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The epidemic of mentally unstable cops in America: And this cop got away with it too....nothing happe...

The epidemic of mentally unstable cops in America: And this cop got away with it too....nothing happe...

7 rules when recording the police

Here's why

Despite court rulings, people are still getting arrested for recording on-duty cops

By Radley Balko

The Associated Press reports that police in Chicopee, Mass., have arrested and charged a woman for allegedly recording her arrest with her cellphone surreptitiously.

When you see one of these stories, please remember that it is perfectly legal to record on-duty police in every state in the country. That includes states that require all parties to a conversation to consent in order for that conversation to be recorded. Those laws all also contain a provision that the non-consenting party has a reasonable expectation of privacy. So far, every court to rule on this issue has found that on-duty cops in public spaces have no expectation of privacy and that recording them is protected by the First Amendment. (The U.S. Supreme Court has yet to weigh in on the matter.) In nearly all cases, the charges are eventually dismissed. (The exception may be if you’re arrested under some broad, catch-all law such as “interfering with a police officer” or disorderly conduct. But even those charges don’t usually stick.)

But Massachusetts is the one state where the right is still just a little bit ambiguous. At one time, some of the state’s courts did allow for citizens to be arrested for recording cops under the state’s wiretapping law (which, again, required all parties to consent before a conversation could be recorded). Illinois also once had an even more onerous law, but it was struck down by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit in 2012 on First Amendment grounds.

In 2011, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the First Circuit issued a similar decision. The court allowed Simon Glik’s lawsuit against the police officers who arrested him for recording them to go forward, again finding a First Amendment right to record on-duty law enforcement. But in that case, Glik was recording the officers openly. The court’s ruling applied only to that case, leaving open the possibility that someone could still be arrested for making a surreptitious recording of an on-duty cop. And that’s what happened in this latest case.

If this case gets to the First Circuit, I suspect this charge will also be thrown out. It’s notable that the Glik decision didn’t even deal with whether there is a legal right to record police in Massachusetts. It dealt with whether cops who illegally arrest someone for recording them should be protected by qualified immunity. In order to get into court against a police officer, you have to demonstrate not only that the officer violated your constitutional rights, but also that the rights violated were well established at the time. (Perversely, this provides a financial incentive for police organizations to keep cops in the dark about the latest court decisions with respect to constitutional rights.)

So while the First Circuit ruling in Glik didn’t apply to surreptitious recording of police officers, it did find that not only is the right to record on-duty police permitted, it’s a well-established right that police should be aware of by now, and that if they violate that right, they can be sued for doing so. It seems unlikely that the same court will then turn around and uphold a separate arrest simply because the woman didn’t tell the police she was recording them.

If I lived in Chicopee, however, I’d wonder why this woman was charged for allegedly recording her arrest in the first place. Prosecutors have lots of discretion about when to charge someone and about what charges to bring. They are under no obligation to charge every person who breaks every law — it would be impossible for them to do so. And there’s certainly no obligation to latch on to the narrowness of a court decision that otherwise indicated a First Amendment right to record police as an opportunity to charge someone for doing just that, simply because she might fall slightly outside the scope of that particular ruling. Just because the courts haven’t yet ruled that police and prosecutors can’t do something doesn’t mean it’s something they should do.

So if I lived in Chicopee, I’d want to know why Hampden County District Attorney Mark G. Mastroianni charged this woman. Does he believe it should be illegal to record the police? And if so, why?

DAWUD WALID: MORE TECHNOLOGY SHOULD BE DEPLOYED TO DETER POLICE MISCONDUCT

Metro Detroit has always been one of the more notorious areas in America for police misconduct and brutality. In my parent’s generation, there was systematic brutality and racial profiling, from the Detroit Police Department’s notorious Stop the Robberies, Enjoy Safe Streets (S.T.R.E.S.S.) unit and routine harassment of black men driving west of Wyoming St. by the Deaborn Police during the era of Mayor Orville Hubbard.

Since then, we’ve had numerous events ranging in severity and media scrutiny, from the fatal beating of Malice Green in 1992 by Detroit Police officer Larry Nevers, to Grosse Pointe Park Police suspending five officers last year after it was revealed that a black man with diminished mental capacity was made to make ape sounds while in police custody.

Last week, dashcam video was made public regarding an incident in which a Dearborn Police officer is seen kicking an unarmed Lebanese immigrant who was being restrained on the ground. The man who was kicked multiple times barely speaks English and has diminished mental capacity, similar to the gentleman who was humiliated last year in Grosse Pointe Park.

These incidents, spread across decades, makes one wonder if there’s a greater law enforcement culture issue at hand.

Sure, there are many honorable officers serving in our region and being in law enforcement is never an easy task. However, the reflex in which police chiefs have to defend their officers, seemingly at all costs, helps perpetuate actions such as what took place in Dearborn.

But thank God for technology.

We can lawfully take smartphone video of officers in action, and many police vehicles are outfitted with dashcams, which pick up audio and video of police interactions.

All officers, as public servants, should be mic’d at all times while on duty. Officers’ interactions should be public record, except for detectives investigating sensitive cases and/or taking official statements of witnesses to crimes. Every sheriff and police officer’s car in Michigan should be compelled to have dashcams.

For many people, behaviors do not change without consequences. Greater opportunities to scrutinize the behaviors of law enforcement officers may serve as a deterrent against police misconduct.

Apple Helps Cops Hide Police Brutality / Stop Phone Filming

May 12, 2014 by Jack Blood  

Here is the link to the patent which Apple holds for this technology.

The rapid emergence of smart phones with high definition cameras leads to consequences for law-breaking cops.

Recently, law enforcement throughout the country has been trying to pass laws that would make it illegal to film them while they’re on duty.

But Apple is coming out with a new technology that would put all the power in a cop’s hands.

 Apple has patented a piece of technology which would allow government and police to block transmission of information, including video and photographs, from any public gathering or venue they deem “sensitive”, and “protected from externalities.”

¬In other words, these powers will have control over what can and cannot be documented on wireless devices during any public event.

And while the company says the affected sites are to be mostly cinemas, theaters, concert grounds and similar locations, Apple Inc. also says “covert police or government operations may require complete ‘blackout’ conditions.”

“Additionally,” Apple says,” the wireless transmission of sensitive information to a remote source is one example of a threat to security. This sensitive information could be anything from classified government information to questions or answers to an examination administered in an academic setting.”

The statement led many to believe that authorities and police could now use the patented feature during protests or rallies to block the transmission of video footage and photographs from the scene, including those of police brutality, which at times of major events immediately flood news networks and video websites.

Apple patented the means to transmit an encoded signal to all wireless devices, commanding them to disable recording functions.

Those policies would be activated by GPS, and WiFi or mobile base-stations, which would ring-fence (“geofence”) around a building or a “sensitive area” to prevent phone cameras from taking pictures or recording video.

Apple may implement the technology, but it would not be Apple’s decision to activate the “feature” – it would be down governments, businesses and network owners to set such policies, analyzes ZDNet technology website.

Having invented one of the most sophisticated mobile devices, Apple now appears to be looking for ways to restrict its use.

“As wireless devices such as cellular telephones, pagers, personal media devices and smartphones become ubiquitous, more and more people are carrying these devices in various social and professional settings,” it explains in the patent. “The result is that these wireless devices can often annoy, frustrate, and even threaten people in sensitive venues.”

The company’s listed “sensitive” venues so far include mostly meetings, the presentation of movies, religious ceremonies, weddings, funerals, academic lectures, and test-taking environments.