Transparency and Linkage

Madame,

It occurs to me now (too late!) that I should have originally phrased my words more carefully.  I should have said “I’m betting there’s a fair chance…” rather than stated so definitively.  Because the way I originally put it, I obviously tilted the odds of losing the bet! :)

All those things I put as general potentialities are specific realities for African-Americans and other minorities.   Living under that brings a level of stress, anxiety, and fear that is hard for those who don’t live under it to relate to.

My understanding of the law of allowed public recording of law enforcement actions is that it applies to public property/public space, and often does not apply to private property or space.  Some municipalities or even states have passed ordinances prohibiting videotaping of law enforcement officers.  Of course, these are technically against the above standard allowing of videotaping of officers doing their duties in a public space, but the ACLU (you know, that reviled organization) and others can only challenge just so many things in just so many places.  So local “good old boy” networks consequently get away with a lot, especially when THEY are responsible for enforcing the decisions of courts against them, and both the state and feds are often distracted, overwhelmed, or uninterested.

Even those few times when police are confronted for seizing or erasing (or harassing or arresting the recording individual) cellphones, the “penalty” (when there is one) is often little more than a slap on the wrist and a “don’t do it again.”

And courts have been VERY sympathetic to police officers who state they prohibited or pushed back recording because it was interfering with their duties, or, to be more precise, the person doing so was interfering with “carrying out police duties” or “inciting a hostile crowd.”  It remains to be seen how much the rash of publicized recent incidents will in actuality bring about a change to that standard.

I well agree, however, that cameras in all aspects of police duty would be a boost to citizen protection.  It is not flawless, however.  Those in power and control of the flow of information sometimes have turn off, override capability, or the ability to cause a “malfunction.” 

Rather like the Big Brother official in Orwell’s 1984.

So unless we inculcate cultural and institutional change, the cameras could become merely a loose band-aid.  However, if we push for change in the disconnected, parochial, defensive-aggressive, haughty, arrogant model that exists in far too many law enforcement organizations, the cameras would actually be a synergistic propellant to that change.

And then we could see about addressing who and what the “law enforcers” truly serve.