Citizen gets 15 years for videotaping cops

<p>What is this country coming to? We're jumping off the rails with lack of commons sense.</p>

<p>A guy videotapes cops spraying a 100 rounds into a suspects car. The police see a guy videotaping the incident. They draw two weapons and demand he surrender the camera (an HTC phone) at gun point. The man had the foresight to hide the SIMM card in his mouth. The video shows up on CNN. A judge sentences him to <strong>15 years in prison!</strong></p>

<p>This is just outrageous: <a href="http://www.alternet.org/story/151806/15_years_in_prison_for_taping_the_cops_how_eavesdropping_laws_are_taking_away_our_best_defense_against_police_brutality">link</a>.</p>

<p>Wow, just...wow. I have to think on this one. It will be interesting to see if this gets appealed (I'm assuming yes, even if the defendant can't afford it this has major implications) how far it goes, and what the final ruling is.</p>

<p>Michael, where in the article does it say that the man was sentenced to 15 years in prison?</p>

 

Why is it when I google "Narces Benoit sentenced to 15 years", only that link shows up? I would think a story like that would've received a huge google ranking from all the media outlets that covered it. I can't even get anything close to "sentenced to 15 years" to show up.

<p>According to this article, the Illinois ACLU has sued against audio recording laws and been thrown out of court twice. </p>

<p><a href="http://www.dailytech.com/Chicago+Police+Tape+Us+Get+Sentenced+to+15+Years+in+Prison/article20735.htm">http://www.dailytech.com/Chicago+Police+Tape+Us+Get+Sentenced+to+15+Years+in+Prison/article20735.htm</a></p>

<p>An extraordinary situation, even if the 15 years is only the theoretical maximum sentence if the case goes to trial, which it seems not to have done. Surely in this case the CNN broadcast will save the videographer's neck - the Miami police must be able to work out that prosecuting here would make them look complete idiots. Aside from this, one can only hope that the ACLU or another body is able to take the case to a higher court, the Supreme Court if necessary - if the law is not struck down there, the US is really is trouble!</p>

<p>I likewise see not a single mention of anyone <em>actually</em> being sentenced to 15 years for anything.</p>

<p>Read the article and links 3 times and nowhere does it say that the person who videotaped the shooting was sentenced to or for anything. </p>

<p>The article is pointing out that in states with privacy laws - the video taker / maker "Could" be sentenced to up to 15 years. Not that anyone has been yet. </p>

<p>The intent of these privacy laws is to prevent someone from recording others without their knowledge - which stems back to the Watergate investigation of the early 70's and other less spectacular cases where people were recorded without their knowledge and then that video / audio was later used against them. </p>

<p>It's somewhat ironic that the ACLU is now lined up against the recording without permission when if memory serves me they were one of the groups rallying for the laws in the first place. Just proves it does depend on whose Ox is getting gored.</p>

<p>Dave</p>

 

<p>Not to be ants at a picnic and question the objectivity of the linked article on "AlterNet," but here's perhaps a more balanced article about the background of the shooting from <em>The Palm Beach Post</em> (a paper not known as a bastion of conservatism):</p>

<p><a href="http://www.palmbeachpost.com/news/crime/boynton-beach-man-shot-by-police-in-miami-1514936.html">http://www.palmbeachpost.com/news/crime/boynton-beach-man-shot-by-police-in-miami-1514936.html</a></p>

<p>The Palm Beach Post stories seem to confirm:<br>

1) The suspect was indeed armed and dangerous - his shooting was almost certainly justified.<br>

2) The police went absolutely apes**t in dealing with bystanders with camera phones and video cameras.</p>

<blockquote>

<p>The article is pointing out that in states with privacy laws - the video taker / maker "Could" be sentenced to up to 15 years. Not that anyone has been yet.</p>

</blockquote>

<p>And probably never will. Think about how many other crimes could carry a sentence of fifteen years and you will see that making a video in a public place is hardly a crime at all by comparison.</p>

<p>I guess it is no NY or California<br>

THERE you have to shoot 15 policemen to get 15 years.<br>

It may be the man is facing a sentence of 15 years MAX.<br>

I wonder what law they are invoking.</p>

 

<blockquote>

<p>It's somewhat ironic that the ACLU is now lined up against the recording without permission when if memory serves me they were one of the groups rallying for the laws in the first place.</p>

</blockquote>

<p>It may be that the ACLU favored privacy statutes in general, perhaps the one in question, but have an issue with the version that was passed or if it arguably doesn't apply to the facts as alleged in this matter. For instance there was the motorcyclist case where there was an arrest for some type of eavesdropping even though the guy had a unmistakable highly visible video camera atop his helmet. I may be wrong on the exact circumstances because I'm going on fuzzy memory but the you get the point I gather.</p>

