

Policing the Police: The Apps That Let You Spy on the Cops - GiraffeNecktie
http://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2011/06/policing-the-police-the-apps-that-let-you-spy-on-the-cops/240916/

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ajays
The article mentions 2 apps, but I'm sure these are not the only ones. It
would be nice to know about others too.

One note of caution, though: some states are 2-party consent states, which
means, both parties have to consent to an audio recording. If you happen to be
in one of those states, and the cops find out that you've been recording them,
you can be in deep trouble.

On the other hand, sometimes just recording the cops in plain sight can get
you into trouble, as evidenced by Emily Good's arrest in Rochester, NY.
[http://www.democratandchronicle.com/article/20110625/NEWS01/...](http://www.democratandchronicle.com/article/20110625/NEWS01/106250325/Activist-
stunned-by-after-effects-of-event?odyssey=tab|mostpopular|text|NEWS)

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Xurinos
Does that apply to activity recorded in a public area?

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ajays
I'm not a lawyer, but: the cops can still hassle you even if you know you're
in the right.

Consider this case: [http://articles.baltimoresun.com/2010-05-08/news/bs-md-
herma...](http://articles.baltimoresun.com/2010-05-08/news/bs-md-hermann-
police-wiretap-20100508_1_state-trooper-graber-s-case-camera) Eventually a
judge ruled for him, but imagine the heartburn over the prospect of going to
jail for 15 years. Some cops do not like being video-taped even in public.
Some will even pull a gun on you to intimidate you:
[http://www.miamiherald.com/2011/06/02/v-fullstory/2248396/wi...](http://www.miamiherald.com/2011/06/02/v-fullstory/2248396/witnesses-
said-they-were-forced.html)

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baconner
I disagree with the headline. It is not "spying" to record the police in
public any more than it is spying for them to record you with a dashboard
camera. Both recordings should serve the same purpose - to create a record of
events that can be used to ensure the law is upheld. I don't see how any
honest law enforcement professional could disagree with this.

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Mizza
I wrote these!

Got any questions?

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Joakal
It seems overly anti-police just starting with the headline and not quite
about how the apps are giving journalistic abilities to people.

Just my opinion. I don't dislike/avoid the police here (Australian).

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Mizza
Well, I wrote the software, not the article. It's a catchy headline sure, and
the apps are called Cop Recorder, which a lot of people see as anti-police.
But, there are lots of cops who use the software too.

We are not an anti-police project, we are a pro-data project! There are good
police and bad police, and we publish recordings of both.

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andrewcooke
ok, so that concerns me, because i am not convinced that "more data" is a good
thing. more surveillance in general is, it seems to me, going to help those
with power rather than those without - they have more resources, for example.

what i thought was good about your app, from this article, was that it was
intended for the underdog - that something about the process to combine data,
say, was intended to provide a counterbalance to the abuse of police power.

but now you're saying you're neutral about it. that you're as happy for it to
be used by the police against others, as for others to use it against the
police. doesn't that mean that you're likely making things worse?

and what about other morally questionable areas? mob-justice, for example.
what are you going to do if a bunch of people start pooling observations of
someone they are calling, say, a paedophile, when there's no conviction
against them? or gays? or people of one race or another, asserting that they
commit more crime...?

just arguing that "more data is good" seems horribly naive. data a tool that
can be abused in many ways. if you're choosing how to shape that force, and
choosing well, great, but if you're going to ignore the moral responsibility
that comes with the data, what makes you think you are helping?

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ldar15
Now imagine a world where anyone could enter a gps coordinate and height and
see the activity there, at anytime in the past. You think we'd have TARP? You
think we'd be at war in afghanistan? You think we'd have priests fucking
children? Lynchings? Drunk driving?

Many think this would be a dystopian future that forces everyone to conform. I
believe that if all those people who only pretend to conform were actually
required to conform, we'd suddenly see a great debate on what "normal" should
actually be.

Asimov wrote a story about this, and seemed to suggest that his view was that
the end of privacy would be a bad thing (but maybe I read it wrong).

