

Schneier on Filming the Police - Natsu
http://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2010/06/filming_the_pol.html

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jamesbressi
Who watches the watchers?

I see an article about this come up every couple months and I find it plain
frightening.

Funny how some defend laws and privacy by saying "well if you aren't doing
anything wrong, you shouldn't worry about it." but the same is not true for
those who serve and protect?

Privacy is your right and so is protecting your rights. If it's in public,
well, it's not private! And if you are using something as an insurance of
protecting or monitoring the governing of your rights, well it is unjust to
make that illegal.

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Anechoic
Once again: it it perfectly legal to audio and video record in officer in MA
as long as the officer knows you're going it (and presuming that the act of
recording doesn't interfere with the officer's duties). You can videotape
(without audio) an officer (or anyone) without their knowledge, but you cannot
audio record an officer (or anyone) without their knowledge. In any case, you
do not need consent, that just have to be notified that the recording is
taking place.

Yes, Simon Glik was _arrested_ but the charges were dismissed. The applicable
law is here: <http://www.mass.gov/legis/laws/mgl/272-99.htm>

~~~
ciupicri
What's the so special about audio recording compared to video recording? Also,
if the video recording is good, someone could do lip reading.

~~~
evgen
Basically, audio recording is older tech and therefore has been around long
enough and has been abused often enough to have specific laws drafted. The
vast majority of the wiretapping laws and regulations about recording various
events in public and private are explicit about how they apply to any and all
forms of audio recording.

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dejb
> You can think of your existing power as the exponent in an equation that
> determines the value, to you, of more information. The more power you have,
> the more additional power you derive from the new data.

so P = (i + I) ^ p

where

p = previous level of power

i = old level of information

I = new additional information

P = new level of power

Is that right? How does this even make sense? Does this work out to be a super
exponential function? Lets try some numbers

Starting out with power = 2, information = 2 and sequentially increasing i by
1 gives

(2+1)^2 = 9,

(3+1)^9 = 262144

(4+1)^262144 = some really big number

You get the idea. Also note that if you drip feed yourself the information in
smaller increments (say 0.1) then your power grows much faster.

By this reckoning it is amazing that some entity hasn't already irrevocably
taken control of the entire world. You can see how ones perspective would be
pretty messed up if you thought the relationship was actually like this. Gives
me new insight into the thinking of Schneier.

~~~
dejb
Seriously nobody else can see that this blows a gapping whole in his reasoning
in the second part of the article? This is the mental model he is using to
argue that sharing information leads to a massive increase in power imbalances
and is therefore too risky. That little brother can never really win against
big brother in a world of increasing information.

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mooneater
Though I agree with what Bruce is saying, I thought he did a very poor job of
presenting his argument in a compelling way. Who would ever change their mind
on this issue based on that example? There's got to be a better way to convey
it.

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ck2
You do understand that even if it's made perfectly legal by the supreme court,
cops will find some other excuse, valid or not, to arrest you for taking a
photo/video of them.

There's zero punishment to them for abusing authority - I mean they can even
shoot/kill someone and often get away with it, including receiving pay while
not working or being on trial.

Citizen review boards with full authority to punish/fire cops are the only
answer.

~~~
mattw
I agree that it certainly should be legal to record public servants in their
duties, but let's get a grip here.

 _There's zero punishment to them for abusing authority - I mean they can even
shoot/kill someone and often get away with it, including receiving pay while
not working or being on trial._

This is an absurd statement. Officers are held to a much higher standard of
conduct than you or I. They're also placed into situations demanding much
greater responsibility than you or I, and under far greater pressures than you
or I face. They make bad calls and mistakes just like anyone else, but by and
large they _are_ held accountable for these mistakes. Departments vary, but in
my area the bar is very high.

 _Citizen review boards with full authority to punish/fire cops are the only
answer._

These exist. They're called, broadly, "the judicial branch", or in practice,
"courts". They're not run by the police.

~~~
chc
I don't know where you live, but in the US it's quite common for police
officers to be held to a lower standard. I have relatives on the force, and if
they're speeding and get pulled over, the arresting officer will let them go.
Similarly, a cop can force you to pull over and stop what you're doing for any
reason at all and even physically abuse you if you are even slightly
uncooperative, but interrupting or resisting a cop will get you arrested, and
you're out of your mind if you expect a police officer to be as accommodating
to you as you must be to them. You can't even hold a cell phone in their
presence.

If you want to assert that they are held to a higher standard, I would like
you to support that assertion.

