We covered this story previously. It’s nice to know that occasionally justice prevails!
The Patriot News – June 21, 2007:
A case that attracted nationwide attention has ended with the dropping of a felony wiretapping charge against a Carlisle man who recorded a police officer during a traffic stop.
Cumberland County District Attorney David Freed said his decision will affect not only Brian Kelly, 18, but also will establish a policy for police departments countywide.
“When police are audio- and video-recording traffic stops with notice to the subjects, similar actions by citizens, even if done in secret, will not result in criminal charges,” Freed said yesterday.
Brian Kelly said he spent 26 hours in the county prison after his arrest. He was released when his mother posted her house as security for his $2,500 bail.
The law itself might need to be revised, Freed said.
“It is not the most clear statute that we have on the books,” he said. “It could need a look, based on how technology has advanced since it was written.”
Right decision. Has nothing to do with the advancement of technology.
Will be fun to see if the law is rewritten, or left on book so that police can harass more FREEDOM loving Americans.
With enough technology, no one will break the law.
I have a recording device in my vehicle for protection from these goons. There is no law in any state that forbids a citizen from recording a police officer.
Individual police officers can and will continue to be sued over these issues. There is no expectation of privacy in public.
These goons took an oath to to uphold the Constitution of the united States. Most don’t know whats in the Bill or Rights. This should be class 101 for all police officers.
With enough technology, we’ll be goldfish in a bowl under the scrutiny of the authorities. Of course there won’t be any crime. There won’t be any freedom either, but we seem not to care much about that anymore as long as the politicians pay lip service to it.
It was a joke, i hope. But hopefully with enough technology no one will be above the law.
I got the joke in #2 and I agree with #4 but I have to say to #5 – Where is the fun in that?
#5 – Matthew
“It was a joke, i hope. But hopefully with enough technology no one will be above the law.”
You better think again. As long as the law remains imperfect, there will remain a legitimate need for honest men to get around it.
Conversely, if an unavoidable means of monitoring the populace to ensure compliance with the law is ever invented, it will be irresistable to tyrants, to use to their own ends.
If you have trouble envisioning such a means, consider the telescreens in Nineteen Eighty-Four.
It appears the DA understands that some cases are just not winnable in State courts and probably unconstitutional in Federal Courts. This saves a lot of limited resources for true, serious, criminal cases that should be pursued.
Yes, this law should be revisited, just like the same law requiring a person walking in front of a horseless carriage with a warning flag.
I’m sorry, but I absolutely believe the answer to abuse of power lies with more technology.
Just one example – imagine if every taser policemen use includes a camera that begins recording video the moment it is unholstered; and if that video was subpoenable you would not have cases of people not resisting getting tazed. You would know the man that burst into flames when tazed was not holding a lighter.
There are no problems technology cannot solve and I believe it is a key to putting power back in the hands of the people. Regardless it is all inevitable – and it can fall one of two ways – 1984 or the way I describe. And people need to work towards what I describe.
9 – Matthew – it can fall one of two ways – 1984 or the way I describe. And people need to work towards what I describe.
I love the sentiment and maybe I’m just old and cynical – but seems to me that believing men of power can be stopped by notions of fairness or decency overestimates the addictive nature of power to those who have a taste for it. Consider Robt. Macnamara coming back decades later and saying, “Looking back I realize I was almost instrumental in starting the first all-out nuclear war. Gee. I’m really sorry.” Being in or around a field of raw power distorts the perception, maybe.
It also assumes We the People hold some degree of real power. The men of power who send youngsters into harm’s way to serve agendas they never fully disclose – they know better.
I’d love to be wrong.
#9 – Matthew
“There are no problems technology cannot solve…”
12 months or 12 years from now, or even longer, you will look back on those words and ask yourself, “How could I make such an asinine statement?”
We can peer into the atom and observe galaxies colliding. We have traveled in space and cured cancers. We have instantaneous communication and near-instantaneous travel. So?
Just turn on the news and watch how most of humanity is little different than it was 3000 years ago. Stupidity, violence, greed, superstition and hatred. Technology has not, will not and can not change those things. Human behavior is what determines our futures, and that can only be changed by the conscious decision of humans to do so.
Not only are there problems that tech cannot solve, but those problems also happen to be the biggest ones, such as: How do we keep the technology of destruction away from primitive idiots who will destroy the world if they get the chance?
Tech is not the panacea for what ails the human race, it’s only a set of tools. The human brain is the only tool that can solve human problems.
But check back with me in, say, 100 years or so. Things might be different.
Nice discussion. I recall years ago the magazines full of stories about by the year 2000 we would have free power, robot slaves, and lives of idle pursuit. Not quite.
The Greeks left a record of active philosophical discussion of – – – -the same issues we discuss today.
Didn’t we all think technology/science would do away with religion or be the new religion? Maybe Europe, nowhere else. ((and Europe is dying out!))
So, technology only changes the toys of our ultimate destruction
Technology is only a tool. As with most tools, some survive to work for us while the rest fall into history’s refuse pile.
I laugh when someone posts a comment that SF writer XXX YYYYY predicted something like this in his novel ZZZ ZZZZZ ZZZZ back in 1983. Ya, right. So how predictions things did the author miss?
The same with futurists. It is easy to eat some mushrooms and predict or fantasize what we will be doing to overcome life’s travails. Because the predictions are flights of fancy, it is amazing when one of them come true. But it isn’t the tools we have, it is the tools we get to use and how we use them.
For example, TAZERs were designed to safely take down a person with little risk of injury as compared to using a gun. As we have seen, they are not always used in the best way and may still be lethal. So which is it? A good tool, good tool not always used properly, a bad tool, a bad tool that may have some redeeming qualities, or one phuk of a way to get a buzz on.
The only technological advancement I will stake anything on is that Computer Operating Systems will some day be stable enough we will have to explain to our children what a BSOD is (was) and the “three finger salute” (CTRL-ALT-DEL).
http://tinyurl.com/yug3ss
Here’s a video of another instance of police goons violating the civil rights of protesters.