
ACLU launches phone app to help motorists secretly record police stops - MRonney
http://www.autoblog.com/2012/07/05/aclu-launches-phone-app-to-help-motorists-secretly-record-police/
======
Mizza
Hi, I'm Rich, I run <http://OpenWatch.net>, we made this app for the ACLU. It
is a fork of our Free and Open Source program, OpenWatch.

The really interesting part is that we get thousands of the recordings send
back to us. The app has been out for more than a year and we have collected
thousands of recordings.

We need people to help process all of the data. If you have any experience
with audio processing, trans-coding audio, or data visualization, please get
in touch! - rich@gun.io

(Source: <https://github.com/Miserlou/OpenWatch---Android/network>

iPhone Version: <http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/cop-recorder/id433040863?mt=8>
)

~~~
DanBC
Isn't this something that could be Mechanical Turked?

~~~
MichaelApproved
I think they're looking for volunteers.

~~~
Mizza
Volunteers, or hackers who want to work on something automated.

We have a whoolllle lot of audio, to transcribe it all on MTurk with the
resources we have (ie, none) - would be very cost prohibitive.

What we need is a system which can convert 3gp to something more usable,
automatically remove noise, automatically remove silent parts, automatically
adjust the levels for speech, and then automatically transcribe them. It's a
challenge.

~~~
daeken
Pretty much everything but automatic transcription is pretty straightforward.
Feel free to email me if you want some advice in that regard (email's in my
profile).

------
ck2
Police should be required to record all audio/video when making any kind of
stop.

It's an official action. Instant dismissal if such recording is purposely
incomplete, tampered with or "lost".

ps. that ACLU video is just not good on so many levels - they should replace
it with something to reflect how serious this is

~~~
rmc
It can also be very benefital for police aswell. It's a great defence against
claims of police brutality and abuse. "That cop pushed me!" "We looked at the
video, he didn't."

It's win win and helps make everyone honest.

~~~
fl3tch
Unless it's recorded, there's a good chance they won't believe you. Oh, you
have a bruise? That could have been caused by anything. Judges and juries tend
to side with cops. So cops have little to gain by recording everything, which
is of course why they are generally against it. They outlawed it in Illinois
before it was overturned.

~~~
bigiain
"Judges and juries tend to side with cops."

I see that becoming less and less true… A couple of recent examples locally:

[http://www.smh.com.au/nsw/cctv-exposes-police-
lie-20120705-2...](http://www.smh.com.au/nsw/cctv-exposes-police-
lie-20120705-21jl5.html)

[http://www.smh.com.au/nsw/tasered-for-not-showing-his-
ticket...](http://www.smh.com.au/nsw/tasered-for-not-showing-his-
ticket-20120630-219m3.html)

~~~
zcid
The part that bothers me about the first case linked is that the officers were
submitted to an internal investigation. They should have been arrested as soon
as the video evidence came to light. There is far too little willingless to
arrest and imprison officers that betray public trust. I know it's also this
way in the US; it's incredibly rare to see an officer fired, much less
imprisoned.

------
tokenadult
Maryland is a two-party consent state, but even at that the United States
Department of Justice is urging Maryland police agencies to make clear that
recording citizen interactions with police is a civil right under federal law
that can't be curtailed by state law.

[http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/2012/05/doj-supports-
right-...](http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/2012/05/doj-supports-right-to-
record/)

[http://articles.baltimoresun.com/2012-05-17/news/bs-md-ci-
po...](http://articles.baltimoresun.com/2012-05-17/news/bs-md-ci-police-
recording-doj-20120516_1_officers-police-dispute-recording-police)

I have every reason to believe that the law will develop in this direction
around the country in the United States. In my state (Minnesota), recording
conversations has been on the basis of consent of ONE party (as is also true
of federal law for interstate conversations, as on long-distance telephone
lines), and that will likely become the national norm in general.

In the particular case of police interactions with the public, the trend line
is likely to be strongly in the direction of anyone in the public being
permitted to record police interactions with the public (certainly in the
citizen's own space or in public spaces). The trend is also likely to be
strongly in the direction of state laws requiring police agencies to record
their own interactions with the public, to preserve a more accurate record of
the interactions. For years now here in Minnesota, it has been mandatory for
all police interrogations to be videotaped, and those interrogation videotapes
always have to be preserved to be part of the court record at trial. In-car
cameras in police vehicles have helped exonerate several citizens here in
Minnesota who were arrested by overzealous police officers (who were then
formally reprimanded by their superiors). It helps everyone be more
accountable and engage in best practice when police actions are recorded.
Judges and legislators live in society with all the rest of us, and they like
that kind of transparency.