~~~
mattw
I've been in their shoes, so that's where my arguments are coming from. For
context, I'm in Washington state. To address your points:

Regarding speeding: that's a good example. Yes, it seems they're held to a
lower standard. However, it's not that clear-cut. The problem with handing out
a speeding ticket is that you're introducing an awkward dynamic into the
relationship you have with a person who may literally be responsible for your
life on an upcoming shift. The counterpoint is that _they_ started the
awkwardness by speeding in the first place and should be held accountable. I
see both sides - in many cases when you have a close relationship like that a
talk is more effective than a ticket anyway. I agree that they should follow
the speed limit just like everyone else, but I can understand why an officer
would hesitate to hand out a ticket over it. It's the "would you give a
speeding ticket to your mother" dilemma. Maybe you would, but probably a talk
would be more effective ("You're putting me in a bad position here"), and if
someone has no compunction about it at all about handing out tickets to their
mother, maybe they've got a messed-up relationship with her in the first
place.

Regarding stops: in Washington, at least, an officer can't stop you without
"reasonable suspicion", which is a legal term with a specific definition, or
actually witnessing a violation. If he does stop you for "no reason", it's
grounds for throwing out any ticket or conviction that arises from the stop.
(Incidentally, this is where a lot of drug cases get challenged - based on the
grounds of the traffic stop where the drugs were discovered.)

Regarding the rest: you have to understand, these people work in an entirely
different world. Every person they come into contact with is a potential
threat to their life, because you never know whether this guy you just pulled
over is actually a felon having a bad day wanting to take it out on you, or
whether the cell phone is actually a zipgun (indistinguishable from the
outside), or whether this guy with a cell phone is calling some gang buddies
to come help him out, or warning off somebody, etc. This does _not_ excuse
actual abuses of authority in any way. However, _of course_ we have to be more
accommodating to them than they are to us. If they were as accommodating to
all the people they deal with day in and day out, they'd either be ineffective
or dead.

(Note that, going back to the original topic, I still agree that recording
officers should certainly not be an offense in and of itself. That's an
"accommodation" that should be made whenever possible.)

As for the higher standard, I've seen a state trooper fired because of photos
on his Facebook account of him laughing with friends while waiting for a taxi
after drinking (off-duty, not in uniform!) at a bar. Somebody saw the photo,
apparently found the idea of a trooper drinking offensive, reported him to his
supervisor, and he lost his job, even though he was doing the responsible
thing in waiting for a taxi. Are you telling me that's not a higher standard
than your job?

Or another example: an officer in this area was fired because of domestic
abuse issues he had at home, which amounted to him grabbing his wife's arm
during an argument and leaving a bruise. Would you be fired from your job if
that happened to you? Probably not.

Even laws treat officers differently. Offhand, IIRC the statute of limitations
for most felonies in Washington is 3 years - unless you're an officer, in
which case it's 10. Likewise, as a civilian you can defend your home and
family with lethal force, but as an officer you'll stand against far more
scrutiny if you ever have to because the standards are higher due to
"experience and training".

I could go on, but this is way too long already. The bottom line is it's not a
perfect system. You can easily find cases of abuse of power and authority. But
I think that by and large these are decent people who are sacrificing a lot
and doing a tough job as best they can. The vast majority of them are not
doing it for the power trip or because they're totalitarian. And they
certainly are held to tougher standards than the average civilian.

~~~
ck2
Er, if they are ignoring the little laws like speeding and parking, they
follow through on ignoring the bigger laws too. A cop should be a good
example, always or not a cop. Period.

>> an officer can't stop you

"can't" ? I assure you, they will stop you for whatever reason they feel like
if they are so motivated. Cops love the fact they can immediately make your
life EXTREMELY complicated, make you spend thousands of dollars and many
hours/days in court, on just their whim, while they get to go home after their
shift, hassle-free. They are going to "teach you a lesson".

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InclinedPlane
Ultimately technology will make any attempts at preventing the video recording
of police in public completely futile. In another few years nearly everyone
will have phones capable of recording hi-def video and streaming it to the
internet live. At that point it's Canute vs. the tide.