<p>EDIT: I see the motorcycle case is mentioned in the article.</p>

<p>It seems to me that unless the police are trying to protect their right to act illegally (acting in a manner and with a freedom from consequence the German Gestapo enjoyed in WWII), they have no real reason for supporting this travesty of justice. The idea that the black suited armed police would be intimidated from doing their duty is laughable. If they do their job according to the rules, they have nothing to fear. </p>

<p>This seems like the first step to living in a true police state. Next I suppose the police will just confiscate anything they like. Say that camera looks neat, give it to me. Hey I like your corvette, it's mine. </p>

<p>If you turn the sound off you're on much better ground. Most of the time the "eavesdropping" laws relate to audio recording, not video. They date back to the time of wiretapping phones. They were never meant to cover situations like videotaping in public, but that's what you get when you pass a law that is too general. Pass a law that just says you can't record someone's conversation without their permission and this is the sort of idiocy that results.</p>

<p>Many wiretap laws are reasonbale, the problem is the idiots (and zealots) who try to use them in circumstances they were never intended to cover.</p>

<p>If you turn the sound off you're on much better ground. Most of the time the "eavesdropping" laws relate to audio recording, not video. They date back to the time of wiretapping phones. They were never meant to cover situations like videotaping in public, but that's what you get when you pass a law that is too general. Pass a law that just says you can't record someone's conversation without their permission and this is the sort of idiocy that results.</p>

<p>The intention of many wiretap laws are reasonable, the problem is the idiots (and zealots) who try to use them in circumstances they were never intended to cover.</p>

<p>A few years ago I was sitting in a hotel lobby and saw the Time magazine cover saying that "Will China be the new super power in 30 years?". At the time I also met 3 Chinese businessmen and I told them I think it's a yes. The men told me no way because although there were a lot of technological advancement in China, it will not be the super power because the people of China do not have freedom. I told them yes they're right. But if they look at China now and 30 years ago the would see that although there isn't much freedom there yet it has improved greatly. And yet if he look at the US in the same 30 years how much less freedom the average US citizen has. So how would they know what will happen in the next 30 years?</p>

<blockquote>

<p>how much less freedom the average US citizen has</p>

</blockquote>

<p>Can you be more specific? As mentioned above, the wiretapping laws that are in question here (which relate to audio recordings), are far more than 30 years old. Which is part of the problem, of course - nobody was thinking about hand-held telephones with high resolution video recording capabilities when those laws were written. Regardless, the article being mentioned doesn't seem to involve anyone actually being locked up for anything.<br /><br />If you mean the freedom to do things like board a plane without having someone check to see if you're the <em>second</em> person we'll hear about with bombs in your shoes ... then, yeah - but then, we've never had the freedom to kill people with bombs on planes, have we? It just matters more, now, because more people are willing to kill themselves in order to make that happen. But it was also more than 30 years ago that we started running passengers through metal detectors because of all of the planes being taken to sunny Cuba at the point of a knife or gun. So that kind of thing ain't new, either - but then, those clowns weren't looking to destory the plane for the sake of destroying it.<br /><br />Maybe you're thinking of the freedom to not be told you have to buy the services of a particular company, or ultimately face wage garnishment, property seizure or even jail if you don't? OK, you've got me there. That <em>has</em> changed in the last year, though it hasn't kicked in yet, and may not, pending court review. The pendulum swings back and forth on such things, but it helps that our country is chartered in a fundamentally different way than is, say, China.</p>

<p>Granted, the story should have been more specific about the 15 years, but it is happening all over, apparently, just as Steve G's link reports.</p>

<p>Also, this was interesting... about how many people have been given similar terms: http://raniakhalek.com/2011/07/28/15-years-in-prison-for-taping-the-cops-how-eavesdropping-laws-are-taking-away-our-best-defense-against-police-brutality/</p>

<p>You can't trust everything you read on the Internet, but many of these stories seem legit.</p>

 

<p>you used to be able to photograph the bridges. you used to be able to smoke (you may not like it). you used to be able to bring more than 1 oz of fluid on the planes. you used to be able to wait for love one at the airport gates not outside.</p>

<p>I agree that there needs to be stronger laws protecting the public from the police. They work for us, we do not work for them. But they act like we work for them, which is of course not true at all. We have the right to photograph and videotape them because they are working for us. Period, end of story. They are not above the law, though they like to act like they are. It is a very important job to keep the peace, but when they start to harass an honest citizen just because they videotape them while at work, that is just plain wrong. </p>

<p><img src="http://hull534.smugmug.com/photos/194630383_zKwD8-L.jpg" alt="" width="800" height="531" /><br>

