The new surveillance state means the police are being watched and recorded too

American Police Beat
Editorial: November issue, 2011
www.apbweb.com

The new surveillance state
Everyone is being watched, tracked, monitored, including the police

In the up and running American surveillance state everyone is being watched, tracked, monitored and recorded. And if you thought police officers were the exception to the rule, think again.

We currently live in a society where the citizenry is under constant surveillance. Because of radical changes implemented through legislation like the Patriot Act, every email, financial transaction and phone call made by Americans is monitored, tracked and stored not only by the law enforcement and intelligence communities, but by corporations as well.

If there’s anything in the way of a backlash from those changes, it could very well be the increased surveillance of police officers in the performance of their duties by citizens.

If you’ve been following the Wall Street protests, a lot of the video shows cameras in the hands of the majority of the protestors and cops as well.

The law enforcement culture is not used to this kind of exposure and generally reacts with hostility to the notion that citizens should be able to film police.

This rubs a lot of civilians the wrong way for a variety of reasons. When a municipality and a law enforcement agency install closed circuit cameras in a high crime neighborhood or housing project, there is usually some criticism and cries of “big brother.” The police response is invariably, “Well if you’re not doing anything wrong, what are you worried about?”

The issue of civilians taping cops on the job has turned that question on its head.
The fact of the matter is that citizens taping cops, and the sometimes negative publicity those incidents produce, are going to increase exponentially in the future.

It’s a rock and a hard place for law enforcement professionals. On the one hand, cops understand that a society where the state can monitor every aspect of the lives of citizens without oversight in the name of “fighting terrorism,” has the potential to devolve into some kind of nightmare described in the works of great authors like George Orwell and Franz Kafka.

On the other hand policing is hard enough without looking over your shoulder every two seconds to make sure no one’s recording them and likely interfering with an arrest or investigation.

The question for law enforcement and the public alike is one of balance. How do we maintain the freedoms guaranteed all Americans in the Constitution and Bill of Rights without exposing law enforcement personnel and agencies to risks in the field and in the courts?

These issues need to be addressed quickly and thoroughly because while law enforcement culture is slow to change, technology and its impact on modern life are not.

One important thing to keep in mind is the fact that these issues and conflicts are largely the result of consumer technologies like cell phones equipped with video recording capabilities.

Thirty years ago anyone that said someday soon that 90 percent of Americans will all be able to record video at anytime would be considered crazy. Today it’s a reality.

Whether or not it’s a good idea to charge civilians for taping cops using laws designed for prohibition era policing is a good idea is largely beside the point. So too is the issue of intent on the part of the individual taping a police officer in the course of their duties.

Those issues will be resolved in scores of court cases currently in the pipeline and for years to come.
The critical thing to consider here is the fact that technology and people’s ideas about privacy are changing rapidly.

Law enforcement has to adapt to those changes with greater speed if we’re going to avoid gridlock in the courts with respect to issues of surveillance and counter surveillance.