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Police Body Cam Privacy Exploitation
blindbat writes: A new YouTube account is pushing local police agencies to reconsider their use of body-mounted cameras. Poulsbo Police have been wearing body cameras for about a year, and the department says the results have been good. But last month reality hit, in the form of a new YouTube user website, set up by someone under the name, "Police Video Requests." The profile says it posts dash and body cam videos received after public records requests to Washington state police departments. "They're just using it to post on the internet," said Chief Townsend, "and I suspect it's for commercial purposes." In September, "Police Video Requests" anonymously asked Poulsbo PD for every second of body cam video it has ever recorded. The department figures it will take three years to fill that request. And Chief Townsend believes it is a huge privacy concern, as officers often see people on their worst days. "People with mental illness, people in domestic violence situations; do we really want to have to put that video out on YouTube for people? I think that's pushing it a little bit," he said.
Since it is being obtained from the police it no doubt is classified as a public record.
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
INAL, but ...
First, laws like the freedom of information act refer to federal institutions, so this ~may~ not apply
Second, someone has to classify the police video as 'public records'. They are not explicitly made so just because they're information produced by a public office.
Third, even if they do apply, they can be denied for valid grounds - for example, if they contain personally identifying information, underage nudity, or other public safety issues - it's going to be on a per-municipality basis.
Personally speaking though, I think that if what's being recorded happens in a public space, then there should be few barriers to viewing it. Additionally, 3 years to provide the video is complete bullcrap, and I think anyone even remotely involved would understand that. Unless they really are thinking they need to get consent forms from every person.
On the other hand, if you choose to display it in a public medium like youtube, well, maybe you would need to get permission from those recorded.
What better way for someone to get the department to stop using cameras?
On the other hand, making all the public surveillance information to the public seems like it would be a danger to privacy, and put too much information in the hands of stalkers, kidnappers, and other criminals. There would be a public backlash when something bad happens.
It seems like we need a new organization to collect information and safeguard it. An organization that is not directly under the command of the executive branches or legislative branches. Access could be granted through either an existing court system or a dedicated court system. This seems like too important an issue to just keep reacting to without a strategy.
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It's not a straw man, it's a deliberate attempt to prevent citizen review. If any joe shmoe can request the tapes he could find evidence of police malfeasance and bring it to the public's attention. If the only one that can request it is the one in the video the cops can intimidate or threaten them with charges to prevent it's reveal. You aren't looking for the ulterior motive here, did you notice the sly comment about commercial use?
See even if the videos are being recorded their will be no review or punishment for cops violating civil rights if the victim doesn't come forward (and they might not want to because of what is recorded).
So somebody somewhere on the internet seems like they want to abuse the cams and the ONLY feasible answer is to stop using them entirely? That has the stink of bad excuses to it. Anyone wanna bet that this 'anonymous' is someone in the department or a close reletive?
They could, of course, just adopt a sensible policy like releasing the videos only to the parties involved in the video or legal representative thereof. That would be just fine except then there would be no ' very good reason ' (TM, pat. pend., some restrictions apply, objects in mirror may be closer than they appear) to scrap the program.
My yearly "bedroom time" is my yearly performance review.
I meet or exceed expectations.
Keep the videos for 180 days or a year and delete unless they're part of a court order to keep. Only release to the public (including press) via court order. If citizens want to record the police, they're (usually) free to do so with their own equipment and on their own time.
It is a Straw man argument, but it does not seem like you took the time to investigate what a Straw Man is. The purpose of the argument is what you stated, which matches what therealkevinkretz stated in different words.
While surely video requests need to be reasonable and not "give me everything" there must be a method for people to request this information. Otherwise the information is useless, and the whole point of "watching the watchers" is once again lost.
As you, and therealkevinkretz, stated that is the point of TFA. The obvious answer is to refuse the request for _everything_ and make the person give specifics. E.G. I need all data from December 20th 2013 from Officer X. No purpose is necessary, and the request is reasonable. Nope, it does not have to be on Youtube either, which is another straw man argument from the chief.
-The wise argue that there are few absolutes, the fool argues that there are no probabilities.
"...And Chief Townsend believes it is a huge privacy concern, as officers often see people on their worst days. "People with mental illness, people in domestic violence situations; do we really want to have to put that video out on YouTube for people? I think that's pushing it a little bit," he said.
Really? You're suddenly concerned about the privacy of citizens?!?
Seems you've had no problems making millions off broadcasting those same citizens on shows like "Cops" for the last twenty five years.
