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Comment by brown9-2 | Hacker News Reader

Can anyone explain the argument against the legality/morality of videotaping a police officer performing their official duties?

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Under certain circumstances I can see it as legitimate to protect officers from retaliation for doing their jobs.

Example: Police officers raid a [whatever] belonging to an organized crime syndicate. Some dude is standing by with a video camera as the officers carry the evidence to their cars. Two weeks later, every officer involved finds that his house has burned to the ground.

You don't need to video tape for that to happen.

No, but it makes it a lot easier.

Well, those guys/gals chose to become cops; knowing it was a risky career. That is all completely orthogonal to the point that public servants must be held accountable to their employer - the public. Police even more so, since "society" gives them something that - in essence - NO one else is given... a monopoly on the "legal" use of force.

If you're going to send guys with guns around - assuming that they have the authority to use violence to conduct their jobs - and they're being paid out of my tax dollars, and claiming to be part of an organization that represents me; I damn sure expect to be able to monitor them.

I was under the impression that this sort of information is already publicly available. Cops are already uniformed, they have badge numbers, their names are on the police reports, and their names show up if it goes to court since the accused has a right to confront witnesses under the 6th amendment.

Two of the arguments bandied about are: 1) police have an expectation of privacy, and 2) people trying to videotape can interfere with police (if they get too close, etc).

1) There is no expectation of privacy in a public place; 2) In the vast majority of the incidents where police arrest someone for video taping, the person is nowhere near close enough to consider the video taping interference. In one case where the person doing the video taping was close, the guy was wearing a helmet mounted camera when a plainclothes officer pulled him over with gun drawn. The video taping wasn't an issue until the motorcyclist posted the encounter on YouTube.

police officers have a hard and dangerous job to do and they do it for our safety. if they have to worry about being video taped all the time they will be less effective in this job.

if they have to worry about being video taped all the time they will be less effective in this job.

Too bad. You can't give people guns and mace and handcuffs and a "legal right" to use force, and then say "you can't ask them to be accountable for their actions."

who said they shouldn't be held accountable? I was just pointing out one possible arguement against video taping police officers. In a job where they are often required to only think once, this may cause them to think twice. Obviously you don't agree with this line of thinking, but it's not the same as saying they should not be held accountable.

If they don't want to be videotaped they need a job where they aren't required to do part of it in public.

Banning accountability is a big step in the wrong direction.

They also get paid and they are not required to put their life at risk.

I assume you're presenting this as one of the extremely flawed arguments that defenders of police impunity use--but that seems improbable, even as a strawman argument. Why would the possibility of being videotaped doing an admirable and effective job make a policeman less likely to do an admirable and effective job?

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