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Should Cops Wear Google Glass?
Nerval's Lobster writes "Over at The Kernel, staff writer Greg Stevens wonders whether police departments around the world should outfit their officers with Google Glass. There's some logic behind the idea. A cop with wearable electronics constantly streaming audio and video back to a supervisor (or even a Website) would be less likely, at least in theory, to take liberties with civilians' civil liberties. But not everybody thinks it's such a good idea. Jay Stanley, a senior policy analyst with the ACLU's Speech, Privacy and Technology Project, wrote in a recent blog posting that society needs to make choices 'about the extent to which we want to allow the government to store up that data so that it has the power to hit 'rewind' on everybody's lives.' In the view of that organization, 'that's just too much power.' That being said, law enforcement wearing electronics that streams constant video and audio data would still be subject to the law. 'If the officer is recording a communication he has in public with someone, there's probably no wiretap problem since there's at least the consent of one party and no expectation of privacy,' Hanni M. Fakhoury, a staff attorney for the Electronic Frontier Foundation, wrote in an email to Slashdot. 'But if he's recording peripheral communications between two separate individuals, than there's potential wiretap liability depending on the circumstances.' What do you think? Are cops wearing Google Glass (or similar wearable electronic) a good idea?"
So, cops will look like Borg. What else is new...
If police should be wearing google glass, it would be because it can provide heads up information, as opposed to the rather bulky laptop-based systems now in their cruisers.
If the recording is "missing" for any reason, or if the cop stops recording or removes the recording device for any reason other than someone else breaking it (and visibly doing so), everything the cop says about the unrecorded events should be assumed to be a lie.
The streams from these "cop cameras" have to be restricted so that they can only be accessed by the officer's supervisors and with a subpoena. I strongly object to the proposals some have made that the footage be made public. I do not want my every interaction with the police made public, even if it's getting a jaywalking ticket.
"Innocent until proven guilty" can't be achieved when facing the court of public opinion.
I do not fail; I succeed at finding out what does not work.
What's the difference between this and vehicle mounted cams, as far as privacy goes? If the officer is present, then obviously either one parties consented to him being present or it's being conducted in public place. Unless the officer is hiding in your bedroom closet... And if that's the case... you don't need google glass to record things....
The San Francisco Fire Chief just banned fire helmet mounted cameras after helmet-cam footage from the Asiana crash became public. Some say it was done to protect the privacy of victims, others to protect the city from liability as in this case where one of the victims was still alive when run over by a responding fire truck.
I see privacy issues both ways. If the cops is required to wear Google glasses all the time, we have an issue where the cops cannot use the restroom or eat in privacy. And if he takes them off, then some lawyer will be upset about the missing time. I also see a problem with overriding the individual judgement of the cop. What if he feels he HAS to write a ticket instead of just give a warning, because his every move is being monitored by someone. I think we should just stick with dashcams
There are only a few states left that have "Consent of All Parties" laws. That is, EVERYBODY has to consent, in order for something to be recorded.
Over time, state after state has passed laws to allow "one party consent". That is, only the party doing the recording has to "consent" to be recorded. And that's bullshit. The laws were passed to make it easier for law enforcement (and corporations) to gather surveillance on other people.
This needs to change. "All party consent" makes very good sense and is the only scheme that preserves privacy at the proper level.
Only if you want to thin out the force through prosecutions of abuse of power
As long as we can too.
Keep the Classic Slashdot.
Can the cop OR their supervisor OR the police department turn the glasses off on demand?
I think this could be a great idea if it would always be used when police officer has to testify in court, currently most lawyers advice you never speak to a police officer under any circumstance : http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=6wXkI4t7nuc&t=239 If every police officer were required to have an always on camera, then their interactions with the public and their testimony in court would no longer be based on their opinion of the situation, or what they though they heard you say, but hard video evidence. Also it could generally make the police a lot more aware of how they interact with the public, which in my experience in the US, has generally been very negative. I am no lawyer, but my current belief is to never speak to a police officer.
There's so much potential for abuse.
First, to be on the cop's side -- these aren't just security cameras watching specific areas from a distance, this is directly monitoring someone's work. I'm not foolish enough to trust any of them, but I venture to guess that the majority of cops are well-meaning and ethical, and do not throw the power trips you see an abundance of on Youtube. I'd quit any job if my employer tried to look over my shoulder in this way. But then again, my job as a software dev does not give me a power that can so easily have direct, permanent ramifications on the lives of others if abused. I'm conflicted on this point.
