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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

#61

Post by michael_h »

tsally wrote: post #27
DanielBMarkham wrote: post #2

I wish I had ten upvotes for this. Or a hundred. I love devil's advocate, so I'll say this just as a way of keeping things in perspective: not a lot of folks would want people videotaping everything they did at work and putting it on YouTube (along with criticisms) I know it would drive me nuts. Society as a whole is going to have to go through some major contortions as people get their heads wrapped around the idea…

not a lot of folks would want people videotaping everything they did at work Did you know if you get a Top Secret clearance, you have to have anything related to your work release reviewed for the rest of your life? Being awarded privileges by the government comes with additional responsibility. Videotaping the police is the same as monitoring people who work with classified information; it's just part of the job. If…

> you have to have anything related to your work release reviewed for the rest of your life

I'm not sure that this is true.

Re: Growing Number of Prosecutions for Videotaping the Police

#63

Post by jbooth »

moxiemk1 wrote: post #29
stonemetal wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

More police are killed during routine traffic stops than during any other activity in the US. So yes things are sadly that bad. The last time I was pulled over for a traffic violation the officer refused to shake my hand because he needed it free to be able to draw his weapon(or so he claimed).

A statistic I'd be much more interested in seeing would be police fatalities by incident type normalized by the number of incidents I feel like traffic stops are also a disproportionately high number of police actions.

Yes, which means if they do something that seems outrageously silly because it only would matter the 0.0001% of the time they pull over a psycho, they're actually protecting themselves. It's like wearing a helmet -- you do it all the time for the one time you crash.

Re: Growing Number of Prosecutions for Videotaping the Police

#65

Post by JanezStupar »

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…

Honestly I believe we don't even have any alternatives. We are becoming Borg (or something Borg-like) because that's what we're dreaming of since the dawn of time - think of all the illusions of becoming one with God, universe and each other we conjured up for ourselves.

The mere idea of omnipotent God is enough for us to labor until we manage to create one. And I believe it will be achieved through Brain Computer Interfaces and massive networking. We won't be able to retain our individuality if our population keeps on increasing - something will have to give. Also I believe this will be a golden age of Man.

However I won't be one of the first to get BCI and I will also resist sharing my privacy with total strangers as long as humanely possible. Why? Because nobody can be trusted and I enjoy being unknown.

Re: Growing Number of Prosecutions for Videotaping the Police

#66

Post by sleight42 »

I'm surprised that no one bad mentioned this: http://www.opencongress.org/bill/111-hc298/show.

HC RES 298 is directly related to this issue. If you have a congressman on the House Judiciary Committee, you should be chewing his ear off on the phone, by email, or better still in person!

Re: Growing Number of Prosecutions for Videotaping the Police

#67

Post by Dove »

michael_h wrote: post #61
tsally wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

not a lot of folks would want people videotaping everything they did at work Did you know if you get a Top Secret clearance, you have to have anything related to your work release reviewed for the rest of your life? Being awarded privileges by the government comes with additional responsibility. Videotaping the police is the same as monitoring people who work with classified information; it's just part of the job. If…

> you have to have anything related to your work release reviewed for the rest of your life I'm not sure that this is true.

I don't know about that, but you do see notices all the time that say things like,

"Use of this or any other DoD interest computing system constitutes consent to monitoring at all times. . . information placed in this system is not subject to any expectation of privacy."

It just comes with the territory. Some jobs are more private, some are more public. Bank tellers, customer service reps, talk show hosts, members of Congress. They all get recorded routinely while working, and for different reasons.

Seems to me police interactions are a natural thing to make part of the public record.

Re: Growing Number of Prosecutions for Videotaping the Police

#68

Post by mtomczak »

CodeMage wrote: post #28
DanielBMarkham wrote: post #2

I wish I had ten upvotes for this. Or a hundred. I love devil's advocate, so I'll say this just as a way of keeping things in perspective: not a lot of folks would want people videotaping everything they did at work and putting it on YouTube (along with criticisms) I know it would drive me nuts. Society as a whole is going to have to go through some major contortions as people get their heads wrapped around the idea…

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…

Is it possible that the difference between 1984 and the world into which we could be moving is that Big Brother recorded all motions and activities of the citizenry, but the reverse wasn't true?

Perhaps that's where balance lies.

Re: Growing Number of Prosecutions for Videotaping the Police

#69

Post by motters »

If they're in a public place the police should be just like anyone else when it comes to taking photos or videos. The Ian Tomlinson case is the best example I can think of which demonstrates why videoing police activities can serve an important civic purpose. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Death_of_Ian_Tomlinson

Re: Growing Number of Prosecutions for Videotaping the Police

#70

Post by Groxx »

jbooth wrote: post #63
moxiemk1 wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A statistic I'd be much more interested in seeing would be police fatalities by incident type normalized by the number of incidents I feel like traffic stops are also a disproportionately high number of police actions.

Yes, which means if they do something that seems outrageously silly because it only would matter the 0.0001% of the time they pull over a psycho, they're actually protecting themselves. It's like wearing a helmet -- you do it all the time for the one time you crash.

You also tend to show your badge, so you don't appear like just an angry person who cut you off and jumped out of their car with a gun. (have not heard audio for it, it's possible they said something, but it didn't look like it, nor was there really time to say anything of consequence prior to the gun coming out)

Depending on the area, yes, go for your gun. But don't lead into a situation with it - I'd be willing to bet it makes things worse, and it certainly comes off as hugely off-scale.

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