Should citizens be able to video record police at work?

[Universe Prince]

Excerpt from an article The Patriot-News, a Pennsylvania newspaper:

Kelly said his friend was cited for speeding and because his truck's bumper was too low. He said he held the camera in plain view and turned it on when the officer yelled at his pal. After about 20 minutes, the officer cited the driver on the traffic charges and told the men they were being recorded by a camera in his cruiser, Kelly said. "He said, 'Young man, turn off your ... camera,'?" Kelly said. "I turned it off and handed it to him. ... Six or seven more cops pulled up, and they arrested me." Police also took film from his pockets that wasn't related to the traffic stop, he said.

Whole article at the other end of this link.

Okay, so if the police can have cameras recording traffic stops, why can't citizens record them as well? This isn't the first time this sort of thing has happened, and it doesn't just happen in Pennsylvania. Video recording, say, one's ex-spouse or strangers without permission, I can understand why that could be a crime. But why would recording police, when the police are also recording the same scene, be a crime?

[Brassmask]

Because we live in a police state.

[kimba1]

actually from a ex-police officer
there is no law that prevent anybody from taping an officer
it`s simply extremely frowned upon.
you will risk accidental camera breakage and injury
legal is whatever the officer says

[yellow_crane]

legal is whatever the officer says

There has always been that peril.

That is why the only good police force is a police force under scrutiny and over-sight.

Cops are upright and decent folk, but often their operating level resembles that of the boys from the bunkhouse out on the town.  Only Peckinpaugh could capture their spirited camaraderie after they have shot somebody.

Which side, do you think, Cheney might be on?

I find the worst of that in Herbert Walker Bush.  He would shut the door and let the cops do what they might, as long as they did it in spades.  He truly is a curmudgeon, an elitist, and a natural born fascist, because of elitist.

The wise men of old have warned us all not to look down.

But looking down is where elitism, and then, in the operations department, fascism begins.

[Universe Prince]

actually from a ex-police officer
there is no law that prevent anybody from taping an officer

Perhaps but this isn't the first time someone has been charged with a crime (usually wiretapping I think) for recording cops in action with a video recorder. So, obviously someone thinks there is something wrong with it. Of course, if the old "if you have nothing to hide then you have nothing to worry about" was ever going to actually be applicable, seems to me this would be it.

[BT]

We had an interesting thing happen the other day.

We are hiring an admin asst for city hall and our local malcontent was filming an applicant as she walked into city hall for her first interview. Whe we called her back for her second interview, she declined because she felt extremely uncomfortable with the filming incident from the first go round.

Not sure if anything can be done about a situation like this, but such is life in the public eye.

[Lanya]

Of course citizens should be able to record police at work.  They don't want to be filmed, then don't do the job. 
 But recording police officers, paid by citizens, doing work to protect and serve?  By all means. 

[BT]

Should a welfare recipient also have no problems with being recorded?

How about Social Security recipients?

CIA Agents?

[Lanya]

No, no, and no.

[BT]

Why not.They receive checks from the government. paid by citizens.

[Michael Tee]

<<Should a welfare recipient also have no problems with being recorded?>>

There is no purpose to such recording other than the humiliation of the welfare recipient, so I would say, no.  They need photo ID so as to cut down on fraudulent double-dipping, but that should be the limit of recording them.  The social worker will no doubt record each time the recipient visits the welfare office and record the photo ID produced there as well.

<<How about Social Security recipients?>>

Same as above

<<CIA Agents?>>

Ideally yes, practically, impossible.

Cops?  Absolutely.  The Rodney King beating would never have come to light if the cops had not been videotaped.  There are lots of cases like that.  Some cops are OK, some are animals, but even the OK cops never rat out an animal cop.  They lie without conscience to protect a bad cop, even if it means he gets away with torture and forcible anal rape - - just look at the Abner Louima case.  Fuck these guys - - record every single fucking second of their working day, and even if you do, they'll still brutalize innocent civilians and try to lie their way out, but it's a lot tougher for them now with so many caught on tape.

[BT]

So the argument that they are on the public payroll doesn't hunt.

When a person becomes a policeman or fireman or meter reader do they give up their rights as citizens?

Wasn't Roe v Wade about the right to privacy?

Should we limit to guys in uniform or would you extend it to undercover cops and detectives?

[BT]

And why wouldn't the film from the cruiser be available under the Open Records Act?

[Plane]

Film voters.

[Michael Tee]

<<So the argument that they are on the public payroll doesn't hunt.>>

I think the fact that they're on the public payroll means that their boss John Q. Public has a very good claim on seeing how they perform their public duties and interact with the public.  I wouldn't think that anyone has a right to film Donald Trump's secretary at work because she's not on the public payroll.

<<When a person becomes a policeman or fireman or meter reader do they give up their rights as citizens?>>

Stay with the cop, because he's given a gun and a club and a limited authority to actually do some damage to other human beings with them.  I think realistically this man has to be held more accountable at the expense of some of his privacy rights because of the damage he can do.  Sure he's got a right to privacy, but the public has the right not to be fucked up the ass with his nightstick.

 Police brutality is real, with real victims, with serious, sometimes fatal damage.  So if you hold the cop's privacy rights as sacrosanct as the meter reader's, you've done an equal job in both cases of protecting privacy rights, but in one case with a major cost in public safety and in the other with no cost to public safety.  If you believe that public safety (freedom from arbitrary police brutality) is a valued public interest, then you have to wonder why is there no trade-off at all in the cop's case?  You don't NEED a trade-off for the meter-reader, he can have 100% protection at no cost to public safety; is it right to give the cop the same 100% protection, even if it takes a bite out of public safety?

I personally think a lot of cops are arrogant ass-holes who will get away with whatever they think they can get away with in terms of abusing the powerless, the homeless, the visible minorities.  Sure there are good cops, but they're not the problem, are they?  The problem is the bad cops and if cops (good and bad) are taped, the good ones have nothing to fear and the bad ones will get nailed.  So what if the good cops' "privacy rights" are infringed?  The benefit that comes from that is very important:  no more Abner Louimas.  Even if it reduces the number of Abner Louimas by ONE, the loss of good cops' privacy was well worth it.



<<Wasn't Roe v Wade about the right to privacy?>>

Not sure.  If it was, it was a different kind of privacy.  What the woman decides to do with her own body and her fetus is not impacting society the way what a policeman decides to do with his nightstick and somebody's rectum.  YOU  could be on the other end of the nightstick.  I could be.  Or my son.

<<Should we limit to guys in uniform or would you extend it to undercover cops and detectives?>>

If they're in the station why shouldn't they be taped?  If they're under cover on assignment, wouldn't make sense.  How could they not be revealed as cops, thereby abandoning all benefit of being undercover?