How to Monitor Your Local Police

[deborahkla]

Comments

[hardblue]

It's still risky business in America.

~ ~ ~

With those three suppositions in mind, it seems like a legal no-brainer that citizens have the right to film and record police officers performing their official duties in public places and to disseminate the resulting images to others as they see fit.

But as TechDirt recently reported, "people are still being arrested for recording police officers. Sometimes it's a bad (and outdated) wiretapping law that gets abused. Sometimes it's other, unrelated laws that are stretched to fit the circumstances, which means those recording officers are hit with charges ranging from interfering with police investigations to criminal mischief, depending on how the interaction goes."

For example, the Baltimore Sun reported in February 2014 on a man filming an arrest in Towson, Md., who allegedly was told by an officer to "shut your [expletive mouth] or you're going to jail." When the man replied he had a right of free speech, the officer retorted "You just lost it."

-- Huff Post

[angelcerv25]

I think cops might hate their jobs more than we hate the shitty job they're doing.

[hardblue]

Really?? It has long been my impression that they love their jobs and couldn't think of doing anything else - at least 90% of them.

You should ask Yes Justice. I think he comes from a cop family.

[angelcerv25]

I go back and forth and cannot decide based on some idiot thing they did again!

Either way they swing I know this - they are an environment that attracts the bully mentality.

[hindustar]

I wish it were that simple. =(

[enders_shadow]

Plot Twist: all those cameras are held by other cops.....

(and this is why badge-cameras are needed.....)

[joshthevegan]

Not so simple if you happen to be in, say, Freguson.