9 ms·

...it's hard to imagine a more obvious and plain application of "freedom of the press" in the information age than the right to record what one's eyes and ears

by jMyles 10y ago

...it's hard to imagine a more obvious and plain application of "freedom of the press" in the information age than the right to record what one's eyes and ears can see and hear and then publish the same, even if (especially if!) it contains evidence of state misconduct. I mean come on.

jjawssd 10y ago
What are your thoughts on classified information?
- JustSomeNobody 10y ago
  Such as what?
- jMyles 10y ago
  I tend to think that, conceptually, it is incompatible with information technology, and that information technology will eventually render it (and, for that matter, the state) inoperative. But even if you don't agree here, we're talking about events in public, involving public servants, recorded by people who are in no way bound by any sort of state secret framework. This is a million miles from the line.
deleted 10y ago
[deleted]
oxide 10y ago
Will this deter police from retaliating against someone recording them with a cell phone? I can't imagine it will. Police have a lot of options for retaliation, after all. Sure, it won't hold up in court if they take you to jail, but it could possibly make your life hell for 24 hours at the very least. You could lose your job being detained, for example. IIRC they can hold you that long with no justification or reason required, but I'm not a laywer so take that with a grain of salt. Or weeks, if they really wanted to fuck with you. Just leaving a patrol car around your house for awhile is pretty unsettling. Maybe I'm overthinking this. I certainly don't want to get on the wrong side of my local PD. I don't even want them to know my name, much less stop me every time they see me or otherwise retaliate against me because I whipped out a cell phone. It's almost like a chilling effect, if I have that concept right. I might be mixing that up with another term. Thinking of police retaliation makes me not want to record the police at all, out of fear of retaliation.
- e40 10y ago
  100% agree. They can and do make up shit all the time. A co-worker of mine was arrested last weekend when a crime was committed at his house and they told him to leave the premises. So, he crawled into the back seat of his car and went to sleep (it was 1am Saturday morning and he had nowhere to go). A hour or two later they arrested him because they told him to leave. He was in a parked car on the street. They charged him with obstruction. They dropped the charges 24 hours later.
  - oxide 10y ago
    Wow. That's pretty bad. I have a similar story of inept police and injustice: I have an uncle who is a real piece of work. A druggie who my great-grandparents adopted, raised and supported until they both died. One night he was at my great-grandparents house, harrassing them for money and threatening them. My poor great-grandfather, a 71 year old man at the time, called 911. The operator heard my uncle scream something about killing my grand-grandmother. I guess he was coming off of drugs. By the time the local sheriff's office responded to the call, my uncle Tim was long gone. The only male present was my 71 year old great-grandfather, so the two deputies incompetently assumed he was the perpetrator. They didn't even let him put on shoes. They manhandled my poor grandfather. They took him to jail and he slept on the floor of a cell. He was extremely injured, my mother was furious and encouraged him to press charges. But he was a stubborn old man who spent most of his life as a fire-and-brimstone pastor of a church, in other words he was too polite to take them to court. The pictures of his injuries are burned into my brain. Massive scrapes, his thin skin peeled back. Bruises all over his face and body. The idea of him sleeping on the floor of a cell...absolutely sickening. He died a few years later, stomach cancer. He was a great man. I miss him. p.s. I also have a story of that same department doing me great justice, so keep in mind that it was the two assholes who responded, not the entire sheriff's office that was to blame. Some of those deputies were good people who saved my ass a few times, let me off the hook a few times, etc. I will say that I'm glad to have moved, though.
    - digi_owl 10y ago
      From an outsiders perspective it seems that a lot of the problems originate from the amount of training required to wear the uniform.
enknamel 10y ago
That shouldn't be the bar. You should have a right to not be recorded in certain circumstances. Like how it is generally illegal to record phone calls without notifying everyone that a recording will be made. You may hear with your ears the content of the phone call but that doesn't mean you should be able to record it secretly. As for what you can see, there are definitely some protected circumstances you should not be able to record. Imagine sitting outside an abortion or AIDS clinic and then posting online videos of everyone who visits these places. Sure you can see from a public street who accesses these services but should you be able to advertise a person's health concerns to the general public? No.
- jasonkostempski 10y ago
  "Imagine sitting outside an abortion or AIDS clinic and then posting online videos of everyone who visits these places." Are there laws against that? I always assumed the crazy loons that sit out there all day were already doing it.
  - enknamel 10y ago
    There are a ton of laws about what you can or cannot record and what you are allowed to do with your recordings. Some activities you do have a protected right to privacy like healthcare access.
  - deleted 10y ago
    [deleted]
- jlund3 10y ago
  While there are cases where privacy rights should kick in (your example of private phone calls is a good one), I cannot imagine how an on-duty and in uniform officer doing something in public (where there is no reasonable expectation of privacy) should expect to not be recorded. That officer is armed and dangerous. In some circumstances, is legally allowed to use deadly force against citizens. Abuse of that power has happened to frequently to claim that the officer needs privacy to carry out their public service.
mulmen 10y ago
Police officers have a lot of discretion and I'm not sure that a camera is always the best way to get preferential treatment within that discretion. It may be legal but in addition to the courts recognizing it as acceptable officers need to do the same. A court decision will not change the perception of recording among officers but hopefully as more people exercise their rights it will become commonplace and not stigmatized by the police.
- gkop 10y ago
  FYI "preferential" generally has I more specific meaning than how you're using it here, or I am misunderstanding. It seems like you're using it as a synonym for "better". (I upvoted you btw)
  - mulmen 10y ago
    You may be right, what specific meaning is that? I mean that there are many possible outcomes of something like a traffic stop and shoving a camera in the officer's face is probably not the best way to get a warning.
    - gkop 10y ago
      Ah. The top on Google for me is "of or involving preference or partiality; constituting a favor or privilege." Nobody would say the cop would be more likely to favor you if you filmed them; rather something more like the cop would be less likely to do something illegal if you filmed them.
      - mulmen 10y ago
        I think we are talking past each other. My google result says the same thing, it also lists "better" and "privileged" as synonyms. I used the term preferential treatment to mean that in some cases the police may let a person go with just a warning but if that person has a camera they may come down on the person harder. In the case where the person believes the police will not act favorably to the individual or even illegally then filming would be in the person's favor. In that case filming would result in what I would call preferable treatment because it's still not "better" than treatment someone else would receive. Privilege is a huge component in deciding if filming the police would actually be favorable to an individual. When I say preferential I am referring to the treatment certain groups receive from the police in general relative to other demographics.
vacri 10y ago
> it's hard to imagine a more obvious and plain application of "freedom of the press" in the information age than the right to record what one's eyes and ears can see and hear and then publish the same So there is no more "off the record"? No moral argument against "revenge porn" or broadcasting what you see in the changing rooms at the gym? Privacy is completely torn away - if someone can see it in any setting, it become fodder for the public? Yes, you should be able to record police conduct in public, just like anything else, but the way you framed your argument is dangerous.
basch 10y ago
>one's eyes and ears can see the police will shine flashlights into your eyes/camera. problem solved from their end.

