CopBlock.org Founder Faces 21 Years in Prison for Reporting Police Brutality

Re:CopBlock.org Founder Faces 21 Years in Prison for Reporti... by tptacek on Sunday August 05, 2012 @06:27PM (#4342875)

All of the reasons are silly, but in order of most to least reasonable:

* Recording officers creates a permanent record of their identity which causes problems for undercover operations.

* Bystanders who record the police frequently interfere (directly, physically) with police actions and can put themselves or others in danger.

* Recorded video is frequently edited to create misleading narratives and spurs nuisance claims against the police.

* The police are themselves required to jump through all sorts of due process hoops to surveil people, so they should benefit from the same protections while on the job.

(Incidentally: all these reasons are probably true; they're just wildly insufficient to restrict video recording).

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Re:CopBlock.org Founder Faces 21 Years in Prison for Reporti... by user602341 on Monday August 06, 2012 @01:10AM (#4343838)

1) Umm, facebook?

2) Frequently is a nice general word. I would argue, that it's not nearly enough times to cause an impact on enforcing the law while recording the police has resulted in many outings of abuse of power.

3) If anyone honestly thinks that's a problem, then they shouldn't ever set foot in a court room. Court is all about editing and sculpting the evidence as much as you possibly can to support your case. And again, the benefits of recording the cops hugely outweigh the (theoretical) negatives.

4) It's impossible for a civilian to get a warrant to spy on a police officer. I don't see your point.

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Re:CopBlock.org Founder Faces 21 Years in Prison for Reporti... by tptacek on Monday August 06, 2012 @01:14AM (#4343850)

I am not sure who you are arguing with.

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Re:CopBlock.org Founder Faces 21 Years in Prison for Reporti... by tripzilch on Tuesday August 07, 2012 @10:05AM (#4350122)

I think, even though you said you believe those reasons are silly/wildly insufficient, they are in fact so very silly/wildly insufficient that some people just can't help themselves argue against them :)

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