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Its about time.
Scenario: You are in public and pulled over by a police officer for speeding. Do you have a right of privacy, not to be recorded on the police dash cam? Never. Are you able to opt-out of being recorded on street corners by traffic cams and character and mapping software, nope. Does a police officer have a right to NOT be counter-recorded by the person being pulled over? Amazingly, they think they do. Not all, but most believe that it is downright wrong and somehow interfere with the duties of the law enforcement official.
The country is littered with cases of citizens being arrested for exercising their rights to record the actions of police in this society.
Don’t get me wrong, I support what they do. I come from a family of law enforcement officials, from Multi-Jurisdictional task force leaders to Detectives to hard-core Detroit Narcotics slash and burn cops. Having attended military police training, I get it. But should they be protected in a public place from being watched, scrutinized or logged? In my gut that just doesn’t make sense. It would seem that they would welcome the scrutiny, “go ahead, I’ve got nothing to hide”.
The essence of protect and serve.
Recently the appeals_court_ruling by the First Circuit Court of Appeals have agreed that the public, may in fact, record the actions of law enforcement while they are on the job. This is a significant ruling as this Court sits just below the U.S. Supreme Court.
The Court summed it up perfectly with this statement that officials should be held “accountable when they exercise power irresponsibly and the need to shield officials from harassment, distraction, and liability when they perform their duties reasonably.”
<the author salutes the First Circuit Court of Appeals – Bravo.)
