White House Tapes Are A Hot Item Again

Why would Trump mention tapes, in this day and age, when we can record our surroundings on our phones? Chances are, the only recordings of his conversation with Jim Comey, when he asked Comey to stop investigation Mike Flynn, were cell phone recordings. Trump should stop thinking he can act like a mob boss and start understanding that he must play nicely with others.

ACLU Guide For Snapping Pictures In Public

There seems to be a lot of misunderstanding about snapping pictures in public, especially of police officers while they are eating doughnuts and beating people up....er...working. Police officers will often tell people that it is not lawful to take pictures of police officers when they do their jobs, and will even confiscate cameras of bystanders and arrest journalists and reporters when cameras have clearly caught police officers with their pants down. But the truth is, taking pictures in public is perfectly legal. On private property, one must have permission of the property owner in order to take pictures, but in public, one may snap pictures of anything one can see. Police may not confiscate anyone's camera or SD card without a warrant, and police officers have even been brought up on charges of tampering with evidence for doing just that. The American Civil Liberties Union has published a guide for photographers for reference.

Pictures of police in action, taken by citizens, provide an independent record of the photographed or recorded incident. Such evidence reduces the prevalence of faulty memories and lies, and is important for transparency of those who represent authority. No one should have to worry about police confiscating photographs or cameras, and no police officer should do anything in the line of duty that he or she would not want photographed.

Police In Motion Pictures

Something law enforcement should remember is that police officers cannot assault and batter anyone they choose without abandon anymore, thanks to the advent of the digital camera and the cell phone. Even if one eyewitness with such a device is pounded to the ground, law enforcement cannot possibly interfere with every filming witness or surveillance camera. Google even snaps random pictures. Finding each and every possible camera isn't even possible, anymore. No matter how loudly police officers threaten those with recording devices, it remains perfectly legal, under the Constitution, to photograph and record them, as long as said police officers are in public. The ACLU has graciously provided us with a guide for gathering such photographic records here. For further enjoyment, there is a picture below of former police officer James Kinsella, at his bond hearing in Omaha, Nebraska, after being charged with felony tampering with evidence because he snatched cameras and SD cards from men who attempted to record evidence of their local police at work. It isn't legal at all for a cop to snatch a cell phone, camera, or an SD card from a citizen.

Insight

ACLU Addresses The Rights Of Photography

It's become abundantly clear, lately, that police officers in America do not like added scrutiny provided by amateur and professional photographers and cell phone users. Unfortunately, this finding also coincides with a massive revelation that police officers often think that they are above the law, and can inflict violence whenever their little hearts desire, even to the point of murder. Many of them do not even understand the United States Constitution, much less respect it.

The good news is that those of us who take pictures of police officers and grab cell phone video of our tax dollars being spent are, according to the law, within our constitutional rights. No police officer has a right to shut down a news team or a private citizen taking pictures. The only loophole, in certain states, has to do with wiretapping laws: recorded audio cannot be deliberately captured and shared in all locales. But then, an officer carrying out his duties in public is not a private conversation, so the wiretapping laws do not apply in those instances.

The American Civil Liberties Union has found itself defending cases involving private citizens with cell phone and corporations such as television stations because of this issue with police officers and photography. As recently as the second week of August, police in Ferguson, Missouri did not want their tear gas activities photographed and recorded by journalists, so they handcuffed and arrested a couple from the Huffington Post and the Washington Post. As it happens, the only laws broken were broken by police.

Why is accountability so difficult for law enforcement to accept?

Man Arrested For Picking His Children Up From School

Jim Howe, of Tennessee, showed up at South Cumberland elementary at 2:00 in the afternoon one day to pick up his children. He was on foot, and the school has a policy disallowing the early dismissal of any child without parental permission. This includes children who walk, as well as, obviously, children who ride the bus. Jim was on foot, and all he wanted to do was walk his children home, and he was willing to proffer written permission, for school files, if necessary. The school responded by misapplying the policy of "no early dismissals" to include leaving with a parent on foot. Jim was told to go home and get his car! Traffic from the school was already spilling out into the street, so Jim asked them, again, to please dismiss his children. The police were called, and Jim was arrested for the crime of asking the school to release his children to him!

Why would the staff at a school disrespect a parent and waste the time and energy of law enforcement? Why do some of these teachers, a few of whom do not understand the law, think they have so much more to offer students than parents? And why is there such an urgency, of late, to teach the children of any nonconformist parent to be disrespectful? What happens more often is that children of parents who are thus bullied by school staff do not feel safe around school staff and are less likely to participate in classes and learn. Do the schools expect cooperation from children whose parents were arrested because of lemming mentality enforced by the schools? Nice going, South Cumberland! You just made online school a little more popular! And Barney Fife, on behalf of all the other cops in your locale, you need to make a video of your own, apologizing for your behavior and assuring the general public that the rest of the police force does not act like you!

