Recording the Police 515
Bruce Schneier says "I've written a lot on the 'War on Photography,' where normal people are harassed as potential terrorists for taking pictures of things in public. This article is different; it's about recording the police: Allison's predicament is an extreme example of a growing and disturbing trend. As citizens increase their scrutiny of law enforcement officials through technologies such as cell phones..."
Rule of Law (Score:5, Insightful)
There is no expectation of privacy (Score:5, Insightful)
Foul Bruce - Link to Actual Article (Score:5, Insightful)
The link is to a stub article with no real content on Bruce's blog that just points to the real article:
http://reason.com/archives/2010/12/07/the-war-on-cameras [reason.com]
Bruce has useful articles sometimes but it isn't any more legitimate for Bruce to use his blog as gateway page to real articles than anyone else trying to scam hits for content that isn't theirs.
Re:There is no expectation of privacy (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:and we should also... (Score:5, Insightful)
Had you RTFA, you would know Schneier's reasoning for making it legal to record the police, and you would consequently realize that those reasons would not apply to your counter-examples, thus rendering your rebuttal useless.
Not just wiretapping laws (Score:5, Insightful)
Prosecutors are able to get away with these bad faith prosecutions because of a doctrine called "prosecutorial immunity". We need a way to hold these prosecutors responsible for their actions, that will require the abolition of prosecutorial immunity.
It's video such as... (Score:4, Insightful)
...this of harassment by the Detroit PD [examiner.com] which is the reason why our gov't officials want to make videotaping of LEOs [thefirearmsforum.com] illegal.
Yet further evidence of our (as in US) slow slip into the grips of a police state.
The police should embrace public video (Score:5, Insightful)
A recent Canadian survey shows that people, while they overwhelmingly still support the police, do not support them as much as they used to.
We have had several police abuses of power that came to light only because of video. The worst was the killing of a Polish man at Vancouver airport. Also we had the beating of innocent people during demonstrations at the recent G20 meeting in Toronto.
An officer has been charged in one of the G20 beatings because video made it possible to identify him.
The disturbing thing is that the police stood in solidarity with their brother officers in their own Mafia style code of silence. Only one officer could be found who was willing to identify those seen in the videos.
It won't take too many more incidents before the population turns on the police. They have had the benefit of the doubt until now. At some point that will end. The police, if they knew what is good for them, should embrace video as a tool for cleaning out the goons who should never be allowed to wear a badge.
Illegal Wiretapping by the Gov? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Not just wiretapping laws (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Foul Bruce - Link to Actual Article (Score:2, Insightful)
His blog isn't just facts, it is clearly an editorial containing his opinion on what this means and how he feels about it. It is appropriate for him to link it in this way if his intention is to convey his opinion on the issue.
Re:Rule of Law (Score:5, Insightful)
Targeted application of laws which are not generally enforced should be the most terrifying thing in the world to you if you worry about a police state evolving. The general lack of enforcement means that the public is unaware and/or unconcerned about the law, meaning penalties can be stiff, and that violations are common because the general public doesn't know any better. The upshot being that nearly anyone the police or judiciary doesn't like can be thrown into prison for decades, which is practically the definition of a police state, and the scary thing is that it already exists in the good old US of A. The wiretap laws are hardly the most commonly used for this purpose, but the ridiculous penalties (can easily be 100 years in prison if you have multiple offenses) make it one of the most terrifying.
Re:Police side of things. (Score:5, Insightful)
I work with an ex police officer and he's pretty set against 'civilians' recording police, in his eyes its another way to get innocent police officers in trouble since a lot of the videos that have implicated officers in the past have lacked any context. This makes sense because a clip showing police brutality could be part of a longer incident where the suspect resisted arrest and tried to hurt the officer.
Then a court of law will sort it out.
Your cop friend, frankly, sounds like a thin-blue-line, don't-mess-with-the-brotherhood asshole. He should realize that accountability is a *good* thing. Well, assuming he cared about cops actually being held accountable.
