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$57,000 Payout For Woman Charged With Wiretapping After Filming Cops
mpicpp sends this news from Ars:
'A local New Hampshire police department agreed Thursday to pay a woman who was arrested and charged with wiretapping $57,000 to settle her civil rights lawsuit. The deal comes a week after a federal appeals court ruled that the public has a "First Amendment" right to film cops. The plaintiff in the case, Carla Gericke, was arrested on wiretapping allegations in 2010 for filming her friend being pulled over by the Weare Police Department during a late-night traffic stop. Although Gericke was never brought to trial, she sued, alleging that her arrest constituted retaliatory prosecution in breach of her constitutional rights. The department, without admitting wrongdoing, settled Thursday in a move that the woman's attorney speculated would deter future police "retaliation." ... The First US Circuit Court of Appeals ruled (PDF) in Gericke's case last week that she was "exercising a clearly established First Amendment right when she attempted to film the traffic stop in the absence of a police order to stop filming or leave the area."
" settled Thursday in a move that the woman's attorney speculated would deter future police "retaliation." ... "
But then this:
"...that she was "exercising a clearly established First Amendment right when she attempted to film the traffic stop in the absence of a police order to stop filming or leave the area."
Seems to imply that if the police had ordered her to stop filming or leave the area, then she could have been arrested had she continued.
So really, doesn't this just mean that Police will now simply order people to stop filming or leave the area in order to end the filming?
So a simple "stop filming" or "go away" from the police, and THEN they can arrest you.
Did it come out of the fucking pockets of the individuals responsible? Because if it didn't, it's definitely not going to send the needed message...
There's more responsibility than that placed upon the police, which you would've seen if you'd done a 5-second search instead of just read a shitty slashdot summary:
"However, a police order that is specifically directed at the First Amendment right to film police performing their duties in public may be constitutionally imposed only if the officer can reasonably conclude that the filming itself is interfering, or is about to interfere, with his duties."
You can read even more (imagine that! read to educate yourself!) here: http://www.washingtonpost.com/...
I've learned that they're worthless, so I don't read AC comments anymore.
With awards coming directly out of the police budget for that year - no fobbing off the penalty on the taxpayers.
The people responsible should be brought to justice.
While I agree there should definitely be some compensation to victims of government, I like to remind people that it's OUR MONEY! They get it from taxes we pay. Instead, we simply need other punitive measures. I am more inclined to fine the police actors directly. Having a fine placed on them would quickly resolve the problem and prevent MANY police from behaving badly. Additionally, in the event that there is police department cooperation and collaboration, actual criminal charges should be filed.
I just don't believe government should have THAT much more power than the average person on the street and should only be as equally armed.
Organize some crowd-sourcing and buy one way tickets to North Korea for all police and government security forces.
They will be happy there: censorship, live ammunition and full regime.
Leave American people alone, "protect and serve" Kim Jong-Un instead.
No. Just No. Good judges are precise. He was very specific about the circumstances for the ruling. He did not "carve out an exception" at all. He was specifying in discreet detail his ruling, so that the context was extremely clear. He was specifically not ruling on a case where the cops ordered someone to depart or stop filiming, so that this case would not be misused as precedent.
The society is way more authoritarian than it was generations ago. Not that it ever was likely in the center.... except maybe at the beginning.
See http://politicalcompass.org/ for yourself. Now it could be the "ideal" is not in the middle or is a bit authoritarian but that is a side issue, the point is that the culture is authoritarian which is why the public is goosestepping along.
Our schools are raising kids to love the boot of authority... or at least to be used to it. Schools are more like prisons in many ways and the traditional amount of anarchy and chaos in school is being beaten down; even in the art,music,gym classrooms and for some schools the playground is even being put into "order" (if not completely eliminating recess all together which has been done where I am for elementary kids... then we wonder why so many are being called ADD and given drugs to keep them in their seats... while still giving them tons of sugar and caffeine...)
Look at peaceable assembly. That right is almost dead. We just think "order" is more important than our rights and even "peace" has alternate meanings now... You can't peacefully protest if you make noise or fill up public space (while still allowing others to transit that space) because that isn't "peaceful" enough! You have to be invisible and THEN it is ok... completely ineffective and even then 1st chance they have they will find an excuse to invoke "order" and do anything they wish to terrorize the population into never wanting to join in a protest again. Vote every few years (if you are white and not a college student) and shut up and lick boots in between. Only lobbyists should be getting attention between elections. etc.
Democracy Now! - uncensored, anti-establishment news
Keep in mind that this was in the First Circuit. (Liberal circuit, includes Boston, case law there based on cops trying to stop someone from filming *on Boston Common*). If you try this in Alabama, Nevada, or LA you are more likely to get the shit kicked out of you by the cops and then for them to arrest you.
