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Comment by jedimastert | Hacker News Reader

> Something does seem wrong about police in public not wanting to be recorded while doing their (taxpayer funded) job

For devil's advocate, there's a lot of negative feelings toward workplace surveillance, and for good reason. Having everything you're doing recorded isn't a very good feeling. It really takes away freedoms of judgement and latitude.

Whether or not you think police should have any freedom of latitude is a debate in and of itself, I suppose. I come from a city that has an apparently unusually strong track record with traditionally disadvantaged peoples (POC, homeless, immigrants, etc.) so I have very different gut reactions about police than most of the internet.

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Workplace surveillance generally isn't surveilling someone with extra authority to end someone's life (whether literally or just putting them behind bars) and then have their word (and only their word) trusted in a court of law.

Workplace surveillance generally isn't surveilling someone doing their work in public which usually has significantly different privacy expectations.

Entirely setting aside the current debate on whether police have enough accountability for the unique powers they wield...

Public sector employees are subject to extra scrutiny that private-sector employees are not. That's simply part and parcel of being employed by a democratic government. Your employer represents the general public, and therefore you are accountable to the general public.

For example, government employee salaries are public record. And not just in-theory records, this data is often easily-searched online databases. If you're employed in the private sector, having your compensation disclosed is considered a breach of privacy; it's considered mandatory in the public sector.

So yeah, I think it's reasonable to expect a certain level of workplace surveillance in the public sector that would be unacceptable for a private company.

Last I checked, they're not drafting police officers in the US.

If it hurts your feelings to be recorded while performing your public service job: find a new job.

"Find a new job" is equivalent to "move to a different country". It's a bullshit response that implies that a certain group should be allowed to do something controversial.

If you're going to exercise exceptional infringement on someone then you should be able to offer a solid rationale.

Is being able to record the police controversial?

>Find a new job" is equivalent to "move to a different country".

No it isn't. Switching from cop to ditch digger doesn't require an immigration visa, learning a new language and culture, figuring out the metric system, uprooting your family and maybe supporting your spouse because they won't be able to acquire a job in the new country. Shall I go on?

> If you're going to exercise exceptional infringement on someone then you should be able to offer a solid rationale.

You're almost all the way there to thinking this through. Keep going!

Police service is not a job for everyone, what applies to factory jobs does not apply to it. It is a position that by definition requires good psychological profile, good reputation, unique qualifications, and so on. Such person surely has no problem finding a job. The police is not there to employ the unemployed.

We give police extra rights over the average citizen. Those extra rights must come with oversight, otherwise they'll be abused heavily (which, depending on region, does seem to be happening a lot).

You are missapplying the term. 'workplace surveillance' is continous surveilance by your boss / employer.

The ones recording here are the public (customer?), and it's not continous, its occasional - so it's a completely different phenomenon.

In the case of the police, being subject to workplace surveillance should be part of the job. When someone is given the authority to exercise power over the public, trust in them should never be implicit.

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