P.S. I should probably point out that I used to be a judicial clerk for the
Minnesota Supreme Court, and that some of my law school classmates are in the
Minnesota Legislature or in Congress. I'm confident that the more useful
technologies for looking after the police will first become generally
permitted and eventually generally mandatory.

~~~
aswanson
What are your thoughts on the possibility/probability of all police/public
interactions being required to be recorded? What legislative hurdles remain on
a state/federal level for this becoming common practice?

~~~
einhverfr
Not going to happen. There are a large number of hurdles to reach the "all"
threshold. These include:

* undercover work will not be recorded at all times

* technological limitations. Two officers on foot. Where is the camera, for example. Also storage might be a bit of a problem.

* possibilities for abuse. for example, officer has concealed camera, visits your house, looks at the footage later to find a bong or something he didn't see the first time around, uses it to get a search warrant.

* what frequencies are recorded? Do we include near-IR for night vision? Do we include FLIR-type coverage? At what point does the video itself implicate the 4th per Kyllo?

I think the best we can hope for to start with is traffic stops. It might be
possible eventually to require a cameraman on site when a search warrant is
served. but there is a lot of police work where a lot of this may not work so
well.

------
Legion
> Furthermore, the recordings can be automatically uploaded to secure ACLU-NJ
> servers so that police can't delete them later.

Does it upload while recording, or only after the recording ends? Streaming it
during recording is the key feature.

Qik does this. If I'm recording you on my phone with Qik, by the time you
remove the phone from my hands, it's already too late. The video has been
streaming to my Qik account the whole time, and seamlessly transitions from a
"live" video stream to a recorded video when the recording session ends.

------
zethraeus
>Whether or not you agree with the app

How can you not agree with the existence of the damn app?! It just reminds you
of, and helps you exercise, your rights.

~~~
lukifer
People defend their oppressors every day, in every culture. Stockholm Syndrome
is the rule, not the exception.

~~~
vecinu
Your comment made me Google 'Stockhold Syndrome' and I spent the next 30
minutes reading about the [1] Kidnapping of Jaycee Lee Dugard. The human mind
is absolutely fascinating and scary at the same time.

[1] <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kidnapping_of_Jaycee_Lee_Dugard>

~~~
einhverfr
The really scary thought is this:

All governments function on the basis of active citizen cooperation. If
citizens don't cooperate, no government can stand.

Maybe what we call Stockholm Syndrome is just a more pronounced pattern that
makes possible all of the social control structures that we take for granted
all around us every day.

~~~
AutoCorrect
I'd say that's spot on: YOU didn't form the government you live in, you have
been coerced (by force, if necessary) to follow the laws and rules of society
since the day you were born.

------
stcredzero
Someone needs to develop an algorithm or mechanism that allows someone to
record their own voice without recording anyone else's speech. Most video
recording doesn't run afoul of the law, unless there is a soundtrack. However,
recording yourself is okay in most jurisdictions.

~~~
SwellJoe
Several courts have found that recording police, including audio, is legal
because a public employee doing their job in a public location has no
reasonable expectation of privacy. The privacy argument has been used in
several jurisdictions and they've consistently lost the cases.

I don't know if that will apply everywhere, but the ACLU is of the opinion
that recording police when they are making arrests is always legal and always
ethical, and they've put their money where their mouth is by becoming involved
in several of those cases. I'm not knowledgeable enough to know if it's always
true, but I know where I stand on the ethics of the thing: it's always right
to record a police officer making an arrest, and it's always wrong for a
police officer to harass, assault, arrest, or threaten someone who is merely
recording an arrest. Hopefully the law agrees with that, because any police
officer doing his job ethically should have no fear of the public seeing him
doing that job.

~~~
ddt
You're spot on. It all comes down to a reasonable expectation of privacy. If
you're in public, interacting with other people in the public, you waive your
right to not have pictures taken of you. I don't know a place in the US that
this doesn't hold.

~~~
stcredzero
It's not the pictures part that's tricky. When you include audio, a whole
other set of laws comes into play.

------
jessriedel
> Whether or not you agree with the app, it's kind of crazy that we've gotten
> to a point where everybody feels they have to make recordings of everybody
> else and store them in Iron Mountain just to make sure that justice
> prevails.

The abuse of positions of power (especially in one-on-one situations where the
word of one party is taken over another in the absence of contrary evidence)
has been around since time immemorial. The only thing that's changed is the
technology to record. Robin Hanson has some interesting speculation on why
don't see more universal recording of interactions like police stops which are
vulnerable to abuse:

[http://www.overcomingbias.com/2010/06/will-we-allow-
recordin...](http://www.overcomingbias.com/2010/06/will-we-allow-recording-
police.html)

However, it looks like Hanson may be wrong about whether or not video
recording would end up being protected:

[http://www.digitaltrends.com/photography/recording-police-
is...](http://www.digitaltrends.com/photography/recording-police-is-a-
constitutional-right-says-doj/)

------
telecuda
If I'm the cop conducting the traffic stop and see someone suspiciously
reaching in their pocket for an object, I'm drawing my gun.

I could see this being used as a bystander to an arrest, but doing anything
short of keeping your hands free and visible during a traffic stop is
dangerous.

-Guy who makes tech for cops

