airdweller · · Score: 1

      So, setting up nuclear missiles in Turkey right by the border of the USSR and invading two countries that never threatened us is equal in your mind to fighting the country that did this http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Results_of_the_attack_on_Pearl_Harbor ... Are you on crack?

    130. Re:The ONLY Way this should work is... by Synerg1y · · Score: 1

      So I argue that people are sometime falsely accused of rape and I get called a rapist? You poor fool... you represent everything that's wrong with the country. Hopefully you can experience it first hand one day.

    131. Re:The ONLY Way this should work is... by Synerg1y · · Score: 1

      Agreed, a corrupt officer would form a pattern where on a report of malfunctions per year or something they'd glare out way above the rest flagging them for further investigation. It's not instant, but its better than the nothing we have now, besides basically peer reviews inside the department.

    132. Re:The ONLY Way this should work is... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Neck beard virgin alert!

    133. Re:The ONLY Way this should work is... by Synerg1y · · Score: 1

      The only time they hold all the cards is when there's no witnesses, they know their word will win. Sometimes its best to make a scene and attract passerbys, people have been known to avoid jail by doing that.

    134. Re:The ONLY Way this should work is... by SirGeek · · Score: 1

      No. That's a bit "harsh", I'd say they're removed from their job and forbidden from ever working in a Public Service or Police position ever again.

    135. Re:The ONLY Way this should work is... by jklovanc · · Score: 1

      Iraq threatened to ruin the US economy by cutting of oil. Afghanistan threatened to harm the US economy by terrorist attacks and did on 9/11. I also never said they were equivalent, just defensive. As for the US putting nuclear weapons in Turkey, I never said everything that the US did was defensive.

    136. Re:The ONLY Way this should work is... by jklovanc · · Score: 1

      If you consider taking over Kuwait in one day barely then you might be right. The Saudi army is tiny It is smaller than 2 divisions. The Republican Guard alone had 4 divisions.

    137. Re:The ONLY Way this should work is... by Nadaka · · Score: 1

      Odd. I find it to be quite generous. A speedy and painless execution for their ultimate crimes. If I wanted to be harsh I would sentence them to a lifetime in the prison general population with the words "BAD COP" tattooed on their forehead.

      Make no mistake, violating ones oath to uphold the constitution and to protect and serve the people makes them just as traitorous as any soldier who does the same by aiding an enemy in a time of war. We are at war, and the rights of the American people are the number one victims.

    138. Re:The ONLY Way this should work is... by sjames · · Score: 1

      Barely in the sense that they couldn't have covered more territory without giving up what they already held or weakening the homeland.

      Look at a map of the middle east. See that tiny bit on the Persian Gulf coast that is too small to have a name on the map? That's Kuwait. Now notice that unlike Kuwait, Saudi Arabi is bigger than Iraq. That would be a lot of territory for Iraq to cover with an invasion force without weakening themselves enough for Iran to roll in and take the homeland.

      Meanwhile, once they invaded Kuwait, the rest of their neighbors went on high alert.

    139. Re:The ONLY Way this should work is... by jklovanc · · Score: 1

      Iraq would not have to take all of Saudi Arabia. They would just need the Gulf coast and oil fields.The republican guard alone could have easily swept aside the Saudi forces and occupied the the important parts of Saudi Arabia.
      Meanwhile, once they invaded Kuwait, the rest of their neighbors went on high alert.

      What neighbors would come to the rescue of Saudi Arabia?

    140. Re:The ONLY Way this should work is... by sjames · · Score: 1

      YOUR post that I was replying to claimed they would have taken over the entire middle east, country by country.

      Now, actually look at the map this time. There's a LOT of gulf coast for SA. Iraq could never have maintaibned a supply line.

      None of the neighbors would go to the rescue of SA, but all would surely defend themselves and Iran would happily have pounced on Iraq at the first show of weakness at home. It wouldn't surprise me if such a show of aggression from Iraq caused Israel to launch a preemptive strike.

    141. Re:The ONLY Way this should work is... by jklovanc · · Score: 1

      Note That I only listed two countries both on the Gulf coast? I didn't mention Syria, Turkey, Lebanon or Egypt for a reason.

      There's a LOT of gulf coast for SA.

      It is under a thousand kilometers from Kuwait to the the straits of Hormuz with three under-defended countries in the way.

      Iraq could never have maintaibned a supply line.

      The Gulf itself makes a great supply route and a pretty safe one since the small Gulf coast navies would probably have been sunk or captured. Also, few supplies are required if the enemy forces are easily overwhelmed. The most needed one is fuel and that can be found along the way.

      Iran would happily have pounced on Iraq at the first show of weakness at home.

      Iraq could do the job with the Republican Guard alone. Iraq had enough troops to stop Iran without the Guard.

      It wouldn't surprise me if such a show of aggression from Iraq caused Israel to launch a preemptive strike.

      With what? Any air or land operation would have to go through Syria, Jordan or Egypt and to be effective against an army it would have to happen a lot. None of those countries would stand for that?

    142. Re:The ONLY Way this should work is... by sjames · · Score: 1

      I assume that etc would have to at least mean one additional country and would normally indicate at least 2 more.

      The gulf would make a terrible supply line because if it got that far, there woukld likely have been a naval blockade.

      Israel has missiles and nukes.

      You forget how the Iraq army was in such disrepair that they ended up burying broken down tanks in sand and using them as machinegun nests.,/p>

    143. Re:The ONLY Way this should work is... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      True, but even Gandhi admitted when asked if his tactics would have worked with someone like Hitler, "It would be difficult". I'll bet he said it with a shit eating grin too.

    144. Re:The ONLY Way this should work is... by jklovanc · · Score: 1

      I assume that etc would have to at least mean one additional country and would normally indicate at least 2 more.

      Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, Qatar and the United Arab Emirates; There is the four countries.

      The gulf would make a terrible supply line because if it got that far, there would likely have been a naval blockade.

      By whom?

      Israel has missiles and nukes.

      We saw how well missiles brought Israel to it's knees when it was fired on by Iraq. The idea of Israel using a nuke, other than to defend it's home soil, is ludicrous.

      You forget how the Iraq army was in such disrepair that they ended up burying broken down tanks in sand and using them as machinegun nests.,

      Tanks may have been buried in sand to help protect them from aircraft. For the most part they were not "buried" but firing pits were dug so the tank would be hull down to attackers but still be able to retreat.

    145. Re:The ONLY Way this should work is... by RespekMyAthorati · · Score: 1

      Randomly stopping someone and planting evidence doesn't happen. Targeting people and planting evidence probably does happen.

      As if "targeting" were somehow better than "random". What the fuck difference does it make? People are being arrested for crimes that the police know they didn't commit. That's all that matters.

    146. Re:The ONLY Way this should work is... by sjames · · Score: 1

      Pretty much any country with a navy would have joined a blockade if things got that serious. There's a big difference in a simple naval blockade and getting entangled in a war.

    147. Re:The ONLY Way this should work is... by jklovanc · · Score: 1

      Who would attack them on the ground? If no one is attacking them they would not be expending supplies. By the way, a blockade is part of a war.

    148. Re:The ONLY Way this should work is... by sjames · · Score: 1

      So, as long as they meet no resistance at all they won't need to eat or drink? Their vehicles will run without fuel? Amazing! Where cane the U.S. get that technology?

      I'm guessing you haven't actually given this any thought at all. Don't feel too bad, the younger Bush apparently didn't either.

    149. Re:The ONLY Way this should work is... by Qzukk · · Score: 1

      Randomly stopping someone and planting evidence doesn't happen. Targeting people and planting evidence probably does happen. I was referring to the former, not the latter.

      Oh, ok.

      Perez alleges that CRASH officers carried spare guns in their "war bags" to plant on suspects.

      http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rampart_scandal#CRASH_culture

      --
      If I have been able to see further than others, it is because I bought a pair of binoculars.
    150. Re:The ONLY Way this should work is... by jklovanc · · Score: 1

      There are stores and gas stations along the way. The Gulf's coast is not a barren wasteland. Sure scorched earth might slow them down but that is not a good long term strategy

    151. Re:The ONLY Way this should work is... by sjames · · Score: 1

      WOW! Just WOW. REALLY! You figure they can just hit up the 7-11?!?

      You gotta be a troll!

    152. Re:The ONLY Way this should work is... by jklovanc · · Score: 1

      There are two oil refineries on the Saudi coast and one in Rhyadh. These three along with the one in Kuwait could produce enough foul to move the army. There are also bulk fuel storage for heavy equipment dotted all over the area. There are warehouses with weeks worth of food to feed the Saudi population. That food can be confiscated. So no, not 7-11 but one or two steps higher up the chain. It is the modern twist on the way Napoleon fought; live off the land. Considering the standard of living in the Gulf states it would not be too difficult. You don't have to bring everything with you. All Iraq would have to do is close the Straits of Hormuz for a couple of months and many economies would be in trouble.

    153. Re:The ONLY Way this should work is... by sjames · · Score: 1

      And all it would take is a few pissed off Saudis with lighters to destroy that master plan.

    154. Re:The ONLY Way this should work is... by jklovanc · · Score: 1

      Then there is the prepositions US supplies that were planned for deployed US troops. I never said it would be easy; war is never easy but it is not impossible.

    155. Re:The ONLY Way this should work is... by Dabido · · Score: 1

      Also, change

      Footage is then uploaded to a cloud-based service where it can be accessed by the police department

      to

      Footage is then uploaded to a cloud-based service where it can be accessed by the public

      I had a similar initial thought, but then I thought about it. (I used to work for WA Police btw).

