

Why you should go to jail for videotaping police officers - cwan
http://reason.com/archives/2010/08/09/police-officers-dont-check-the

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yread
Best bit: _Crawford County State’s Attorney Tom Wiseman is currently bringing
five felony charges against Michael Allison...who recorded police officers and
other public officials he thought were harassing him...He faces up to 75 years
in prison for the recordings... Given the deference law enforcement officials
get from courts and prosecutors, how can a citizen who feels he’s being
harassed or treated unfairly by law enforcement protect himself?

"The only person doing any harassing here is Mr. Allison, who was harassing
our public officials with his tape recorder," Wiseman says. "They may have
problems with some bad police officers in some of your urban areas. But we
don’t have those problems around here. All of our cops around here are good
cops. This is a small town. Everyone knows everyone. If we had a bad police
officer here, we’d know about it, I’d know about it, and he’d be out. There’s
just no reason for anyone to feel they need to record police officers in
Crawford County."_

And that's exactly why it is neccessary to tape them

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GiraffeNecktie
I also liked "At some point, we have to put some faith and trust in our
authority figures."

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epochwolf
Why do we need to put faith and trust in authority figures?

Respect and trust aren't the same. You can not trust someone and still be
polite. You can not trust and cooperate.

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rdtsc
> Why do we need to put faith and trust in authority figures?

Because they just told us to.

Didn't you read him telling us they are all good cops and we should trust
them?

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mquander
"Police Officers Don't Check Their Civil Rights at the Station House Door."

Why not? I check a lot of my civil rights at the door when a police officer
pulls me over.

Slightly more seriously, check this out:

 _“There’s no chain of custody with these videos,” Pasco says. “How do you
know the video hasn’t been edited? How do we know what’s in the video hasn’t
been taken out of context? With dashboard cameras or police security video,
the evidence is in the hands of law enforcement the entire time, so it’s
admissible under the rules of evidence. That’s not the case with these cell
phone videos.”_

Did he really say that with a straight face?

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eli
Lack of chain of custody seems like a plausible (though hardly airtight)
argument for excluding a tape from evidence at a trial. Not for arresting the
person holding the camera.

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anigbrowl
Yes, somewhat. It's pretty easy to tell if something has been edited. All but
the most expensive professional cameras compress the video they record and
editing leaves 'fingerprints' in the file. On cheaper cameras like cellphones,
the lens is so cheap and compression so brutal that the images are pretty
noisy, and the noise is actually an aid in this because sudden discontinuities
are a giveaway that something has been doctored.

These three individuals are really sounding like parodies of themselves,
essentially claiming that only evidence they collect is admissible. By that
standard, defense attorneys in criminal cases should never be allowed to
submit evidence, because anything not coming from the police could be fake. In
any case, the court is the trier of fact, not the DA or the officer on the
street.

Police officers and prosecutors do a necessary, but often unpleasant and
dangerous job, with a complex mix of responsibilities and liabilities. I don't
like to stereotype them any more than I do poor people or even criminals. But
when they offer such nakedly self-serving arguments designed to bypass
critical thinking, I want to see them out on their ass ASAP - it does a
disservice to all the dedicated individuals who serve with integrity.

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Zak
I nearly went in to law enforcement, and the arguments made by police and
prosecutors in this article sound like bullshit to me. The strongest
arguments, in my opinion are the lack of a chain of custody, and privacy for
third-parties.

Chain of custody simply means knowing who had control over a piece of evidence
and when. It comes in to play when someone in a trial claims that a piece of
evidence does not match reality and may have been tampered with. In a criminal
trial, deciding the credibility of evidence is generally a matter for the
jury. In a non-criminal complaint about an officer, it's a matter for the
officer's supervisor. In no case that I am aware of is it illegal to collect
evidence because the chain of custody may be difficult or impossible to
determine.

Privacy for third parties is a bit more tricky. I think it might be a good
idea to have some restrictions on distributing videos of police encounters
with other people without permission from those people (but not the on-duty
police officers involved) or obscuring their identities. Many states already
have rules against recording conversations without permission, and an
exemption for recording police officers wouldn't necessarily apply to
recording interactions between a police officer and a third party, so this may
be a non-issue in certain debates.

