Citizens Spy On Big Brother 719
An anonymous reader writes "Citizens of the world are striking back at 24/7 state surveillance by pulling out their cameraphones and filming inept officials, deadly healthcare lapses and thuggish cops. So-called Sous-veillance is seeing more and more people posting damning footage of official misdemenours to sites such as YouTube to shame them into action." I wonder what happens if you inform a cop that you are recording him when he pulls you over.
Good! (Score:5, Interesting)
This is great. I just hope people don't stop once it all is made illegal.
Operating a (camera)phone while driving? (Score:4, Interesting)
I wonder what happens if you inform a cop that you are recording him when he pulls you over.
I don't know where you're at, but over here it's illegal to use your (camera)phone while driving. If you're fiddling with your phone when the man steps up to your window, I'm sure he'll give you a bonus for it.
Take care to (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:You wonder? (Score:5, Interesting)
Shooting back (Score:5, Interesting)
Wonder why they didn't mention Shooting Back [btselem.org]?
Re:You wonder? (Score:5, Interesting)
You get arrested under shiny new terrorism laws, eg:
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2008/06/24/bus_spotter_clampdown/ [theregister.co.uk]
Comment removed (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Depends on the cop (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Depends on the cop (Score:3, Interesting)
Or you're stopped by police in Pennsylvania, where it is illegal to record them. Although as I recall, this law was enforced in a traffic stop in Mechanicsburg, PA and it was being appealed to test the law. Not sure if the state dropped the recording charge to avoid the appeal. Which is a brilliant strategy; they get you to stop the recording at a legal stop because the law says so, when you try to get rid of that law, the drop the charges, you lose standing, and the law remains. I'm sure some lawyer can tell me why this doesn't work, but I seem to recall reading it in the newspaper that way.
Re:You wonder? (Score:3, Interesting)
It doesn't take much to become a police officer.
I tried this - And was searched as a terrorist (Score:5, Interesting)
I was catching a bus from Walthamstow Bus Station, part of a busy transport interchange in East London. On my way I saw the police kicking the living crap out of someone. I went up to start filming, and was told by a "Community Support" [wikipedia.org] officer not to take pictures. I asked what law I was violating, and was met with the witty answer of "the law that says you can't film that over there". Right then. Seeing no point in continuing this conversation while the man continued to be smashed around by the Metropolitan Police, I went to the other side of a toughened glass barrier, stood on some chairs and started filming from there. It was at this point that I was grabbed by two officers and stopped and searched under the terrorism act, 2004. Unfortunately, as I shut the shutter on my K800i, all footage was lost :(
They're actually allowed to arbitrarily search anyone in London under this law, arbitrarily, as it's designated a zone of terrorist threat or somesuch. The mistake the officer searching me (whos full details I do have) claimed that I had been filming covertly. Standing on a chair holding a camera above my head, I'd not felt this to be covert, so I submitted the "stop and account" slip to the Independent Police Complaints Commission, who handed the investigation back to the local force, who stalled the investigation for long enough that the CCTV had been erased!
The rest is history, I'm afraid. There are wranglings going on with my MP regarding this, but should I be in such a position again I'll be damn sure to make certain that the footage is saved.
KCMO-biaatch (Score:1, Interesting)
I was once hanging out on a front porch of a friend's house. We saw a cop pull up and park down the street, and he started pulling over and questioning every car that drove by. So my friend Patrick ran in side and grabbed a broken camcorder and stood in his front yard aiming the defunct camcorder at the cop until he got paranoid and left (which didn't take too long).
This happened several years ago when we were making a political broadsheet newspaper called The Fourth Estate, at the time we were publicizing the killing of black kids by cops in Kansas City, KS. We got KCKPD to change their escalation of violence procedures, and we forced Nick Tomasic, the D.A. of Wyandotte County for 32 years, to resign for exonerating police officers without investigations into their killings. After all the town hall meetings of angry black folk in the basement of churches questioning local government officials about the killings (with KBI, Chief of Police, Mayor's council, and community representatives on the panel), and after people were forced to resign and retire, we got a few visits from local mobster-types, and we were told straight-up, "There's plenty of dirt in Kansas City to write about, you've focused enough light on KCK, you're done writing about Strawberry Hill."
