I've always believed that it should be legal to audio and/or video record any government employee/contractor during the performance of their official duties (and I say that as a govt contractor). If we can't be accountable to the public, how can we expect to serve the public?
The Houston city government could probably save 30 or 40% on construction costs if someone could videotape the building sites and analyse the amount of work done.
Most of my government work is field work (sound & vibration measurements). My next definitive government project will be sometime in winter/spring 2011: http://www.ntionline.com/CourseInfo.asp?CourseNumber=TPE16 . You'll probably have to check with NTI, but I'm fine if you want to record it (although NTI won't probably won't let you put it up on YouTube since they charge admission to the course).
In the cases of some public servants, like police officers, that is not a direct parallel as they are not spending a lot of time in the office. Public servants performing their duty in public should be subject to the scrutiny of the public. Even if you are a government employee working at a desk in a public building you should be subject to the same. I admit it is just not feasible to allow any and all private citizens access to buildings, or to mount cameras as they desire, but there is a perhaps a better solution? Surveillance tapes available upon request?
Public servants performing their duty in public should be subject to the scrutiny of the public.
That's usually the caveat I put when I make that statement, but I forgot to that time (and again, most of my govt work is in public and I would fall under that).
There are times when privacy is essential for govt workers but those times rarely during public interaction, and when they are, it's usually because the tasks are sensitive (an interview with a rape victim for example).
Schneier's argument is that openness shouldn't work both ways:
Privacy has to be viewed in the context of relative power. For example, the government has a lot more power than the people. So privacy for the government increases their power and increases the power imbalance between government and the people; it decreases liberty ...
Privacy for the people increases their power. It also increases liberty, because it reduces the power imbalance between government and the people
A lot is discussed about cops using racial profiling and targeting certain neighborhoods. I have a theory that there's another form of profiling that targets more affluent areas for traffic citations to bring in revenue. Is this a concern for anybody?
What do you mean by "targets"? If people are fined for something they did, then it's not a problem. If they're going to be fined even though they're not guilty, they should be able to challenge it and go to court. Or is it a different situation?
I live in a city where speed limits are sensibly enforced. Lazy cops don't randomly set up shop and start ticketing people for normal, safe behavior. Officers here are known to sit beside the freeway letting hundreds of people drive by at 70-75 mph and then go lights flashing after the one guy weaving in and out of traffic at 90 mph. That kind of sanity is impressive to me, who never expected professionalism and intelligence (of all things!) out of police officers.
The reason people complain about speeding tickets is that speed limits are inconsistently enforced. Speed limits are usually about 10 mph too low for normal conditions, and enforcement reflects that. Yet in some places, enforcement is strict, and it's impossible to predict where without local knowledge. For instance, on a major road near my apartment that goes out to some major suburbs, there is a little stretch going through a separate municipality where the speed limit drops inexplicably and is very strictly enforced, practically 24/7. All the locals know it, but woe to the out-of-towner who fails to heed the locals' example and hit the brakes.
But at least that's consistent. Where I grew up, inconsistency was the key. You never saw them set up twice in the same place, unless the speed limit was especially unreasonable at that place. Enforcement was so random that everybody ignored it, and everybody had paranoid theories. (It's the end of the month; they're just filling their quotas. My ex-wife's brother is a cop, I bet he asked his buddy to go after me. Goddamn white cops don't like seeing a Mexican with a pretty white girl. Goddamn Mexican cops don't like seeing a white guy with a pretty Mexican girl.) There was no pragmatic benefit to ticketing people for driving safe, normal speeds, so naturally everybody came up with unflattering theories and nobody changed their driving behavior.
So yeah, traffic citations can be bullshit even if the driver is guilty.
I think I understand what the poster was talking about. I live in a decent neighborhood where it's mostly on street parking. The way my street sets up, even though it is a 2-way street it's mostly one way traffic. This leads to people parallel parking on both sides of the street while facing the same way (it's a fine to parallel park facing opposite of traffic). When I moved in over 18 months ago everyone was parked incorrectly. I parked incorrectly for 13 months before one night on the last day of the month we all received $30 parking fines at 3am.
I talked to a few of my neighbors and this was the first time they had seen fines given. I along with others parked the wrong direction for at least 13 months without a fine. So, either police never patrolled our neighborhood during that time or they decided to apply the law only when they feel like it, i.e. to meet their quota. Revenue generation at its finest!
That is something I don't really agree with. Maybe they didn't patrol that area, maybe they didn't have enough people, maybe for some other reason...
Anyways, you know you can get a fine for parking the wrong way, yet you did it. If you said you don't agree with that rule, I might concur. What exactly did they do wrong? I hope that since then everyone is parking correctly. Isn't that the whole point of fining people?