      1. You get to the scene of a traffic accident/murder scene ... dead people are splattered all over the place ... the dead peoples relatives certainly don't want that to be seen by the general public, and it would cater to the morbid amongst us who would get off on that sort of thing (they'd spend all their time surfing the crime videos for nasty bits and pieces). It'd also be a nasty way for someone to find out one of their close relatives died.

      2. Plus, it would release information to the public that the police may need to conceal, like details of how a person died that they need to keep secret as part of the investigation. Many a murderer has revealed too much information which has lead to their arrest, as it was information not released to the general public. Many a murderer will now just claim they saw the information on the cloud.

      3. Victims need protection. If someone gets beaten or raped etc, and the police turn up whilst it is happening, the victim won't want the general public to be able to access the video of it happening. Especially if a lot of it is personally embarrassing to the victim.

      To summarise why it isn't a good idea for the public to access this - It pretty much comes down to, any victim/s has/have a right for the general public not to know their business.

      Possible solution is that when the footage gets logged into the Police cloud, the time/date/officers ID etc are made available to the public to show that the footage does actually exist. Then if the footage 'goes missing' etc, the police get bitch slapped and if a case is being tried it can go into the court record as evidence destroyed (and the police get bitch slapped a second time).

      --
      Sure enough, the cow costume was hanging up next to the superhero outfit and sailors uniform. (S,Spud)
  2. Non-lethal stun guns? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    There are new non-lethal stun guns gaining popularity around the world? That's great news. The current less-lethal kind kill far too many people.

    1. Re:Non-lethal stun guns? by saturnianjourneyman · · Score: 1

      Stun guns don't kill people, people kill people!

  3. This is a Taser Ad. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

    Tasers are less lethal torture devices mainly used to force compliance.

    1. Re:This is a Taser Ad. by fuzzyfuzzyfungus · · Score: 2

      Tasers are less lethal torture devices mainly used to force compliance.

      Your disinformation disguists me and all responsible citizens, AC. The manual clearly states, right on page 19:

      "RECOMMENDED DRIVE-STUN AREAS FOR MAXIMUM EFFECT
      Drive the X26C into the following areas for maximum effectiveness.
      Carotid (sides of neck) (see warning below).
      Brachial plexus tie-in (upper chest).
      Radial (forearm).
      Pelvic triangle (see warning below).
      Common peronial (Outside of thigh).
      Tibial (calf muscle).
      WARNING: Use care when applying a drive-stun to the neck or pelvic triangle. These areas
      are sensitive to mechanical injury (such as crushing to the trachea or testicles if applied
      forcefully). However, these areas have proven highly effective targets. "

      How responsible as that? A safety warning because they care just that much. Can you say that you care that much about Safety? I thought not.

    2. Re:This is a Taser Ad. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Exploding testicals or crushed trachea sound like a small price to pay for saying "dont taze me bro"

    3. Re:This is a Taser Ad. by arielCo · · Score: 0

      So police should limit themselves to argumentation and diplomacy, resorting to harsh language and guilt as a last measure ? Or not force compliance at all?

      --
      This post contains no rudeness or derision of any kind. All arguments are friendly. Terms and exclusions may apply.
    4. Re:This is a Taser Ad. by CastrTroy · · Score: 2

      Exactly, what most people seem to forget is that the taser is supposed to only be used when a gun would have been a good choice as well. It should not be used on 90 year old ladies, who have no way of running away or defending themselves. It should not be used on kids. It shouldn't be used on people who are handcuffed. It is a deadly weapon, and must be given proper precautions, similar to a firearm. Sure tasers don't kill all the time, but neither does a gun.

      --

      Anthropic principle: We see the universe the way it is because if it were different we would not be here to see it.
    5. Re:This is a Taser Ad. by TitusGroan8856 · · Score: 1

      tasers are only less than lethal when they don't kill. they kill fairly regularly. See here

    6. Re:This is a Taser Ad. by RobertinXinyang · · Score: 1

      See Wikipedia "False Dilemma"

      "Jump to: navigation, search A false dilemma (also called the fallacy of the false alternative, false dichotomy, the either-or fallacy, fallacy of the excluded middle, fallacy of false choice, black-and/or-white thinking, or the fallacy of exhaustive hypotheses) is a type of informal fallacy that involves a situation in which limited alternatives are considered, when in fact there is at least one additional option. The options may be a position that is between two extremes (such as when there are shades of grey) or may be completely different alternatives. The opposite of this fallacy is argument to moderation."

      These is a middle path between soft words and violence.

  4. I don't know what happened sir.... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Right before I beat the fuck out of him he knocked my camera off and it broke. Tough luck there.

  5. Just say'in by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Interesting

    The device is constantly on, but it only captures video of the thirty seconds before its wearer begins using it, and then both video and audio while police are speaking to a citizen.

    But not when beating the citizen? Or violating his rights?

    1. Re:Just say'in by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Interesting

      Yeah, that's exactly what that means. When they say "constantly on" they mean "knows when to turn itself off if ya know what I mean."

  6. Crime isn't what concerns me by sl4shd0rk · · Score: 3, Insightful

    The imbalance of power does. Giving the cops a headcam should be enough reason not to have to confiscate everyone's phone now.

    --
    Join the Slashcott! Feb 10 thru Feb 17!
    1. Re:Crime isn't what concerns me by Sarten-X · · Score: 1

      On the one hand, that's a good point. If the stated policy is to be recorded at all times when on duty, then it should be perfectly acceptable for a citizen to record the same event from a different angle, right?

      Unfortunately, people aren't recording for the sake of having a complete and accurate record of events. They're recording something spectacular to put on YouTube or Facebook later, and it's a safe bet that the editing will depict the police negatively, regardless of any other circumstances. Then the video goes viral, and official statement from the department is conveniently omitted from the copying frenzy, and the whole police force is disgraced by little more than a rumor.

      Now that every teenager is an amateur journalist, they forget too quickly the notion of journalistic integrity, in the pursuit of likes and views. So what if this video title is wrong, or if a little CG hides the moment that knife was visible... If it makes the poster famous, that's what's important, right?

      --
      You do not have a moral or legal right to do absolutely anything you want.
    2. Re:Crime isn't what concerns me by Sarten-X · · Score: 1

      Bad form to self-reply, but I should note for the sake of the overzealous mods that I'm not advocating confiscating phones... I just can't advocate irresponsible recording, either.

      --
      You do not have a moral or legal right to do absolutely anything you want.
    3. Re:Crime isn't what concerns me by eth1 · · Score: 1

      The imbalance of power does. Giving the cops a headcam should be enough reason not to have to confiscate everyone's phone now.

      Actually, what I'd like to see is a service that you can dial that simply picks up and starts recording, and makes the recording accessible to you online (identified by caller ID, so you don't have to do anything but dial out initially).

      Then it won't matter if they confiscate the phone (and could be very interesting if they don't shut it off right away...).

      Disclaimer: I live in a one-party state.

    4. Re:Crime isn't what concerns me by Hizonner · · Score: 4, Informative

      The proposed devices record constantly, but they throw away the video after 30 seconds unless the officer triggers them to keep it. That's not "recording at all times"; it's "recording when the officer chooses to record".

      The police have the same incentives as the public for selective recording. They also "aren't recording for the sake of having a complete and accurate record of events". They're recording to have something to justify their actions and preserve their jobs. They're not going to record if their actions aren't in fact justified, at least not except by mistake.

      If they're recording selectively, then there'd better be others recording to take up the slack. If both "sides" have the ability to record, then you have a chance that at least one recording will get out when there's a matter of public interest. One might hope that both recordings would get out.

      The alternative would be continuous recording even when neither side thinks it's a good idea. I'm not sure I want to live in that world.

    5. Re:Crime isn't what concerns me by CanHasDIY · · Score: 2

      You don't need creative editing to make cops look bad; they're pretty adept at it themselves.

      Hell, the TV show COPS is designed to portray police in a positive light, and they even fail to do that regularly; at least, to those of us who realize 90% of the shit they say to suspects are blatant lies that violate the suspects civil liberties.

      I admit that, statistically, there's a non-zero chance that someone, sometime, will edit a video to unfairly portray police in a negative light; however, considering how often cops will make that claim in order to discredit credible, non-edited video, society has developed a bit of a 'boy-who-cried-wolf' mentality when it comes to police claims of unfair editing, and rightly so.

      An issue that the headcams may help to mitigate, assuming they are operated properly and justly.

      --
      An enigma, wrapped in a riddle, shrouded in bacon and cheese
    6. Re:Crime isn't what concerns me by berashith · · Score: 2

      You are missing out on the case of many people recording. One person can edit things, or miss things, or even CG something... if anything is wrong about this that the police would like to make public, the other 15 cameras that may be there could clear things up. If the only version being allowed is owned and edited by the police, then we have the exact same situation, with a far more nefarious motive.

      Journalistic integrity is a modern concept. The original journals and papers were slanted hacks trying to support a viewpoint. FOX and MSNBC are a return to the original styles of professionals, and the public using facebook/youtube/reddit is just the same as in the days of the founders, but with technology that makes dessimination simpler.

    7. Re:Crime isn't what concerns me by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Crime doesn't concern you because you live in a bubble with a nice police force. Probably the biggest problem you have with police is that they drive around behind you trying to give you a ticket.