So we closed the newspaper and opened a multi-purpose all-ages club called The Stray Cat; but, of course, another gangster crime family (operating as the Cordish Company) came in and condemned our historic 3-story 100-year-old building (built by D.D. Swearengen, a Texas cattle rancher tied to Ellis Albert Swearengen) to make way for The Sprint Center Arena and the Kansas City Live! (white-)Power & Light(-skin) entertainment district.
Re:Depends on the cop (Score:5, Interesting)
It will also depend on the state. In some states recording video is totally legal but audio requires permission.
I have a brother in law that is a police officer and a good friend that is one also.
The amount of crap they have to take is amazing.
My brother in law as called out on a call because of "Pinching". I don't mean some stealing but two women at a Christmas sale started to pinch one another!
He also had to deal with a man that was trying to commit suicide by cop. He tired to kill himself and my brother in law stopped him. The guy then sued the police because he suffered emotional trauma when my BIL tackled him and took away the gun.
Sorry folks but the vast majority of the police offers I have had dealing with have been just normal people doing a crappy job the best that they can.
My brother in law is in trouble with the town officials because he refused to discipline an officer under him.
What did the cop do? Well during an armed robbery being committed by a minor the cop told the kid with the gun too "Drop the f'ing gun".
The officer was going to be suspended for using foul language in front of a minor. A minor with a gun holding up a store mind you but still a minor.
Re:You wonder? (Score:5, Interesting)
Dallas SWAT has been raiding poker games. Drew Carey covered this at http://www.reason.tv/video/show/172.html [reason.tv].
When one of the defendants subpoenaed copies of the video tapes made
of the raid -- the reality show "Dallas SWAT" had filmed it -- he was
told that no copies of the tapes existed. See http://www.theagitator.com/2007/04/20/tales-of-a-dallas-poker-raid/ [theagitator.com]
In Oceania, members of the Inner Party were allowed to turn off their
telescreens.
Re:Operating a (camera)phone while driving? (Score:5, Interesting)
My uncle was a sheriff for many years, (just retired) and I asked him what is was like dealing every day with people giving you shit, hating you, spitting at you, calling you names, etc..
He told me it didn't bother him much, it was just a part of the job, and that assholes will always be assholes. The part of his job he hated was the psuedo "victims". IE, you're called to a house for the 3rd time that month for domestic violence, and the woman wants YOU to stop the man from beating her, cause she's a victim. Of course, she would always go back to the same guy, and a few weeks later, the whole cycle would repeat. He really hated those situations, or any domestic violence, because you have so much emotional crap you have to deal with as a cop on the call.
Re:You wonder? (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:You wonder? (Score:3, Interesting)
Hmm..you need to remember these words : " I do not consent to a search [flexyourrights.org]".
Re:You wonder? (Score:4, Interesting)
More like, unless and until there aren't accounts of injustice, the police need to be held to a higher standard, and prove their trustworthiness on a daily basis.
re: catching the small fish (Score:4, Interesting)
Indeed, but as the old saying goes: "How do you eat an elephant? In many small bites, taken one at a time."
Politics has become corrupt and inaccessible enough for the "common man" at the federal level, there really isn't much you can do to change it. You get to vote for a president once every 4 years, and you get to plead to mostly deaf-ear turning congressmen and "representatives" to make changes in Washington for you. (If they *do* listen to you, it's usually just coincidence, because people with deeper pockets than you are paying them to do what happens to be the same thing you wanted.)
Where you can STILL make a difference is at the local level. Your individual voice is FAR more meaningful as a member of a local community than as a member of the U.S. citizenry as a whole.
I think change has to "trickle up" from the local and even state levels, so frying all these "small fish" consistently is about as effective a message as one can send.
Re:You wonder? (Score:2, Interesting)
You can use a site like Qik.com to stream live from your cell phone to the net. Naturally, the video gets recorded and saved that way.
