New laws trying to criminalize filming cops • Hacker News Board

Re: New laws trying to criminalize filming cops

#181

Post by mrangle » Thu, Jul 20, 2023, 4:29 PM UTC

mitt_romney_12 wrote: post #107

mrangle wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The former. People have been over-charged for destroying the property of others, in the example given. But my point was comparative. Also, to clarify, it should be difficult or impossible to charge someone for assault simply for destroying property. But according to how I understand assault laws, and leaving room for jurisdictional interpretation, if you do it while doing something else that can be read as intimidati…

> The former. People have been over-charged for destroying the property of others, in the example given. But my point was comparative. This is a inaccurate comparison. She didn't destroy any else's property

It would be inaccurate if the charges were limited to property destruction.

Re: New laws trying to criminalize filming cops

#182

Post by gcr » Thu, Jul 20, 2023, 4:32 PM UTC

mrangle wrote: post #39

annoyingnoob wrote: post #27

Police officers are citizens just like everyone else. No one has any expectation of privacy while operating in public. The police are just asking for more people to dislike them. How do you treat everyone like shit, try to take away our rights, and then expect everyone to respect you? Respect is a two-way street.

Everyone doesn't get treated like shit. Most people respect and want cops. People whining about cops being mean to them, and their general dispositions, tends to think that their police interaction is a super special customer service experience and that the system is faulty when it falls short of their expectations. The reality is that cops deal with the worst of society multiple times per day, even if you don't repr…

    > "People whining about cops being mean to them ... tend to
    > think that their police interaction is a super special 
    > customer service experience"

Strong disagree. In the US, cops are much more likely to hurt minorities than white people. Maybe other white folks the luxury of considering a police interaction as a "customer experience," but every single one of my Black&brown friends doesn't feel safe around cops, and with good reason. Minorities whine about police because police are more likely to unnecessarily hurt them and their friends.

You're making a classic Bayesian error.

[1]: https://www.nbcnews.com/news/nbcblk/report-black-people-are-...

Re: New laws trying to criminalize filming cops

#183

Post by lostlogin » Thu, Jul 20, 2023, 4:33 PM UTC

sidewndr46 wrote: post #171

jaywalk wrote: post #128

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It's harder to get a gun as a citizen anywhere in the US than it is to become a cop. As a gun owner, I can tell you this is laughably false. I can't go into a police station and walk out as a cop 30 minutes later.

The comparison doesn't even make sense. You can make a gun in your own home. You can't make a police officer

You can, but not alone and it’ll take 18ish years.

Re: New laws trying to criminalize filming cops

#184

Post by bamfly » Thu, Jul 20, 2023, 4:33 PM UTC

zer8k wrote: post #118

bamfly wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I'm not sure how someone wearing body armor and carrying multiple weapons that can incapacitate or kill someone can be intimidated by a smile. They're wannabe military tough-guys with laughably worse training and culture, much of which tells them they should be pee-pants scared all the time (seriously—folks very-successfully sell some wacko training courses to cops; or, just look at the disconnected-from-reality-an…

> They're wannabe military tough-guys with laughably worse training and culture, A lot of them are ex-military which is why every incident is treated like a mini-fallujah. There should be better psychological evaluation of police. It's harder to get a gun as a citizen anywhere in the US than it is to become a cop.The very least we can do is treat them to a far higher standard than we do citizens given that they have…

> A lot of them are ex-military which is why every incident is treated like a mini-fallujah.

The impression I get of the impression other ex-military folks have of veteran-cops, from the veterans I know, is that other veterans tend to regard cop veterans as very-likely to be a two-years-and-out sort (or similar) who jockeyed a desk state-side—and probably poorly at that—or maybe did go to a warzone but never fired a shot in anger, but act like they were In The Shit and can't wait to tell everyone they meet they're a veteran. I.e. not especially good soldiers, the kind who are in for the wrong reasons and had the wrong temperament & attitude for military service.