I think a better solution, that nobody in law enforcement would like, would be to put cameras on police officers and also allow the public to photograph them. That way in a court of law you have evidence that can provide context to any side videos in play
Absolutely! As you say, there is a *very* obvious solution to this problem: When a cop is involved in a law enforcement action, *the police record themselves*. Problem solved.
But, of course, that would involve transparency, and cops actually, possibly being held accountable for their actions. And who really wants that?
Re:Police side of things. (Score:4, Insightful)
So it's the old "sure I kept clubbing him, but you gotta believe me, he resisted arrest twelve minutes before the camera started rolling" defense, eh?
Re:Police side of things. (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:It's video such as... (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Police side of things. (Score:5, Insightful)
That assumes the video doesn't mysteriously go missing or the camera doesn't mysteriously malfunction during crucial moments. Both have happened before.
Right, but the aspect where police can record themselves is complemented by the public being able to record them as well. We need -both-.
That way if the "public" produces video that casts the police in a bad light, the police can contribute their video that puts it into context. There is nothing the public will be able to record that that will harm an innocent officer because he'll have his own "alibi tape". And the argument against the public recording them goes out the window.
Now your comment that police may withhold video that is 'damaging' to their position is bang on, but then we'll have the public recording to work from. And if the police camera that exonerates them "failed at that crucial moment"... the courts can sort it out, with an annotation that perhaps they should invest in cameras that "work better" for their own protection.
Well then, CHANGE the law. (Score:5, Insightful)
In many States, citizens possess the power of initiative, where laws can be presented directly to the people.
A law that decriminalizes recording law enforcement officers acting within the scope of their duties or acting during their working hours (and immunizes the same conduct) is something, I suspect, that the general voting population would support.
If you care, get out there, conspire with others and ACT. I guarantee that you will be surprised at your results.
Look at what the no-tax freaks accomplished. It IS possible--don't let the naysayers with their weak arguments keep you down. Look at the crime victims' bill of rights that many states now have--those generally come from citizen activity!
There is almost zero downside to political activism of this sort in the US. You won't get killed (like you might in some other country) and you are likely to face negligible negative consequences. The worst that can likely happen is that you will fail. But think of all that you will learn in the process: Media manipulation . . . public speaking . . . organization . . . logistics . . .. That experience will make you more effective the next time . . .
And then you will be a politician, my son.
Now, get off my lawn!
Re:and we should also... (Score:5, Insightful)
And let's not kid ourselves; the reason you have cameras on store clerks is because store clerks steal. There's this stereotype that convenience stores are always getting robbed. Trust me, though, when I worked at a 7-Eleven as a kid, the camera wasn't pointed straight down at the register because that's where they thought I would be standing when I was robbed at gunpoint. The cameras are there for theft prevention, and nine times out of then the thief is an employee.
So if it's OK to use cameras to prevent store clerks from committing crimes (or document them), why is it not OK to use cameras to prevent police officers from committing crimes (or document them)? Not only do police officers sometimes commit pretty heinous crimes, including robbery and battery, but I would argue that just about any crime committed by a police officer is more serious than one committed by a store clerk, both because of the abuse of authority and the breakdown of societal values that inevitably occurs as a result.
Re:Not just wiretapping laws (Score:4, Insightful)
Generally speaking, prosecutorial immunity is a) applied to civil, not criminal, offenses, and b) does not cover acts that prosecutor knows or should know are illegal.
What's needed is somebody, like Allison, to dig in their heels and push it and push it, until it gets to the Supreme Court, where he will win.
And if you want prosecutors put in prison for abusing their power, vote for people who will do so. Make it your only issue, and get your neighbors involved, too. If you won't, because "it won't do any good," you're part of the problem.
Re:Not just wiretapping laws (Score:4, Insightful)
This is correct because courts have ruled in several states that recording a police officer in the process of a traffic stop or otherwise conducting his official duty on a public street is not a violation of the "all parties" wire tap laws, yet prosecutors keep bringing these charges.