Re:You wonder? (Score:5, Interesting)
Nope. I tried to become a police officer. Took the courses at school and took the test. Know what I was told (long after the fact, by someone inside)? I scored too high on the intelligence test.
Turns out you have to have the right combination of stupid and submissive to the rule of law to become a police officer.
I had a hard time believing it, so I spoke with the chief. Turns out it is true. People who test too high have a tendency to move on to other things after a few years, costing the city too much money. Their best catch is the guy that's not quite smart enough to make something of himself but not so dumb that he trips over his own feet.
Get what you pay for (Score:3, Interesting)
Where I live, starting salary for a police officer is in the mid-20000s. You do get what you pay for. If you pay next to nothing, you are not attracting the best. Instead, you might end up with low paid people wielding power. How many in the Slashdot crowd would quit their jobs to be a police officer? It is a low paid profession, and therefore you get what you pay for.
When I was around 8 years old... (Score:5, Interesting)
Here in Portland, OR... (Score:3, Interesting)
...the cops take an extreme dislike to perfectly legal citizens who employ any sort of cop-watch, especially so with cameras. The link below is a video beginning with a citizen filming the abject harassment of two citizens on the street in an upscale part of downtown, ending with the cops confiscating his camera.
http://blip.tv/file/778170
Re:You wonder? (Score:4, Interesting)
Your first mistake is lumping all people who wear blue uniforms and carry a badge "the police". There are big differences between your local traffic cops and the police forces in L.A. and N.Y. Among other things, I highly doubt your local police have shot unarmed people from over 50 yards away, or beaten up protesters.
Your second mistake is thinking that the cops treat you and everyone else the same. You're probably white and relatively well off, and were pulled over wearing a nice button-down shirt and slacks. That makes cops think you're generally a law-abiding citizen, even if they're pulling you over because you broke the law. When less privileged people are pulled over, they're far more likely to be ordered from their car, patted down for weapons, have their trunk searched for drugs, etc.
Funny thing is, I'm white, late 30's, clean cut, blond hair, blue eyes, etc... the very model of upstanding white suburban citizen.
Except... I've been pulled over, harassed, my car searched for drugs, handcuffed, patted down for weapons and a host of other things on numerous occasions.
Cops abuse their power all the time. I can only imagine what it's like to be a black guy around here. I've only met a helpful police officer maybe a handful of times in my life. Most of the time they are harassing or at the very least, unwilling to be helpful. The majority of cops are on a power trip and are there to feel powerful, not to be helpful. Yes, my evidence is ancedotal, however, the fact that over the course of my lifetime, I've encountered many police in many different capacities and situations, from many different jurisdictions, cities and states, yet the majority are consistently on
power trips. So ancedotal or not, the cross section of my experience, at least for me, is pretty conclusive police in America.
Those of you saying police are great, they don't do this kind of stuff... you need to get out more. Maybe in your one small city or county, they are good cops. But in America at large, they are not.
Re:You wonder? (Score:3, Interesting)
An old Chinese adage states that "a good son does not go on to become a cop" (in this context, a "cop" means any person given martial authority by the ruling regime, such as a police officer or military soldier).
Re:You wonder? (Score:5, Interesting)
I think many cops are bad for two reasons.
1. As a society we have allowed to be passed all sorts of ridiculous laws that force cops to make everyone a criminal (drug laws, online piracy, seat belt laws, etc...). If everyone is a criminal, everyone fears and hates law enforcement. Hard to be a good guy when everyone you deal with hates you.
2. As a society, probably because we hate and fear law enforcement, we don't pay cops very well. Why be a cop when you can make more money working at the local grocery store where you don't get shot at? Because you want to be a professional asshole. We end up with three kinds of people as cops. Those who truly want to provide a public service, those who want to be professional assholes and those who can't get a job that pays any better. Stands to reason that two out of three cops are probably 'bad'.
We either need to find ways to attract more quality individuals to be on our police force, or put them on camera so we can give the assholes incentive not to behave badly.