If you're right about not patrolling then that means they NEVER drove through my rather small townhouse community in almost 13 months. So much for police doing routine patrols.
What bothered me about the whole thing was inconsistent enforcement. It's okay to park that way for over a year and then one day it's not. Enforcing an ordinance or law only when it's convenient (to hit a quota) for the officer makes me think the particular law isn't about safety but about revenue generation. If it was truly about safety it would be enforced all of the time.
I got a fine once. Yeah, I was speeding: a 4 lane road with no turns and actual curbs, 35 mph. I was going at the speed of the rest of the traffic, 45mph.
They keep the speed limit like that and set up traps all the time. Laws != morals, and when the police are treated as a revenue center, it's bad.
What do you mean by "targets"? If people are fined for something they did, then it's not a problem.
A lot of it has to with "equal enforcement" - take a look at mj enforcement in CA as described in http://reason.com/blog/2010/07/01/california-naacp-backs-mar... (leave aside for a moment the wisdom/necessity of the drug war) - I'm sure most of the people arrested for mj broke the law and deserved the consequences. but it as a negative effect on the targeted segment and not the population aa a whole. That puts one segment at a disadvantage in other aspects of life (getting a job, getting housing, etc).
BTW, don't know why you got downvoted, you simply asked a question.
Under certain circumstances I can see it as legitimate to protect officers from retaliation for doing their jobs.
Example: Police officers raid a [whatever] belonging to an organized crime syndicate. Some dude is standing by with a video camera as the officers carry the evidence to their cars. Two weeks later, every officer involved finds that his house has burned to the ground.
Well, those guys/gals chose to become cops; knowing it was a risky career. That is all completely orthogonal to the point that public servants must be held accountable to their employer - the public. Police even more so, since "society" gives them something that - in essence - NO one else is given... a monopoly on the "legal" use of force.
If you're going to send guys with guns around - assuming that they have the authority to use violence to conduct their jobs - and they're being paid out of my tax dollars, and claiming to be part of an organization that represents me; I damn sure expect to be able to monitor them.
I was under the impression that this sort of information is already publicly available. Cops are already uniformed, they have badge numbers, their names are on the police reports, and their names show up if it goes to court since the accused has a right to confront witnesses under the 6th amendment.
Two of the arguments bandied about are: 1) police have an expectation of privacy, and 2) people trying to videotape can interfere with police (if they get too close, etc).
1) There is no expectation of privacy in a public place; 2) In the vast majority of the incidents where police arrest someone for video taping, the person is nowhere near close enough to consider the video taping interference. In one case where the person doing the video taping was close, the guy was wearing a helmet mounted camera when a plainclothes officer pulled him over with gun drawn. The video taping wasn't an issue until the motorcyclist posted the encounter on YouTube.
police officers have a hard and dangerous job to do and they do it for our safety. if they have to worry about being video taped all the time they will be less effective in this job.
if they have to worry about being video taped all the time they will be less effective in this job.
Too bad. You can't give people guns and mace and handcuffs and a "legal right" to use force, and then say "you can't ask them to be accountable for their actions."
who said they shouldn't be held accountable? I was just pointing out one possible arguement against video taping police officers. In a job where they are often required to only think once, this may cause them to think twice. Obviously you don't agree with this line of thinking, but it's not the same as saying they should not be held accountable.
I assume you're presenting this as one of the extremely flawed arguments that defenders of police impunity use--but that seems improbable, even as a strawman argument. Why would the possibility of being videotaped doing an admirable and effective job make a policeman less likely to do an admirable and effective job?
"... This is all important. Being able to record the police is one of the best ways to ensure that the police are held accountable for their actions. ..."
Shrug. It's the job of ticket inspectors to make sure people aren't travelling without tickets. If you're travelling without a ticket, it's their job to give you a fine. They need to have certain powers if they're gonna do their job properly, which includes the power to apprehend people who try to run away from them. So reasonable force from a ticket inspector is perfectly justified. And of course anyone on the receiving end of force will usually wind up complaining that it was unreasonable.
Don't wanna get tackled by a ticket inspector? Buy a ticket. Or if you don't buy a ticket, fess up and accept your fine.
which includes the power to apprehend people who try to run away from them
Do we know that for sure? In the US at least, generally workers in those positions specifically do not have the power to apprehend people - if there is a problem, you call the police or the designated security personnel. It's really easy for a person without the proper martial training to unnecessarily hurt someone, or get hurt themselves.
"In New South Wales, revenue protection on its rail network is primarily the responsibility of Transit Officers. Like their Victorian counterparts, these transit officers also carry out security patrols on trains and railway stations, with the power of issuing on-the-spot fines for minor offences, and even to use "reasonable force" to make arrests."