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adolph
The self-credulity of the interviewees is amazing. Here is Jim Pasco,
executive director of the Fraternal Order of Police:

" _With dashboard cameras or police security video, the evidence is in the
hands of law enforcement the entire time, so it’s admissible under the rules
of evidence._ "

Never mind that dashboard video cameras have an amazing rate of "forgotten
tapes" whenever the actions of police come into question.

I suppose that a person could reply that I only have anecdotal evidence of
that. However, the point illustrated by the anecdote is that in these
circumstances the role of law enforcement as a neutral party is in question.

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rdtsc
> The self-credulity of the interviewees is amazing.

I often wonder if public officials have some kind of special newspeak training
or do they just internalize the rules implicitly as part of their job.

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dpritchett
" _The key here is that only Message 1 is comprehensible to the truly
clueless; this is what makes for plausible deniability. You cannot prove that
the other messages were exchanged. Losers can partially understand, but not
speak Powertalk. To them, Powertalk is a spectator sport._ "

[http://www.ribbonfarm.com/2009/11/11/the-gervais-
principle-i...](http://www.ribbonfarm.com/2009/11/11/the-gervais-principle-ii-
posturetalk-powertalk-babytalk-and-gametalk/)

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adolph
Oh fascinating! Applying the Gervais principle to this really moves things
along. Police and lawyer language is nothing but powertalk, no?

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copenja
Cops are human, as we all are. And as humans they have the same flaws that
everyone else has.

Because they have positions that grant them so much power, they need some
serious checks and balances.

Citizen monitoring seems like an obvious and fair system.

Why would an on-duty officer that is in the act of making an arrest need to
have his words and actions protected by privacy laws? We are not talking about
when he is in locker room bullshitting with other cops.

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ck2
Not only should all law enforcement be recorded, they should be the ones
required to record at all times while on the clock.

If they do not like it, do not be law enforcement.

That should sort out the honest ones from the dishonest rather quickly.

Any cop can make your life living hell in a heartbeat. Anyone who is against
recording has just never been on the wrong side of a cop. You have ZERO
chance.

~~~
iterationx
Quis custodiet ipsos custodes?

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georgecmu
If these police officers have nothing to hide, then they should have nothing
to worry about.

Seriously, though, there is no reasonable expectation of privacy in one's
workplace. Once you cross the threshold of your office, you check in a lot of
rights at the door. You may be videotaped and your communications may be
eavesdropped on.

What makes these public officials special?

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byoung2
_Unlike Maryland, the law in Illnios is much clearer. It is illegal to record
anyone in public without their consent._

Does that apply to security cameras?

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Yzupnick
I know in NY there must be some sort of sign that informs people that there
are security cameras watching. I assume it is the same in Illinois

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byoung2
So I should simply inform the police that I am videotaping them, but that I am
not recording any audio. By continuing to arrest me, they are giving their
consent to being recorded.

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malabar
If we need to have camera's to protect court houses, government buildings and
banks for security reasons, then it would seem that a citizen has the right to
videotape any event they are involved in if they so choose. If we do not get
asked our permission to be videotaped when I enter a shopping mall, then I
should not have to ask anyone's permission if I am on a public road and some
cop is yelling and waving a gun.

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dagw
Most States have laws requiring the mall have some sort of sign at the
entrance warning you that you will be videotaped. That sign is asking your
permission and by walking passed that sign and entering the mall you have
granted them permission to tape you.

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rdtsc
Should you just put signs on the back of your vehicle, and on your t-shirt
that say by talking to you others implicitly grant their permission to be
videtaped?

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jmcentire
This isn't a matter of police officers surrendering rights. It's a matter of
whether or not they get special rights to privacy. If I can be recorded with
video or audio, so can they. If they can have video/audio recordings in their
vehicles to record the traffic stop or other encounters, so can I.

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Tamerlin
If the police can't handle being photographed or recorded in public places,
then they can't be trusted.

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scelerat
Does anyone know of cases where photo-/videographers are facing charges for
recording police officers performing their duty within the bounds of
professionalism, or do all these cases involve some question of police
conduct?

This answer (how should citizens know whether a recording is protected or will
result in felony charges?) from Maryland's state attorney seems most relevant:

"I don’t have any hard and fast rule I can give you,"

If that's the case, this is bad law/bad policy.

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earl
What a shock. Authoritarian glibertarians love them some authoritarian
assholes. It of course helps that reason is white and male so they're rarely
on the shit end of the nightclub.

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hc
I can tell you did a great job reading the article before you commented on it

