...Predictably, (click title to entry - thank you) with video cameras far more commonplace and smartphones doubling as video devices, Americans are increasingly documenting police conduct through audio and video recordings.
Not so predictable: Many are getting arrested or having recordings confiscated:
•In Rochester, N.Y., last spring, Emily Good was charged with obstruction of governmental administration after she shot video of police making a traffic stop. Good was standing in her front yard at the time. The charges were later dropped.
•Pending in a U.S. district court in Maryland is a lawsuit filed by Christopher Sharp, who recorded the arrest of a friend by Baltimore police in 2010. The police confiscated his phone and deleted a number of his videos, including family recordings.
•Last month, Boston police acknowledged that officers used "unreasonable judgment" in arresting Simon Glik, who used his cellphone to shoot the arrest of a man on Boston Common in 2007. Glik is now suing the police department.
•High school student Khaliah Fitchette was arrested by Newark police in 2010 for shooting video of their response to someone falling on a city bus. She was handcuffed and taken to a detention facility, and her video was erased. She was never formally charged and is suing the police.
•A freelance photographer on Long Island was arrested in July after he shot video of officers arresting suspects in a police chase. Phil Datz videotaped his own arrest after an officer ordered him to stop shooting on the public street. After the officer's conduct was widely viewed on YouTube (213,000 times to date), the Suffolk County Police Department decided to drop the charges.
Citizens are sometimes arrested under eavesdropping laws that were designed to prevent the surreptitious recording of a conversation. But does a police officer have a reasonable expectation of privacy while he's doing his job? And how surreptitious can it be when the camera is in full view?...
The bill determined to remove civil rights from American Citizens is "Defense Spending Bill 1987." Below is what conservatives are saying. The country has to know there is something drastically "W"rong and now we are seeing recording devices confiscated and those doing the recording arrested. What comes next are citiznes that literally disappear and are detained for potentially the rest of their lives. That means no one is going to maintain an accurate record of where they live or work where police can easily find them, because, there may be a chance they won't be released.
Durbin made a passionate speech in the Senate to support the Feinstein amendment to alter the original document.
The following was contained in Durbin’s speech: “The Senator from California has not only read the law, she has written many laws, and her competence in advocating this important constitutional question has been proven over and over. So, I thank her for having the determination and courage to stand up for her convictions against some who would be critical of anyone who broaches the subject. This is a controversial subject. We are talking about the security of Americans. We are talking about terrorism.
“… We establish standards of conduct and justice, and particularly as it relates to the people who live in America, our citizens and legal residents who are in the United States. That is what this debate is about.
“This is an important bill. … But this provision they have added in this bill is a serious mistake — serious. It is serious enough for me to support Senator Feinstein in her efforts to change and remove the language. Why? First, we know the law enforcement officials in the United States of America, the Attorney General’s Office, the FBI have done a good job in keeping America safe. They have arrested over 300 suspected terrorists in the United States — over 300 of them — and they have tried them in the criminal courts of America, on trial, in public, for the world to see that these people will be held to the standards of trial as an American citizen. Of those 300, they have successfully prosecuted over 300 alleged terrorists, then incarcerated them in the prisons of America, including Marion, Ill., in my home state, where they are safely and humanely incarcerated.....
Those that want to say 'it is over' and the Feinstein Amendment took care of Americans have to ask themselves, why did it happen at all and what indeed is the sincere outcome? I don't believe any cases have reached the courts, but, why should there be a 'trial' of such assault on civil rights in the first place?
I thought Osama bin Laden was dead.
There should not be confiscation of anything from people that can't be returned when they are released with the exception of firearms and explosives. Cameras are only dangerous when they capture the truth.
Until tomorrow.