      Your life is so nice.

    8. Re:Crime isn't what concerns me by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Absolutely false assumption. While I'm sure your generalization fits _some_, it does not fit _all_ people recording events.

    9. Re:Crime isn't what concerns me by Sarten-X · · Score: 1

      The alternative would be continuous recording even when neither side thinks it's a good idea. I'm not sure I want to live in that world.

      Effectively, you already do. With drones in the sky and cheap tiny cameras available at convenience stores, everybody can record anything, anywhere, any time. Sure, there are eavesdropping laws that supposedly protect you, but actually using them to your benefit is unlikely at best.

      With the ever-increasing likelihood that somebody will see everything you do, the only hope, in my opinion, is to promote responsible use of such recordings. For governments, this means short retention, automatic (and independently-audited) archival systems, and public availability of the raw footage. For individuals, this means we abandon our obsession with disgracing authority, and applaud honesty more than sensationalism.

      I can dream.

      --
      You do not have a moral or legal right to do absolutely anything you want.
    10. Re:Crime isn't what concerns me by Hatta · · Score: 1

      Then the video goes viral, and official statement from the department is conveniently omitted from the copying frenzy

      That's because the official statement is nothing but stonewalling and whitewashing.

      --
      Give me Classic Slashdot or give me death!
    11. Re:Crime isn't what concerns me by Hatta · · Score: 1

      The proposed devices record constantly, but they throw away the video after 30 seconds unless the officer triggers them to keep it. That's not "recording at all times"; it's "recording when the officer chooses to record".

      That's the problem. The officer can choose not to record himself planting evidence or kicking a suspects ass. That makes these devices useless for the most important use of this technology.

      The alternative would be continuous recording even when neither side thinks it's a good idea. I'm not sure I want to live in that world.

      It's ALWAYS a good idea to record public servants, otherwise we can't hold them accountable. Not only should police be recorded constantly, any missing footage should be a strict liability crime. Any recording that goes missing should land the last person on the chain of custody in jail.

      --
      Give me Classic Slashdot or give me death!
    12. Re:Crime isn't what concerns me by gman003 · · Score: 1

      Unfortunately, people aren't recording for the sake of having a complete and accurate record of events. They're recording something spectacular to put on YouTube or Facebook later, and it's a safe bet that the editing will depict the police negatively, regardless of any other circumstances.

      The counter to partial truths is the whole truth. If every cop camera is posting video 24/7, it's easy to find the full context. And the truth will go at least as viral as the half-truth.

    13. Re:Crime isn't what concerns me by Chuckstar · · Score: 3, Interesting

      But what if I don't want my interaction with a police officer recorded? What if I'm telling him about the drug dealer down the street and would rather that guy not find out who was talking to the cops? Or maybe a cop regularly comes in and shoots-the-shit with me in my retail business. All of that would be recorded? It's good for cops to have that kind of casual relationship with people along their beat. It's not good that those people would be concerned that everything they said to the cop gets recorded

      I'm absolutely a general proponent of the idea of recording police at work. It works great for car-mounted situations, because it's rare that dash cams would record the kind of citizen interactions I'd be worried about having recorded. But unless there is some way to mitigate my concerns, I believe recording day-to-day officer interactions would do more harm than good.

    14. Re:Crime isn't what concerns me by Culture20 · · Score: 1

      Now that every teenager is an amateur journalist, they forget too quickly the notion of journalistic integrity, in the pursuit of likes and views.

      Now that every teenager is an amateur journalist, the professional media forget too quickly the notion of journalistic integrity, in the pursuit of likes and views.
      FTFY

    15. Re:Crime isn't what concerns me by Hatta · · Score: 1

      But what if I don't want my interaction with a police officer recorded?

      What if I don't want to be beaten up and framed by bad cops?

      What do you lose if I get my way? A tiny bit of privacy when interacting with a public servant. What do I lose if you get your way? The ability to hold those in power accountable.
      How are these concerns even slightly comparable? Your concern is a convenience at best, mine is essential to a functioning justice system.

      What if I'm telling him about the drug dealer down the street and would rather that guy not find out who was talking to the cops?

      That's what tip lines and the mail is for.

      Or maybe a cop regularly comes in and shoots-the-shit with me in my retail business.

      So?

      It's not good that those people would be concerned that everything they said to the cop gets recorded

      It's also not good that people would be concerned that the police will kick their ass and get away with it.

      But unless there is some way to mitigate my concerns, I believe recording day-to-day officer interactions would do more harm than good.

      You haven't identified any concerns here that come within an order of magnitude of the problem of police brutality. Even if all your concerns were realized to their maximal extent, I believe we'd prevent far more crime by recording police officers constantly. A police force we can trust will be far more effective than one we cannot.

      --
      Give me Classic Slashdot or give me death!
    16. Re:Crime isn't what concerns me by avandesande · · Score: 1

      The sound of a gunshot should be used to trigger a save.

      --
      love is just extroverted narcissism
    17. Re:Crime isn't what concerns me by forkazoo · · Score: 1

      IMO, the way it should work is that everything is recorded, and made publicly available after, say, 7 days. In that time, and officer can request that something specific be witheld from the public record. the process would basically be the same as a warrant, where the officer would go to a judge, who would review the footage and would sign off on the redaction. If the footage came up in a court case, it would be possible to petition to get it unsealed. This would cover all sorts of situations. A bust of a child pornographer might involve several minutes of child porn, for example, and you probably wouldn't want to publish that, given the point of bothering to arrest the child porn publisher. Likewise, you might want to protect a source or informant, which could be pretty broadly defined to include 'potential sources,' which would cover shopkeepers who don't want to be specifically on record as being friendly with the cops, but who the cops want to interact with and establish a relationship that may be useful to exploit in the future.

      Besides, once there is a year of footage being recorded every day, it may not matter much if you get recorded talking to the cops. Your enemies will have to invest a massive labor force to find footage of you making off color jokes by watching all of it. (Unless the government successfully makes some awesome public facing database for finding this stuff, but in reality they would just hand half a billion dollars to a vendor, wait five years, and then declare failure on a project like that which a startup could have working reasonably well in a few weeks...)

    18. Re:Crime isn't what concerns me by sjames · · Score: 1

      Then the police should post the official statment as a reply to the video.

    19. Re:Crime isn't what concerns me by steveg · · Score: 1

      ACLU New Jersey has an Android app called "Police Tape" that does something like this. I'm not sure how you access it, but it stores the video remotely rather than on your phone. I installed it, but I haven't had any reason to test how it works.

      --
      Ignorance killed the cat. Curiosity was framed.
    20. Re:Crime isn't what concerns me by Chuckstar · · Score: 1

      Yeah, what could we possibly lose if common citizens no longer want to interact with police officers because they don't want to be recorded. I can't imagine what we could lose.

      (Is the sarcasm apparent, or do I have to spell it out?)

  7. Ubiquitous surveillance by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Ubiquitous surveillance of everyone by everyone is inevitable. Dashcams and google glass are merely the first. Cams will become smaller, batteries will become smaller, internet will become faster, and everyone will automatically store what they see in their cloud of preference.

    Finally witness statements, which are proven to be unreliable, can be backed up by actual evidence.

    Hurrah for progress.

    1. Re:Ubiquitous surveillance by chuckinator · · Score: 1

      Try waving your hands a little harder. I want my jetpack, damnit.

    2. Re:Ubiquitous surveillance by TheCarp · · Score: 2

      > Finally witness statements, which are proven to be unreliable, can be backed up by actual evidence.

      "Backed up" makes the rather unwarranted assumption that they are right in the first place, which doesn't seem to be the case at all. In fact, I was just listening to the rather harrowing story of a woman who was raped, which is bad enough, but then who identified the wrong man, and he went to jail for more than a decade before it was found that someone else was her actual attacker.

      Time and again we have seen that eye-witness testimony is absolutely terrible; forget backing it up, avoid it entirely whenever possible.

      Pix or it didn't happen!

      --
      "I opened my eyes, and everything went dark again"
    3. Re:Ubiquitous surveillance by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Just wait until they make <something you do every day%gt; illegal, look back through previous footage, find you, and punish accordingly.

    4. Re:Ubiquitous surveillance by Jockle · · Score: 1

      Ubiquitous surveillance of everyone by everyone is inevitable.

      No, it isn't, and that's not even remotely a good idea.

    5. Re:Ubiquitous surveillance by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      Ubiquitous surveillance of everyone by everyone is inevitable.

      Did you read Robert Sawyer's "Hominids" Trilogy? Parallel universe with Neanderthals becoming sentient rather than Homo sapiens sapiens.

      The entire population had a device implant that recorded their every action and stored it in a publicly accessible location. Basically resulted in no crime. Sound idea, IMHO.

      Of course, they also sterilized offenders of violent crime, as well as any blood relations that shared a certain percentage of DNA in common. Omlete, eggs, etc.

    6. Re:Ubiquitous surveillance by Holi · · Score: 1

      Ex-Post-Facto laws are illegal sorry. But if it was legal yesterday when I did it, you can't arrest me today now that it's not.

      --
      Sorry, teleporters just kill you and then make a copy. A perfect, soul-less copy.
    7. Re:Ubiquitous surveillance by Rockoon · · Score: 2, Insightful

      No, it isn't, and that's not even remotely a good idea.

      Yes, its not a good idea.. but you are wrong, because it is inevitable.

      Every single aspect that enables it is trending towards negligible cost, negligible size, and negligible power requirements.