Re:You wonder? (Score:5, Interesting)
On my street (not a particularly good part of town; old, blue-collar, and multi-ethnic, though not particularly run-down or dangerous) the cops came to arrest someone, and when they got him out of his house, he was making some noises about resisting arrest and being somewhat disorderly. If I were a cop, I'd certainly have been prepared for trouble, the way he was acting. But one of the cops came over and told everyone who had gathered on the opposing sidewalk, about 30 feet away, that we had to disperse and couldn't watch. My landlord argued with him, asking why he couldn't stand on a public sidewalk near his house, well away from what was going on, and watch what happened in his neighborhood. The cop told him that if he didn't walk out of viewing distance, they'd arrest him. The cop said it was for the privacy of the person being arrested. Yea, right. The cops didn't want any witnesses around before they went to town on this guy. First person experience.
Even when the cops have been required by law to keep everything on camera and keep the footage, they'll still go turn the camera off illegally and beat the #*$ out of someone [break.com]. Who's going to arrest them, they're a cop? More info on that one here [go.com] At least the cop was fired, eventually, but not prosecuted or anything. He's appealing the decision.
Although sometimes, they don't destroy the evidence. [break.com] And other times, people do [break.com] get away with videos of cops being idiots [break.com] unmolested.
And this guy [break.com] has a whole series of videos he posts online catching cops doing illegal things. I wonder how long until he get his camera confiscated and nasty things happen to him off film? Also, see this. [break.com]
Re:You wonder? (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:You wonder? (Score:3, Interesting)
There are "good cops". My uncle used to be a police officer, and I believe he was one of the "good cops". Of course, he's my uncle, so I'm biased.
However, right now there is an inquiry going on in my home town. A couple of years ago, a bunch of cops went out partying at a restaurant lounge until the restaurant closed, then took the party to a cop's house. They partied until the wee hours of the morning. One of the cops left early in the morning, extremely drunk, and rear-ended a stopped car at high speed, killing its driver.
Now, police officer after police officer are filing into this inquiry to testify that the accused was not drunk, and that there has been no effort on the part of the police to cover anything up, despite evidence otherwise.
I'm still waiting for the "good cops" to show up and admit that this guy screwed up, that he was as drunk as everyone knows he was, and that he was in fact so drunk that the other cops were trying to prevent him from driving home -- a responsible thing to do, but they're now denying that because to do so would be admitting that he was drunk in the first place.
Re:So where is the cop outrage? (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Depends on the cop (Score:1, Interesting)
The guys name is Brian Kelly.
The cop used a wiretapping law which says you cannot record the audio of a secondary party without their permission. The DA dropped the charges when he surmised (rightly) that recording a police officer performing his duties in public is not the same as recording someone's phone or other conversation in private.
The DA also said the police had no expectation of privacy since they, the police, were also recoding the event.
So no, it is NOT illegal to record police performing their duties in Pennsylvania.
Already modded so posting as AC.
Re:You wonder? (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:You wonder? (Score:4, Interesting)
Except, you know, you can't kill a cop with a camera (unless you bludgeon him over the head with it, but even then).
At least here is South Carolina it is still legal to use upto deadly force against the police during an unlawful arrest, and has been upheld many time in the SC Supreme Court [state.sc.us].
Re:Authoritarianism is a mental virus (Score:5, Interesting)
You see this in online gaming. Playing ctf in Star Wars Republic Commando, or coop in Synergy, I can't count how many times I've seen guys bellowing complaints on voice or on the chat line. "I've got a terrible team!" Oh, they're really gonna get better now. A few of my friends and I don't do that. When a person on our team gets the flag or clears the opfor off the flag carrier's tail, or scores, it's "GJ!" "Way to go!" Everyone enjoys the game a little more when ppl behave that way. Plus, we win more games. Guys even switch teams. Things are a little simpler in Synergy. We votekick the complainers off the server.
