- Arkansas passes first-in-nation law to protect photographers’ rights, including right to film public employees/officials [Dan Greenberg, The Arkansas Project] “Colorado, Texas and California Lawmakers Introduce Bills to Protect Rights of Citizens to Record Cops” [Carlos Miller, Photography Is Not A Crime] On the other hand: “Texas Bill Would Make It Illegal For You To Film A Cop Beating You” [Lowering the Bar, more (“if you tell me I can’t film you in public, no matter what, filming you in public is going to move way up my priority list”)]
- “‘Deactivated’ Facebook Account Is Discoverable In Litigation” [Eric Goldman]
- Public records request for Oakland dataset makes good introduction to privacy issues in automatic license plate recognition [Cyrus Farivar, ArsTechnica] “Los Angeles Cops Argue All Cars in LA Are Under Investigation” [Jennifer Lynch, EFF]
- “Texas says it will stop collecting fingerprints of driver’s license applicants” [Dave Lieber, Dallas Morning News, earlier]
- “An elite that has lost the impulse to police itself” [Conor Friedersdorf; a contrary view, Stewart Baker podcast with Rebecca Richards, NSA director of privacy and civil liberties]
- “Stingrays and Police Secrecy” [Adam Bates, earlier]
- Taxopticon: “Newport News to begin scanning license plates to find delinquent taxpayers” [Theresa Clift, Daily Press (Virginia) via Amy Alkon]
Filed under: Arkansas, discovery, Facebook, photography, police, surveillance, Texas, Virginia
2 Comments
RE: Arkansas recording bill.
This is one of those instances where I wish everyone could walk a mile (or even a couple of steps) in someone elses shoes.
Police have to understand that recording their actions actually helps them and helps weed out bad cops when cameras record bad or illegal action by police.
At the same time, people taking video have to realize how chaotic and stressful a situation with an angry crowd can be if you are a cop.
I am reminded that experts that teach self defense always say to keep a round in the chamber because from 15 – 18 feet away, a person can rush you before you have a chance to chamber a round in a pistol. That’s 5 – 6 steps away for most people and further than most people want to film at. (For reference since tonight is the NCAA Men’s Basketball Championship, the backboard is roughly 15 feet from the free throw line.)
Cops should have no problems with being filmed and citizens should have no problems making sure everyone – citizens and cops – get home safely.
[…] Walter Olsen over at the blog Overlawyered.com comes the story of relatively new police technology that allows police to scan, read and check license plates against a […]