I think it is kind of like the other crap in the legal system these days. As the little guy you might be 100% in the right but since you have comparatively very limited resources they bank on people being too afraid to having to spend tons of money proving their innocence. So they get to make it more or less illegal without the actual political blow back of making it illegal.
Re:Police side of things. (Score:5, Insightful)
Well, if you apply a little logic that defense seems a lot more probable than 'I was minding my own business doing nothing wrong and the officer started clubbing me.'
It does, huh? Apparently you didn't watch any of the news coverage vis a vis the G20 demonstrations... innocent people beaten and/or arrested by cops rendered unidentifiable by their "safety" equipment, thus rendering them immune to prosecution.
In short: I trust a cop about as far as I can throw them. Anecdotal comments like those in the OP only make me *more* suspicious.
How I handle it. (Score:5, Insightful)
Because of this, I will consider the police and prosecutors to be liars until proven otherwise.
If the cop had to shoot a guy because "he was resisting arrest", the cop better have an unaltered video of it happening because I will consider him to be a liar without it. You see all these type of cases [wpix.com] in news where all the police cameras failed at the same time and it happens when the police used questionable force on a suspect.
It's one sided. Only they are allowed to video and as a result, they can control which video is available.
Until this horseshit of prosecuting citizens for recording of police ends, then as far as I'm concerned, the police are lying until proven otherwise.
Someone gets their ass kicked by the cops, well there better be video showing that it was necessary.
If the cops don't like it, then they can get another job. My local police are constantly turning applicants away so there's no problem replacing any cry baby cop who says "it's rough out there!".
Re:Police side of things. (Score:5, Insightful)
Seriously? So a guy is on the ground and the cop is beating him, and beating him, and beating him, and nowhere is the suspect seen trying to resist except to cover his head with his arms so he won't be knocked unconscious, you're going to accept the defense that it's OK because we just happened to miss the part where the guy was resisting arrest? How long does a police officer have to beat a suspect before they're considered to be subdued? The argument doesn't even have to me "I was minding my own business doing nothing wrong" -- if I was on a jury watching the videotape, I would convict a police officer for beating a guy for twelve minutes even if I knew the guy had committed a crime.
Re:Police side of things. (Score:4, Insightful)
Arguably, if the cops are recording it too, they can show the context you didn't see in the shock vid on YouTube. I fail to see why the cops are against this; it's nice to be able to prove you're telling the truth when you have the public calling for your blood.
Re:Foul Bruce - Link to Actual Article (Score:4, Insightful)
The link is to a stub article with no real content on Bruce's blog that just points to the real article:
I disagree. His commentary about how privacy for the powerful decreases overall liberty while privacy for the common man increase liberty is a very succinct and insightful analysis. It may even be more important than the narrow topic of stupid legal tricks regarding the recording of on-duty cops.
Re:and we should also... (Score:1, Insightful)
What's the matter? Are you a cop? Are you afraid that somebody will record you and catch you not doing your fucking job up to standards?
Anybody that doesn't like the idea of cops being recorded apparently encourages them to be corrupt and incompetent.
The police are the face of the law itself (Score:4, Insightful)
The police do not want to be videotaped because after so many years of enforcing the sort of laws that created this situation, they know that there are people out there who want to discredit the police. The police know that their job is unpopular and they do not want the citizens to have the ability to make the police look bad. They know that they are not just going after bad people. They know that they are losing the support of the population, and that in many cases they are sent on patrol in areas where they have already lost that support.
Simplified (Score:5, Insightful)
Getting more to the point, a police officer holds the special right to employ coercion (meaning physical force) against you (not in defense, but in offense). No private individual or organization holds that right, and thus a police officer is automatically more deserving of extreme scrutiny (not to mention how they're supposed to be working "for us" in the first place, supposedly not the other way around).
