After reading the article Are Cameras the New Guns? by Wendy McElroy, I lost a lot of respect for "the law" and how they like to view themselves. It was stated that if both parties don't agree on being filmed or photographed in a public place then it is illegal to do so in some states. But what's funny about this statement is that the officers won't harass a photographer if the officer is seen being kind to others or holding a puppy, etc... but they will arrest a photographer who is caught taking embarrassing photos of them. This seems like the police are trying to give themselves a "perfect" image because they are the law and everyone has to follow their rules, so if there's something that they say or do that is wrong then they don't want it to be seen. There have been a lot of cases of police brutality caught on tape and it was stated that that's the reason why most officers want public video of them to be banned so they can get away with future crimes like this.
If someone is holding a camera in their hand they can be seen as just as dangerous as someone who is holding a gun because of how "real" photos and video are to people. We all trust visual images a lot so if there is video or photo of an officer doing something wrong then it could impact their life severely. So when an officer is viewing someone with a camera pointed at them they are going to take that as a "potentially dangerous" situation because depending on what happens in the footage their life could change dramatically just as if they were really in a gun battle. Photographers have a lot more power than they realize in certain situations and I don't believe that officers should be above the public filming allowance. If they don't want to be caught doing anything wrong or embarrassing then they shouldn't do that act in the first place.
1 comment:
Cody, I'd be careful to jump to the conclusion of automatically losing respect for enforcement. For every bad cop, there's a dozen good people who honestly want to make a difference in the community in the way that they know how to. I agree that video recording is a very powerful thing, and the only thing authority is scared of is power. I also agree that recording officers keeps them in check. The only way to solve this issue is civil disobedience. If everyone recorded officers in droves, they could not and would not prosecute all of them. Again, is it worth putting yourself at risk though? Overall, the more things are recorded the less things are going to be corrupt. -Matt
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