~~~
quesera
Where do you keep your driver's license, then?

~~~
Wingman4l7
I would imagine it's one thing if they ask you to give them your license, and
another entirely if you start reaching for something on your own accord.
Unfortunately, being stopped by a LEO (law enforcement officer) can be
flustering and you might not stop to think about it. I imagine that the LEO
basically needs to treat everyone as potentially hostile until proven
otherwise, for their own safety.

I've read whole forum threads discussing how to inform a LEO that you have a
concealed carry license and a firearm on your person at a traffic stop,
without freaking them out. Once I made the stupidly embarrassing mistake of
attempting to exit my vehicle during a stop; the LEOs got hostile very quickly
and I ended up getting frisked.

~~~
ars
> Once I made the stupidly embarrassing mistake of attempting to exit my
> vehicle during a stop

Yah, don't do that! Best thing is to do after pulling over is turn on the
interior lights, roll down the window, turn off the radio, and then wait.

Doing that will calm the cop since he can see you easily, which can only work
in your favor.

Some cops will ask you to turn of the engine, or leave the car, but most
won't.

~~~
Wingman4l7
Hence the "stupidly embarrassing" bit. All the more mad at myself because I
knew better -- the old "hands on the steering wheel" rule (although in that
case I wasn't driving). Not sure if preemptively rolling the window down would
make them nervous; I'd tend not to do that. I'd think leaving the engine on
would make them nervous, too.

------
chris_wot
Curious to see how this will be done on iOS - last I checked there was no way
of running apps in the background.

~~~
54mf
I'd imagine a totally black screen would do the trick in keeping the app
hidden, or at least less obvious.

~~~
chris_wot
Just downloaded it - yeah, it is a black screen. Seems that the Android app is
better. I'm seriously considering getting a Galaxy, not an iPhone for my next
mobile.

------
finnw
I just hope the cops don't respond by routinely confiscating smartphones of
everyone they stop. "Sorry, but I suspect you are smuggling cocaine inside the
case. Don't worry you'll get it back. Well I mean you'll get the pieces back.
In three years."

~~~
flyinRyan
They can't do that. If a cop asks for your phone you say no.

------
kloncks
Curious to see how applicable this is in states like California where one
can't record another without their consent. Wouldn't that apply to the
policeman being recorded as well?

~~~
cbr
In MA we recently had a suit (Click v Cunniffe) over whether it's legal to
record police. We're a two party consent state, but the judge ruled:

    
    
        Simply put, a straightforward reading of
        the statute and case law cannot support 
        the suggestion that a recording made with
        a device known to record audio and held in
        plain view is "secret."
    

[http://www.citmedialaw.org/sites/citmedialaw.org/files/10-17...](http://www.citmedialaw.org/sites/citmedialaw.org/files/10-1764P-01A.pdf)

(not a lawyer)

------
saurik
One complexity is that it has been ruled that your cell phone is not a
container that protects its contents, so police are allowed to search it
without a warrant. This is not true, however, if it is in a physical locked
container such as your glove compartment (where it is much less likely to be
able to hear anything).

~~~
tuxidomasx
Its probably possible to send the recordings TO a unit inside a locked
container in your car (via wifi).

I know this might limit the use-cases for an app, as well as require more
effort to do, but that would be pretty slick.

Another way to protect the recordings is to live stream the audio to the
internet (with location info). This way, the data is already stored online
before the police have a chance to go poking around in a confiscated phone.

Maybe even make the streams available in real-time so people can listen in on
live stops as they happen.

~~~
saurik
To be clear, I was bringing up this concern not to protect the recordings
(although I do agree that is an interesting point, albeit one easily solved by
the "stream it to the Internet" mechanism), but to point out a practical issue
with using your cell phone as the recorder: your cell phone probably has a lot
of other things on it, from call histories to SMS logs to photographs, any of
which you might not want a police officer randomly digging through "on a
whim"; hence the advice people offer to keep it locked in a glove compartment
in these situations.

~~~
stox
Android ICS has an option to encrypt the entire device.

~~~
sigkill
But are you not required to give the password then?

