Cops To Start CrimeTube To Report Offenses 238
An anonymous reader writes "UK citizens may soon be able to report crimes by uploading videos taken from their mobile phones. Ian Readhead, director of information for the Association of Chief Police Officers, told silicon.com that forces want to build a video reporting portal to allow the public to upload potential evidence. Checking YouTube is now a routine part of many police investigations, he said, and police want to build on the extra functionality that this gives them."
Insurance Fraud Galore (Score:3, Insightful)
Report on your neighbor! (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Insurance Fraud Galore (Score:5, Insightful)
Why would the cops care? They have "evidence", someone ends up in the pokey, and they get to be "tough on crime". Everyone is guilty of something so whoever they do throw the book at had it coming anyways.
(Brought to you by the Word of the Day: Quota)
CopTube (Score:5, Insightful)
I'm more interested in a mobile phone YouTube to report misdeeds and abuses by police officers.
I say that even though most of my interactions with police officers, even if they haven't been necessarily pleasant due to the circumstances, have been professional. It's just that I've been there and seen enough abuses of authority by bad cops to know that when it does happen, the only thing that's going to help you is video evidence.
I wish those nine out ten good cops wouldn't cover for that one bad cop.
The nature of people (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Insurance Fraud Galore (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Crimes by cops? (Score:4, Insightful)
Post it on YouTube AND their site. If it doesn't appear on their site, come back to YouTube and say "I sent this to the official crime-reporting site but they pretended it didn't happen" and watch your view counter spin like Orwell in his grave.
Nothing is in isolation (Score:5, Insightful)
Arguments like yours seem not well thought out to me. Yes you could frame him for a crime. Hell, why not shoot a few people and leave the smoking gun in his garage too?
Well I'll tell you why, because police actually INVESTIGATE a crime. They aren't going to look at one video or piece of evidence, throw him in jail, and call it a day. They are going to look at all the evidence as a body to see what fits...
So what happens when the evidence YOU submitted turns out to be the only information that doesn't mesh with everything else they have collected? They are going to come asking you some tough questions, and if you really tried to frame someone I hope you like sharing rooms with rough men because that's where you are headed.
There's a reason in the past why people generally don't try to make up evidence and video is no exception. Personally I think it's great that people can submit video to help catch criminals if they are too concerned about personal safety to get involved. Wouldn't you rather have user submitted videos of crime submitted by real people than have monitoring cameras everywhere "just in case?". I lean on the side of trusting people in an area to say "hey, there's a problem here".
Re:Holy crap! (Score:4, Insightful)
Yeah, it's not so much "Big Brother is watching you" it is "Little Brothers and Sisters are watching you".
This can't be good.
Re:Holy crap! (Score:5, Insightful)
To me, it is one of those "whatwouldpossiblygowrong" type things. I feel that it should be at least a "little bit of a pain in the ass" to file a complaint with the police. Making small amounts of red tape (i.e. you actually have to call a phone number and talk to somone) limits the number of frivilous complaints.
Re:CopTube (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Holy crap! (Score:4, Insightful)
If believed to be connected with terrorism (and isn't everything?) then taking pictures/video of police offers is against the law in the UK.
Re:Holy crap! (Score:3, Insightful)
It makes it too easy. Let's say that your neighbor likes to smoke pot from time to time, and that bothers you.
I'm not saying that the behavior should be any more illegal than smoking tobacco (Arguably it should be far less so) but if you smoke weed where it's illegal and you do it in plain sight of someone you don't know you can trust then you're a bozo.
Making small amounts of red tape (i.e. you actually have to call a phone number and talk to somone) limits the number of frivilous complaints.
You'll probably have to fill out a form when you upload the video, too.
Re:Insurance Fraud Galore (Score:0, Insightful)
Re:CopTube (Score:4, Insightful)
>I wish those nine out ten good cops wouldn't cover for that one bad cop.
The thing is, it's that collusion that makes them all bad cops.
Re:Holy crap! (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Holy crap! (Score:4, Insightful)
It's really not, you can film the police in public like anyone else. The thing is, the police generally don't actually realise this, or they simply lie, and will tell you that it's illegal.
Any police officer who tells a citizen that something is illegal, when it is in fact clearly legal, is actually trying to intimidate that person. It's an attempt to coerce that citizen to get them to stop doing something merely because the officer personally does not like it. The cop knows it's not illegal, and if not, the cop is incompetent. We don't need cops who are either malicious or incompetent. This is wrong and should never be tolerated. Any officer who does this should be fired and barred from ever holding any law enforcement position. I would feel this way even if there were a severe shortage of police officers. I am not very fond of cops, but sometimes I feel like I respect the importance of their job more than they do.