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Dead_Past>

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andrewcooke
[edit: i was wrong; it wasn't bradbury, i'm remembering the asimov work you
mention - an excellent story, i agree]

but it ignores the existing power structure. everyone knows that banks screwed
up - but who is in jail? same thing goes here: it won't be an equaliser; only
the little people will be punished. most people won't be using their viewers
to avoid a war, they will be watching infotainment on 3d tv.

if you don't explicitly challenge the existing power structure you implicitly
strengthen it.

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jellicle
For full function, the ideal citizen filming app should:

\-- record audio and video

\-- upload it on-the-fly (as it is being recorded) automatically

\-- keep recording when the phone is locked or otherwise off/inaccessible to
others, as it may be taken away from you

Openwatch meets 1 of those requirements. Still waiting for something that
meets all 3...

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Joakal
Also strip personally identifying information for immediate anonymity. A phone
serial could be embedded or at least a phone make (mine does phone make.
Flickr enjoys this btw). Combine that with who owns the phone serial or used
phone make in the area (apparently some phones broadcast such information) and
the person can be identified.

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Natsu
> Also strip personally identifying information for immediate anonymity.

I question just how anonymous a recording of your interaction with the police
can be made. Surely the officers in question will recognize recordings of
themselves and have records of just who all they pulled over that day?

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Joakal
It's more about capturing something that someone does not want to be seen and
later traceable back to you because you didn't know about your phone embedding
data into pictures.

Say for example, you caught me killing a puppy with your camera phone. I'm
your neighbour so you post the picture online with a hint to location via an
anonymous account through many proxies. There's newspaper frontpage outrage
and I'm outraged. I investigate and look at the picture file. Lo and behold, I
recognise the camera make as yours and know who it is. So it's not only police
that you want to protect yourself from.

Disclaimer: I like puppies though :(

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Flemlord
I wonder if apps like this could be used to circumvent the recording consent
laws in certain states. Instead of having the phone/app make the recording, it
could transmit the video/audio stream to a central server in another state
where recording without consent is legal. Plus you wouldn't be at risk of
losing your recording if somebody takes your phone.

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romey
I'd be interested to know if having an open phone line while speaking to the
police could be defended in court. Consider an app that didn't actually
_record_ locally, only streamed to a remote server (in a state where the
recording was legal) that recorded the conversation.

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dmbass
Digitizing an analog stream is probably considered recording.

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tocomment
Anything that uploads to a server should have plausible deniability built in.
What I mean is that it should still save locally the last 15 seconds of video
so that you have something they can force you to delete.

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mikeash
What is the advantage of using this app as opposed to using the built-in Voice
Memos app and then turning off the phone's screen? Both approaches record
audio fine, don't show any immediate indication that recording is happening,
and at least with Voice Memos, I don't have an app called "Cop Recorder"
running if the police decide to get curious.

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biturd
>What is the advantage of using this app as opposed to using the built-in
Voice Memos app and then turning off the phone's scree

I don't believe there is one. I emailed (CopWatch) a few weeks ago and have
not heard anything. One of my suggestions was to change the name.

I know of a person in which a novelty iPhone scale app was used as probable
cause to search their vehicle. He is a developer who wanted to see how an
iPhone app could act as a scale. Our estimations were correct, vibration and
position are used to make a very crude estimate.

The mere existence of this app angered the police and allowed them to justify
a full vehicle search, yielding nothing.

A name like CopWatch is a red flag, and I would not want to have an app of
that name on my phone if recording secrecy was my end goal.

The app does not upload in real time, but rather works like any other built in
app, recording locally, uploading at user instruction, plus needing data entry
prior to uploading. Given that we have all seen video of officers destroying
recording devices, or recording devices returned broken, it is important to
protect that function.

This app in curent form offers no protection against corruption in law
enforcement.

My best recommendation is to use UStream. It records locally if there is no
cellular or wifi connection. If a data connection can be found, it records
directly to the remote servers. You can delete the local file, and even the
local representation of the remote server file, but the master will be
retained when you login to the webapp. You must only protect your login and
password to the webapp, and all recordings made while connected through a data
connection should be safe for a sufficient period of time.

I should note, the above suggestions are only tested on iOS devices. I have no
idea if they hold true on other mobile platforms. The UStream deletion of
local files while retaining remote files could also be a bug, albeit one that
has been there for over a year now.

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pasbesoin
The line of inquiry does not go solely in the direction you might initially
think. (Instead, think data collection and analysis.) Worth the read.