It was a former union president who pointed out to conservatives the problem of having unions "negotiating" with the politicians they put in office. This is completely different from most unions, who negotiate with companies. An endorsement from the police and teachers' unions normally all but guarantees the election for a mayor or city council. Throw in some cash contributions and campaigning by the teachers' union and the police union ...
What ends up happening is that the police and teachers unions hand money to a mayoral candidate. A month later, the now mayor hands your money to the union. It's a win for the union and a win for the politician, a lose for the taxpayers and citizens who aren't represented in this process. The politician is supposed to represent the citizens owes a huge favor to the union.
Prior to the 1980s, was kind of common sense, everybody saw the conflict of interest. In the 1980s, a former union president became ppresident of the US, and defined modern conservatism. Because Reagan pointed out the obvious conflict of interest, democrats suddenly didn't want to talk about it. Democrats extreme and illogical support for screwing the citizenry is only because that was the position they had to take in order to be opposite of Reagan - who, as president of a union, obviously wasn't anti-union. He was anti-screw-over-the-citizens-with-an-obvious-conflict-of-interest.
Secondly, and even more importantly, what do unions do when they don't want to accept a negotiated contract? They go on strike. If GM doesn't give the auto union what they want, there is a strike and GM doesn't build any cars for a week. If the police union doesn't get what they want, they go on strike and there's no police protection for a week? Really? You think the union should be allowed to hold the entire city hostage like that?
NY has that sorted out with the Taylor Law.
tl;dr of the taylor law is the old contract stays in effect as it was when it expired with no changes in pay or benefits until new contract is negotiated and public services cannot strike. every striker faces fines of a day's pay for each day on strike and organizers of a strike can be prosecuted criminally.
you can tell it's a good law because both unions and anti-union groups bitch about it from time to time.
Snowden and Manning are heroes.
While switching trains, I once saw the police arresting someone at the train stop. They were becoming very aggressive and seemed about to become violent with the man they were arresting, despite the fact that he was not threatening them in any way.
I took out my cell phone and began filming. Very shortly after, one of the officers pointed at me and said something (not audible, he was too far away), but all of a sudden, their behavior became very professional, and the arrest proceeded without incident.
If I were in the same situation, I hope someone would do the same. There is no reason police should not be accountable for their behavior while performing their duties. After all, isn't it they who so often say "If there's nothing to hide, you've nothing to fear"? What would be wrong with a video of police officers doing their job properly? If anything, that would protect them if they were later accused of doing something wrong. The only ones with anything to fear from a video recording are those who intend on doing something wrong, and that's the exact time we need them being taped.
To fight the war on terror, stop being afraid.
While I completely agree that the public has the right to record the police doing their work, the police's motivation for not wanting to be recorded is not completely nefarious as you assume. Just as you probably fear the government selectively editing video to come up with trumped up charges, the police also fear citizens with an axe to grind selectively editing video to distort what happened and cast them in a bad light.
Even when the videographer doesn't have an axe to grind, videos shot by the public tend to be biased against the police. Their job is mostly one of response. Consequently the video rarely captures the incident which sparked the situation, while almost always capturing the cop's response. The Rodney King video is a perfect example. Without getting into whether the cops were lying, it showed the cops beating King, but missed the beginning of the incident where King purportedly refused to listen to their instructions and charged at them despite being tasered. Our minds weigh visual information much more heavily than other info. When you have video of a cop emptying his gun into a car, while the context of why he is doing so is relegated to a text description because it happened before the camera was turned on, it naturally leads people to a biased interpretation of the event - biased against the cop in most cases.
Which in turn naturally leads to cops not wanting to be videotaped. As I said, I absolutely believe the public has the right to video the police. But I can also understand why the police don't like being videotaped. (Off-topic: we need to come up with a new word for this since video is rarely shot on tape anymore.) A solution would seem to be for cops to always record everything they do. Unfortunately the cop is an involved party, while a random passing videographer is assumed to be a neutral third party. This again leads to bias against the police (not entirely unjustified), as people assume they'll just hide or destroy any or their video which does not support their version of events.
Ultimately, the solution is for the public to stop assuming that video tells the whole story. Just like when you see an incredible photo, you usually assume it was photoshopped. Video seems more real than a photo, so it's just taking more time for people to start to automatically question video. 3D CGI in movies is helping, as people learn to be skeptical of any video they see.
Happens all the time. I've been pulled over by the police 8 or 9 times in 30 years of driving for various traffic violations. Some I did nothing wrong, most I did break the law. I've never gotten a ticket. I just explained it honestly to the cop, and they've always let me off with a warning. People aren't infallible - they make mistakes and not all situations are clear-cut. When you enforce zero tolerance, you get the ridiculous situation we have in our schools: where a student gets suspended because she went to pick up a friend at a party that was serving alcohol to minors just as police arrived, or for throwing away a razor blade he found on the ground because he was "in possession" of a blade on school property during its trip from the ground to the garbage can.