At the same time, as a joe citizen I don't want to have cops walking the streets with facial recognition devices potentially giving false positives with some criminal who happens to have a vaguely similar facial structure. And because the tech is there, what's to stop them from recording and cataloging what faces they capture, or even just fully archiving the entire video feed? Once someone has the video, what's to stop them from looking at it and leaking it? I really would rather not see a video of a crime scene involving my loved ones pop up because of some douchebag cop wanting to make a buck selling it to a sleazy website.
It's a pretty sad statement on law-enforcement that they are either so commonly incompetent or corrupt that they and their encounters with the public need to be documented on video.
As a victim of police brutality and the inevitable frame-up cover charges that followed and the violent criminal record to show for it, I definitely endorse this idea.
What's more I think any of the typical contempt of cop charges or even more ambitious/serious cover charges like assault and battery with a deadly weapon or drug/firearm possession should be automatically thrown out if the officer does not have 100% video coverage of the event. Cops, especially American ones, have proven again and again that they cannot be trusted and that they are no more immune from the corruption of arbitrary power than the guards in the Stanford Prison Experiment. If anything the kind of people who become police officers in the US, who grew up idealizing violent, out of control TV cops like Dirty Harry or the character in The Wire are less likely to resist the temptation to take out their anger on all non-cops they come into contact with.
While this may not stop them from tazing 14 year old girls in the head it would at least discourage or eliminate some of the inevitable false charges that often follow, literally adding insult to injury. No, this won't directly stop all police brutality because they will usually remove or turn off or even break whatever recording device they are issued before beating anyone, but it may prevent their excuses, the false charges which led them to having to violently 'defend themselves' from whatever unarmed 10 year old girl/ninja that was attacking him. Without the comfort of the always reliable cover charges, lawsuits start to become more of a concern and certain cops may think twice about beating or killing people when they cannot just make up a story about having to defend themselves from a violent and out of control attacker.
Quite an experience to live in fear, isn't it? That's what it is to be a slave.
people in power abuse their power. Mainly if they aren't subject to any sort of scrutiny on how they do their job. History has shown this time and time again. And if you have trouble remembering history, the NSA is currently a prime example of power being abused because of lack of scrutiny.
Cops work for the people, they need to be completely accountable while on duty, and in this day and age, that include video surveillance.
To put it in terms the average americans could understand. It protects the children from Terrorist Pedophile Policemen.
Be seeing you...
It is a good idea to have cops wear personal video recorders at all times.
By the same token, it might be a good idea for a lot of other people to do the same thing.
The wiretap laws need to be adjusted to make recording anything you might otherwise see with your eyes permissible unless its copyrighted information. Obviously you can't have people walking into movie theaters with cameras active. But a lot of situations legally would be a lot more simplistic if we had video evidence in all altercations.
Corruption and bribery would be less of an issue. Various types of non-fatal assault... accidents. All of it would be easier to process if we had video evidence.
I've decided to stop wasting my time responding to AC trolls/sockpuppets... so if you want a response from me... login.
The answer to that ancient question, because we can actually do it with today's tech, is "everyone". So all public buildings and public/government vehicles should be wired with webcams that anyone can access at any time to see what Public Servants are actually doing (instead of what they claim to be doing). Remember Heinlein's "Notebooks of Lazarus Long", and the particular quotation "Secrecy is the beginning of tyranny." Cops that can do things without being watched are in a position to abuse power just like any other tyrant.
Just not as integrated. They often have a PDA to look things up and cameras on police are slowly being rolled out. The old catching bad cops doesn't work though. As a number of times when something 'bad' happens, the tapes vanish. Case in point the Brazilian on the London Tube. Also Tomlinson London has the most CCTV per sqkm, yet they had the gall to say the tapes went missing or the cameras were broken. Even when there is footage oversight is not there, guy called Delbo King, cuffed and was kicked around on camera, no charges.
Perhaps you were unaware that the police sometimes stray from public areas?
Guns don't kill people; Physics kills people! - John Lithgow as Dick Solomon on Third Rock From The Sun
8 pm - 8.20 : shakey head cam shot of the sargeant at the station getting a low down on what to expect and assignments.