Re:Rule of Law (Score:4, Insightful)
"
But I'm sure to you everyone is a "perp".
I am not a cop, but I am dating one. Having done ride alongs I understand the other side of this. It really sucks when a you are not sure a perp has a gun or not - and sometime they do - and sometimes cops get shot.
When a suspect does not obey orders, and could potentially be going for a weapon, Cops get scared. Abuse of authority? Perhaps. Reasonable justifiable fear? YES.
Some cop shootings are justified, some are not. Cops are people. People get scared. Somehow people seem to think that Cops have this mythical "spidey sense" and they can just know what is actually going on and judge the situations accordingly. They don't. They also, unfortunately spend a great deal of time if working on patrol dealing with lots of people who are belligerent and dangerous.
Unfortunately, this makes them jaded.
Are there bad cops? Yes. Just as there are good and bad people. Cops are people. People make mistakes.
Having said all that, if my GF was involved in a shooting, I would much rather it be her who pulled the trigger. Not the perp.
Re:and we should also... (Score:5, Insightful)
It's not "the government" or even police who are trying to make you believe they are ethically superior. It's been an ongoing theme from the right-wing "law and order" crowd for decades. You hear it constantly from conservative media. You're constantly hearing about how they love law enforcement, how those who are accused of crimes are always guilty (of something) and how the police are "doing a very difficult job for very little pay".
You get the same stuff about the military. We always hear how the military are "the best and brightest", which really hasn't been my experience. The new convention is that whenever a caller says they're in the military, you'll hear "thank you for your service" and fawning praise for every knucklehead who walked into a recruitment office and signed up. It's because "they are protecting our freedoms" which is a load of crap. You don't "protect your freedom" by invading some shithole halfway around the world, you protect your freedom by...videotaping the po-lice for chrissake. They believe deference must be paid to the judgment of people who've put on a uniform, because I guess it makes them feel a little less like the soft, privileged lard-asses that they are. We heard this constantly from Republicans during the debate over the repeal of DADT: "We'll vote for it when the military leaders say we should vote for it" and how we have to protect our fighting men from...the licentious gay soldiers who will have nothing better to do in the middle of a firefight except stare at the butt of the guy in front of them. Wait, what? We have civilian oversight of the military, but the civilians charged with that oversight suddenly have nothing to say. Except when military leaders (chairman of the joint chiefs, secdef, etc) say "OK, we ought to repeal DADT, then the argument became "we should ask the enlisted men". When the enlisted men said "It's OK with us" the argument became "We should only ask the people who hate queers".
The whole idea of deferring to law enforcement or the military is anti-American. The Founders decided that we'd have a civilian-led military for very good reason. Because the judgment of someone who wants to pick up a gun and leave home to go out and fight bad guys just can't be trusted. The same thing with law enforcement. There are places in the world where the police are the absolute power in a community, but in this country, they work for the civilian government, not the other way around. And ultimately, the civilian government is us.
So it's our goddamn civic duty to keep on eye on law enforcement and the military. There's a good reason that most people don't want to become cops or soldiers, and the ones who do bear watching.
Re:Context still matters (Score:5, Insightful)
You do have to account for human emotions. If you expect the police to be perfect inhuman robots that never react emotionally, then you are an idiot. So if someone punches a cop in the face and the cop hauls off and punches them, that has to be considered.
That only works one way. If I react emotionally to a cop, I'm going to jail for a long time, and that's the best I can hope for. Nothing will be considered. Worst case, the thin blue line arranges for me to be beat either by cop or by inmates at the holding cell.
So why is it that you only cut slack to the cop, who is trained, armed, and paid to be professional, and not to the citizen, who is none of those things, and will not get the benefit of the doubt?
Re:and we should also... (Score:5, Insightful)
You hear it constantly from conservative media. You're constantly hearing about how they love law enforcement, how those who are accused of crimes are always guilty (of something) and how the police are "doing a very difficult job for very little pay". ... We always hear how the military are "the best and brightest", ... deference must be paid to the judgment of people who've put on a uniform, ...
