[tgb]

I’m shocked at the support for this here. It doesn’t matter that it only applies to within 8 feet and if it’s an interaction with someone else. No one should have to know a law about whether they can record police or not. What are you going to do, look up the law when an officer tells you to stop recording? Remember if you refuse it’s a 30 day jail time you could be facing. Want to take bets on whether the officer is lying or you misremembered the allowed distance and conditions? What if a second police officer then approaches you, do they get to box you out by just standing there? There’s no reason this can’t be handled by generic laws for not interfering with police that I’m sure already exist. It’s either pointlessly redundant or will be abused.

[kodah]

The argumentation you're using can pretty much apply to any mature legal system. Usually when this is argued it's in the form of an old Bloomberg opinion piece, "70% of people have done something worthy of jail time and didn't even know it" [1] All that to say, that bit of reasoning is probably more apt for a different discussion.

I don't really have an opinion as to whether it's ethical or not ethical to video a traffic stop. It does kind of sound like lighting a match when soaked in gasoline though.

1: https://www.politifact.com/factchecks/2014/dec/08/stephen-ca...

[ctoth]

> I don't really have an opinion as to whether it's ethical or not ethical to video a traffic stop. It does kind of sound like lighting a match when soaked in gasoline though.

What? Under what possible interpretation of ethics might it not be ethical to video tape a public official interacting with a citizen? This just doesn't even make sense as a sentence to me. Segmentation fault (core dumped)

[kodah]

I could see it not being ethical if a person is being provocative. If it's just a dash-mounted camera or one pinned to the person's body (like a cops) that seems perfectly ethical.

[ctoth]

Then the provocative behavior is potentially unethical, not the recording? Seems like a very important distinction to make.

[kodah]

Yeah, could be, though I think the two in combination probably makes for a force multiplier.

[tgb]

I don’t see that as relevant to my points. My main point is that an officer can easily abuse this law due to asymmetric information/outcome despite the limits in the text. The officers that would do this are exactly the ones that need to be recorded.

[kodah]

True, sorry I didn't get to that point. That point is nothing new about police. Ever seen cops stack charges on someone? They write a long list of micro-grievances that you have committed and make you answer for them individually. The system rests on this idea that no one is harmed by charging someone with a crime, and that it is a DAs job to determine whether or not a crime has been committed.

The reality is that DAs rarely drop charges when they should (or don't enough, take your pick) and merely charging someone with a crime has lots of legal and extra-legal consequences. It's a shit system, imo, but depending on the situation people are in they either love or hate this system. If you are an agrieved party, then you likely like this system because it's laced for vengeance and action, while if you're trying to make a case that you didn't violate the law or even know that something was a law it's like walking uphill in a foot of mud.

[dylan604]

New app idea to pitch: have the camera app overlay the distance using the lidar system.