Damn terrorist

11/25/2011 2:38:10 AM

Make sure you post this in a few more threads.

11/25/2011 10:00:13 AM

Should citizens be allowed to record the police during the performance of their duties?

11/25/2011 12:34:45 PM

Maybe if you make a few more threads about it, you'll finally attract some leeches to answer.

11/25/2011 1:06:53 PM

Can we get some back story and link to an article? I'm interested in your topic but not willing to watch a 7 minute youtube video without more info.

11/25/2011 1:48:22 PM

I hate Illinois Nazis!

11/25/2011 2:37:41 PM

Update: The judge rejected the charges as unconstitutional and he never served a day in jail.


But we fully understand your Anti American sentiments pryderi. One day you'll have your chance to join Al-Qaeda and get revenge for all these 'make believe' fantasies you have about this country.

11/25/2011 2:50:12 PM

Backstory is guy was videotaping police. Police said some nonsense and brought some trumped up charge. Prosecutors sought to plea bargain to avoid embarrassment. Guy was like no thanks. Judge tosses case, prosecutors facepalm.

11/25/2011 2:57:33 PM

Fuck that shit. The guy should be able to sue the fuck out of them for wasting his time in court. True story: One of my co workers was involved in an accident where he was backing out of a driveway in a residential zone where the speedlimit is 35 mph. Police cruiser comes tearing like hell around a blind corner with lights and no siren (speed was later estimated at 75mph). Slams into the side of my coworkers car and flips it. He luckily is fairly uninjured but still has to go to the hospital. The police are getting in the way of EMS and hospital staff trying to get sobriety tests on him (hadn't had anything to drink) and then they proceeded to confiscate witnesses cell phones that were taking pictures of the accident. So I ask you fucking idiots who will police the police if no one is allowed to videotape them?

11/25/2011 3:52:39 PM

Quote :

"The police are getting in the way of EMS and hospital staff trying to get sobriety tests on him (hadn't had anything to drink) and then they proceeded to confiscate witnesses cell phones that were taking pictures of the accident. So I ask you fucking idiots who will police the police if no one is allowed to videotape them?"

Asian, African, and South American leaders are happy.

11/25/2011 4:35:15 PM

He really should sue for malicious prosecution. Of course, I've never understood how you could be charged for any sort of wire taping or eavesdropping when recording a conversation that you yourself are involved in. Further, I don't understand how an officer in a public place engaging in a public action has any expectation of privacy. I can see the law requiring that any recording not interfere with the officer in the conduct of their duties, but having a recorder on you does no such thing.

Quote :

"and then they proceeded to confiscate witnesses cell phones that were taking pictures of the accident."

Now here's an honest question. We're all in agreement that videos and other recordings of government officials are critical and important pieces of evidence in ensuring their proper behavior. Given that, and how important it is that evidence at the scene of a crime is collected as promptly and accurately as possible, how should the police collect the evidence obtained by camera phone? Obviously people don't trust the police with the original recording or the phone (a problem in an of itself, but beyond the scope of this question), and certainly there's an interest in ensuring that the person who made the recording doesn't have an opportunity to modify it to suit their own ends, so what should be done? Is there some way to satisfactorily allow the evidence to be collected while not confiscating property and ensuring that the only copy of the evidence is not in the possession of a party with a conflict of interest?

11/25/2011 6:40:26 PM

Good point however the only phone pictures that my coworkers lawyer ever obtained were ones from a neighbor who took pictures and hid his phone. All of the others "disappeared". The funny thing is all my coworker wanted was to get his car/ hospital bills paid for. He had to retain a lawyer to even get that...

11/25/2011 9:54:19 PM

Quote :

"and then they proceeded to confiscate witnesses cell phones that were taking pictures of the accident."

They would have had to get a court order to take my phone out of my hands. That's bull shit.

People too easily allow authorities to infringe on their constitutional rights. Not enough people even know what their rights are anymore.

11/25/2011 10:01:33 PM

^^ That's why I ask how something like this should be handled. It's clear that allowing the police to confiscate the recordings which could be used as evidence is a conflict of interest, and has potential for damaging evidence to "disappear", so how do we best handle it? It seems to me the best thing would be for some sort of 3rd party escrow type company, which collects and retains evidence and is responsible for maintaining chain of custody. The problem is, how do you fund such a company? If it's paid for by taxes, I don't think its sufficiently independent from the state to avoid accusation or even the appearance of a conflict of interest. At the same time, I don't think there is enough support in the private legal sector to maintain an independent evidence company.