by jMyles 10y ago

jjawssd 10y ago

What are your thoughts on classified information?

JustSomeNobody 10y ago
Such as what?
jMyles 10y ago
I tend to think that, conceptually, it is incompatible with information technology, and that information technology will eventually render it (and, for that matter, the state) inoperative. But even if you don't agree here, we're talking about events in public, involving public servants, recorded by people who are in no way bound by any sort of state secret framework. This is a million miles from the line.

deleted 10y ago

[deleted]

oxide 10y ago

Will this deter police from retaliating against someone recording them with a cell phone? I can't imagine it will. Police have a lot of options for retaliation, after all. Sure, it won't hold up in court if they take you to jail, but it could possibly make your life hell for 24 hours at the very least. You could lose your job being detained, for example. IIRC they can hold you that long with no justification or reason required, but I'm not a laywer so take that with a grain of salt. Or weeks, if they really wanted to fuck with you. Just leaving a patrol car around your house for awhile is pretty unsettling. Maybe I'm overthinking this. I certainly don't want to get on the wrong side of my local PD. I don't even want them to know my name, much less stop me every time they see me or otherwise retaliate against me because I whipped out a cell phone. It's almost like a chilling effect, if I have that concept right. I might be mixing that up with another term. Thinking of police retaliation makes me not want to record the police at all, out of fear of retaliation.

