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Schneier on Security: Recording the Police

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Re: Schneier on Security: Recording the Police

#31

Post by bootload »

hugh3 wrote: post #27
barrkel wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's an interesting chain of logic. The mere responsibility of a job gives you powers of arrest? Why are there police in the US at all, if private citizens may so easily be empowered?

No, actually in this specific case the law specifically gives ticket inspectors the power of arrest as I said in a comment either up there ^^^ or down there VVVV. But actually in most common-law jurisdictions, citizens do have arrest powers, which is why we have the term "Citizen's arrest": http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Citizen%27s_arrest Which (if you look up the bit about Victoria) would probably apply in this case…

"... the law specifically gives ticket inspectors the power of arrest ..."

With very limited non sworn powers.

"... To deprive a person of their liberty is a serious matter. Authorised officers should only consider arrest as a last resort and when contemplating doing so, consistent with arrest powers under the Transport Act. The following guidelines must be followed. Persons will only be arrested under Section 219 of the Transport Act 1983 as a last resort. Specifically an authorised officer must believe on reasonable grounds that a person has committed an offence against the Transport Act 1983 or any regulation made under that Act and arrest is necessary for one or more of the following reasons: ..."

but the act also warns

"... If an arrest is made outside the strict requirements of this section of the Act, an officer carrying out the arrest may be liable to civil and/or criminal action ..."

[0] CODE OF CONDUCT FOR PUBLIC TRANSPORT AUTHORISED OFFICERS ~ http://www.transport.vic.gov.au/doi/internet/transport.nsf/h...

Re: Schneier on Security: Recording the Police

#32

Post by hugh3 »

barrkel wrote: post #29
hugh3 wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, actually in this specific case the law specifically gives ticket inspectors the power of arrest as I said in a comment either up there ^^^ or down there VVVV. But actually in most common-law jurisdictions, citizens do have arrest powers, which is why we have the term "Citizen's arrest": http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Citizen%27s_arrest Which (if you look up the bit about Victoria) would probably apply in this case…

However, transport is usually under some form of contract, so people who break those contracts are more usually guilty of breaking civil law, not criminal law. The penalties for such very rarely involve loss of liberty. I'm fairly sure citizen's arrest is targeted at getting the public to aid in apprehending criminals instead.

The penalties for such very rarely involve loss of liberty.

Right, but the penalties for resisting arrest (or fining) do.

If a policeman stops you and gives you a ticket for jaywalking, that's not an offence for which you can wind up in prison. But if you try to run away instead of being given the ticket, the policeman can do whatever it takes to catch you and restrain you.

Otherwise, the whole ticketing system wouldn't work at all.

Re: Schneier on Security: Recording the Police

#33

Post by jdp »

hugh3 wrote: post #19
Anechoic wrote: post #8

I've always believed that it should be legal to audio and/or video record any government employee/contractor during the performance of their official duties (and I say that as a govt contractor). If we can't be accountable to the public, how can we expect to serve the public?

OK, please send me your address so I can set up a camera in your office.

In the cases of some public servants, like police officers, that is not a direct parallel as they are not spending a lot of time in the office. Public servants performing their duty in public should be subject to the scrutiny of the public. Even if you are a government employee working at a desk in a public building you should be subject to the same. I admit it is just not feasible to allow any and all private citizens access to buildings, or to mount cameras as they desire, but there is a perhaps a better solution? Surveillance tapes available upon request?

Re: Schneier on Security: Recording the Police

#34

Post by Anechoic »

jdp wrote: post #33
hugh3 wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

OK, please send me your address so I can set up a camera in your office.

In the cases of some public servants, like police officers, that is not a direct parallel as they are not spending a lot of time in the office. Public servants performing their duty in public should be subject to the scrutiny of the public. Even if you are a government employee working at a desk in a public building you should be subject to the same. I admit it is just not feasible to allow any and all private citize…

Public servants performing their duty in public should be subject to the scrutiny of the public.

That's usually the caveat I put when I make that statement, but I forgot to that time (and again, most of my govt work is in public and I would fall under that).

There are times when privacy is essential for govt workers but those times rarely during public interaction, and when they are, it's usually because the tasks are sensitive (an interview with a rape victim for example).

Re: Schneier on Security: Recording the Police

#35

Post by bootload »

hugh3 wrote: post #18
bootload wrote: post #11

"... This is all important. Being able to record the police is one of the best ways to ensure that the police are held accountable for their actions. ..." It's not only Police. In the local news today it's "ticket inspectors" using unreasonable force: "Brouwer says too much force not the ticket" [0] ~ http://www.theage.com.au/victoria/brouwer-says-too-much-forc... [0] The Age, Nick McKenzie 2010DEC22

Shrug. It's the job of ticket inspectors to make sure people aren't travelling without tickets. If you're travelling without a ticket, it's their job to give you a fine. They need to have certain powers if they're gonna do their job properly, which includes the power to apprehend people who try to run away from them. So reasonable force from a ticket inspector is perfectly justified. And of course anyone on the recei…

"... They need to have certain powers if they're gonna do their job properly, which includes the power to apprehend people who try to run away from them. So reasonable force from a ticket inspector is perfectly justified. ..."

PTAO's (Public Transport Authorised Officers) are pretty much the lowest end of sworn enforcement officer I can think of, certainly not to the level of VicPolice standards ~ http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Police_officer

For the public this is a problem. The ticketing system the privitised transport system introduced is plauged with trouble ~ http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Myki#Criticism The transport company MTR Corp ~ http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MTR_Corporation (nee http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Connex_Melbourne) solution is to questionably enforce ticket policing and the (repeated) result can be read in the papers: "Angry commuters hit out at ticket inspectors" (Mex Cooper, TheAge 2009MAY06) ~ http://www.theage.com.au/national/angry-commuters-hit-out-at...