Barney Fife should probably look into becoming less camera shy, since more citizens may wish to film and record him while he earns his taxpayer funded salary.

 

A parent walking with a child.

 

Ask The Dog For References

If only pets could talk. The dog in this video did not like the babysitter. The baby's parents wanted to know why, and they finally hid a camera in the house, and caught the babysitter on camera cussing the baby out and smacking him, because she did not want to change his diapers. No wonder the dog didn't want her to come back! The footage on the cell phone camera, which is what the parents used to capture the babysitter's behavior, provided enough probable cause for an arrest warrant, and now the babysitter is in jail. An animal's reactions should not be overlooked or taken lightly.

Is This Who We Pay The Police To Arrest?

Okay everyone; THIS is law enforcement nowdays. The young man in the video was arrested in California because he stopped and filmed the police in action on his cell phone. This is NOT against the law in this country, anywhere, yet; the man was arrested for obstruction of justice. Most likely, the police officers thought, based on years of past experience, that an innocent person arrested for obstruction of justice would not bother to fight, but just plea. And, most likely, these cops thought they could do whatever they pleased, also based on past experience.

Watch this video, and watch what happens to the man's dog, who reacts defensively when police falsely arrest him and manhandle him. It is important to stop allowing law enforcement to get away with this. The best tool that we have to keep the egos of cops in check are digital cameras and cell phones. Remember that.
 

Once Again, Film And Record All Police Encounters

For some reason, ego-driven police officers do not seem to like citizens bearing cameras and cell phones. Especially if said citizens decide to film or record certain encounters with said police officers. It would seem logical to simply behave in a civil manner and use manners, good ones, when dealing with the public; but instead, many police officers would rather behave badly and unlawfully,
grabbing and destroying any cell phone or camera footage of their actions. They don't want the public to know about the children they deliberately endanger or the middle-aged moms and housewives they assault and batter when prosecutors need to intimidate entire communities.

The video above shows some police officers in Pennsylvania harassing a tenant because they wanted to serve an arrest warrant on her landlord, who had neglected to mow the lawn. Yes, you read that correctly; there was an arrest warrant for someone because he didn't mow the lawn! The tenant at the property got some footage of the cops who came to her door and harassed her, and the prosecutor actually defended them. It's too bad he is unaware of a recent case which originated in Kansas, and was eventually decided in favor of the defendant in the Supreme Court.........specifically, the only time the police can barge into someone's home or apartment uninvited without a warrant or probable cause is when an immediate danger presents itself, and an "immediate danger" is specifically defined as a weapon in the hand of the person who answers the door, not anywhere else inside the house.

Record and film all contact with law enforcement. Have your children do the same.

 

 

 

More Violent Cops

David Silva, of Bakersfield, California, was beaten to death earlier this month by eight police officers. Apparently, he was unconscious outside of an hospital, suspected of being intoxicated. Instead of taking him inside the hospital, it looks, on the footage taken by onlookers with cell phones, as if the police simply began to batter Silva with clubs, and did not stop until he was dead. Then, as a finale, they grabbed the cell phones and camaras upon which witnesses filmed the event, and even chased down a couple of witnesses at their homes to confiscate any footage and threaten anyone who might testify.



 That action of grabbing the cell phones of witnesses reminds me of the cop in Marshall County, Kansas, who, with no concern for the law or with my physical safety, grabbed me in an attempt to stop me from calling the mother of someone he had just arrested to go pick up the children who had been left by themselves. The same police officer also assualted my daughter, and also by grabbing a phone out of her hand, when she tried to call her dad during an incident wherein he was bullying an innocent person. He would not allow a seventeen year old to call her dad.

 It is not, and never has been, unlawful to film and record law enforcement in action. If a police officer is not doing anything wrong, he should not worry about public perception of his actions. And as for calling a child's grandmother because the Marshall County Kansas cop arrested a mom and insisted upon leaving a five year old and a seven year old alone, I will do the same thing again, if necessary. Below is commentary on the police brutality death of David Silva.
 

 

Film And Record Every Encounter With Law Enforcement

After the assault and battery I recently incurred at the hands of a Marshall County Kansas cop, at the behest of a corrupt county official who does not like people who testify honestly as witnesses in court, my family and I have learned to always have a camara of some type handy, and to always use it when law enforcement presents itself. Here's an interesting video, featuring yet another egomaniac police officer.
 

 

Half Of Americans Still Don't Matter To Romney And Ryan

Since Romney is focusing on his binders of women, and trying to make us forget that half of us are unimportant to him, Paul Ryan attended a fundraiser at the home of Marc Leder, the private equity investor at whose home Mitt Romney announced that forty-seven percent of us don't matter. Apparently, sucking up to the same donors who heard Mitt present the fact that Americans don't matter to him yet still want to support his campaign, is more important than running on his own record. But then, he's not terribly honest about his own record.