9 ms·

This is an evolution of the story that first appeared on HN here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26082303 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26082303

ceejayoz 6y ago
It's interesting to me that the discussion appears focused on copyright issues, rather than what seems like a potential First Amendment violation by the police.
- acd 6y ago
  But people should have the right to work peace. It should also be a basic human right not to be constantly monitored.
  - joncrane 6y ago
    Like it or not, I believe that the "expectation of privacy" argument has been settled in courts. The answer is that if you're in public, you have no expectation of privacy. People have dashcams, cameras pointing out the front of their homes and businesses, and people may be recording random TikTok videos with you in the background. Police definitely have zero "expectation of privacy" when out on the job and it's a fairly well established legal fact. Additionally, this information was available at the time they decided to become police officers. IANAL.
    - nojokes 6y ago
      Just mentioning that this is in US. Where I live the dashcams are strictly forbidden like also recording the street in front of your house - police would arrive and destroy your equipment.
    - eznzt 6y ago
      > Like it or not, I believe that the "expectation of privacy" argument has been settled in courts. The answer is that if you're in public, you have no expectation of privacy. That sounds awful. Everybody needs to go out even if it is to buy groceries. What that means is that you can be recorded and there is nothing you can do about it.
      - vel0city 6y ago
        The alternative is I'm not legally allowed to operate a camera outside unless I get a signed consent release form from everyone who may potentially be in the view of the camera. That doesn't really sound like a better world to me.
      - o-__-o 6y ago
        Nothing preventing you from hiring someone to buy groceries for you. Instacart and the like just lowered the entry barrier for the masses.
  - ceejayoz 6y ago
    I am of that general opinion, but not for the small subset of folks the government invests with the power to shoot me.
  - heraclius 6y ago
    One has the right to any other job. Compare soldiers: generally one probably ought to have the right to unionise, to sick leave, to certain health and safety standards and so on—there are substantial derogations for particular jobs though based on their nature, and the nature of exercising the coercive authority of the state is such that it seems reasonable to demand all sorts of monitoring (when on the job).
  - mtnGoat 6y ago
    The state constantly monitors the citizens, through actions of their own and contracts with third parties. Police deserve no privacy if they don’t give it. My ¢2.
  - deleted 6y ago
    [deleted]
  - deleted 6y ago
    [deleted]
  - vel0city 6y ago
    When you put on the uniform and wear the badge, you're accepting some additional powers granted to you by society.You're also giving up some freedoms. I think people should generally be allowed to drink, but I don't think cops should be allowed to drink while on duty. It is important for a society to be able to monitor the enforcers of the government, i.e. the police. To me, it seems pretty reasonable for people to be able to record the actions of the police in public spaces, so long as its not impeding the ability for the officers to correctly do their job.
  - heavyset_go 6y ago
    Cashiers that make $10 an hour are under more surveillance and public exposure than cops are. And cashiers can't turn off the cameras like cops are able to.
- ryandrake 6y ago