I'll never forget when Trump called in the military (reservists, I wanna say?) to guard DC during the protests. I stayed up that evening watching various live feeds. They looked so very chill. Relaxed stance with the rifles, not seeming at all tense even when totally surrounded by protesters. Didn't start no shit, and there wasn't no shit. Didn't "kettle" people, didn't act threatening, didn't posture and project an attitude like they thought were the Spartans from 300, and everything was fine. Armed like SWAT (rather, SWAT arms like them, but you get what I mean), humvees and shit, but it was such a different vibe. They projected an aura of authority without acting threatening. That's what confident power & professionalism look like. Go figure.

Re: New laws trying to criminalize filming cops

#185

Post by diydsp » Thu, Jul 20, 2023, 4:34 PM UTC

cratermoon wrote: post #106

Supermancho wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> they should be pee-pants scared all the time Not to step out and defend cops too much but this narrative is unfair...I believe the right to bear arms includes guns and we pay for that as a society. The ones who pay the most are LE. They primarily have to deal with the worst elements of society and the most volatile of individuals. I don't envy the job. I would be scared all the time too. Chances of me being shot at…

It's deadlier to be pregnant than to be a cop.

Evidences shows about 2-3x as deadly to be pregnant than to be a cop:

> For law enforcement, that rate was about 13 deaths per 100,000 officers. [1]

> overall maternal mortality rate of 32.9 per 100,000 live births in 2021 > 23.8 in 2020 and 20.1 in 2019. [2]

> The maternal mortality rate for 2021 was 32.9 deaths per 100,000 live births, compared with a rate of 23.8 in 2020 and 20.1 in 2019 (Table). [3]

Who knew fishing and hunter is so dangerous? > Fishing and hunting workers had the highest fatality rate at 132 deaths per 100,000 workers. [1]

[1] https://usafacts.org/articles/how-many-police-officers-die-i...

[2] https://www.yalemedicine.org/news/maternal-mortality-on-the-...

[3] https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/data/hestat/maternal-mortality/2021...

Re: New laws trying to criminalize filming cops

#186

Post by diydsp » Thu, Jul 20, 2023, 4:37 PM UTC

leereeves wrote: post #144

zer8k wrote: post #113

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Another fun fact is when controlling for race and gender you are still more likely to be killed by a cop than almost anything else.

This is so far from true it's absurd. Roughly 100k Americans per year die from drug overdoses, 30k from car accidents, while only 1k are killed by police. And while everyone knows cancer and heart disease are the leading causes of death, few people realize they kill significant numbers of young Americans, more than 10k per year. Even if you limit the discussion to violent crime, you're far more likely to be killed by…

checks out: https://www.statista.com/statistics/585152/people-shot-to-de...

Although this is quite concerning:

> about 1 in every 1,000 black men can expect to be killed by police [1]

Also:

> Black people more than three times as likely as white people to be killed during a police encounter [2]

Also interesting to note:

> The average lifetime odds of being killed by police are about 1 in 2,000 for men and about 1 in 33,000 for women. [1]

[1] https://www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/pnas.1821204116

[2] https://www.hsph.harvard.edu/news/hsph-in-the-news/blacks-wh...

Re: New laws trying to criminalize filming cops

#187

Post by whoknew1122 » Thu, Jul 20, 2023, 4:38 PM UTC

moretrashplz wrote: post #101

whoknew1122 wrote: post #4

> "Many states have passed hate-speech laws that protect the police from verbal or symbolic abuse, such as stomping on a “Back the Blue” sign while “smirking in an intimidating manner” (the crime for which a woman in Utah was prosecuted)." Wow... this is just... The police have a monopoly on the legalized use of violence. Police carry at minimum one deadly weapon (a handgun), but usually have multiple so-called less-…

And yet people still want to eliminate the right for private citizens to carry semi-automatic firearms! Generally, it's the the same people complaining that complain about police abusing their powers and vulnerable groups of people.

