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Growing Number of Prosecutions for Videotaping the Police

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Re: Growing Number of Prosecutions for Videotaping the Police

#51

Post by Jach »

DanielBMarkham wrote: post #36
CodeMage wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Society as a whole is going to have to go through some major contortions as people get their heads wrapped around the idea that everything -- and I mean everything -- is going to be digitized and recorded. That is precisely one of the things that give me the shivers about the society today. I understand Mr. Graber's motivation. I also agree wholeheartedly that the "reasonable expectation of privacy" rule has to be ap…

Don't sound like a nut-job to me. It's insane the degree to which people are willing to record and distribute every little bit of their lives. And by insane, I don't mean a good thing. The techno-wonks will tell you that it's all evolving to some kind of wonderful singularity nirvana. But do we really want to become The Borg? Because either we either fiercely keep our lives and thoughts private and personal, or we sh…

It may not be human, but I think if you think it's inevitable then you have a responsibility to try and make it as humane as possible. From my perspective, intelligence enhancement and some cognitive re-architecture to remove the bad parts of human psyche can lead to bad places, but only if we allow the non-augmented people to dictate silly rules and regulations. I also don't think we can draw a very strong parallel to the Borg. (They are too imperfect, mere sci-fi creations. :) I don't want to downplay the potential risks, since there are numerous ones, but come on:

> Water's going to boil soon, folks. Hope you like it that way. 'Cause there is no stopping it.

If you really believe that, then are you just waving your arms and one day you can point back at this post and say "See? I saw it coming."? It still baffles me how much people accept things that are bad (for example, death) with no hope of changing them.

Re: Growing Number of Prosecutions for Videotaping the Police

#52

Post by randallsquared »

BrandonM wrote: post #44
rmc wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Even if you make drugs legal, we still need undercover operations to deal with criminal organisations. What about the groups that kill people for money, or extort 'protection money', or groups that rob banks? Unless you want to make murder, arson and theft legal, you need to go undercover in these groups.

Two things: 1. I'm not saying that drugs themselves have to be legal. I think our current policy of punishing drug use is the bad thing. If drugs are to be illegal, the sensible thing is to punish production and sale. Then you can develop a dynamic where a user who wants to get clean can get some kind of reward for turning in a dealer. Then dealing becomes less attractive because there's a higher likelihood of being…

Then dealing becomes less attractive because there's a higher likelihood of being caught.

When there's no legal repercussion for turning in your dealer, only the most marginal and violent types will bother to be drug dealers, raising the price and violence of drug dealing, I would expect.

Re: Growing Number of Prosecutions for Videotaping the Police

#53

Post by metastew »

DanielBMarkham wrote: post #36
CodeMage wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Society as a whole is going to have to go through some major contortions as people get their heads wrapped around the idea that everything -- and I mean everything -- is going to be digitized and recorded. That is precisely one of the things that give me the shivers about the society today. I understand Mr. Graber's motivation. I also agree wholeheartedly that the "reasonable expectation of privacy" rule has to be ap…

Don't sound like a nut-job to me. It's insane the degree to which people are willing to record and distribute every little bit of their lives. And by insane, I don't mean a good thing. The techno-wonks will tell you that it's all evolving to some kind of wonderful singularity nirvana. But do we really want to become The Borg? Because either we either fiercely keep our lives and thoughts private and personal, or we sh…

Humanity has always been in a state of transition in the last million years or so. You mean to say we can't call the next iteration of humans 'Homo Singularitus'?

Re: Growing Number of Prosecutions for Videotaping the Police

#54

Post by loewenskind »

DanielBMarkham wrote: post #36
CodeMage wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Society as a whole is going to have to go through some major contortions as people get their heads wrapped around the idea that everything -- and I mean everything -- is going to be digitized and recorded. That is precisely one of the things that give me the shivers about the society today. I understand Mr. Graber's motivation. I also agree wholeheartedly that the "reasonable expectation of privacy" rule has to be ap…

Don't sound like a nut-job to me. It's insane the degree to which people are willing to record and distribute every little bit of their lives. And by insane, I don't mean a good thing. The techno-wonks will tell you that it's all evolving to some kind of wonderful singularity nirvana. But do we really want to become The Borg? Because either we either fiercely keep our lives and thoughts private and personal, or we sh…

I think you're exaggerating a bit here. First off, the frog thing is a myth. If you ever actually try to boil a frog you will find that no matter how slowly you do it, it eventually gets uncomfortable and jumps out.

Stupid people do stupid things. Always have and always will. The difference now is just the scale and how far their stupidity can travel.

If you get off on worrying a more interesting thing to worry about is what role governments are going to play. The more technologically we advanced the less we need them. Of course they don't like this at all. Today we've been saved because they (a) haven't fully grasp what e.g. the internet means and (b) where they have, they haven't been "tech savvy" enough to do anything about it. Both of these will change in time. What's going to happen when they decide to try and roll everything back a few notches after we've all gotten used to the convenience?

Personally I think it will work out in the end because it always has so far (and I can't do much about it in any case) but my scenario has more potential for trouble than yours I think.

Re: Growing Number of Prosecutions for Videotaping the Police

#55

Post by pierrefar »

Sukotto wrote: post #10

Funny how "If you're not doing anything wrong, then you have nothing to fear" only works when the authorities are recording what you say and do and not when you do the same to them.

Google is taking a similar line:

http://gawker.com/5419271/google-ceo-secrets-are-for-filthy-...

http://blogoscoped.com/archive/2009-12-07-n83.html

Re: Growing Number of Prosecutions for Videotaping the Police

#56

Post by dlytle »

adolph wrote: post #49

I really hope that Maryland removes their law against recording public officials and adds a law against recording obnoxious public stunts. This particular case is a really bad example of the “war on photography” because the motorcyclist is not an innocent photographer but a traffic provocateur. Like many, I've followed Radley Balko's articles for some time and have a growing sense of paranoia/constitutional outrage r…

This case isn't about a traffic provocateur; it's about a traffic provocateur being charged with wiretapping laws for taping his police encounter.

To be more exact, the problem is that instead of facing a speeding ticket or (at most) a misdemeanor traffic violation, he's going to have to fight a charge that could carry 16 years of imprisonment.

Re: Growing Number of Prosecutions for Videotaping the Police

#60

Post by scotty79 »

Isn't there some kind of law that citizens have right to record public servant on duty?

In Poland you can record policeman on duty (provided that he does not work under cover at the time). Also police cannot routinely record you during for example being pulled over to check your driving licence.

That said practice is that policemen routinely record citizens on such occasions and try to make life miserable for the people who record them by even arresting them on false pretenses.

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