What is especially curious is that this sort of praise for the police and military seems to come from the same people who keep telling us that the government can't ever do anything right. They don't seem to be aware that the police and military are pretty much all government employees, working from some of the biggest government bureaucracies that exist.
So which is it? Are government employeess always incompetent and untrustworthy? Or are the police and military above suspicion?
(My personal conjecture is that they're all just humans, with pretty much the same foibles and failings -- and successes -- as the rest of us. But what do I know? I do suspect that we might learn something about the truth if we monitor them and make their activities public knowedge. Maybe we could hire the wikileaks folks for that data-collection task? ;-)
Re:Rule of Law (Score:5, Insightful)
How would you stop a sober moron from doing the same?
Re:Rule of Law (Score:4, Insightful)
Having said all that, if my GF was involved in a shooting, I would much rather it be her who pulled the trigger. Not the perp.
Of course you would prefer that. And the family of the individual who was shot would prefer the other outcome. This is not about emotions.
If policemen/women shoot people for inappropriate reasons, they need to answer for it in criminal court, the same as anybody else. What's unfortunate is that we see lying and coverups that sometimes happen among "brother officers" to cover each other's backs -- a real shame. That's where citizen recording can promote justice and help fix the system.
Re:There is no expectation of privacy (Score:4, Insightful)
Dude, what you're saying sounds very close to, "I am a ticking time bomb." It would behoove you to not state such things publicly, in a forum where posts can not be deleted. If I were an FBI agent, I'd start a file on you, just from that post. You sound like a potential terrorist, from the point of view of a government agent.
And, for everyone else's sake, please don't stock up on ammo and fertilizer.
Re:and we should also... (Score:5, Insightful)
Well then clearly they have nothing to hide.
Re:Rule of Law (Score:5, Insightful)
I agree. However, many civilians watching some of the tapes draw inappropriate conclusions regarding the outcomes.
They pass judgments on the officers without the proper context.
That's what trials are for. If the jury is leaping to conclusions, have your defense attorney provide the proper context. If it's good enough for citizens, it's good enough for cops.
I don't know if the need for a criminal court is always needed
Yes, always. The review boards do nothing but whitewash criminal conduct. A cop should go through the same process as everyone else. If it's a justifiable shooting, you can present that as a defense. Oh, and cops should be required to use public defenders. Again, if they are good enough for us, they're good enough for everyone else.
Re:Not just wiretapping laws (Score:4, Insightful)
If you can't be troubled to stand up for your rights, you have none, and deserve none. People like you are the reason politicians (and corrupt cops and prosecutors) know they can get away with, literally, murder. Enjoy your utopia.
Re:and we should also... (Score:5, Insightful)
This is really apples and oranges. Surveillance on store employees is always OK, because the store is private property, so if the store owner wants to record stuff in his own property, that's his right. How anyone could make an argument against private surveillance inside a private business, I have no idea.
Police recording, however, generally concerns recording their activities in public spaces: on sidewalks, on streets, etc. There's two issues here: 1) in public spaces, how can there be any expectation of privacy? Some stupid States might have laws against photographing people in public, but such a law is stupid. If you're in public, you have no right to expect privacy. If you want privacy, go someplace private, not out on a street with hundreds of people surrounding you. Police officers in public shouldn't have any more expectation of privacy than anyone else standing on the street. 2) the police are government agents, and the government is supposed to be accountable to the People. If these uniformed government agents (who are not secret agents, unlike certain sectors of government that require secrecy) are in public, their actions should be allowed to be recorded by third parties, in order to maintain that accountability. If we lose accountability of the Police to the People, then we might as well give the Police brown shirts to wear.