Not a drill. These officers were searching for a man who had just murdered a fellow police officer in cold blood. He was later sentenced to life in prison, and it all happened outside my apartment at the time. This was in 2002. I didn't get in trouble for taking this photo, I took it from my bathroom window. We saw the shooter confront the officer that was killed, the officer was alone and the man was high on crack. The officer tried to subdue the man with mace, and sprayed it directly in his face. The man, much larger and heavier than the cop, didn't flinch at all when the mace was sprayed in his face, and overpowered the cop, taking his weapon from his belt, and shot him 12 times in the head and torso, killing him instantly. When the cop saw what was going to happen (his own murder), he ran to the other side of the road, away from any bystanders. We heard the shots but at the time we didn't know who the shooter was. Then we saw the man walk calmly down the sidewalk back to his girlfriends apartment (he didn't live there, he was just released from jail and staying with her) carrying the gun, now empty of ammo, in his hand. He later called 911 and surrendered. Since I saw the beginning of the altercation, I gave an interview telling the police what I saw, and I also allowed the defense attorney to question me over the phone, though I could hear in her voice that she knew she really didn't have a chance. </p>

<blockquote>

<p>Can you be more specific?</p>

</blockquote>

<p>1% of the adult population is in prison or jail. Another 2% are monitored on parole or probation. 1 in 15 Americans will be incarcerated in their lifetime. The stats are <a href="http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/4/4d/Lifetime_prevalence_of_incarceration.png">worse</a> if you're black (1 in 3), or hispanic. There's a graph on <a href="http://www.cepr.net/index.php/publications/reports/the-high-budgetary-cost-of-incarceration/">this page</a> showing crime and incarceration rates on the same axes. The rates diverge.</p>

<p>So unless there's something in the air or water, you have quite literally a freedom problem. To the first approximation, all crime is political.</p>

<p>Leo: you're confusing the lack of freedom that comes with being locked up for breaking the law with a nationwide loss of freedom that comes from <em>changed laws.</em> The vast majority of people who are in prison are in prison for stuff that's been illegal for a lot more than the 30 years mentioned above. Theft, violence, trafficking in dangerous substances, fraud - the usual stuff. <br /><br />Certainly violent gang activity has escalated considerably in the last 20-30 years. But that has nothing to do with "loss of freedom" in the sense that's implied above, vis-a-vis China. It has to do with the willingness to break laws that involve the loss of personal freedom as a consequence for doing so. There's nothing new there, just a lot people willing to take their chance, and getting caught.</p>

<blockquote>

<p>To the first approximation, all crime is political.</p>

</blockquote>

<p>What's that even supposed to mean? Do you mean that we use political processes to elect people to legislative positions, and it's in those positions that they vote on the consequences for (pick one: breaking into people's houses, cooking meth, identity theft, raping someone, beating somebody up at a bar, shooting down rival gang members for turf, burning down a warehouse for insurance money ... so many to choose from!). Crime is only political in the sense that politics plays a role in governance, because we don't have a <em>king</em>.<br /><br />And when a given community, state, or the entire nation gets weary of a particular form of crime (or the opposite, gets weary of prosecuting people for something that no longer feels like a crime), elected officials get engaged in changing the laws and/or the punishments for breaking them. So, sure, politics plays a role - but your characterization of crime <em>being</em> political isn't making a particularly clear point.</p>

<p>Certainly, this is no longer a casual photo conversation. But I will say this, the solution to the high numbers of people in jail in the USA, is to legalize pot. Nobody should ever be in jail for using pot, period, end of story. Letting those people out (for possession, selling, dealing, growing, etc) would probably number about 20-25% of the total prison population today, saving the USA billions. It's common sense.</p>

<blockquote>

<p>The vast majority of people who are in prison are in prison for stuff that's been illegal for a lot more than the 30 years mentioned above.</p>

</blockquote>

<p>That is not an explanation; it is a statement of the problem. The proximate causes for punishment are more or less the same all over, certainly in the liberal states which most of us belong to. Theft, violence, trafficking, fraud etc. Punishment is the prerogative of political authority. Crime is the expression of unlegitimized power. <em>Why </em>are people expressing unlegitimized power to a greater extent in the US than elsewhere. What makes Americans a greater threat to legitimate authority than (say) Swedes? What are the distal causes for the spectacular differences in incarceration rates hence freedom.</p>

<p>Concretely freedom, not argle-bargle freedom.</p>

<p> </p>

<blockquote>

<p>Certainly violent gang activity has escalated considerably in the last 20-30 years.</p>

</blockquote>

<p>Has it? It seems to me the mafia is not what it used to be. Perhaps gangs have simply changed their racial profile. Anyway --- look at the graph again.</p>

<p> </p>