Let's just stop with the bullshit here before someone drowns.
The real reason the Chief has a serious privacy concern is likely more related to the officers who are also on camera. Certain supervisors don't want to see their subordinates on their worst days either, especially when the end result is a public uprising that could be rather embarrassing for people in certain positions.
I think the key is that you shouldn't be able to request access to the recording unless you personally were involved
and/or there is a court order. A police's bodycam should be like video surveillance video. A nosy reporter (or a youtuber)
shouldn't be able to just request hours of footage without a legitimate link just as a reporter can't force walmart to
release their surveillance videos. It should be archived and relatively easy to get to for interested parties but not
the general public. A compromise might be a small screen public viewing room that doesn't allow recording devices
where someone could watch the tapes and then once they find what they are looking for then do an official request
for that section of the video along with what they are going to do with it.
As an aside, we probably already have similiar laws on the books. I'm pretty sure you can't just download
and listen to every private 911 call. You have to have a legitimate reason to want to access them.
I think this is a great idea. They should set up a site with every single second of footage on it, with all faces and letter/numbers fuzzed and all the audio turned into mwaw-mwaw-mwaw sound ala Peanuts-adult-speech. That's just not technically all that hard anymore. It doesn't require any human work. Then the cops'll know that if they use force or anyone or pass cash, bored seniors will see it and request the clear footage where a human would make sure that it would be acceptable (manual censorship). Don't like th emanual censorship in the clip you got? Fight that.
You get an honest police force and very little actual labor, as compared to people making blanket requests becasue they don't know what's there and they're looking for something good to show.
Yes, you can request the footage now of when that cop hit your kid, but you can't find out about someone getting a bribe unless you do the blanket requests described in the story.
You all know about the Mug Shot sites? They will remove your mug shot for $500? That's what this crap is. These assholes want to start a whole new angle on this scam: They will remove your police interaction (arrest or no arrest) for a price. Or maybe they will advertise your moment on the front page of their extortion web site.
If you want news from today, you have to come back tomorrow.
A police bodycam doesn't record what the police officer is doing, it records what he sees - members of the public. It would be more sensible to ask around for CCTV footage of police officers as they go about their public duty. Ian Tomlinson's killer (PC SIMON HARWOOD) wouldn't have been convicted if he'd been wearing a bodycam for the simple reason that at the point where the data is seized it cannot be proved who was wearing the camera since it would have been the police own data officer who had first dibs at that data*. It was fortunate for the sake of justice that a member of the public recorded the assault which caused Tomlinson's death; unfortunate that that evidence, although damning, was not allowed to stand.
* I should also point out that the killing was investigated by the Police and prosecuted by the CPS rather than a private criminal prosecution - too late to do that now, Double Jeopardy is well and truly engaged, all the Tomlinson family had left was a civil suit for wrongful death which was pissed all over when they publicly and fairly comprehensively accepted the offer of settlement.
** I hereby revoke any implied consent to my visage being used, parodied or referred to in any video, news report or any other media known or unknown without my express prior written informed consent.
*** The right to bring private prosecutions is preserved by section 6(1) of the Prosecution of Offences Act 1985 which is still in force. This right has been codified since 1197.
Political debates have me rolling my eyes so much I think I got optical whiplash. I should sue. - Foamy The Squirrel
better yet, i'm waiting for a policeman to walk into a movie theater with his cam running.
More interesting: what happens to the footage actually contains something covered by DMCA?
There's an easy answer to that one: get rid of the goddamned DMCA.
There is no legitimate reason for it to exist in a free society. Even the "safe harbor" provisions would not be necessary, if it weren't for other parts of the same law.
So just get rid of it. Things were demonstrably better before it existed.
If they don't make it available to the public, then only they have access.
False dilemma. The two extremes of "full public access" and "no access" are not the only alternatives.
"Information wants to be free. Nothing is taken from the people whose videos are posted."
Don't try to anthropomorphize information. It hates that.
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You're right. Actually we should trim the bureaucracies down to the minimum. Courts involve too much bureaucracy so remove them. Police over site committees, same thing. The police can have the freedom to arrest anyone they consider a criminal, they can also have the freedom to punish, whether a beating, a summary execution or just delivering the criminal to the local private prison, which will also have no over site as we don't need no bureaucracies interfering with private business.
Thinking about it, we can save the tax payers money by letting the private prison industry hire the police instead of publicly funding them. I'm sure the invisible hand of the market will fix any abuse by the people boycotting the goods produced by the prisoners.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inverted_totalitarianism