Comment removed (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:How I handle it. (Score:3, Insightful)
Unfortunately your opinion doesn't matter to them. You cant hassle them and throw them in jail. You can't give them a ticket for whatever you feel like. You can't beat them senseless and claim they were resisting arrest. they don't give a shit if you think they are liars and should be fired. And they most certainly wont be fired because you think they should be.
The imbalance of power and lack of checks is sickening.
Re:and we should also... (Score:3, Insightful)
I think you need a citation for that. I did a quick Googleing of your claim and came back with nothing. Even after trying to reword it in different ways in an attempt to get better results. So, I tried reversing it, and glaringly, the opposite understanding of what you're claiming seems to be the actual case.
http://www.komonews.com/news/local/81376642.html [komonews.com]
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/07/17/AR2008071701287.html [washingtonpost.com]
I thought about listing several of the ones I found, but it actually became overwhelming, These two are just more recent cases, sorry but I don't have time to go all the way into it, but from the looks of it, this has been going on for a really long time. You might want to revise your understanding after going over this. Here's some additional reading if you have time.
http://scholar.google.co.jp/scholar?q=police+agitators+infiltration+of+anti+war+protests&hl=ja&as_sdt=0&as_vis=1&oi=scholart [google.co.jp]
Re:and we should also... (Score:5, Insightful)
Maybe because organised crime could find a lot of uses for a database of the faces of police officers?
If organized crime cares, it can just buy copies of HR documents on each police officer. Or if the mafia has nothing better to do, they may send some kids to take photos of officers and then follow them home. Over time they will get everyone, and it's 100% legal.
Besides, police officers interact primarily with lawbreakers. They already show them their faces and their badges. A LEO in Las Vegas has no reason to be worried that some geek in China will see his face. That LEO better be worried that a local gangbanger saw him and followed him home. And you don't need a camera for that; binoculars would be far more effective.
Police objects to recording of their actions for only one reason: their actions can be used to hang them. Everyone makes mistakes. Raise your hand everyone who hasn't exceeded the posted speed even for one second on your way to work today. Won't be many hands raised, unless you all rode bicycles. Now imagine that the car automatically fines you each time when the number '65' changes to '66'. It wouldn't be worth going to work. In case of police, their errors (regardless of the reason) *also* can have them punished, fired or accused of a crime. Naturally they don't want this to happen. Neither do I or you, but we can't forbid others from seeing our misdeeds. Police can, currently, but that's wrong. If some officers say "we do dangerous work, with gun in hand, so if we shoot a family dog or a kid now and then we shouldn't be accountable." If they can't do their job safely and within the law they should quit; and if the whole police force quits then Wild West, here we come, for better or for worse.
Re:9 times out of 10? (Score:4, Insightful)
How many of them get a lower wage because of the "tip"?
Re:Rule of Law (Score:4, Insightful)
How about this example - near my GF's house, 4 officers were shot in cold blood in a coffee house. They were drinking coffee. The assailant got away, and the assailant was known to have the "death by cop" wish. One of the dead officers was a friend of hers.
That's the Lakewood shooting. I still don't feel any sympathy.
"Death by cop" is only a "thing" because the police have this nasty habit of committing senseless violent acts and cold-blooded murder while hiding behind their infamous "blue wall of silence".
Take the recent unprovoked cold-blooded murder of John T. Williams for example. (There are tons of other examples -- the vast majority of the time, the murderous cops get away with their crimes.)
(Recently released footage here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vcxqyp2wOzE [youtube.com])
Mr. Williams, a partially deaf elderly man, was shot 5 times in the side by a police officer less than 30 seconds after leaving his cruiser.
The blood-thirsty officer, Ian Birk, has been on paid administrative leave since the incident.
If you're not a cop, and you kill someone, you spend time in jail awaiting trial. If you're a cop, you get paid vacation while the "incident" is "investigated" by your cop buddies.
If the police are afraid to leave the house in uniform, it's their own fault. The constant abuses perpetrated against the public -- which habitually go unpunished -- is exactly what has caused the tension between law enforcement and the citizenry.
