The reason you need to record police action (above).
Several Marylanders face felony charges for recording their arrests on camera, and others have been intimidated to shut their cameras off. That’s touched off a legal controversy.
Mike Hellgren explains the fierce debate and what you should do to protect yourself.
A man whose arrest was caught on video faces felony charges from Maryland State Police for recording it on camera.
“We are enforcing the law, and we don’t make any apologies for that,” said Greg Shipley, Maryland State Police.
“For the government to be saying it has the power to prevent citizens from doing that is profoundly shocking, troubling, and particularly in the case of Maryland, simply flat-out wrong,” said David Roach, ACLU.
Heaven forbid the cameras are turned on the apparently corrupt Maryland police. And ask yourself who ultimately pays the bill on the lawsuits the police lose in these matters.
found by Aric Mackey
Yeah, if you see a cop is breaking the law – for fucks sake do not try and collect evidence, your life may depend on it. Just a reminder, these guys are hired for their brain power.
How many cops does it take to push a black guy down a flight of stairs? None, he fell.
Nothing like a vid, to help sort threw the BS from the PD.
Glad to live in Wisconsin where only one party being recorded needs to consent to the recording.
>> Mextli said, on May 24th, 2010 at 10:38 am
>> I guess they are basing their actions on this, “Under Maryland law, conversations in private cannot be recorded without the consent of both people involved.”,
Thanks for posting that clarification (and reading the article!). It was helpful to understand this.
I support that kind of privacy law but always assumed it didn’t apply to public settings.
Using Greg Shipley’s interpretation, every parking lot security camera is illegal too. Or a million other situations with CCTVs or cell phone cameras.
i don’t know why they are in oppose of using camcorders!!
I doubt this is really a MD law about protecting bad cops. It much more likely to be a law protecting politicians, behaving badly in public (or in private) from “taped” and then exposed. This thing with Fergie would never be allowed in the US. When Clinton got caught in his affair with Monica, because another woman taped a phone call about that damn dress she wore (whatever). It all came out about the consent law, that practically no one had ever heard of before. And then a bit later, when someone taped a cellphone conversation of a congressman. Things really hit the fan, here. Yeah, it ain’t the cops they’re protecting. It’s the politically powerful and connected. It’s only Ok for them to spy on us, not us to spy on them. That’s why it’s a Maryland law. Because of Wash. DC.
Video recordings often show that police lie when they file charges against people they’ve arrested.
Here is the solution. The penalty for falsely charging someone with a crime is a bullet in the head.
Lying about your own criminal activity, in this case beating an innocent person, will result in a bullet in the head.
This won’t stop the simple minded, corrupt, incompetent losers who are drawn to police work from committing crimes but it will reduce their numbers.
I think it should become mandatory that all police arrests are captured on video before they are admissible and if the cop does not record the arrest then the “suspect” should be free to go. this would stop a lot of the abuse on arrest cases. and would likely lead to less harassment arrests as the cop would still need to video everything and harassment would lead to disciplinary action against the police.
I wouldn’t be too quick to vest all my legal rights in a video recording. The video equivalents of Photoshop are becoming inexpensive and easier every day. The best option is a police force and court system that respects the law above all else and laws that are just. I know, what quaint, outdated notions.
You can fix the faked video problem with check-sums or encyption in the video stream. It works for source code repositories.
things like this are just terrible… just terrible. but you know what would really be cool is if eideard or uncle dave or even cooler if they together in the same video got to star in their own police beating video… now that i would pay to see. academy awards would be due to the police 4sure… well one can only dream…
#1 Because Debate is the American way. It’s called “Rights” Right or wrong. “I may not agree with your opinion, but I defend your right to express it.” get over it
# 7 Improbus:
“What are the cops going to do when the public turns on them? No one likes a bully.”
Haven’t you been paying attention? The answer is easy: beat the crap out of them!
Bobbo –
You ask two questions, I’ll answer them from what I’ve seen so far.
“Police can charge anyone with anything–what are the DA’s actually taking forward?”
There’s a set of charges that we’ve come to call “the Trifecta.” When you see someone charged with ABPO (assault & battery on a police officer), Disorderly Conduct, and Resisting Arrest, it’s a damn good bet that when you see your client, his face will look like a catcher’s mitt. It’s more or less code for “old fashioned beat down”, and the cases almost never go to trial, because cops are fantastically good at lying on the stand. Now I’m not suggesting that cops are trained to lie under oath… but (and this depends on the jurisdiction) they do generally have several days of training on how to testify. Why would you need so much training if it amounts to “Tell the truth, and don’t sweat it” (which is the advice I give my clients if/when they choose to take the stand.)
“Has anyone actually been CONVICTED of wiretapping in such circumstances?”
Not to my knowledge. They usually cover it under the guise of resisting arrest, or use the fact that they’re being recorded as a pretense to escalate the situation by confronting the guy with the video and usually forcing a reaction. Although I think a colleague of mine is currently handling such a case where the individual *was* charged with a wiretapping offense, that hasn’t been resolved yet I don’t think.
Some advice I’ve heard on libertarian talk shows: if you’re going to record an arrest, make sure you don’t do it alone. Make sure to have someone else there, recording the arrest, and someone else recording the recorder. The more recordings you have the better. Get audio, video, stream directly to the internet (using qik or a similar type service) just in case they confiscate. There is power in numbers!
“Get audio, video, stream directly to the internet (using qik or a similar type service) just in case they confiscate.”
This part is key, IMO.
This actually answered my drawback, thanks!