Re:Authoritarianism is a mental virus (Score:3, Interesting)
Spoken like a true non-parent. So your solution is "reward when good, do nothing when bad?" Let's say you have a kid who misbehaves: do you tell them to stop? What if they don't obey? Do you let them to continue to disobey, without consequence? And then give them candy when they're behaving? How often do you reward a well-behaved kid? Candy every five minutes? Then they're a fat, spoiled tyrant which isn't a reward to anyone, and is a punishment to everyone.
Re:You wonder? (Score:3, Interesting)
Need better police recruiting. There are many ppl who'd make fine policemen but can't stand the insular culture or the lousy pay. Maybe widen the base with more part-time or reserve cops, basing cops in the community rather from insular patrol stations, and rotating cops from 911 response into community policing and back out again. Maybe also rotating cops around different neighborhoods, too. Another solution that's been tried: keeping good cops on the street for more hours by handing off paperwork and traffic patrol to reserve cops or cadets. There are solutions to bad behavior, because bad behavior is sometimes the result of insular subculture, bad examples, or bad organization.
IMHO
Re:Authoritarianism is a mental virus (Score:5, Interesting)
Authoritarianism is just what happens when some people think that they know what's best for everyone. Censorship and spying are parts of this.
But for many people, it's less about the authority than about the 'standing up' part. People who lack self-confidence aren't going to stand up to a pushy government, or anyone, because they're scared. As a result, when someone *does* stand up, it shames those who didn't, and they resent that person. This has been called crab mentality [wikipedia.org]: the idea that a crab trying to escape from a bucket is pulled back by its fellow crabs.
At its base, authoritarianism is strongly related to insecurity. My point is just that many people encourage this (actively or passively) through fear and cognitive dissonance, not malice.
Re:You wonder? (Score:0, Interesting)
Because the moderation system can effectively be used as a censorship tool. Believe me, as part of the tiniest political minority (I'm a peaceful anarchist who doesn't believe in government, much like an athiest doesn't believe in religion), I can't even count the number of times my words have been silenced by slashdot moderators. Hell, I've been silenced for simply posting facts, not even opinions.
Second hand knowledge of DFW (Score:3, Interesting)
Actually, I have second-hand knowledge that there is such a rule for the departments in the DFW area. I work security, and some of the people I know are ex-law enforcement with the same story.
It's not written policy, maybe because the press would have a field day, but at the psych review, the department shrink discourages you from joining, saying you would find the work unchallenging and boring. You are then encouraged to apply to one of the federal law enforcement programs, a flattering and more effective variation on "Wouldn't you be happier somewhere else?" If you answer that with "I wanna be a cop more than anything..." they will let you in, but not without trying mightily to talk you out of it.
Funny thing is, both of the guys I know got tired of the nonsense and did quit within a few years.
I grew up on military bases. I've seen MPs do their job with honor, courage and professionalism. Maybe that's because you're never quite sure if that snot-nosed kid you pulled over happens to be your CO's nephew, and military towns tend to be small circles. Maybe it's because of the military tradition that distinguishes the man from the uniform. Maybe it's because when you actually are a certified bad ass, your ego's need to scream "I'm not Officer Dude!" to some little kid on a skateboard goes way down.
That's not the case on the civilian side of the fence. Your local PD doesn't want the chess geek. They do want ex-high school football players, guys who have been behaviorally conditioned to take a hit and do exactly what they're told. They don't even want men who can understand the law. One of the two guys I'm talking about is technically awesome, but still can't understand why the first and fourth amendments are important. "If I searched your car, it's cuz I knew you had drugs in there, and all the warrant did was let bad guys get away..."
They don't want soul searching. They don't want anyone to grow a conscience. They don't want line officers declining orders because "That's an illegal order, Sir." They want men who will do exactly as they're told, when they're told.
At least, that's how it is down in DFW, and I suspect most of the South. I hope your local PD is filled with Knights of the Round Table.
Re:You wonder? (Score:3, Interesting)
In Texas, wrongful arrest is equivalent to assault, a crime for which you are allowed the use of deadly force to prevent. I doubt it's ever been tested, but it's on the books. I have no idea what the case history is like.