      Nearly every American today is walking around with a camera of one sort or another, a fact that small minds such as yours would have laughed at only 10 years ago. Even $30 pay-as-you-go phones picked up off-the-shelf at Walmart, which are primarily phones, have fucking cameras. In another 10 years, every piece of junk mail you receive will have a camera in it watching you. Thats how fucking inevitable it is.

      --
      "His name was James Damore."
    8. Re:Ubiquitous surveillance by njnnja · · Score: 2

      If it was this story that you listened to, there is more to the story. When the man was released, he murdered a woman.

      But in a way that supports your point even more - eyewitness testimony is a bad way to get to the facts (let alone the truth!). Maybe she remembered right the first time, maybe not, we can never know.

    9. Re:Ubiquitous surveillance by Jockle · · Score: 1

      Yes, its not a good idea.. but you are wrong, because it is inevitable.

      It's not even inevitable. He said "of everyone by everyone," which would include the government, and that's not inevitable at all.

    10. Re:Ubiquitous surveillance by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Basically resulted in no crime. Sound idea, IMHO.

      Not only is that unrealistic, but it's a terrible idea.

      Freedom & privacy > safety.

    11. Re:Ubiquitous surveillance by HeckRuler · · Score: 2

      pft, everybody is doing, has done, or will do something illegal and with enough surveillance and selective enforcement they can bully whomever they wish. Hey, it was your responsibility to know that jaywalking is illegal. No we don't care that traffic wasn't impeded, the law isn't about blocking traffic, we have a separate charge for that. Yes, the footage shows other people jaywalking, and we'll get around to charging them in due time.

    12. Re:Ubiquitous surveillance by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      The future doesn't care what you think is a good idea.

    13. Re:Ubiquitous surveillance by Jockle · · Score: 1

      And your point is what? Or did you just come here to state the obvious?

    14. Re:Ubiquitous surveillance by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      This does depend entirely on where you are. In other countries, and you might go to them on business or for pleasure, the law can be changed retrospectively for example to deal with loopholes or for shits and giggles.

    15. Re:Ubiquitous surveillance by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      It wasn't that she changed her mind and decided he didn't do it. It was DNA evidence that cleared him of the crime. So he definitely didn't do it.

      It's also quite likely he didn't commit the murder either, but that he was simply framed. http://justicedenied.org/wordpress/archives/736

    16. Re:Ubiquitous surveillance by TheCarp · · Score: 1

      It was that story, I left out the second part because its really not relevant to her experience. He may, or may not, have been some manner of criminal, and may or may not have committed a crime after the fact.... but with DNA evidence showing that he didn't commit the crime he was convicted of is the only part that actually speaks to eyewitness testimony.

      I heard another NPR story of a convicted man, and the expert who investigated. There were several eyewitnesses who all claimed to have gotten a good look at him, and that the area was well lit...even though the time of year and time of the event meant that it was night time, and there was very little illumination, an investigation of the scene at the appropriate time found light levels so low that there was no way anyone as far away as the witnesses were got a good look at the person who did it....yet... they all claimed they saw him and the area was well lit.

      There is ample evidence of how faulty human memory and vision are.

      --
      "I opened my eyes, and everything went dark again"
  8. Will malfunction when the officer is in the wrong by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

    I've never heard of an officer turning in video to incriminate himself. Any footage that makes them look bad will mysteriously disappear.

  9. How's the contrast? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    When I'm shining my 1000 lumen tactical flashlight at it?

  10. Make it record to you-tube - no delete possible by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    citizen units as well - so police cannot confiscate, cannot delete, always on, always there.

    I mean if the Police have nothing to hide, they won't mind, right? Right???

    1. Re:Make it record to you-tube - no delete possible by gmuslera · · Score: 1

      Asl the government, that is sentencing to death the last one that showed that they had something to hide.

  11. One step further by hawguy · · Score: 2

    Take this system one step further and then it might actually be useful for helping protect citizens: have the system identify the person the officer is talking to (facial recognition, NFC beacon from my phone, whatever) and when the video is uploaded to the cloud, make it automatically uploaded to the private cloud storage owned by everyone in the video.

    Otherwise, the video is likely to "accidentally" disappear when it shows wrongdoing by the police.

    1. Re:One step further by Jason+Levine · · Score: 1

      The police department shouldn't be given the ability to delete videos from the "police surveillance cloud." Or, better yet, give them a big delete button and let it remove the video from their listing, but add into the audit trail who it was who tried to delete the video. If they are using it to prune their cloud file listing to only show active cases, fine. If they're using it in a failed attempt to destroy the video, then they've just been nailed.

      --
      My sci-fi novel, Ghost Thief, is now available from Amazon.com.
    2. Re:One step further by Impy+the+Impiuos+Imp · · Score: 1

      This. Once it goes into the police cloud, it cannot be deleted without court order or review by high-level officials, with permanently-recorded trail of deletion, along with who.

      --
      (-1: Post disagrees with my already-settled worldview) is not a valid mod option.
  12. It was predicted 20 years ago by mcrbids · · Score: 3, Interesting

    Strangely, the scenarios presented were placed 20 years in the future. Posted in 1993, then-revolutionary Wired Magazine got it exactly, dead on. It's almost strange how they were so dead-on as far as the time scale.

    Notice all the dash cam footage coming out of the Soviet Union...

    --
    I have no problem with your religion until you decide it's reason to deprive others of the truth.
    1. Re:It was predicted 20 years ago by richlv · · Score: 1

      Notice all the dash cam footage coming out of the Soviet Union...

      your time machine must have things messed up really badly. that combo sounds highly unlikely...

      --
      Rich
    2. Re:It was predicted 20 years ago by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Strangely, the scenarios presented were placed 20 years in the future. Posted in 1993, then-revolutionary Wired Magazine got it exactly, dead on. It's almost strange how they were so dead-on as far as the time scale.

      Notice all the dash cam footage coming out of the Soviet Union...

      I've been "dash-caming" for over a decade. What does the recent Russian fixation of the last two years have anything to do with predictions? Clue: When cameras are small enough, many more people will use them.

    3. Re:It was predicted 20 years ago by Minwee · · Score: 3, Informative

      Strangely, the scenarios presented were placed 20 years in the future. Posted in 1993, then-revolutionary Wired Magazine got it exactly, dead on.

      Actually, in 1990 then-science-fiction-author and some-time Wired Magazine contributor David Brin got it exactly, dead on. He just kept on writing about it for several years after that.

    4. Re:It was predicted 20 years ago by Impy+the+Impiuos+Imp · · Score: 1

      They have more impetus due to a rash of fraudulent lawsuits.

      --
      (-1: Post disagrees with my already-settled worldview) is not a valid mod option.
  13. Needs to work both ways by Joey+Vegetables · · Score: 1

    I would be less troubled by this if the public had access as well. The police are supposed to be there to serve us, not vice versa. I'm aware that there are privacy concerns (they bust into the wrong house, see naked girl, realize they're in the wrong house, but now naked girl is all over Internet). This needs to be addressed. But the public, and defendants in criminal cases, are both severely disadvantaged if the police and prosecution have access to information that the former do not. And yes, I'm aware of the discovery process and the rules of evidence in federal and most other U.S. jurisdictions, but nothing there prevents the cops or prosecution from "accidentally" losing or even altering evidence to suit their agenda. So my stance is that recording is OK if it is, in some way available, if not to the public, than at least to the press and to defendants in criminal cases.

    1. Re:Needs to work both ways by Isaac+Remuant · · Score: 2

      but nothing there prevents the cops or prosecution from "accidentally" losing or even altering evidence to suit their agenda

      Not only *Can* this happen but there's quite a track record of it happening.

      There's no transparency if surveillance goes only one way. That's total control.

      --
      "Science can amuse and fascinate us all, but it is engineering that changes the world. " - Asimov.
    2. Re:Needs to work both ways by dpdjvan · · Score: 1

      What about if the video was lost due to whatever reason, the evidence provide by the officer is thrown out and it is assumed to be a false arrest? Also the officer has to prove through other means that it wasn't a false arrest. This might mitigate the lost video issue.

    3. Re:Needs to work both ways by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      So when a woman calls the police to report a rape, and has to recount the experience? You want that video interview to be automatically publicly available? No thanks, I'm ok with the police keeping some things confidential. Even so called "Public" video should not automatically have the eyes of the world pointed on it. Some people do stupid things and it's bad enough that they may get arrested for it. Now they can have the opportunity to be globally humiliated as well? How long before there is a Youtube channel for "Hilarious drunk chicks getting arrested"

      Listen guys, if you distrust your police so much, have you considered pursuing a political option? Get the RIGHT people in at the top and the people along the bottom will have no choice but to fall in line. Elect someone who will make it a priority to sort out corruption in your local police district. That's a much better option than demanding that each and every cop is personally accountable to the world anyway.

    4. Re:Needs to work both ways by Joey+Vegetables · · Score: 1

      Agreed that there needs to be a way to redact video (or audio) that might infringe the privacy of innocents well before it becomes public. I believe I said that already.

      As for "getting the right people in charge" of a system, that might work if it is only the people in charge who are corrupt, and not the system itself. But, as has been well-known to political thinkers since antiquity, the very nature of power itself is corrupting. We can't change human nature, so the best we currently know how to do is to ensure that there are checks and balances to try to encourage decent and honorable behavior and to deter corruption to the extent possible. Even that doesn't work perfectly, but I don't believe anyone has figured out a way to do better.