If you think that the left and marginalized groups don't also have firearms, I think you'd be rather surprised. Check out the John Brown Gun Club, for example. You can be for sensible gun control and still have firearms as a pragmatic measure.

Re: New laws trying to criminalize filming cops

#188

Post by autoexec » Thu, Jul 20, 2023, 4:39 PM UTC

rootusrootus wrote: post #108

mitt_romney_12 wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>25 feet isn't very far. In the other states mentioned I believe it's 10 feet, which is reasonable The 25 ft buffer means that while people aren't prevented from recording an arrest, they are prevented from making a recording that would actually show anything. Like the article says "They create a visual and auditory buffer likely to produce reasonable doubt in the courtroom. Is the officer’s knee on the suspect’s sho…

> From 25 feet, they can’t capture choking sounds or someone crying “I can’t breathe.”" If you really believe that, I recommend going outside and stepping off 25 feet and then trying some smartphone recordings. 25 feet is actually very close. I wouldn't be surprised if cops find it very uncomfortable to have bystanders that close when any kind of violent encounter is in progress. Most people can run that distance in…

Maybe you should try having one friend stand 25 feet away while another steps on your neck to see if the camera can still make out your pleas for air while 3-8 others are screaming at you to stop resisting.

There are already laws to deal with people who interfere with the work of police. These anti-filming laws don't make interfering with police illegal. They only make recording crimes committed by police illegal.

There's no justification for these anti-filming laws other than allowing police to abuse the public. They can even make it a crime for the person actively being beat by police to record the event.

Re: New laws trying to criminalize filming cops

#189

Post by moretrashplz » Thu, Jul 20, 2023, 4:39 PM UTC

whoknew1122 wrote: post #120

lordfrito wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> But they are so fragile that a smirk can intimidate them? First let me say I'm not on the side of these kinds of laws. We can't be passing laws giving special privileges to (or removing privileges from) a particular group of people. "Our constitution is color-blind, and neither knows nor tolerates classes among citizens. In respect of civil rights, all citizens are equal before the law." Plessy v. Ferguson (1896) […

Safe spaces aren't a new thing. It's just now there is a vocabulary for it. 20 years ago, before people talked about safe spaces, I would hang out at comic/gaming stores because I could be my nerdy self while playing Magic: the Gathering. When I would go to bars, I'd go to gay bars. Because I could just be myself and not worry about running into the violence in the clubs that catered to teens. A safe space is about f…

You could have had a safe space in your high school cafeteria, or anywhere you wanted, to play MTG or whatever other nerdy game. A person is responsible for creating their own safe space - one cannot control other people, but one can control themselves and their reactions to others and what they say. We were all intrinsically blessed with the gift of free will as humans, which allows us to decide how certain things, like the words of another, will affect us. We weren't intrinsically blessed with safe spaces.

Re: New laws trying to criminalize filming cops

#190

Post by catboybotnet » Thu, Jul 20, 2023, 4:40 PM UTC

mrangle wrote: post #161

ceejayoz wrote: post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The ones who pay the most are LE. This is simply not true. Cops die via gunfire in sub-100 numbers annually. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_law_enforcement_office...

As with crime statistics, you need percentages to make a point and not aggregate numbers. Also tell us which other professionals are murdered by guns on American streets for doing their jobs, at this rate.

From a quick google search, the number is roughly 660300. Divide 100 by that, you get .00015. A fraction of a fraction. 301 died to Covid in 2021. Hell, according to [0], the deaths to gunfire were only 61. 58 died to traffic related causes. Nearly five times as many cops died to Covid than gunshots!

Another question would be, of those 61 deaths to gun violence, how many were because somebody was further instigated into a shootout BECAUSE of the confrontations with police? What about friendly fire?

If police are quick to resort to violence, why should the people not be?

[0] - https://nleomf.org/wp-content/uploads/2022/01/2021-EOY-Fatal...