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How to Record the Cops, Ct’d . . .
TheAgitator.com
Tuesday, June 28th, 2011
Last year, I made some suggestions about features smart phone aps would need to add to
make them more useful in recording government officials.
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At the Atlantic, Alexis Madrigal writes about a couple new aps that hit the mark:
Which is what makes two new apps, CopRecorder and OpenWatch, and their Web
component, OpenWatch.net, so interesting. They are the brainchildren of Rich Jones,
a 23-year-old Boston University graduate who describes himself as “pretty much a
hacker to the core.” Flush with cash and time from a few successful forays into the
app market, nine months ago Jones decided to devote some of his time to developing
what he calls “a global participatory counter-surveillance project which uses cellular
phones as a way of monitoring authority figures.”
CopRecorder can record audio without indicating that it’s doing so like the Voice
Memos app does. It comes with a built-in uploader to OpenWatch, so that Jones can
do “analysis” of the recording and scrub any personally identifying data before
posting the audio. He said he receives between 50 and 100 submissions per day, with
a really interesting encounter with an authority figure coming in about every day and
a half.
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The article goes on to describe an encounter in which a defense attorney uses the ap to
record cops violating his rights at a DWI checkpoint.
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This entry was posted on Tuesday, June 28th, 2011 at 2:59 pm by Radley Balko and is filed
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22 Responses to “How to Record the Cops, Ct’d . . .”
#1 |
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Mo | June 28th, 2011 at 3:11 pm
This is great. However, one feature I would like to see is automatic uploading to a
holding account like you described in Qik or UStream. This would prevent files
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#2 |
Jolly Rodger | June 28th, 2011 at 3:41 pm
I downloaded OpenWatch the other week… Seems to work pretty well. I’d
definitely recommended it for Android users.
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#3 |
John P. | June 28th, 2011 at 4:20 pm
At first I was a bit skeptical but now I am beginning to think this issue, recording
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of cops might be what we need to bring light upon a profession that grows more
and more corrupt each day.
It seems that people are relating to this faster than I thought they would. Which is
great!
Whatever it takes to wake people up and expose them to just how criminal the
police are becoming every day.
Hopefully the courts will continue to strike down these arrests as unconstitutional,
eventually this issue will come home to roost for the cops who endeavor to violate
someones rights.
#4 |
ktc2 | June 28th, 2011 at 4:23 pm
I hope it fixes the problem with Qik. In Qik if your phone is grabbed or smashed
and you don’t hit the stop button the video never gets uploaded (at least last time
I used it). I’d rather have a streaming upload that if it gets cut off in transmission
still salvages what was already transmitted.
Privacy Information
#5 |
WWJGD |
June 28th, 2011 at 4:23 pm
I was glad to see someone make a very simple and effective app like this. Mo hits
on the point that we do need something that autouploads like Qik (Which was
bought by Skype which was bought by Microsoft so we may see a stalling of Qik
updates for Android…maybe.) I immediately downloaded it and placed it right on
my home screen.
Thankfully, no one has capitalized on my other civil rights app idea so I have time
to work on it.
Julian Sanchez wrote about this yesterday/few days ago, but the increase in
remote wipe software (SeekDroid does it for Android, Apple has Find My iPhone)
has led to some increased protection by police when they handle “evidence”.
Confiscated phones could be quickly thrown in Faraday bags. Without automatic
uploading software like Qik, it may be difficult to recover misconduct evidence
before it’s wiped. I think that’s OpenWatch’s biggest flaw. I’d imagine some sort of
simple Dropbox or cloud storage integration could fix it.
#6 |
Miskellaneous | June 28th, 2011 at 4:40 pm
I have heard about the Faraday bag thing. Simple solution, if the phone is not in
touch with a network for more than X hours, it receives a call. If no one answers
the call or touches the screen or the like, the data is wiped.
It has problems but problems have solutions.
#7 |
Unknown | June 28th, 2011 at 5:07 pm
Sweet! I’ve seen these kind of things before, where you record a conversation,
then later chop and edit it so you can make the person sound like they are saying
pretty much whatever you want. That’s freakin’ awesome.
Exmple, conversation with a cop at the local 7-11. “Excuse me officer, I was
wondering if I could get you to help me with some directions, can get from here to
there on this road? (officer)No, nope not at all, you need to go this way.(citizen)
Ohhhh ok thanks a lot. One more question, Is it true that in order to be a cop, you
have to take extensive training in racial profiling, use of force, and constitutional
rights. (Officer) Of course! It’s been mandatory training for police officers in the
united stated for many years now to have at least 40 hours per year of in-service
training in these areas to keep our P.O. licenses. (citizen) Awesome, well thanks
Sir.”