    5. Re:Needs to work both ways by Jockle · · Score: 1

      Agreed that there needs to be a way to redact video (or audio) that might infringe the privacy of innocents well before it becomes public.

      And we can't just assume that police are automatically correct anymore. When a cop pulls someone over for speeding, they should have to appear in front of a judge and then prove that the person they pulled over was indeed speed, and if they can do that, only then should the person be issued a ticket. Likewise for everything else.

    6. Re:Needs to work both ways by Jason+Levine · · Score: 2

      There should be a standard procedure for requesting access to the videos:

      1) If you are a police office, you get access to all the videos (audited access, of course)

      2) If you are a member of the public, you must apply (actual application, not some wimpy online form with "enter your e-mail address/choose a username"), pay a modest annual fee, be verified, and then you get access to the videos (audited just as much as the police).

      This way you don't get people crawling PoliceCamVideos.com and reposting that video of the cops who chased a perp into the ladies' gym locker room.

      --
      My sci-fi novel, Ghost Thief, is now available from Amazon.com.
    7. Re:Needs to work both ways by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      The county next to mine makes a mint off of OWI prosecutions. They are notorious for it. The police do everything they can to keep those numbers as high as possible (sit in this 90degree room with your winter coat on for 30 minutes before we give you a "certified" breath analysis). Dash cam footage is routinely lost when it would provide a reason to question the LEO who made the arrest. The judge who presides over these cases lost a niece to an OWI accident. The other judge who plays backup actually had an OWI dismissed out of state and they both routinely abuse their power to make things as hard as possible for defendants. I actually had an attorney tell me once, "I won't work in that county. I fight for justice and it doesn't exist there." The attorney I did hire looked at me and told me "you get all the justice you can afford. I can win this case for $25k." $25k to defend a class D misdemeanor or take the "deal" offered by the prosecutor. I took the deal rather than go into debt. Nothing about my experience with the justice system resembled anything approaching justice.

      And that's just OWI. This is a county where you can still get pulled over for DWNW (driving while not white) though they'll always have another excuse.

      So where do you find a politician, even at the county or city level, who will run on a platform of "Let's clean up the PD/Sheriff! They're making too many OWI arrests!" It's a racket and there's no way anyone speaks against it for fear of appearing "soft on crime". The police are out of control. The courts are in bed with them. And the politicians are afraid to do anything about it.

    8. Re:Needs to work both ways by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      s for "getting the right people in charge" of a system, that might work if it is only the people in charge who are corrupt, and not the system itself. But, as has been well-known to political thinkers since antiquity, the very nature of power itself is corrupting. We can't change human nature, so the best we currently know how to do is to ensure that there are checks and balances to try to encourage decent and honorable behavior and to deter corruption to the extent possible. Even that doesn't work perfectly, but I don't believe anyone has figured out a way to do better.

      BS. Sorry, but Socrates had it correct and it was intended in the US that there were no career politicians. The fix in the republic is term limits and keeping people out of politics. Socrates stated "For a Republic to be a success, the representatives of the people should be those that do not want to represent the people." That is, and has been, the fix to our broken system.

      Convincing the parasites to leave is not going to be easy, but it is imperative that we remove them. Sometimes dumping salt on an open wound is required.

    9. Re:Needs to work both ways by Obfuscant · · Score: 1

      When a cop pulls someone over for speeding, they should have to appear in front of a judge and then prove that the person they pulled over was indeed speed, and if they can do that, only then should the person be issued a ticket.

      I don't see how that is a significant difference from what happens now. If you look at the ticket as your invitation to come before a judge and make the cop prove the charge, then it is identical.

      1. You get an 'invitation' to come to court.

      a. You decline and the cop wins by default.

      b. You accept, and the cop wins. You get a "ticket".

      c. You accept and the cop loses. You don't get a ticket, but you've still accepted the invitation to appear.

      Most people choose option 'a' even though the invitation says you can appear. Some people choose to appear and 'c' is the outcome.

      The problem with your interpretation is that you view the ticket as the end of the process, not the beginning. As a final outcome and not a starting position.

    10. Re:Needs to work both ways by Jockle · · Score: 1

      I don't see how that is a significant difference from what happens now.

      In my version, the cop would have to appear prove his/her case whether or not you decided to appear in front of a judge. Would this be annoying? Well, maybe they'd stop harassing people for petty nonsense.

      If you look at the ticket as your invitation

      In reality, it isn't, so this little exercise is meaningless. If you decide not to go, a judge isn't even involved to begin with.

    11. Re:Needs to work both ways by Jockle · · Score: 1

      In my version, the cop would have to appear prove his/her case whether or not you decided to appear in front of a judge.

      Or someone else who has evidence; it doesn't matter.

      The point is that a cop's mere words wouldn't be so highly valued any longer.

  14. Public Video needs to be publicly-accessible. by eriks · · Score: 3, Insightful

    I've said this for years. I have no problem with all the public-facing cameras, so long as the output from all those cameras is available to the public, preferably directly, in realtime. The cameras then become a public asset. Law enforcement can use them, but so can the rest of us. There's already no expectation of privacy in public places, so I don't see any issues with universal access to the data.

    I'd guess it might be necessary to restrict access to police dashcams and "uniform-cams" for a time, but eventually it should all be made public, with review processes in place to make sure that none of it gets "accidentally" deleted.

    1. Re:Public Video needs to be publicly-accessible. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      " I don't see any issues with universal access to the data."

      Misguided vigilatism. Just look to the reddit spurred witchunt that happened after the boston bombings. Ruined some poor kid's life becuase they marked him as the bomber based on publicly available video/pics.

    2. Re:Public Video needs to be publicly-accessible. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      There's already no expectation of privacy in public places, so I don't see any issues with universal access to the data.

      Until common criminals start using public cameras to identify victims, realizing patterns in the unsuspecting mundane day-to-day lives, knowing exactly when their homes are empty, and exactly when the home owner boards public transportation to begin their 45 minute commute towards home from work.

    3. Re:Public Video needs to be publicly-accessible. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      A proverbial "all you can eat buffet" for voyeurism. Why bother with a social life when you can watch everyone else, and then pick special morsels to obsess over. That pretty lady that crosses the street at 5th and L every day at 4pm? Why not surprise her one day with how much you know about her; and you know a lot, from watching her over the past 4 months across 17 different publicly accessible cameras.

    4. Re:Public Video needs to be publicly-accessible. by ArcadeX · · Score: 1

      A camera on an officer isn't a 'public-facing camera' when the officer enters a private residence or busines.

      --
      An I.T. motto in the hands of an idiot is a dangerous thing...
    5. Re:Public Video needs to be publicly-accessible. by eriks · · Score: 1

      That's true. And I guess that wold be part of the reason for the restricted access to those camera feeds, and maybe any cameras that aren't in a public fixed location need to be handled differently, or remain secured until subpoenaed or requested under FOIA.

      Further: generally, I don't see the objections about people using the camera feeds for nefarious purposes. I guess it might make a criminals job easier, but it doesn't "change the game" in that it doesn't let anyone do anything they can't already do.

      And, sure voyeurism is an issue, but I still think that if the cameras exist, and *someone* gets to review their output, then there needs to be a way for others to also review that output, and more importantly verify that when video is used as evidence that the whole story is being represented.

    6. Re:Public Video needs to be publicly-accessible. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      There's already no expectation of privacy in public places

      I wish people that said things like this would spend some more time away from their computers. They might come to realize that much of the population hikes in public places, and sometimes people have to "use the facilities". While the expectation is present that you'll step out of sight, if you're in a national forest or something like that you'll still have to do it within a "public place", where, according to the stay-at-home types, there is "no expectation of privacy". Does this suggest a problem to anyone?

      Once we recognize that there necessarily ARE exceptions to the silly notion of "no expectation of privacy in 'public' places" that certain delusional individuals keep harping about, then it becomes very easy to open the door to having a wide variety of exceptions. One can, for example, simply spend a few minutes thinking about the definition of "privacy" to quickly be able to come up with exceptions (a point that has been discussed numerous times in the past on Slashdot).

  15. Taser International is the wrong group to do this by Mr.+Slippery · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Any group surveiling the cops shouldn't be selling those cops stuff. "Hey, the XYZ PD just ordered another $500k of merch from us, I think we can 'lose' that embarrassing video."

    Taser International is a bunch of evil fuckwads who've made their bankrolls selling lethal electrical torture devices to police. Their irresponsible marketing has lead to an increase in the use of excessive force by cops. My trust in them is zero.

    --
    Tom Swiss | the infamous tms | my blog
    You cannot wash away blood with blood
  16. Whats "we"? by gmuslera · · Score: 1

    If only the watchers are the only that watches themselves (or that countrol what and who does it) then is a bad answer for that question. When everyone can see what the "watchers" (police, politicians, etc) do, in real time, with no editing, clipping, etc, then things will get a bit fair. But that won't happen soon.

  17. I can see by dammy · · Score: 1

    I can see the police unions having a cow over this one. Imagine if you had to wear one of these at your work place knowing that your boss can activate it at any time (I know, the digital radios can be turned on via dispatcher at any time to listen in). I'm sure management (command staff) abusing this to bust someone's chops they don't like. There is something called "officer's discretion" that giving management real time viewing is not going to work for the public's benefit. Yes, might be an excellent tool for the butthead cop to be modified in his actions, it's the Officer Joe BagOfDonuts who cuts breaks is going to have life changed in a big way. It's about activity and revenue generation which management is beating on the line officer to increase so management looks better in very lean budget times.