When that tension turns violent and a cop gets hurt, I say that's fair. Perhaps they'll learn that with the power they've been granted comes responsibility and that the People will no longer tolerate the abuse of the rights and privileges we entrusted to them.
Re:Simplified (Score:5, Insightful)
However what you described is only what is on paper and leaves out the many unwritten laws. Such as that the police, being above the law, get to decide when the law is enforced and may always claim a misinterpretation of the law to justify what would otherwise be criminal acts.
My favorite example of this is the HB police officer who was stalking a coke using stripper and eventually stalked her leaving her work, pulled her over, blew his load on her face and sweater and then left. Despite the DA prosecuting him proving that he had ran her plates through CLETS 30 minutes prior to her leaving her work and his pulling her over, and despite catching him in several perjuring statements in court, the judge and jury some how ruled that because she was a stripper, she was a professional at using her body to manipulate men, and that she had some how manipulated the officer into the circumstances to get out of the traffic incident.
Of course, then there is the case in San Diego where they mobilized the swat team to apprehend a teenager over a stolen PS3 and when they went to arrest him at his parents house opened up with their automatic weapons through a frosted glass door because the kid "had a weapon" when he was holding the PS3 controller...
Or then there is the guy who is serving time in jail for shooting a cop when the police were serving a no-knock warrant on a criminal who had left the apartment complex 6 months prior, and whose apartment was on the other side of the complex. The police broke into his apartment, never announced who they were and the guy reacted what any rational person would do, he immediately grabbed a handgun and went to his infant babies room and shot at the first armed attacker that came after him.
Or how about the mayor who uses a separate last name from his wife who received a random shipment of drugs. And despite the FBI, DEA and the state police knowing that it was just a blind ship and that the criminals often snatch it from the porch before the home owners get the package, the local police, decide to do a dynamic entry on the mayor. Breaking in and killing their two dogs (who were fleeing the cops) and arresting the mayor and his wife for drug trafficking...
Well, I can go on and on, but the facts remain that the police can basically do whatever the hell they want regardless of what some mere paper says their authority is restricted to.
Re:and we should also... (Score:4, Insightful)
What is especially curious is that this sort of praise for the police and military seems to come from the same people who keep telling us that the government can't ever do anything right. They don't seem to be aware that the police and military are pretty much all government employees, working from some of the biggest government bureaucracies that exist.
I respect those who voluneteer for our armed forces, follow our duly elected civilian leaders, and protect our country. Even if that means they are deployed in cases which they may not agree with, or even are unjust/unwarranted. I respect them because it takes courage to volunteer for dangerous, low pay jobs in support of your country. I respect them even if I disagree with the politicians who sent them to war.
I consider myself conservative/libertarian, and despite my respect for the milatary, and in some capacities law enforcement, I absolutely believe that neither group is above the law.
1. There is absolutely no circumstance that comes to mind where it should be illegal for a civilian to record his/her own interaction with the police. If the police question/talk/harass/interrogate me, and I have the ability to record it, it should absolutely be protected 100%. If you are a member of law enforcement, you simply have no right to privacy with respect to the people you are interacting with. Furthermore, if you are properly enforcing the law, you have nothing to fear!
2. It should additionally be absolutely protected for third parties to record police interactions, as long as it occurs in a public forum -- streets, parks, building lobbies, open resturants, etc. A law enforcement official enforcing the law in a public forum has no expectation of privacy whatsoever, period.
Unfortunately, I see no long term path that can take us effectively towards this goal. Our best hope is a number of hard-fought battles in a federal court.
Re:9 times out of 10? (Score:4, Insightful)
That's a load of horseshit. I was working at a 7-Eleven, yes. It was shitty hours for shitty pay. On the other hand, they respected me, a 17-year-old kid at the time; they gave me some responsibility and some work experience; and they paid me promptly every two weeks. Then again, it was shitty hours for shitty pay. But you know what? I'm not a fucking thief.