8.20 - 8.45: shakey head cam shot of donuts and coffee
8.45 - 10 : shakey head cam shot of the taillights of the car in front of the cruiser
10 - 10.05 : shakey head cam shot of the officer peeing all the coffee out
10.05 - 10.07 : shakey head cam shot of the officer's path out of the donut shop with coffee and another donut
10.07 - 10.15 : shakey head cam shot of officer writing a parking ticket for some douchebag's BMW parked in the handicap zone
10.15 - 12.30 - shakey head cam shot of tail lights of the car in front of the officer's cruiser
12.30 - 12.37 - shakey head cam shot of officer driving like a maniac to a call - lights and sirens rolling
12.37 - 12.45 - shakey head cam shot of some psychotic dumbass with a bullwhip on a street car screaming that he's Jesus and that the cops are all a bunch of fags and wimps cuz wimps are nothing but a bunch of WEAK IMPOTENT MOTHERLESS PUSSIES!!!! SO FUCK YOU COPS!!! FUCK YOU FUCK YOU FUCK YOU!!!
12.45 - 12.45 shakey head cam shot of the officer getting increasingly pissed off at being bated by the psycho, and then the officer tells him to drop the whip. He refuses, so the officer perforates him with high speed lead projectiles. As the psycho pukes blood and goes into convulsion, the officer barks "OK NOW WHO'S THE FAGGOT, BOY???" To which another officer says "Yeah. Damn straight."
12.46 - 2 AM - shakey head cam shot of officer driving downtown and filling out paper work.
2. AM - 2.15 - shakey head cam shot of officer eating donuts and drinking coffee.
Shoes for Industry. Shoes for the Dead.
It should be a requirement. They are public servants operating in a public environment. When issuing a summons, the recorded event should be a requirement demonstrating probable cause. Judges should require presentation of the recorded event during the arraignment. Sounds like transparency to me. Nothing wrong with that. Following arraignment let the jurist decide applicability and culpability.
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Non Sequitur much?
Guns don't kill people; Physics kills people! - John Lithgow as Dick Solomon on Third Rock From The Sun
A cop with wearable electronics constantly streaming audio and video back to a supervisor (or even a Website) would be less likely, at least in theory, to take liberties with civilians' civil liberties.
Yes, which is why it won't happen.
If Slashdot were chemistry it would look like this:Cadaverine
is as good as mine.
I can't tell you how many times I've seen cops in cop cars miss stuff happening right in front of them because the cop has been fully focused on the laptop screen mounted in his car.
Basically anything that increases the chances of me not getting caught speeding is fine by me.
Any "law enforcement" or government issue google glass is going to be passing through their teammates and supervisors, so it's not as if this is going to auto-youtube all the beatings. Those videos won't make it online unless someone else also took a shot with his own, which is no different from currently.
Well for this system to work or even to be taken seriously the footage would have to be automatically uploaded somewhere that is not accessible by any police officer. Otherwise it's pretty obvious that any negative footage will be deleted. Since there are already several systems that do this for the rest of us, I certainly don't think implementing such a system for the police would be impossible.
Quite an experience to live in fear, isn't it? That's what it is to be a slave.
This is the biggest problem I see, especially coupled with increasingly sophisticated automated sound+video analysis. Of course if such abuse gets common enough people will demand their legislators legalize a lot of outdated or trivial crimes and clarify existing laws, but that doesn't help against targeted harassment of individuals.
--- Most topics have many sides worth arguing, allow me to take one opposite you.
The Rialto PD did a real world study, with a write up in the New York Times plus a formal report by a Cambridge University Professor.
The results were overwhelming positive. Use of unnecessary force on citizens dropped. Bogus complaints against officers dropped. Time spent dealing with he-said she-said situations dropped.
Big cities should be jumping on this technology. In 2012 New York City spent 735 Million Dollars on settlements. I suspect cameras would dramatically reduce that number, both from officers being forced to be more careful but also from bogus citizen complaints being quickly dismissed with video proof.
Is Google Glass the right answer, no. It does way more than just video, and has cost and durability concerns. However personal video cameras are the answer, every cop (and probably firefighter and paramedic) should wear one.