After chopping and editing the conversation sounds like this “dude you’ll never
believe what I caught this cop saying on this nifty app I got for my phone. He was
rude as hell, and wouldn’t even help me when I was lost.. Check this out! (new
recording) ” Excuse me officer, I was wondering if I could get you to help me with
some directions. (officer) No. (citizen)Question, Is it true that in order to be a
cop, you have to take extensive training in racial profiling, use of force, and
constitutional rights. (officer) Nope, not at all”
In this day and age, almost all police officers are required to have some sort of
recording equipment running when dealing with the public because of situations
like the one I mentioned above. Not only did I have that exact thing done to me, I
was recording the whole thing in my in car video. When he popped up trying to
complain that I was rude, and posted jacked up recording on a popular video
website (supposedly) capturing me making damaging comments about my training
and profession, not only was he charged with false report, I later sued that little
shit for slander…and won.
#8 |
Unknown | June 28th, 2011 at 5:15 pm
I didn’t post that for the purpose of berating you in anyway. I posted that for
informational purpose to “CYA” you. If someone got a hold of your app, and used
it in that way, that cop could come back and not only sue the person, but sue you
as well for providing that person with the means to do it.
#9 |
Boyd Durkin | June 28th, 2011 at 6:11 pm
I must admit that I see this one (cops arresting you for recording) getting changed
quickly across the USA. There is just so little the state can do to continue
protecting their street gang from having their assaults on Rights being broadcast
globally and instantly.
Between now and then, there should be some nice coin made by lawyers winning
these landmark cases and, of course, coin spent by taxpayers paying the
settlements.
As for the “editing” issue, this provides a great incentive for state agents to adopt
a policy of constant recording of all interactions with the public. May the best
sound editor win.
almost all police officers are required to have some sort of recording
equipment running when dealing with the public because of situations
like the one I mentioned above.
I don’t know how someone can make this absurd claim if they’ve read more than
two posts on this site. First, what is a “requirement” if failing to meet that
requirement results in no action? Second, the abuses by the LEO gang the public
fears are not the ones captured on police recordings. It is all the time when the
police don’t think they are being recorded–or threaten with arrest legal
recordings–that the public fears.
#10 |
Andrew S. | June 28th, 2011 at 6:15 pm
I didn’t post that for the purpose of berating you in anyway. I posted
that for informational purpose to “CYA” you. If someone got a hold of
your app, and used it in that way, that cop could come back and
not only sue the person, but sue you as well for providing that
person with the means to do it.
I’m not sure what school you obtained your GED in law from, but no. There is no
legal basis under which one could sue Radley (or the manufacturer of the app) for
that.
#11 |
Big A | June 28th, 2011 at 6:24 pm
Well then, could the person at least sue Unknown for giving them the idea to sue
Radley or the app manufacturer?
#12 |
Big A | June 28th, 2011 at 6:26 pm
P.S. Anyone who has to edit a video to make it appear as though a police officer
was being rude or threatening should learn a little patience.
#13 |
EH | June 28th, 2011 at 9:16 pm
Unknown: Give it up on the technophobic “editing” angle, it’s a non-starter. Also,
if there’s a such thing as contributory eavesdropping, it’s been long dealt with
since the first time someone tried to sue Panasonic over a minicassette recorder
being used for same.
But then again, in true thread-shitting troll fashion, you’ve probably already
forgotten that you were here and so won’t respond to any of this.
#14 |
Nick |
June 28th, 2011 at 10:56 pm
Eyez, with the help of a smartphone app, will allow a user to record video to
either be streamed in realtime for viewing or saved to cloud storage. They’re also
unrecognizable as a camera.
#15 |
Buzz | June 28th, 2011 at 10:58 pm
I call bullshit on unknown for……well, just about everything in his post.
#16 |
Josh K | June 29th, 2011 at 2:44 am
Somewhat on topic, I caught this link from slashdot last week, under the heading
“LulzSec Document Dump Shows Cops’ Fear of iPhones”: http://www.itworld.com
/security/177409/lulzsec-docs-show-ariz-cops-unhealth-obsession-iphone
#17 |
Stephen | June 29th, 2011 at 7:08 am
Don’t you just love cop noses?
I bet they are so good they can identify substance and bearing and range. :)
#18 |
Laura Victoria |
June 29th, 2011 at 8:14 am
I’m glad to see this developing. At a conservative blog I participate in
(Lucianne.com), they asked me about recording cops in Cabo, where I live, clearly
knowing you can’t record cops here. They are fearful of being identified by
narcotraficantes. I do think that is a legit concern, but the bottom line is that in
almost 6 years living here full-time, I’ve never had cause to want to film them.
