Man videotaped sheriff's deputies, got charged for it under HIPAA | Hacker News Reader

Man videotaped sheriff's deputies, got charged for it under HIPAA

twincities.com

31 pointsShivetya20 comments

This is obviously ridiculous. HIPAA Privacy rules are so narrowly applicable that HHS publishes diagrams showing how not encumbered you are by these rules:

http://www.cms.gov/Regulations-and-Guidance/HIPAA-Administra...

This really isn't news. Most jurisdictions actively don't want citizens recording cops. They come up with all sorts of looney ways to suppress recordings. The courts toss them. Under Holder's DoJ, the administration has been publishing memos to state AG's urging them to stop moving forward with these prosecutions.

But now I ask: what does this story have to do with HN? Nothing. It has nothing to do with HN. It's a story for a political site. And so I flagged it, and you should too.

This really isn't news. Most jurisdictions actively don't want citizens recording cops.

This is a good point. The cops use 1st amendment loophole to film people with CC tv, though. It seems a bit ironic the "thug out" to intimidate people from filming <them>, which is generally legal on the same grounds. But I agree that this is a practice seems widespread. Almosts like legal intimidation a "best practice" taught in law enforcement circles.

Police have no reasonable expectation of privacy when interacting with the public. And isn't it the police themselves that claim "if you are doing nothing wrong..."? So monitoring private citizens' private communication is ok, videotaping a public interaction is not.

On what planet is it illegal for your employer to videotape you on the job? The public employs these people, their attempt to prevent the public from documenting their activity is malfeasance in itself, on top of whatever malfeasance they were committing at the time they were videotaped.

I love the comment down the page blaming Obamacare for HIPAA.

The police obviously acted out of line here, but it's pretty difficult to come up with a general principle of how to deal with public recordings.

Of police and other officers of the state? Totally should be allowed. What if they're interacting with some member of the public, though? That person may well desire not to have their face associated with a confrontation with the police, for professional reasons and otherwise. On the other hand, a bystander recording a confrontation can provide the key piece of evidence that lets someone being victimized by the police get justice.

> it's pretty difficult to come up with a general principle of how to deal with public recordings.

No, it's not. If you're in a public area, there is no expectation of privacy, period.

Public = Subject of whatever camera anyone wants to point at you.

They shouldn't be out in public.

The courts have routinely ruled that there is no expectation of privacy in public. This is why CCTV recordings are allowed.

I'm not speaking about the courts: I'm talking about what we want as a society.

Do we want to allow skeevy men to follow around 12 year olds in malls with a video camera? Do we want celebrities to have virtually no expectation of privacy when they go to the grocery store? Do we want anti-abortion protestors recording people walking in public spaces, posting their pictures online, and linking them to their names? Do we want anti-Walmart organizers to be able to take pictures of people leaving Walmart and harassing them in a guilt-shaming campaign?

It's obviously a Tough Issue. But I see no reason I should be expected to give up all my expectations of privacy. Just because it's physically possible to take pictures doesn't mean you should be able to take pictures, just like being able to do SQLI on a public facing website doesn't entitle you to do SQLI on a public facing website.

The law already clearly addresses the issue of when invading privacy is allowed. See the concepts of public figure (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Public_figure) and reasonable expectation of privacy (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Invasion_of_privacy).

You know, I'm all for that - up until we invent Youtube and it turns up in search results for the person's name more or less forever.

Yeesh. This is my home state. The Minnesota Supreme Court, given a chance to rule on this case, would slap those deputies hard for those ridiculous and illegal arguments. (I have warrant for saying this, as I was a judicial clerk for that court a bit more than two decades ago.) It's embarrassing that the deputies over in that other county don't understand Minnesota or federal law.

The article notes, "Henderson works as a welder and does not qualify for a public defender. He is representing himself in court." It would not surprise me to find that he obtains some pro bono representation from a Minnesota lawyer for a case like this.

I'm confused what "does not qualify for a public defender" could possibly mean.

Normally public defenders are for those who want representation but cannot afford a top dollar lawyer. The state pays public defenders and the defendant pay the court a fee based on their income.

It is your right to have an attorney/representation.

"If you cannot afford an attorney, one will be appointed for you"...

No, public defenders are for those who cannot afford representation, period (though some jurisdictions do distinguish between misdemeanors and felonies for this purpose, as felony defense is significantly more expensive). Defendants never pay for the services of a public defender.

Also, the right to representation is limited to criminal [edit] proceedings [/edit].

It means he makes too much income each year to qualify for a public defender. Most jurisdictions have an income cut-off for determining who gets the services of public defenders.

What a waste of taxpayer money... if we add up the costs of all of this BS (time spent by both cops and defendant, courts, attorneys, misc. paperwork), I'm sure it will be in the 10s of thousands of dollars.

1. Plug the camera into a computer. 2. Use any of the any free undelete app available and undelete the video from the camera. 3. Profit?

"[Deputy Dan Eggers] suggested that Henderson should "have a little respect" for people's privacy."

While this isn't yet SMBC-style irony, it will be soon:

http://minnesota.publicradio.org/display/web/2012/08/02/grou...

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