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Opinion: A Libertarian’s perspective on surveillance vs. documentation

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Citizens not only have the right to videotape officers in public spaces, but we should encourage it, Jonathan Turley argues in a November 8 Op-Ed. Readers added to the conversation on our discussion board, including ‘BrentFinn,’ who wrote:

All police officers should be required to wear personal recording devices at all times (while on duty). These devices should provide a video and audio record of all interactions with citizens. These records should be subject to the same controls that are currently in place on police reports. These recordings would greatly simplify the ‘he said she said’ nature of most interactions, avoid issues with cover-ups, provide protections for officers who’re wrongly accused of abuse of authority, etc. To take a play from the LEO playbook, if the officers are ‘not doing anything wrong’ then they should have ‘nothing to hide’

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Here is Turley’s reply:

I appreciate the strong interest in my article on police arresting people who videotape them in public. I wanted to respond to a couple commenters who asked why police should not be required to simply wear small cameras to record their conduct on duty. Such cameras are already used in many police cruisers, and this is a case in which technology could help civil liberties by creating a record of all police interactions. For example, for years civil libertarians have called for all interrogations to be videotaped. The cost is minimal and the record can conclusively refute or confirm allegations of police misconduct in securing confessions. The Justice Department and FBI have opposed such cameras in the federal system in interrogations rooms. Indeed, I was involved as lead counsel in an espionage case involving a coerced confession in which naval investigators received a call from Washington to tell them to stop recording an abusive interrogation. Not stop the abuse, mind you. Just stop recording. Thus, police currently use recording devices when they are ready to capture a confession -- literally waiting to the time of the confession to turn on the camera. The problem with dashboard cameras is that they have a limited view and many interactions occur away from vehicles or it is difficult to see or hear the exchange with the officer. Moreover, we have seen a number of cases in which officers have turned off the cameras in cruisers or in interrogation rooms.

While small cameras would answer many questions about abuse (including clearing wrongly accused officers), they are no substitute for the right of citizens to record police in public. First, citizens have a constitutional right to such filming that would not disappear merely with the availability of an alternative record. Second, the value of many of these videos is found in capturing a ‘pedestrian’ view -- a broader view that shows the context of an encounter. A shoulder camera or dashcam offers a limited frame of record. Citizens often show the overall scene in better perspective. Third, an officer with a shoulder camera will often be involved in physical acts that distort the record or create ‘jumpy’ images. Finally, citizen filming often confirms whether the photographer is interfering with police operations -- a standard excuse to threaten or arrest citizens filming police. The distance from the scene is crucial in evaluating the basis for such threats or arrests.

While civil libertarians have a long-standing concern over the proliferation of cameras in our society in creating a surveillance-saturated environment for citizens, cameras recording police encounters offer the countervailing benefit of deterring and, in some cases, recording abuse on the street and in police stations. It also offers officers a record to prove their own innocence or to record assailants. In the balance of cost and benefits, it comes out as a plus for civil liberties, in my view.

RELATED:

DOCUMENT:1st Circuit Court decision: Citizens’ right to record

The difference between civil liberties and civil rights [The reply]

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Has Santa Monica Place gone too far with its new parking lot surveillance system?

--Jonathan Turley

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