Google would be a bad solution, though - they have a history of lying to the public and abusing data (PRISM) in a way that puts most local agencies to shame. Would people really want to give Google that much more power?
Better - require law enforcement to wear cameras without specifying a vendor - and instead create a legal framework that would cover under what conditions and to whom (ACLU? Defense Attorneys? NSA? Prosecutors? Community Neighborhood Watch Groups? Victims?) that information could be shared.
Regardless of what should happen, the eventual end-game is that everyone will be recording everything around them, all the time.
On the plus side, that will make the courts' job easier in most cases -- instead of unreliable and/or dishonest witness testimony, you'll have multiple streams of audio and video to look at.
On the minus side, no privacy for anyone outside their shuttered home... and anything you say or do in public will be recorded forever, so no living down any regrettable mistakes, either.
I don't care if it's 90,000 hectares. That lake was not my doing.
And they will be able to wear them other places everyone else is restricted from.
It will be one more thing the police are allowed to use(against you), that you can't use.
Should be used to make police accountable for there actions, far to many police abuse there power, i know here in canada more people are terrified of the cops than in some 3rd world countries at least the corruption in 3rd world countries is somewhat standardized and a few bucks can get you out of 'trouble' here its all about power and control.
in the immortal words of the N.W.A
Fuck the police
It was either that, or "what are we going to do with all the videos of doughnuts and hookers?"
Considering the immense amount of power bestowed upon them and how they continue to demonstrate just how undeserving of it really are, we certainly want all actions of law enforcement to be fiercely scrutinized with the undeceiving eyes and ears of a camera and microphone. On the other hand, it carries a considerable potential to frequently violate individuals' privacy.
On balance, it should probably be uploaded to a private server, accessible only to some sort of civil rights watchdog group with the power to charge law enforcement with violations; and these charges need to have TEETH. No, officer, you don't get a paid vacation for bludgeoning and tazing a suspect because he might have been a bit rude or simply defensive of his rights ... you get charged for felony assault with a deadly weapon AND your wages/pension/whatever are garnished until you've paid out restitution, medical bills, etc.
A court order would be required for police access to specific footage and an additional, separate order for general publication. Release to private citizens or attorneys strictly for the purposes of legal defense would require only identification and an internal report.
Additionally, police should be required to immediately relinquish their duties to a fellow officer the instant the recording device ceases to function for any reason and continue only when it is repaired or replaced. Otherwise, the entire system is useless because oops, it just happened to malfunction at exactly the time I was accused of beating the suspect to a pulp -- I swear, he tripped and fell!
But who am I kidding... this is all a pipe dream as we are waaaaay too far down the rabbit hole of tyranny for anything like this to gain traction.
No, you're still wrong. It's "sudo modme Score:5, Insightful".
"The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants." ~Thomas Jefferson
And those thousand want the dirty ones gone, I bet.
I have a very high opinion of police. The level of professionalism has gone up so much in the past 40 years (at least in Northern cities) that it's like a completely different animal. Used to be, the guy from the people you hung out with who became a cop was the last guy you'd want with any authority. Now, the young people going into the academy are first-rate. I deal with them every day, living two blocks from the Chicago Police Academy. Maybe my perspective has changed, now that I have a family and property, but I know for sure they've changed. For the better.
The civilians who are giving the orders? Not so much. They seem more entranced by paramilitary hardware and tactics than by community policing, which is a damn shame.
You are welcome on my lawn.
I think its a great idea, if it is streamed to a separate departments server (say the prosecutors office, clerks office, etc) that has an obligation to keep the footage intact and unedited as a matter of law. And that officers who remove or have "accidents" with their video gear at "inconvenient" times are SEVERELY reprimanded (fired, prosecuted, etc). As we have seen all too many times, if officers have access to evidence that will implicate them in a crime (Oscar Grant Shooting, Hollywood FL framing, Michael DeHererra beating, etc) they will happily destroy, edit or obscure the footage.
Reminds me of the cops in that series.
The creepy thing is that almost everything I see in the news almost every day reminds me of the dystopian future in that TV-series.
The trick they did was to place everything in 2077 - when in reality it's just around the corner.