Which I read as saying that ticket officers in both NSW and Victoria (where this story takes place) are allowed to use reasonable force.
(In America, of course, things are different. For instance the BART has its own police force, which 999,999 times out of every million can be guaranteed not to shoot you in the back while you're lying on the ground.)
and it would seem that "reasonable force" is where the conflict arises - after all, I suspect that you would agree that simply shooting the suspect would be unreasonable?
Of course, and I'm sure that they have used unreasonable force on occasion.
I only got into this whole argument because the OP sounded surprised that ticket inspectors, of all people, were getting into unreasonable-force situations, as if it were crazy for ticket inspectors to be using force at all. I only wished to point out that it's reasonable for ticket inspectors to use reasonable force, and hence it's inevitable that eventually one of 'em is going to wind up using excessive force. But I'm starting to regret ever getting into this discussion since there's a much nicer one going on in another thread about the heat death of the universe.
That's an interesting chain of logic. The mere responsibility of a job gives you powers of arrest? Why are there police in the US at all, if private citizens may so easily be empowered?
No, actually in this specific case the law specifically gives ticket inspectors the power of arrest as I said in a comment either up there ^^^ or down there VVVV.
But actually in most common-law jurisdictions, citizens do have arrest powers, which is why we have the term "Citizen's arrest":
Which (if you look up the bit about Victoria) would probably apply in this case even if the ticket inspector were not specifically empowered to make arrests.
"... the law specifically gives ticket inspectors the power of arrest ..."
With very limited non sworn powers.
"... To deprive a person of their liberty is a serious matter. Authorised officers should only consider arrest as a last resort and when contemplating doing so, consistent with arrest powers under the Transport Act. The following guidelines must be followed. Persons will only be arrested under Section 219 of the Transport Act 1983 as a last resort. Specifically an authorised officer must believe on reasonable grounds that a person has committed an offence against the Transport Act 1983 or any regulation made under that Act and arrest is necessary for one or more of the following reasons: ..."
but the act also warns
"... If an arrest is made outside the strict requirements of this section of the Act, an officer carrying out the arrest may be liable to civil and/or criminal action ..."
However, transport is usually under some form of contract, so people who break those contracts are more usually guilty of breaking civil law, not criminal law. The penalties for such very rarely involve loss of liberty. I'm fairly sure citizen's arrest is targeted at getting the public to aid in apprehending criminals instead.
The penalties for such very rarely involve loss of liberty.
Right, but the penalties for resisting arrest (or fining) do.
If a policeman stops you and gives you a ticket for jaywalking, that's not an offence for which you can wind up in prison. But if you try to run away instead of being given the ticket, the policeman can do whatever it takes to catch you and restrain you.
Otherwise, the whole ticketing system wouldn't work at all.
"... But if you try to run away instead of being given the ticket, the policeman can do whatever it takes to catch you and restrain you. ..."
Bad example.
Did you know it's SOP for AO's to only apprehend in certain circumstances at risk of legal complications. For example if a person has evaded capture:
"... In the event that the offender is able to decamp officers are not to give chase and pursue the offender. ..."
if the person has evaded capture and/or hidden:
"... loose sight of the offender then the pursuit must be abandoned and the officers should resume normal duties. Under no circumstance are officers to conduct a search of the area ..."
if the person is on private property:
"... If it is deemed necessary to pursue a person for a serious offence and that particular person enters private property, the pursuit is to cease immediately; entry to private property may be illegal and deemed as trespass. ..."
These examples are straight from the "Code of Conduct". It highlights how limited the real powers AO's have been supplied, mostly the Transport Act 1983.
"... They need to have certain powers if they're gonna do their job properly, which includes the power to apprehend people who try to run away from them. So reasonable force from a ticket inspector is perfectly justified. ..."
PTAO's (Public Transport Authorised Officers) are pretty much the lowest end of sworn enforcement officer I can think of, certainly not to the level of VicPolice standards ~ http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Police_officer
This illustrates the need for video evidence perfectly. Without the footage many people would instinctively agree with you, but faced with the footage it's clear that the inspectors are in the wrong.
[Edit - it's more obvious in some of the later scenes]
"... The lawyer leading the class action said some people who watched footage of the incidents dubbed the city watchhouse ''Canberra's Abu Ghraib'', in reference to the Baghdad prison where US military personnel abused Iraqi prisoners. ..."
In the case of recording police can they really have any expectation of privacy when anything they do in the course of their duties may be examined in a court of law? I should think that would remove any expectation they had legally speaking. IANAL so if any lawyers feel like answering I would be curious to hear their opinion.