    Another issue is if these head cams are streaming, how much of it is being put into a facial and location db? Do you really want to pull into that 7-11 with officers inside getting coffee with computers running your face through SCIC/NCIC as their headcam steam video your face and maybe voice?

    1. Re:I can see by Hatta · · Score: 2

      Imagine if you had to wear one of these at your work place knowing that your boss can activate it at any time

      That's the deal you should have to accept if you want authorization to use force on your fellow citizens. If you're not OK with complete oversight, I'm not OK with granting you power.

      --
      Give me Classic Slashdot or give me death!
  18. Re:Will malfunction when the officer is in the wro by CanHasDIY · · Score: 1

    "What? No, I don't know anything about any large magnets scrambling the signal from my headcam... musta been some of those darn kids with their ghetto-blasters..."

    --
    An enigma, wrapped in a riddle, shrouded in bacon and cheese
  19. So Many Questions by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Dear Slashdot:

    Why do you ask so many questions. Everyday there is article after article of questions.

    It use to be that Slashdot had news and it had information and it had answers. Sure, there was the Ask Slashdot post once a week or so, but the rest was information. Now every other article is a banal question.

    How did Slashdot get so stupid? Why does Slashdot ask ore questions than a three year old. Please, make it stop!

    Love,

    AC

    1. Re: So Many Questions by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      over the last couple of years, slashdot has become quite lame. this 'story' is proof of such lameness.

    2. Re: So Many Questions by fazey · · Score: 1

      its lame to force LEO to be accountable for their actions? I disagree. You're either a cop, or a moron.

  20. Website for these videos + audio be mandatory by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    This should be available for online viewing for the general public. They are civil servants, after all. What gives the government the right to conceal these recordings from the public? Could we not do it were it an interaction in public? What about a private home? These videos should be uploaded and accessible to the general population. Let it be available to obtain without a warrant, especially if something happens to someone poor in the country. They will have a snowball's chance in hell getting these videos if the police have access to them.

  21. what? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    old news. OLD.

  22. Unlikely by bhcompy · · Score: 1

    As surveillance technologies have matured in both their sophistication and usage, some are starting to ask the question: is it time we start using them to watch the watchers? The proliferation of dashboard cameras has reduced liability costs, provided valuable evidence, and made police officers safer. The next progression would naturally be for the camera to move out of the car and onto the officer's uniform itself.

    Unlikely.. Police unions are pushing to take cameras out of vehicles because they are frequently used against cops.

  23. Cap, I don't know what happened by ThatsNotPudding · · Score: 1

    "It must of got broken and suffered an EMP blast right before I had to shoot that [non-white] guy."

    1. Re:Cap, I don't know what happened by fazey · · Score: 1

      Which is why malfunctions should be considered suspicious behavior.

  24. Once we have this, we need rules... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    That say if the recording is not made/found, then the court, the prosecutor, the judge must all be directed to assume that the police intentionally erased the recording to hide illegal actions.

  25. Police Privacy by SrLnclt · · Score: 1

    I'm all for 2 way accountability, but there may actually be times when they should be turned off. Do we really want to see/listen to some cop using the restroom? Chomping on food during his lunch break?

    And what about the times when you may not want conversations with coworkers to be posted publicly? Telling a coworker an off-color joke? Telling a coworker what he did with that lady he met at the bar the other night? Telling the boss he will be out on Friday to help a family member with a medical issue?

    And how long before this footage is directly used to make hiring/promotion/firing decisions? Didn't pick up on a clue quick enough on that high profile case? No raise for you.

    This issue is who determines when it is on or off, and how to avoid this power being used inappropriately.

    1. Re:Police Privacy by fazey · · Score: 1

      Yes, we do. Because when he drinks 3 beers in under an hour, and we know that puts him at .08 given his body weight. He needs to get a DWI.

    2. Re:Police Privacy by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Do we really want to see/listen to some cop using the restroom?

      No, basic privacy. Yes, if they have the ability to turn it off, it will be abused. There's no good way to force it on though. I mean, wires get loose and lenses get smudged. You really can't fight that.

      Chomping on food during his lunch break?

      Yes. Why not?

      And what about the times when you may not want conversations with coworkers to be posted publicly?

      Do it after work. They work in a public environment.

      Telling a coworker an off-color joke?

      Can get you fired. More likely a slap on the wrist. But this is the sort of transgression that these cameras are supposed to stop.

      Telling a coworker what he did with that lady he met at the bar the other night?

      Well if he's open about it, good for him. But he should know he's being VERY open about it.

      Telling the boss he will be out on Friday to help a family member with a medical issue?

      So do it in the office, you know, where the boss is. This is surveillance of street cops on the street. Where they have elevated privileges and power over the lay citizens. Where abuse of said power has been a problem. We are not suggesting that the daily grind of office workers be recorded because very few people get curb-stomped while filing forms.

      Now you'll notice that the intent is to stop horrific abuse of power, but we're also going to use it to fire the sexist asshole. Yeah, if that sort of two-faced application of law doesn't feel quite right, THEN HOW'S IT FEEL BEING ON THE OTHER END, COPPER!?

  26. "You'll Need to Speak with my Lawyer" by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    These cameras will be recording a lot of people saying, "You'll need to speak with my lawyer." Seriously, you think I'm going to say *anything* to a police officer about *anything* if it is all being recorded?

    1. Re:"You'll Need to Speak with my Lawyer" by taustin · · Score: 1

      Why would the presence of a camera make any difference whatsoever? Seriously, dude, what are you going to be willing to say to a cop without a camera present that you don't want anyone else to hear?

  27. Running a dash cam in America.. by scorp1us · · Score: 1

    The most it catches are cops running red lights. Sure, it saved my butt in an insurance claim, but by occurrence it catches cops being bad.

    I want to start a blog: copsbehavingbadly which will highlight bad police action caught on camera.

    --
    Slashdot's rate-of-post filter: Preventing you from posting too many great ideas at once.
  28. Taser International by mevets · · Score: 1

    This is not a trustworthy company. They have combined the strategies of litigation trolls, lobbies, NRA and pharmaceuticals to ensure the success of their mobile cattle prod technology.

    I doubt very much that their proposed device would benefit anybody but the least deserving. It is not their nature.

  29. Well, it's a good start if.. by houbou · · Score: 1

    there is an independent body of people who are managing the uploaded videos. For example, each state in the US could have a department where it manages all the feeds for all levels of law enforcement. Then at least, there is a fair chance that the captured footage would be useful in the case of abuse of power.

    1. Re:Well, it's a good start if.. by fazey · · Score: 1

      A citizen review board should be the ones to do it. Many states have them, but you can pretty much only reach them via mail.

  30. The doods up north in Canada... by flayzernax · · Score: 1

    So I was reading this other political article on slashdot the other day. And these doods were argueing about this very same thing and a bunch of people cited some Canadian study or paper or news report that said... 60% less fatalities from cameras on duty for officers. Meaning the job is a lot safer.

    Even if it does not make everyone safer. I think 60% safer for law enforcement is something to consider. That is a lot of incentive to keep doing your job well vs being mad at everyone for screwing you over.

    1. Re:The doods up north in Canada... by cbeaudry · · Score: 1

      Its more like officers are 60% less likely to be DICKS to citizens therefore reducing escalating incidents by 60%.

    2. Re:The doods up north in Canada... by j-beda · · Score: 1

      Its more like officers are 60% less likely to be DICKS to citizens therefore reducing escalating incidents by 60%.

      That's not a bad thing, eh?

  31. What about politicians? by trout007 · · Score: 1

    I always thought it would be interesting to run for office on the platform that during my term I will have a camera on me at all times broadcasted live. Unfortunately I belong to the one class of citizens prohibited from running for political office.

    --
    I love Jesus, except for his foreign policy.
  32. interesting by fazey · · Score: 1

    Interesting that you mention this. There is a petition on we the people about it. force-all-law-enforcement-officers-wear-uniform-embedded-cameras

  33. Re:Taser International is the wrong group to do th by jklovanc · · Score: 2

    I guess we should go back to the old option to subdue an armed violent suspect; guns. I think tazers are a much better option than shooting a person wielding a weapon. Sure tazers have killed people but then so have batons. If you confront police with a weapon you may die. Tazers are much less likely to kill than guns.

    Just because Tazer International builds the recording system does not mean that they will run it.

  34. Re:Taser International is the wrong group to do th by taustin · · Score: 1

    Any group surveiling the cops shouldn't be selling those cops stuff. "Hey, the XYZ PD just ordered another $500k of merch from us, I think we can 'lose' that embarrassing video."

    That would be no diferent from destroying any other evidence, which is already a crime (and a farily serious one, for agents of the government). Enforcement is spotty now, and will be equally spotty then, but when the public knows the video exists, its absence will be increasingly damning in and of itself. This is the same reason more and more police departments record all interrogations, from start to finish (though there are more complicated reasons they don't want those videos seen by juries).

    If using the recording device is mandatory, losing the recording is the same as not making it. It should be (and will be) a crime. The trick is to make sure that anyone who can delete is resopnsible for making sure that doesn't happen.

  35. Who fears... by Dirk+Becher · · Score: 1

    ...that this will end in a full-scale surveillance war where everyone watches everyone turning us in a society of politically correct stepford smilers?