They are polite and fair. They are far better than those I have dealt with in the US.
I have paid small bribes, “mordidas”, which means literally “bites,” but this has
been in legitimate traffic stops that cost like 16 bucks, as opposed to ten times
that much for a ticket in the US, plus at least a half hour of time and rude
humiliation, as opposed to five minutes of time here, with manners being the rule.
One time, I got pulled over for speeding, which I was, by the Federales. I had just
lost my job, and explained this to them as the reason for my inattententiveness.
The poor guys saw I was upset and it was all they could do to apologize for in any
way contributing to my upset.
I had expired tags and the whole 9 yards, and these guys didn’t care. I was old
enough to be their mom so there was no hotty defense involved.
Anyhow, what I try to do with these stories (from the US) is get them out to
conservative audiences who might otherwise think it is just the wise guy ghetto
punk who ever has problems with cops, and I think the message is getting out
there (and I don’t mean because of my tiny contribution).
The arrest the other day of the Reason reporter at the taxi meeting got a lot of
play and got mainstream conservatives extremely pissed off.
Another thread I frequently see, is people realize today’s cops are not the cops of
yore. Say, back in the ’70s. My high school friends and I smoked pot and drank on
the beach in L.A. into the wee hours. We thought the cops were the enemy, but
only because they could bust us. The most they did was break up our beach
parties and tell us to go home. We never thought they were mean-spirited liars
dying to set us up, and never feared they would abuse us. I think that point really
resonates with mainstream conservatives. Today’s union-protected thugs are not
the same as the old guard who were basically decent guys.
#19 |
freedomfan | June 29th, 2011 at 8:18 am
Not to say that I don’t believe Unknown (#7) with his story of some jackass
submitting an edited recording of him to support a false police complaint, but
almost anyone who has the ability to do the editing knows that it’s really easy to
determine when audio has been edited like that. Not to say that some prankster
has never posted edited audio somewhere, but trying to use it to file an official
complaint against a cop? Yeah, sure.
And, Unknown’s understanding of whether an app developer can be sued because
his otherwise legitimate app was a tool in someone else’s actionable offense
seems to ignore a few important cases from several years back where torts against
file-sharing software lost on that very claim. As I recall, the essential issue was
whether there was a reasonable legitimate use for the software. In this case, there
is no doubt that there is.
However, even if the incident Unknowns claims happened to him actually did
happen, the lesson is that the recordings protect the police as well, since it was a
recording that cleared him. As long is he is doing nothing wrong, he should be
happy to be recorded and he should be thankful to have his own recording as
insurance against shenanigans. 1) Police officer does nothing wrong. 2) Recorded
evidence provides an extra layer of credibility that he did nothing wrong. Easy. Of
course, with all of the police hostility toward citizen recordings and with all of the
“official” recordings that “go missing”, one can’t help but wonder what part of that
scenario is in doubt.
#20 |
ParatrooperJJ | June 29th, 2011 at 10:53 am
It quite possibly become a federal crime of wire fraud by selling criminal tools
across state lines.
#21 |
Copwatcher17 | June 30th, 2011 at 7:40 am
The release of the Quadrocopter last week conjures up the possibility of streaming
video from an aerial perspective, while at the same time streaming audio from the
phone itself. The Quadrocopter *is* bulky and could invite cops to take pot shots
at it, but it’s probably just a matter of time before we’ll see insect sized flying
cameras that can be deployed in an instant to point at the general direction of a
mobile device & stream video.
#22 |
Digital Gravy | June 30th, 2011 at 8:43 am
There was a time not too long ago, when the government was intent on placing
video cameras on every street corner in every city here in the US of A. My how
times have changed! Now the government isn’t so sure cameras in every town and
city where such a good idea after all, especially now that video cameras and the
means to store or transmit video and audio have become so cheap that soon we
may even see them in boxes of cereal.
Recently I was at Geeks.com and seen for sale a video camera, DVR combo with 2
gigs of ram for under $15 dollars, that hung from a key chain! It was the size of
your thumb and looked like a vehicle remote control.
As the local, state and federal governments criminal behavior becomes more
brazen and open to scrutiny you can bet more so called “governing bodies” will try
and pass more local, state and federal ordinance forbidding the citizens from
recording, while exempting themselves.
My feelings are to flood your environment of your car, home and work place with
hidden cameras that can store or spool wireless to several off site storage areas
simultaneously, not just the “cloud” due to officials being able to control the
“cloud”, but to private hidden sites you or your friends can access in case there is
any trouble with the “authorities”.
Of course I’m taking for granted that most “courts and their judges” are still
honest and follow legal law. However that also looks like a fading item of the past
also, so take care in what you do.
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