Slashdot | Recording Police Misconduct is Illegal

[Jon Beets]

The main point I saw in the dissent and which I totally agree on, is the
police should not have the same standards as regular citizens when
performing their public duties since they alone have the power to force
citizens to do their will..  They work for the people and therefore should
be accountable for the people just like any boss should be able to monitor
their employees....  If you can't record their activities then how do you
police the police?  I am a firefighter and I would have no problem with
being recorded while doing my sworn duty...  When I am off work though that
is a different matter...

I will give you an example of how the police in my town were not able to
police themselves. However this does not have anything to do with recording
conversations..

I really don't remember how it was found out but 7 off duty police officers
(I believe we only have about 15 or 20 in our town of 30,000 people) had
stolen property from a residence which was quoted in the newspaper as "an
abandoned building" in another county.. When the police chief was going to
fire them all the City Council said no they would not allow it. It was later
reported in the paper that the council was pressured by some of the
remaining officers. In the end the property was returned and no charges were
filed and all the officers returned to work after about 4 weeks off-duty
with no pay.  Then they petitioned afterwards and won to get their lost pay
back...  The only honest person in the whole situation was the Police Chief
and he was not able to do anything.... How can you trust someone to enforce
the laws they are breaking?

Jon Beets
Pacer Communications


----- Original Message -----
From: <George at Orwellian.Org>
To: "A bomb named 'Mike'" <cypherpunks at lne.com>
Sent: Monday, July 16, 2001 9:51 AM
Subject: Re: Slashdot | Recording Police Misconduct is Illegal


> Eugene Leitl  wrote:
> #
> #    What we're getting (surprise, surprise) is that recording of
> #    the public is allright but not recording *by* the public. Mann's
> #    "shooting back" is rapidly getting outlawed.
>
> I'm not one to make apologies for this sort of thing,
> and perhaps I skimmed the article too fast, but...
>
> Isn't the ruling not specific to recording the police,
> but that MA has a two-party recording rule?
>
> Everyone has the same standard of "protection".
>
>