  Yea, talk about not seeing the forest for the trees. This story is about the police department, not copyright. Police have been trying for years to prevent people from recording them, and now they are attacking the publishing step rather than the recording step. The intent is clear. They aren't just jamming out to a song in the middle of an encounter--they are intentionally trying to disrupt citizens recording them.
  - deleted 6y ago
    [deleted]
  - deleted 6y ago
    [deleted]
- PragmaticPulp 6y ago
  It’s also strange that HN is so eager to weaponize copyright for their own agenda. It’s strange that so many people are arguing for using copyright law against the cop, instead of realizing that it’s absurd that we have to think about having videos taken down for background music. That said, I’m not even convinced that background music can get the videos taken down, since we’ve all been watching these videos on social media platforms for the past few days.
  - rriepe 6y ago
    What purpose would realizing the absurdity serve, again? It might be absurd that someone is shooting bullets at you but you should shoot back if that's the case.
    - floor2 6y ago
      Your analogy is perfect... for showing why this is wrong. The "shooting back" solution just ends up with a bunch of people injured (likely including random bystanders). The better solution is to get the shooting to stop entirely. We don't need to find a new interpretation of copyright law to attack the cop, we need to remove the dysfunctional copyright system that started this. Or in your metaphor, I want no-one to get shot rather than wanting to shoot back.
      - rriepe 6y ago
        You're conflating outcomes and solutions. You've offered no solution.
  - ceejayoz 6y ago
    It's less "copyright law is good" than "copyright law is already being used against us so it might as well be turned around on them a bit".
    - mindslight 6y ago
      ... which is a terrible approach, because it validates the cudgel while not actually addressing the dynamic of unaccountable power.
- testesttest 6y ago
  The cops didn't take down the videos based on copyright. A company did, but, that is apparently acceptable because companies can sensor whoever they please (or at least that is the common view on hacker news).
  - ceejayoz 6y ago
    The cops are abusing copyright law in order to violate a citizen’s First Amendment rights. They’ve outsourced the censoring. Censoring is indeed legal if companies do it, but this is functionally State censorship.
    - testesttest 6y ago
      Yea, censorship is great if it aligns with your message. Politics have forced big tech to censor a lot as of late.
      - ceejayoz 6y ago
        It’s not the message that matters. It’s the fact that one is a First Amendment violation, and the other is not. I don’t think a “websites can’t moderate their content” is a good road to go down.
        testesttest 6y ago
        Facebook, YouTube, Twitter are not just "websites" they are where much of our public discussion happens. If they weren't you would not care that these videos were censored. This story, fake news, the shenanigans around the election, etc has shown they are bad stewards of this responsibility.
    - slowmovintarget 6y ago
      The police are not abusing law. The bots that do the automatic take-downs are abusing the law. This is not State censorship, because the police are not censoring the videos. People still get to record them, and still get to share them. If they can't be bothered to post somewhere other than Instagram (which is abusing their rights), then the failure to share is on the people doing the posting. There's nothing stopping the people who recorded the videos from sending them to the news media. The recordings are still getting made. They're just being removed by some bot from the Instagram feeds. Shame on Instagram.