^ IANAL, but would they need a court order? They don't need a court order to confiscate property that we normally consider evidence at the scene of a crime. For example, if you own a bar and someone beats another person to death with one of your chairs, they don't need a court order to confiscate the chair as evidence. And I highly doubt (though I don't know for sure) that they would need a court order to confiscate the security tapes of the incident as evidence either. If you video tape a crime, how is your tape any less evidence than the murder weapon?

There really does need to be a less adversarial way to collect this sort of evidence, clear policies that the people and the police alike can trust. Unfortunately, I think this is a symptom of a larger problem which is that the police and the public at large have an adversarial, or at the very least a distrustful relationship in general.

11/25/2011 11:51:16 PM

Quote :

"That's why I ask how something like this should be handled. It's clear that allowing the police to confiscate the recordings which could be used as evidence is a conflict of interest, and has potential for damaging evidence to "disappear", so how do we best handle it?"

In the situation I mentioned (multiple witnesses taking pictures) I think the idea of a private citizen tampering with evidence is laughable.

11/26/2011 8:12:15 AM

It's not just a matter of tampering, although that certainly can be an issue, but also about retaining that evidence in the first place. If 4 people get a crime on tape, and 3 of them walk away with their recordings and never come back, that evidence is lost. If they're still there when the police do show up to the scene of the crime, don't the police have an obligation to us all to collect that evidence?

11/26/2011 8:44:31 AM

You can collect the picture evidence WITHOUT taking the entire phone.

It's one thing if the phone was part of the crime or accident, its another to take someone's phone who wasn't involved in anyway. They could have requested copies of the pictures and not confiscated the phone.



[Edited on November 26, 2011 at 9:43 AM. Reason : .]

11/26/2011 9:40:49 AM

The problem starts when the police are the criminals. In an instance like the one I outlined the police involved in the incident should have been treated like any other citizen (detained and questioned) and a SEPARATE DEPARTMENT should have been called to investigate and deal with the issue. Instead you had the two officers involved with the issue running around and stealing evidence and trying to push a sobriety test on the victim. Then you had officers FROM THE SAME DEPT come in and continue the same actions...

Police are human beings (run the whole gamut between good and bad) and the average persons only defense against a criminal cop is to videotape their actions...

11/26/2011 10:17:14 AM

The case was dismissed,



but the law still exists.



Is this correct for me to say?

11/26/2011 1:14:47 PM

Quote :

"People too easily allow authorities to infringe on their constitutional rights. Not enough people even know what their rights are anymore."

Yep.

Our justice system, from the police to the prosecutors to the defenders, is fucked.

[Edited on November 26, 2011 at 1:53 PM. Reason : Everyone is looking for victory instead of justice, and the police can be a fox guarding the henhous]

11/26/2011 1:51:55 PM

If you watch the video, the guy's own lawyer is a State Representative. He tried to pass a measure to reform the law, but he couldn't get enough support to push it past committee.

State government is a withering, endless bureaucracy. Nothing gets done except personal gains and measures that will benefit the reelection of an entire party.

(no that is not an implied endorsement of federal government)

11/27/2011 12:57:38 AM

North Carolina Cop Orders Bystanders to Stop Filming

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VkBhiEOe68g

Comments, TWW cops?

2/6/2012 9:51:35 PM

^^ State government is objectively worse. Federal government is too big to move quickly to screw you, and there are actually way more eyes on federal government actions.

States can quickly do whatever the fuck they want to screw you with little oversight.

I'd rather have gridlock than state government.

2/6/2012 10:15:00 PM

http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/news/2012/02/journalist-recovers-video-of-his-arrest-after-police-deleted-it.ars

2/7/2012 12:29:12 PM

If proven that those videos were deleted while the camera was in the hands of the police (99.9999999% likelihood) then the arresting officer should be fired and charged with evidence tampering in addition to being subject to civil rights violation charges.

How many court rulings is it going to take before police get that citizens have a right to record public officials? Is it really going to require a high court to absolutely push in some police department's shit before they stop trying to pull this crap?

2/8/2012 11:05:50 AM

Quote :

"Is it really going to require a high court to absolutely push in some police department's shit before they stop trying to pull this crap?"

of course it will take something like that...probably several instances. if there is no meaningful punishment, they'll continue to do it even if it's deemed illegal again and again. The hypocrisy is overwhelming.

2/8/2012 12:04:03 PM

I liked the part where he was arrested for resisting arrest.

And nothing else.

2/8/2012 12:57:53 PM