e40 10y ago
100% agree. They can and do make up shit all the time. A co-worker of mine was arrested last weekend when a crime was committed at his house and they told him to leave the premises. So, he crawled into the back seat of his car and went to sleep (it was 1am Saturday morning and he had nowhere to go). A hour or two later they arrested him because they told him to leave. He was in a parked car on the street. They charged him with obstruction. They dropped the charges 24 hours later.
- oxide 10y ago
  Wow. That's pretty bad. I have a similar story of inept police and injustice: I have an uncle who is a real piece of work. A druggie who my great-grandparents adopted, raised and supported until they both died. One night he was at my great-grandparents house, harrassing them for money and threatening them. My poor great-grandfather, a 71 year old man at the time, called 911. The operator heard my uncle scream something about killing my grand-grandmother. I guess he was coming off of drugs. By the time the local sheriff's office responded to the call, my uncle Tim was long gone. The only male present was my 71 year old great-grandfather, so the two deputies incompetently assumed he was the perpetrator. They didn't even let him put on shoes. They manhandled my poor grandfather. They took him to jail and he slept on the floor of a cell. He was extremely injured, my mother was furious and encouraged him to press charges. But he was a stubborn old man who spent most of his life as a fire-and-brimstone pastor of a church, in other words he was too polite to take them to court. The pictures of his injuries are burned into my brain. Massive scrapes, his thin skin peeled back. Bruises all over his face and body. The idea of him sleeping on the floor of a cell...absolutely sickening. He died a few years later, stomach cancer. He was a great man. I miss him. p.s. I also have a story of that same department doing me great justice, so keep in mind that it was the two assholes who responded, not the entire sheriff's office that was to blame. Some of those deputies were good people who saved my ass a few times, let me off the hook a few times, etc. I will say that I'm glad to have moved, though.
  - digi_owl 10y ago
    From an outsiders perspective it seems that a lot of the problems originate from the amount of training required to wear the uniform.

enknamel 10y ago

That shouldn't be the bar. You should have a right to not be recorded in certain circumstances. Like how it is generally illegal to record phone calls without notifying everyone that a recording will be made. You may hear with your ears the content of the phone call but that doesn't mean you should be able to record it secretly. As for what you can see, there are definitely some protected circumstances you should not be able to record. Imagine sitting outside an abortion or AIDS clinic and then posting online videos of everyone who visits these places. Sure you can see from a public street who accesses these services but should you be able to advertise a person's health concerns to the general public? No.

jasonkostempski 10y ago
"Imagine sitting outside an abortion or AIDS clinic and then posting online videos of everyone who visits these places." Are there laws against that? I always assumed the crazy loons that sit out there all day were already doing it.
- enknamel 10y ago
  There are a ton of laws about what you can or cannot record and what you are allowed to do with your recordings. Some activities you do have a protected right to privacy like healthcare access.
- deleted 10y ago
  [deleted]
jlund3 10y ago
While there are cases where privacy rights should kick in (your example of private phone calls is a good one), I cannot imagine how an on-duty and in uniform officer doing something in public (where there is no reasonable expectation of privacy) should expect to not be recorded. That officer is armed and dangerous. In some circumstances, is legally allowed to use deadly force against citizens. Abuse of that power has happened to frequently to claim that the officer needs privacy to carry out their public service.

mulmen 10y ago

Police officers have a lot of discretion and I'm not sure that a camera is always the best way to get preferential treatment within that discretion. It may be legal but in addition to the courts recognizing it as acceptable officers need to do the same. A court decision will not change the perception of recording among officers but hopefully as more people exercise their rights it will become commonplace and not stigmatized by the police.

gkop 10y ago
FYI "preferential" generally has I more specific meaning than how you're using it here, or I am misunderstanding. It seems like you're using it as a synonym for "better". (I upvoted you btw)
- mulmen 10y ago
  You may be right, what specific meaning is that? I mean that there are many possible outcomes of something like a traffic stop and shoving a camera in the officer's face is probably not the best way to get a warning.
  - gkop 10y ago
    Ah. The top on Google for me is "of or involving preference or partiality; constituting a favor or privilege." Nobody would say the cop would be more likely to favor you if you filmed them; rather something more like the cop would be less likely to do something illegal if you filmed them.
    - mulmen 10y ago
      I think we are talking past each other. My google result says the same thing, it also lists "better" and "privileged" as synonyms. I used the term preferential treatment to mean that in some cases the police may let a person go with just a warning but if that person has a camera they may come down on the person harder. In the case where the person believes the police will not act favorably to the individual or even illegally then filming would be in the person's favor. In that case filming would result in what I would call preferable treatment because it's still not "better" than treatment someone else would receive. Privilege is a huge component in deciding if filming the police would actually be favorable to an individual. When I say preferential I am referring to the treatment certain groups receive from the police in general relative to other demographics.

vacri 10y ago

> it's hard to imagine a more obvious and plain application of "freedom of the press" in the information age than the right to record what one's eyes and ears can see and hear and then publish the same So there is no more "off the record"? No moral argument against "revenge porn" or broadcasting what you see in the changing rooms at the gym? Privacy is completely torn away - if someone can see it in any setting, it become fodder for the public? Yes, you should be able to record police conduct in public, just like anything else, but the way you framed your argument is dangerous.

basch 10y ago

>one's eyes and ears can see the police will shine flashlights into your eyes/camera. problem solved from their end.