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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?"
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.
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.
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.
You have it backwards, one party consent laws are designed to protect the public from inadvertent violation of wiretapping laws. Want to record the professor's lecture to help with your notes and study, make sure you get written approval from not only the prof but also from everybody who enters or exits the room while your recorder is running.
Oh and Government is not allowed to be one of the consenting parties. If they want to record someone they need a warrant. One party is actually better if you understand how it really works.
I'm too lazy to compose a creative sig.
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
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.
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.
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.
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.