Interesting, but what does this have to do with HN?
For example, if you are creating an app that records sound or images, you would want to be aware of the risks to camera users. Especially if that camera is less obvious than the camera used by the photographer in this story. The law seems to be on the side of the photographer but the realities are complex.
This is covered under the HN guidelines, as the intersection between technology, privacy, and civil liberties is definitely an interesting new and ongoing phenomenon.
Total non-sequitur. I'm not saying I think this is a good HN article to upvote but the idea that this is somehow going to exclude everything else is bizarre.
Many people here, myself very much included, get their social justice stories in a different section of their RSS readers. It's not that those stories aren't interesting; it's that they simply aren't Hacker News, any more than updates about Girl Talk albums are Hacker News because hackers are so likely to listen to them.
Change can come in many forms, including social. Such stories are a record of social change, and the pressures that drive it.
Let's be honest: this story is here because it makes people angry. It's the kind of story that you'd get as an email forward from your aunt. It gets attention and stirs up emotion. It does not gratify one's intellectual curiosity.
CJ: Do you feel your rights were violated?
RS: Of course, but you have to realize that each situation each different. Just because we have this constitutional right doesn’t give us a complete right to do whatever we feel like doing. This needs to be understood. You can’t just stand your ground, in the middle of a police scene, and say, “Its my right to shoot this.” You have to walk carefully every time you show up to a [police] scene. There’s a lot involved. These police officers are trying to do a job too. Everyone needs to understand that. I always try to respect that.
CJ: For the benefit of those photographers up in arms about your situation, can you explain what you mean by “respect”?
RS: You want to be respectful of the police officers space as well. We need to be conscious of our surroundings. Even as we’re protected by our constitutional rights – this is important [as photographers] to remember. However, in this case, there is no question that what I was doing was right. I’m never the one to say the picture is more important than everything else on the scene. I wouldn’t want to be responsible for “standing my ground”, and an officer is in the middle of doing his job and [because of interfering] and an officer gets injured as a result of what I chose to do. Just because I have the “right” do take photos. I would never do that. And that is kind of what the police are saying about me. That they have the “right” to charge me with obstruction of government administration. They are using that to say, ‘we can do whatever we want.’ It’s unfortunate because I’m the one who was totally abused.
I'm scared of slippery slopes of Mount Reddit as well, but this is an article worth reading.
This isn't "fuck the police", this is "be responsible, be respectful, be polite, know your rights"
Some of us are building or contemplating building products that make use of those smart phone features. If such activity is likely to result in police brutality directed at our customers, that is worth knowing.
Technology impacts the real world. How and where our technology touches society in general is worth understanding.
Most of everyone does, though. That doesn't make it HN material. I'd wager that most of us brush our teeth, but I don't think that an article about toothbrush sales should be posted here.
Woah, woah, woah! Let's try to be realistic here!
The reason HN is interesting is not that it has unique submissions--it mostly doesn't--but that it has consistently insightful commentary. It makes sense to bring up topics like this here rather than Reddit simply because of the resulting discussions.
Also, my impression is that HN has always been disproportionately libertarianish. In fact, in my experience, this is true of the tech and startup communities in general. So I don't think this is a particularly new development.
I love reading HN comments on tech news/debates/articles because I know there's going to be a huge depth and breadth of different commenters' experiences and anecdotes. This generally isn't true with regards to political/social stuff, where the vast majority of commenters have the same belief and experience.
That being said, I don't really mind the submissions -- because they're easily identifiable -- I just hope they aren't signals of a larger trend towards generalism. (Reddit, too, used to be predominantly tech/programming articles.)
If submissions to nothing more than image macros ever get popular, then it's time to jump ship because HN has become way too much like Reddit.
You can't simply introduce more social-justice type articles and expect the rest of HN to stay the same. This is why I recommend sticking with the site guidelines: if it would be covered on TV news (this would!) it doesn't belong here, unless it's evidence of some new phenomena (this isn't!)
If this bothers you, good. It should.
Innovative technologies are disruptive, and those behind the disruption generally look down on monopolies with antiquated products. Given the pace of change, sometimes we as the disruptive become the disrupted.
I have more computers in my house than cameras, but only barely.
He goes to a great lengths to tell this as "nothing to see here, move along.."
Now why would he do that?
My theory on this is that in the past he didn't have to contend with pain in the ass bystanders doing the same thing that he did. Those amateurs are now making it increasingly difficult for a professional like him to do his job.
As a result he wants to send a message out there for fear that if he doesn't his rights will be restricted as a result of others behaviors. It's a little "last man over the bridge".
The other possibility of course is that he has something to hide. He doesn't want to stir the hornets nest for fear that something will happen to him and he wants to keep a low profile by ending this as soon as possible.
His equivocation was intended to head off the "police are all nazis because one of them took my camera and arrested me when I was in the middle of a crime scene and interfering with the police" attitude that's all too common. He pointed out that there is a line between responsible documentation of events, and interference, and that line is crossed sometimes, and people criticize the police anyway, and that's not right.
Has nothing to do with those of us making that tech at all. You're right.
To put it another way, how useful is the right to read the source if one does not have the right to free speech, assembly, religion (or lack there of), and petition for redress of grievances.
To be even more blunt, the Magna Carta Libertatum is under attack.
I don't want to sound like an idiot spouting zen koans but you really have to be aware of major trends to be able to navigate around them or even perhaps change them. The clash between technology and authority is a very interesting one.
The individual, the mob and the government are all empowered differently by each new advance.