No Wonder Police Want To Make Videotaping Them Illegal

Wow, this officer is a total loser.  Absolutely out of control.  Hand-held video recorders may well be the greatest defense yet against the over-bearing state.  No wonder many police organizations want to ban videotaping of police officers.  Sometimes I watch "The Wire" and wonder, even as a libertarian, if the government and police suckage portrayed there is exaggerated.  And then I see this ... in Baltimore now less!

Update:  The guy in the video likely supports this site.

7 Comments

  1. HTRN:

    At least 1 person that I know of has been arrested for recording video of a Police officer in public. Brian Kelly of Cumberland county, PA, got arrested for violating the states Wiretapping law. Charges were later dismissed when it was pointed out the law had the phrase "expectation of privacy" in it, which the officer in question, in uniform, in public, certainly did not.

    http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,284075,00.html

    They can pass all the laws they want - they're fighting the march of technology, where everybody and his brother has a camera in his cellphone.

  2. la petite chou chou:

    That and if a person catches an officer on camera doing something like this, it SHOULD be made public.

  3. tribal elder:

    All those street and traffic surveillance, store surveillance, bank surveillance cameras are all allowable based on the lack of an expectation of privacy. Flyover recon photos, satellite imaging-- that stuff is all 'fair game'. There was a case that went all the way up about Michigan DNR overflying a Dow plant years ago-it was 'plain view'.

    We have few secrets, except in our homes anymore. Cops on the street, whose work product-investigative reports, arrest reports- eventually goes to the courts have no secrets once it's in the courts.

  4. tribal elder:

    All those street and traffic surveillance, store surveillance, bank surveillance cameras are all allowable based on the lack of an expectation of privacy. Flyover recon photos, satellite imaging-- that stuff is all 'fair game'. There was a case that went all the way up about Michigan DNR overflying a Dow plant years ago-it was 'plain view'.

    We have few secrets, except in our homes anymore. Cops on the street, whose work product-investigative reports, arrest reports- eventually goes to the courts have no secrets once it's in the courts.

  5. colson:

    I loved the last line in the video that went something like:

    "Are you recording this? Because if this shows up on you[tube]...."

  6. tribal elder:

    End the war on drugs and other victimless crimes and we'll need a lot fewer cops. When drug consumers can go the Walgreens and CVS, prices won't have the 'RICO and incarceration' premium, so drug users, even addicts, can hold jobs.

    Then, we can be a lot more selective about who carries official deadly force. If we make cops leave their guns at the station, that will drive out the armed-and-dangerous powertrippers. We'll end up, over a short period, with better (and better behaved) cops.

  7. TC:

    http://www.sltrib.com/utahpolitics/ci_8215010

    Can you even imagine this!

    Sen. Buttars
    Keeping police misconduct a secret proposed
    Advocates of open government records are taken aback by the limiting proposal
    Article Last Updated: 02/09/2008 02:10:17 AM MST

    Proposed amendments to the state's Government Records Access and Management Act would make information on police misconduct off limits to the public.
    SB260, sponsored by Sen. Chris Buttars, R-West Jordan, would among other things, classify information about charges or disciplinary action taken against police officers as private, unless officers grant written consent to make the data public. The bill was introduced in the Senate Rules Committee meeting on Friday and is already raising eyebrows among those who support liberal open records laws.
    Such limitations on police disciplinary records may mean journalists won't have access to information on police punished for using deadly force, involved in sexual misconduct or other questionable behavior, said Joel Campbell, a Brigham Young University professor and member of the Freedom of Information Committee for the national Society of Professional Journalists.

    More here;http://www.kutv.com/content/news/local/story.aspx?content_id=49094c36-ec83-4306-954a-eca063c62693

    Note if you see anything like this in your state, do not even e-mail, CALL your rep immediately and follow up with an e-mail.