  36. Re:Taser International is the wrong group to do th by Bacon+Bits · · Score: 3, Insightful

    It's not about the armed violent suspects. It's the unarmed violent suspects, or unarmed not-particularly-violent suspects, or even the armed, non-violent suspects. Tasers aren't used just as an alternative to lethal force, they're used as an alternative to other forms of less-lethal force.

    Think about it. You're a little kid. You have just a metal bat. How likely are you to randomly hit someone with it? Not very, right? I mean, it would hurt, and there would be repercussions to hurting someone. Now we'll give you a foam bad. How likely are you to randomly hit someone with it? If you're anything like my nephew, you're going to smack everybody with it as soon as they get into range because, hey, foam bats don't hurt that much, right? Now how about a hard plastic wiffle bat? You're not going to kill someone with it, but you can sure as hell cause some pain by doing it. Swing that around a few times, and you're going to actually hurt people. Not broken bone pain, but you'll raise some welts. You're not going to cause the kind of damage a metal bat would, but you're going to use it a lot more often than you really should.

    This is the problem with tasers. They make the Police think they should use them when we as citizens think they shouldn't be using a weapon at all.

    --
    The road to tyranny has always been paved with claims of necessity.
  37. Re:Taser International is the wrong group to do th by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    The problem lies in that when the only options were batons and guns, a policeman had to choose carefully and try to do his job. Nowadays? "Told you to stop talking, you wont? TASER'ed". "But your grace, the acused resisted! i had to subdue him"...

  38. Re:Taser International is the wrong group to do th by cbeaudry · · Score: 1

    Maybe police officers should use their hand to hand combat training to subdue unarmed suspects.

    If they cannot do that, maybe they shouldn't be on the force.

    Guns are LAST resort
    Batons are defence against non fire arms weapons
    Tazers are defence against non fire arms weapons

    If the suspect has NO weapon, there is no reason to use a tazer.

    If the officer is a 4'8" skinny woman... give her a detective or desk job. She shouldn't be responding to calls or walking "the beat".

  39. It's needed, but not here yet? by crhylove · · Score: 1

    So long as your footage is instantly available to the public and uncensorable, then maybe? You'd have to have some kind of darknet end to end encrypted publishing system with a public facing interface somewhere. This is a great idea for political freedom the planet over and needs to happen, but currently hasn't yet AFAIK.

    --
    I hold very few opinions. I hold information based on observation and fact. If you wish to disagree, please use facts.
  40. Union says (in family feud voice) by gatfirls · · Score: 1

    NO.

  41. Re:Taser International is the wrong group to do th by rastoboy29 · · Score: 1

    too fucking right.

  42. Re:Taser International is the wrong group to do th by chihowa · · Score: 1

    If you're pointing a gun at a police officer, they're not going to tase you, they're going to shoot you (with a gun). Tazers are supposed to replace the club or hand-to-hand stuff (for subduing unarmed violent people). They've devolved into just being toys that they can use to fuck with people.

    --
    If you want a vision of the future, imagine a youtube comments section scrolling - forever.
  43. Re:Taser International is the wrong group to do th by Legion303 · · Score: 1

    "If you confront police with a weapon you may die."

    Or if you "confront" them with a wallet. Or if you're holding a can of Pepsi. Or if you're minding your own fucking business.

  44. The day an asshole cant be a cop. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Has been way to long coming.

  45. History by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Major crime episodes in the U.S.A. began within the Police Departments of Boston, Chicago, Los Angeles and New York to name a few (many others).

    Keeping each and every Police Officer, particularly the Chief and the 'detachments' i.e. moles from the Mayor's Office would be a step, though costly one, forward.

    Let's face the facts. The Police Departments of every major city in the U.S.A. is just a hive of criminals prancing around in blue trousers.

  46. NO. Police get caught doing bad things and... by bussdriver · · Score: 1

    Even when it is bad enough to make the local news and there is a video, nobody is fired or even really punished. It takes some serious stuff for real actions to be taken.

    Since the information is NOT public unless something forces the issue, I don't think it will make anybody more stepford. It might improve service and add some stress for a while.

    1. Re:NO. Police get caught doing bad things and... by Dirk+Becher · · Score: 1

      People have made the experience that hoarded information may get leaked decades later and in a completely unrelated context and that a single careless commentary publicy exposed may ruin your life. So either you put yourself under permanent stress oder prepare to be listed under "Stupid guy who couldn't let his mouth shut" in some blog.

  47. Re:Taser International is the wrong group to do th by jklovanc · · Score: 1

    If you are stupid enough to grab for an object in your pocket while a police officer id yelling at you to not move then you may get the Darwin award.

  48. Re:Taser International is the wrong group to do th by jklovanc · · Score: 1

    If the suspect has NO weapon, there is no reason to use a tazer.

    I guess you have never encountered someone who is immune to pain due to drugs, psychosis, etc. Sorry but every officer can't be expected to best a 300 pound steroid enhanced boxer on meth. Blanket statements like that always have exceptions. By your standard all police officers should be heavy weight wrestlers. Sorry but there is not enough of them to go around. Even if you are a heavy weight wrestler you are going to take a lot of damage in a real fight.

  49. Re:Taser International is the wrong group to do th by jklovanc · · Score: 1

    Weapons include knives, clubs, broken bottles, etc.. All of which an officer does not want to get within range of or they may die. By the way the lethal range of a knife wielding person is 20 to 30 feet. They can be on the officer before he has time to draw and shoot. Do some officers misuse tazers? Yes and they need to be punished for that. That does not mean they should be taken away from all officers.

  50. Re:Taser International is the wrong group to do th by jklovanc · · Score: 1

    And a lot more people died of bullet wounds. I believe that tazer discharges should be dealt with the same scrutiny as pistol discharges. The officer has to justify the use. In my opinion "He called me 'pig'." is not a valid reason to taze someone.

  51. Re:Taser International is the wrong group to do th by jklovanc · · Score: 1

    Batons are defence against non fire arms weapons

    Are you serious? Would you go up against someone with a knife, machete, or ax armed only with a baton? You would be asking to die or be seriously injured.

  52. Re:Taser International is the wrong group to do th by jklovanc · · Score: 1

    This is the problem with tasers. They make the Police think they should use them when we as citizens think they shouldn't be using a weapon at all.

    We as citizens do not put our lives on the line every day dealing with people who have no respect for their lives or the lives of others. We were not there in the situation and we have the calm detachment and the time to make the exact correct decision. We were not in a situation similar to one that got a friend seriously injured or killed just last week. Armchair quarterbacking is very rarely helpful.

    Are tazers used too often? Yes and the people who misuse them need to be punished. Are tazers used to save lives; officer and suspect alike? Yes and they should be available to continue to do that.

  53. IP infringement? by onlySpace93828 · · Score: 1

    the device looks very similar to the looxcie . Except someone has removed the record light to let people know it's on, increased the battery life and priced it for the government market. It even has a similar 30 second feature.

  54. Re:Taser International is the wrong group to do th by chihowa · · Score: 1

    Good point. I hadn't considered knives, etc. Don't mistake my comment, I'm not disagreeing with police having a need for tazers. While there's a chance of death from normal tazer usage, a violent suspect will fare much better after being subdued with a tazer than a club (or a gun). I'm just disappointed that the police can't be a little more mature in their interactions with the public.

    --
    If you want a vision of the future, imagine a youtube comments section scrolling - forever.
  55. Some cops already have this... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Or something like it. Little camera mounted on shoulder. They push a button and start recording.
    Talking to one who has said the thing they hate about it is they can't be nice guys anymore. See a dog off the leash, start recording (required in case the dog bites anyone), snag the dog, owner comes running up explaining that the dog saw a rabbit and jumped out of the car, used to be you let them go, now you have to issue a ticket.

  56. Re:Taser International is the wrong group to do th by 0111+1110 · · Score: 1

    We as citizens do not put our lives on the line every day dealing with people who have no respect for their lives or the lives of others.

    While it's true that we citizens do not deal with police every day we do deal with them on occassion and for those occassions we should be in a position to tazer them or even shoot them to defend ourselves against what are generally the most violent and dangerous sociopaths we are ever likely to encounter in our lives.

    --
    Quite an experience to live in fear, isn't it? That's what it is to be a slave.
  57. Re:Taser International is the wrong group to do th by 0111+1110 · · Score: 1

    That may be your opinion but I don't think that opinion is shared by most cops. They appear to mainly use it as a compliance enforcement tool and as a fun torture device. Having said that, I would much rather be tazed than beaten or strangled or just murdered none of which require any weapons at all. If the sadistic sociopath can get off by torturing you with electricity instead of bashing your head in with a stick or putting you in a choke hold until you die of hypoxia it might save some innocent lives. There probably are certain cops who find the satisfaction of electrical torture to be enough and don't need to inflict permanent damage in order to feel better about being disrespected or looked at the wrong way or being challenged by a citizen thinking they have "rights" or whatever set them off. The price for that of course is a lot of citizens getting tortured by borderline sociopathic sadists who may not have become violent at all if it hadn't been for that little toy on their belt.

    --
    Quite an experience to live in fear, isn't it? That's what it is to be a slave.
  58. Re:Taser International is the wrong group to do th by jklovanc · · Score: 1

    That cuts both ways; I wish the public could be a little more mature in their interactions with the police.

  59. Re:Taser International is the wrong group to do th by jklovanc · · Score: 1

    Excellent turnaround and blatant generalization. So you are calling every police officer a violent and dangerous sociopath. Interesting view.