ceejayoz 6y ago

It's interesting to me that the discussion appears focused on copyright issues, rather than what seems like a potential First Amendment violation by the police.

acd 6y ago
But people should have the right to work peace. It should also be a basic human right not to be constantly monitored.
- joncrane 6y ago
  Like it or not, I believe that the "expectation of privacy" argument has been settled in courts. The answer is that if you're in public, you have no expectation of privacy. People have dashcams, cameras pointing out the front of their homes and businesses, and people may be recording random TikTok videos with you in the background. Police definitely have zero "expectation of privacy" when out on the job and it's a fairly well established legal fact. Additionally, this information was available at the time they decided to become police officers. IANAL.
  - nojokes 6y ago
    Just mentioning that this is in US. Where I live the dashcams are strictly forbidden like also recording the street in front of your house - police would arrive and destroy your equipment.
  - eznzt 6y ago
    > Like it or not, I believe that the "expectation of privacy" argument has been settled in courts. The answer is that if you're in public, you have no expectation of privacy. That sounds awful. Everybody needs to go out even if it is to buy groceries. What that means is that you can be recorded and there is nothing you can do about it.
    - vel0city 6y ago
      The alternative is I'm not legally allowed to operate a camera outside unless I get a signed consent release form from everyone who may potentially be in the view of the camera. That doesn't really sound like a better world to me.
    - o-__-o 6y ago
      Nothing preventing you from hiring someone to buy groceries for you. Instacart and the like just lowered the entry barrier for the masses.
- ceejayoz 6y ago
  I am of that general opinion, but not for the small subset of folks the government invests with the power to shoot me.
- heraclius 6y ago
  One has the right to any other job. Compare soldiers: generally one probably ought to have the right to unionise, to sick leave, to certain health and safety standards and so on—there are substantial derogations for particular jobs though based on their nature, and the nature of exercising the coercive authority of the state is such that it seems reasonable to demand all sorts of monitoring (when on the job).
- mtnGoat 6y ago
  The state constantly monitors the citizens, through actions of their own and contracts with third parties. Police deserve no privacy if they don’t give it. My ¢2.
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
- vel0city 6y ago
  When you put on the uniform and wear the badge, you're accepting some additional powers granted to you by society.You're also giving up some freedoms. I think people should generally be allowed to drink, but I don't think cops should be allowed to drink while on duty. It is important for a society to be able to monitor the enforcers of the government, i.e. the police. To me, it seems pretty reasonable for people to be able to record the actions of the police in public spaces, so long as its not impeding the ability for the officers to correctly do their job.
- heavyset_go 6y ago
  Cashiers that make $10 an hour are under more surveillance and public exposure than cops are. And cashiers can't turn off the cameras like cops are able to.
ryandrake 6y ago
Yea, talk about not seeing the forest for the trees. This story is about the police department, not copyright. Police have been trying for years to prevent people from recording them, and now they are attacking the publishing step rather than the recording step. The intent is clear. They aren't just jamming out to a song in the middle of an encounter--they are intentionally trying to disrupt citizens recording them.
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
PragmaticPulp 6y ago
It’s also strange that HN is so eager to weaponize copyright for their own agenda. It’s strange that so many people are arguing for using copyright law against the cop, instead of realizing that it’s absurd that we have to think about having videos taken down for background music. That said, I’m not even convinced that background music can get the videos taken down, since we’ve all been watching these videos on social media platforms for the past few days.
- rriepe 6y ago
  What purpose would realizing the absurdity serve, again? It might be absurd that someone is shooting bullets at you but you should shoot back if that's the case.
  - floor2 6y ago
    Your analogy is perfect... for showing why this is wrong. The "shooting back" solution just ends up with a bunch of people injured (likely including random bystanders). The better solution is to get the shooting to stop entirely. We don't need to find a new interpretation of copyright law to attack the cop, we need to remove the dysfunctional copyright system that started this. Or in your metaphor, I want no-one to get shot rather than wanting to shoot back.
    - rriepe 6y ago
      You're conflating outcomes and solutions. You've offered no solution.
- ceejayoz 6y ago
  It's less "copyright law is good" than "copyright law is already being used against us so it might as well be turned around on them a bit".
  - mindslight 6y ago
    ... which is a terrible approach, because it validates the cudgel while not actually addressing the dynamic of unaccountable power.
testesttest 6y ago
The cops didn't take down the videos based on copyright. A company did, but, that is apparently acceptable because companies can sensor whoever they please (or at least that is the common view on hacker news).
- ceejayoz 6y ago
  The cops are abusing copyright law in order to violate a citizen’s First Amendment rights. They’ve outsourced the censoring. Censoring is indeed legal if companies do it, but this is functionally State censorship.
  - testesttest 6y ago
    Yea, censorship is great if it aligns with your message. Politics have forced big tech to censor a lot as of late.
    - ceejayoz 6y ago
      It’s not the message that matters. It’s the fact that one is a First Amendment violation, and the other is not. I don’t think a “websites can’t moderate their content” is a good road to go down.
      - testesttest 6y ago
        Facebook, YouTube, Twitter are not just "websites" they are where much of our public discussion happens. If they weren't you would not care that these videos were censored. This story, fake news, the shenanigans around the election, etc has shown they are bad stewards of this responsibility.
  - slowmovintarget 6y ago
    The police are not abusing law. The bots that do the automatic take-downs are abusing the law. This is not State censorship, because the police are not censoring the videos. People still get to record them, and still get to share them. If they can't be bothered to post somewhere other than Instagram (which is abusing their rights), then the failure to share is on the people doing the posting. There's nothing stopping the people who recorded the videos from sending them to the news media. The recordings are still getting made. They're just being removed by some bot from the Instagram feeds. Shame on Instagram.