Easier to squeeze patrons than fix the real problem.

Re: Schneier on Security: Recording the Police

#36

Post by tbrownaw »

Anechoic wrote: post #9
viraptor wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What do you mean by "targets"? If people are fined for something they did, then it's not a problem. If they're going to be fined even though they're not guilty, they should be able to challenge it and go to court. Or is it a different situation?

What do you mean by "targets"? If people are fined for something they did, then it's not a problem. A lot of it has to with "equal enforcement" - take a look at mj enforcement in CA as described in http://reason.com/blog/2010/07/01/california-naacp-backs-mar... (leave aside for a moment the wisdom/necessity of the drug war) - I'm sure most of the people arrested for mj broke the law and deserved the consequences. but…

> broke the law and deserved the consequences

Not much connection there, even for reasonable laws the sentences are often a bit on the extreme side.

Re: Schneier on Security: Recording the Police

#37

Post by bootload »

hugh3 wrote: post #32
barrkel wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

However, transport is usually under some form of contract, so people who break those contracts are more usually guilty of breaking civil law, not criminal law. The penalties for such very rarely involve loss of liberty. I'm fairly sure citizen's arrest is targeted at getting the public to aid in apprehending criminals instead.

The penalties for such very rarely involve loss of liberty. Right, but the penalties for resisting arrest (or fining) do. If a policeman stops you and gives you a ticket for jaywalking, that's not an offence for which you can wind up in prison. But if you try to run away instead of being given the ticket, the policeman can do whatever it takes to catch you and restrain you. Otherwise, the whole ticketing system would…

"... But if you try to run away instead of being given the ticket, the policeman can do whatever it takes to catch you and restrain you. ..."

Bad example.

Did you know it's SOP for AO's to only apprehend in certain circumstances at risk of legal complications. For example if a person has evaded capture:

"... In the event that the offender is able to decamp officers are not to give chase and pursue the offender. ..."

if the person has evaded capture and/or hidden:

"... loose sight of the offender then the pursuit must be abandoned and the officers should resume normal duties. Under no circumstance are officers to conduct a search of the area ..."

if the person is on private property:

"... If it is deemed necessary to pursue a person for a serious offence and that particular person enters private property, the pursuit is to cease immediately; entry to private property may be illegal and deemed as trespass. ..."

These examples are straight from the "Code of Conduct". It highlights how limited the real powers AO's have been supplied, mostly the Transport Act 1983.

[0] CODE OF CONDUCT FOR PUBLIC TRANSPORT AUTHORISED OFFICERS ~ http://www.transport.vic.gov.au/doi/internet/transport.nsf/h...

Re: Schneier on Security: Recording the Police

#38

Post by ryoshu »

Anechoic wrote: post #23
brown9-2 wrote: post #14

Can anyone explain the argument against the legality/morality of videotaping a police officer performing their official duties?

Two of the arguments bandied about are: 1) police have an expectation of privacy, and 2) people trying to videotape can interfere with police (if they get too close, etc).

1) There is no expectation of privacy in a public place; 2) In the vast majority of the incidents where police arrest someone for video taping, the person is nowhere near close enough to consider the video taping interference. In one case where the person doing the video taping was close, the guy was wearing a helmet mounted camera when a plainclothes officer pulled him over with gun drawn. The video taping wasn't an issue until the motorcyclist posted the encounter on YouTube.

Re: Schneier on Security: Recording the Police

#39

Post by Anechoic »

hugh3 wrote: post #26
Anechoic wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

which includes the power to apprehend people who try to run away from them Do we know that for sure? In the US at least, generally workers in those positions specifically do not have the power to apprehend people - if there is a problem, you call the police or the designated security personnel. It's really easy for a person without the proper martial training to unnecessarily hurt someone, or get hurt themselves.

Wikipedia says it only indirectly, but yes: "In New South Wales, revenue protection on its rail network is primarily the responsibility of Transit Officers. Like their Victorian counterparts, these transit officers also carry out security patrols on trains and railway stations, with the power of issuing on-the-spot fines for minor offences, and even to use "reasonable force" to make arrests." Which I read as saying t…

and it would seem that "reasonable force" is where the conflict arises - after all, I suspect that you would agree that simply shooting the suspect would be unreasonable?

Re: Schneier on Security: Recording the Police

#40

Post by hugh3 »

Anechoic wrote: post #39
hugh3 wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wikipedia says it only indirectly, but yes: "In New South Wales, revenue protection on its rail network is primarily the responsibility of Transit Officers. Like their Victorian counterparts, these transit officers also carry out security patrols on trains and railway stations, with the power of issuing on-the-spot fines for minor offences, and even to use "reasonable force" to make arrests." Which I read as saying t…

and it would seem that "reasonable force" is where the conflict arises - after all, I suspect that you would agree that simply shooting the suspect would be unreasonable?

Of course, and I'm sure that they have used unreasonable force on occasion.

I only got into this whole argument because the OP sounded surprised that ticket inspectors, of all people, were getting into unreasonable-force situations, as if it were crazy for ticket inspectors to be using force at all. I only wished to point out that it's reasonable for ticket inspectors to use reasonable force, and hence it's inevitable that eventually one of 'em is going to wind up using excessive force. But I'm starting to regret ever getting into this discussion since there's a much nicer one going on in another thread about the heat death of the universe.

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