Windows 2000 - from the guys who brought us edlin
On the other hand, I prefer police showing a video tape showing that you actually said something, rather than the officer saying "he said that to me" and being believed on his word because, you know, he's a police officer and therefore his statements are not to be questioned. Which is the state of the law right now. When an officer says "I asked him this question and he gave me this answer even though he denies it now", it is legally considered to be a fact (barring a few exceptions, hopefully)
So basically, they should all start wearing these recording glasses, and then the law should be changed so that, when something hasn't been recorded, the word of an officer carries a lot less weight than it does now. Your word against the officer's? No recording? You go free. That would be a big improvement. I don't know what everyone is so scared of. "Oh my, they might record me doing something illegal!" versus "Oh my, they might arrest me and declare to the judge that I did something illegal", what's the big difference? I prefer the former rather than the latter.
Of course, they might go over the tapes afterwards and see all sorts of slightly illegal things that the officer himself didn't notice or wouldn't have bothered to take his time to react to, but really, would they waste this kind of manpower, going over all the tapes, instead of just letting those same people walk the streets and catch more important crimes? I don't think it would be worth the effort.
This is very simple:
-Cop videos bad guy: video is entered as proof.
-Cop videos police violence: Video gets lost/camera was off.
And if everything is always recorded/on the record, people might not want to talk to police anymore since EVERYTHING is recorded.
if you're doing something that is not a big deal and it gets recorded and goes to jury trial.. then that's the first step of changing the society into something that makes more sense. because the jury would see it in the context and as something else than a story on a paper about how you broke the law.
now when those laws and conventions are used extremely selectively they aren't getting changed..
world was created 5 seconds before this post as it is.
The level of professionalism has gone up so much in the past 40 years (at least in Northern cities) that it's like a completely different animal. Used to be, the guy from the people you hung out with who became a cop was the last guy you'd want with any authority. Now, the young people going into the academy are first-rate. I deal with them every day, living two blocks from the Chicago Police Academy.
I agree. Cops seem a lot more sensitive to civil rights these days. However, I also live in Chicago and last year had my phone confiscated by the police for videoing an arrest on Division and Rush. I got my phone back after the cops erased the video. I say yes to Google Glass for cops.
I wonder how uch this could hurt the average citizen.
What if a cop frisks you for a legitimate reason and finds a joint. Say he would normally toss it and let you go, but being on video would be be afraid to not enforce the law as written. Same goes for pulling you over for going 79 mph in a 65 zone and writing you a ticket for 75. Would they have to write all tickets out and lose any descression for giving warning? The hot blondes of the world will be getting a lot more tickets if that is the case!
Ninjas don't carry tic tacs
Yes, with the stipulation that it be rebranded donut-cam and instead of saying "OK Glass" or whatever, they have to oink.
at establishing a vital pillar of the future police state.
I'll bet that's a standing order to all beat cops to try to limit the videotaping of arrests. I don't blame the cops for that, I blame the civilian administrators.
You are welcome on my lawn.
This is more like an inevitable progression. Of course cops will wear google glasses. Don't tell me google wasn't aware of police and the military as a major market for these. They are the ultimate and most significant target market for these devices. Geeks may play with them and have "fun" for a while but in the end these will be exposed for what they are, a surveillance device that centralizes power in the hands of those who already have it.
I believe that all police should ALWAYS have to be recording - it's in the public interest and any cop or police higher ups who object to this aren't interested in professional policing...It's something that could save so much time and money as well.
Technology can be used to guarantee our liberty, as with this sort of technology.... ...or it can be used to further repress us......and I don't think I need to even give examples here, everyone is well aware....
THere's too many cop reality shows now.
If we force police to wear something like Glass all the time, we might as well just have robots doing the job. This would make things to "black and white" for me, and I suspect most people, once it was actually implemented.
I know a lot of people don't trust police officers, but I think we need to leave an avenue open for making common sense judgement calls.
If they are forced to wear Glass all the time, every step they make will be scrutinized and second guessed, I believe this is more than can be fairly ask of anyone doing any job.
a specially designed version imprinted with their own id watermarked so theres no abuse possible ...
the only way to true justice since justice has nothing to hide
yes
they should, 9 to 5 or whatever shift they're in, if they refuse they cant get the job
the press would love it, the people would be secured, the cops would lose any kind of option to
yea they should
Free speech was meant to be free for all... how can anyone grow up in a nanny state ?