  60. Re:Taser International is the wrong group to do th by jklovanc · · Score: 1

    Do you have a degree in psychology? It is interesting that you can diagnose thousand of people you never met based on the highly publicized actions of a minority.

  61. Re:Taser International is the wrong group to do th by chihowa · · Score: 1

    That cuts both ways; I wish the public could be a little more mature in their interactions with the police.

    Now I have to disagree. When a member of the public is being childish, it usually only leads to to the policeman having a bruised ego. If only the misbehaving policemen were content with bruising egos.

    Or less subtly, being rude or disrespectful to the police does not justify being tased or beaten. Abusing one's authority and physically attacking someone for petty verbal insults is a vastly greater offense. "With great power..." and all of that.

    --
    If you want a vision of the future, imagine a youtube comments section scrolling - forever.
  62. Re:Taser International is the wrong group to do th by Agent0013 · · Score: 1

    We as citizens do not put our lives on the line every day dealing with people who have no respect for their lives or the lives of others.

    And they get paid to do it. That doesn't give them the right to attack innocent people and lie about the facts. Just because firemen might die in a fire, does that give them the right to kill people they interact with?

    --

    -- ssoorrrryy,, dduupplleexx sswwiittcchh oonn.. -Quote found on actual fortune cookie.
  63. Re:Taser International is the wrong group to do th by Agent0013 · · Score: 1

    That cuts both ways; I wish the public could be a little more mature in their interactions with the police.

    The police are paid to do their job, the public isn't. If they can't handle it, then they should not be in that position.

    We have more and more video evidence of police abusing and murdering innocent people. That is not because there are more murdering police, it's because cameras are becoming more common. The police force is the most likely criminal organization that any typical person will ever encounter. Most people will not come in contact with true criminals, but they will come into contact with the police. You can't tell me there are only a few "bad apples" as each officer will require the assistance of their coworkers and that means they need to be a part of the group. You can't go around turning in all the other officers and expect them to back you up when you need it. You need to look the other way. That makes them bad cops also. Until each and every misdeed by an officer is appropriately punished, then the force deserves no respect as they don't respect the law. They feel they are above the law.

    When I hear of news reports of police being shot, I think it's a good thing. Less police means less criminals. I root for the cop killer as they are doing society a good deed. How's that for the reputation our current police force has gotten?

    --

    -- ssoorrrryy,, dduupplleexx sswwiittcchh oonn.. -Quote found on actual fortune cookie.
  64. Re:Taser International is the wrong group to do th by jklovanc · · Score: 1

    When a member of the public is being childish, it usually only leads to to the policeman having a bruised ego.

    Or black eye, knife in the chest, etc. When some hopped up drunk idiot would rather mouth off in hopes of impressing his friends than not back off there may be a reason to use force. You are taking the extreme cases and viewing them as the rule. There is something wrong when the standard response to an officer saying "please step back" is "Fuck you".

    If you were an officer facing an aggressive person would you wait for him to pull a knife or would you taze him?

  65. Re:Taser International is the wrong group to do th by jklovanc · · Score: 1

    What I was trying to get across is that most people have never been in the situation where they could be killed by someone else and have no right to judge.

    Firemen do not have people threatening them every day. They don't have colleagues who have been killed by "unarmed" aggressive people. Every interaction with the public has the possibility of becoming a life and death situation. There have been many instances where a simple traffic stop has escalated into a gun battle. Do i think the some police abuse their power? Yes. DO I think that all police abuse their power? No.

  66. Re:Taser International is the wrong group to do th by jklovanc · · Score: 1

    Most people will not come in contact with true criminals, but they will come into contact with the police.

    Most of those interactions will end with the officer saying "have a nice day". There is a problem with publicity. With YouTube a single incident can now be seen by millions of people. When we used to hear about incidents that only happened locally now we hear about almost every one that happens all across the country. This leads to the perception that it is getting out of hand. It is the same issue with child abduction. Due to the nationwide publicity of so many stranger abductions there is an impression that the issue is on the rise when the rates have actually fallen.

    They feel they are above the law.

    Excellent generalization. So according to you if every officer is not perfect that all officers are criminals. Sorry but I don't buy that.

    How's that for the reputation our current police force has gotten?

    When your car is stolen or a loved one killed who are you going to call? Where would the world be without police? Sorry but Thunderdome is not the society I want to live in.

  67. Re:Taser International is the wrong group to do th by chihowa · · Score: 1

    When a member of the public is being childish, it usually only leads to to the policeman having a bruised ego.

    Or black eye, knife in the chest, etc. When some hopped up drunk idiot would rather mouth off in hopes of impressing his friends than not back off there may be a reason to use force. You are taking the extreme cases and viewing them as the rule. There is something wrong when the standard response to an officer saying "please step back" is "Fuck you".

    If you were an officer facing an aggressive person would you wait for him to pull a knife or would you taze him?

    Attacking a police officer is a crime, full stop. If someone is about to use force, of course an officer can defend himself. Saying "fuck you" is not a credible threat, though, and doesn't warrant the use of force. The reason police don't get respect much is because their profession has a long history of not being respectable. This didn't come out of nowhere. They earned this reputation by beginning every single interaction with the public by framing the other citizen as an enemy and proceeding to treat him as such.

    Of course on the other hand, a police officer attacking another citizen is never a crime (unless another non-police citizen managed to get video evidence). If you have legal authority to use force on other citizens (a special privilege), you should have the restraint to not instantly jump to violence just because someone is not being compliant. If you can't interact with another person without resorting to violence and your skin is so thin that simple disrespect makes your blood boil, then you are not suitable as a police officer. This society would be a much better place with fewer armed sociopathic thugs (even the ones with badges).

    As to that being the extreme case, police brutality and intimidation should never exist. When a policeman is guilty of the above, the other "good" cops shouldn't attempt to cover up the incident. The fact that it is a rare but very real phenomenon, and that police departments basically condone it, means it should be part of the discussion. A systemic problem like that doesn't get to be brushed under the rug as "a few bad apples" so easily.

    --
    If you want a vision of the future, imagine a youtube comments section scrolling - forever.
  68. An Idea by The+Wild+Norseman · · Score: 1

    Here's something I haven't yet seen anyone comment on and that is: police radios are in use and citizens have had the ability and opportunity to listen in on those transmissions. Nobody really raised a fuss about that, but then when cell phones became prevalent, the cops now all use their cell phones to talk to each other and now have the ability to have private conversations. With lapel cameras/recorders, citizens once again will have the ability to listen in on police conversations.

    In some ways, I like this idea, because it helps to expose the shitty way many cops think and talk about us helpless peons.

    The problem I see is that when a silent alarm gets triggered, for example, the codes go out via the computers that are installed in police cars which means that the cameras might be able to pick up on this information, and if bad guys are watching these streams in realtime, there goes one legitimate use of privacy that the cops have.

    Just some thoughts.

    --
    "A government is a body of people usually -- notably -- ungoverned." -Shepherd Book
  69. Re:Taser International is the wrong group to do th by Legion303 · · Score: 1

    You routinely keep cans of Pepsi in your pockets?

  70. Re:Taser International is the wrong group to do th by Agent0013 · · Score: 1

    Excellent generalization. So according to you if every officer is not perfect that all officers are criminals. Sorry but I don't buy that.

    If the police don't weed out their criminals, then they are a gang of criminals. If you cover for someone doing something wrong, then you cannot claim to be just and moral. I rarely see a cop car driving the speed limit. If they don't have their lights on then they are breaking the law when they speed. If you feel they should be above the law, then I disagree with you. They are supposed to uphold the law, but that doesn't make them above it.

    When your car is stolen or a loved one killed who are you going to call? Where would the world be without police?

    This sounds like the same victim attitude of the "get rid of all the guns" people. If your car is stolen, it's still stolen even after the police show up. If your loved one is killed, they are just as dead after the police show up to fill out their paperwork and maybe catch the "perp" after the fact.

    Over time the police has shifted from a public servant that is there to help people, including the victims of car theft or families of murders, to the role of crime fighter. That shift was pushed by the politicians and the tough on crime stance. It has led the police to see all people as potential criminals. They just need to find something to bust you for. It's an "us against them" attitude and it does not lead to a healthy relationship between the force and the citizens.

    Pretty much all of my interactions with police have been just fine. I don't give them attitude and they don't seem to harass me. That does not mean they aren't criminals or horrible people. I have watched them lie to me as they pull me over. I just sit there and don't argue as they can do whatever they want. They chose a job where they would have power over others. If they actually cared about helping people they would not be able to stomach the job. I talked a lot with a chicago beat cop who loved interacting with the public and talking to people. He hated the job as you only see the worst parts of society. I don't see how a good person could stand that without getting ulcers or having to quit eventually. And when the people you work with are breaking the law, you either have to turn them in and ostracize yourself or you let it slide and begin the slippery slope to yourself becoming like the rest. There's not enough accountability for the force as a whole to be good. And with the politicians using the police force as their armed muscle it only makes the situation worse.

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    -- ssoorrrryy,, dduupplleexx sswwiittcchh oonn.. -Quote found on actual fortune cookie.
  71. Re:Taser International is the wrong group to do th by jklovanc · · Score: 1

    What does Pepsi have to do with anything?

  72. Re:Taser International is the wrong group to do th by Legion303 · · Score: 1

    1-800-PHONICS.

  73. "get's" ??? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    it get's wasted

    "gets".