Friday, June 22th, 2012. New York City – On Thursday, June 21st, I tried to work on my blog but it was not working. I didn’t know why, so I started an investigation.
The statistics showed that around 9:30am, hundreds of people visited “Filming police officers (public servants) is a constitutional right.” At the same time, other people visited “Miles de jóvenes estudiantes mexicanos protestan contra Televisa y otros medios de comunicación.”
Too many visitors at the same time were unusual. I thought, they were spammers. The hosting company said, “it was causing extremely high processing”. The company disabled the script. At that moment, the blog stopped working.
My investigation showed that all those people came from Reddit.com. Somebody posted a link to the articles and in a few minutes, hundreds were visiting them.
I found the link to “Filming police officers (public servants) is a constitutional right”. The post has 318 comments. On the right side, it says, “this post was submitted on 21 Jun 2012. 1.323 points (70% like it). 2.285 up votes 962 down votes”. I could not find the link to Miles de jóvenes estudiantes mexicanos protestan contra Televisa y otros medios de comunicación.
These are some of the comments:
aecarol said, “Police officers should legal to film because they have jobs where people’s lives, liberties, and other civil rights are so strongly impacted. Their word can send people to jail. Cameras can do nothing but help the system. If the police officer is in the right, it’s evidence that can help catch a wrong doer. If they are in the wrong, it can exonerate an innocent person.
On the other hand the fact we pay their salary is a crap reason why it should be legal. That implies a person who doesn’t pay taxes (unemployed?) can’t film them.”
ewyorksockexchange replied, “An unemployed person doesn’t pay income tax, but they still pay taxes. Sales taxes, sin taxes, etc. The larger point is that taxpayer standing is rarely recognized by the court system as legitimate standing. Most of the time these cases can’t pass that threshold and are thrown out. The taxpayer rarely stands to suffer real damage (at the hands of the government) that must be made whole.”
Wocka_Wock also said, “Everyone pays taxes if they buy anything other than food in America just do you know. In some states, even unprepared food is taxed.”
“Additionally, it’s property taxes that fund the police, I was unemployed in my life but still paid taxes on two houses during the search for re-employment.” commented, tonenine.
Dodes said, “He wasn’t making a fallacy, he was pointing out the ridiculousness of the statement “Because we pay taxes and therefore ‘pay’ police officer’s salary, we should be able to film them,” when in reality there are far better reasons than that weak argument to film them in the first place.”
“Simply saying that “we pay their salaries, therefore we get to videotape” is a horrible argument. Our tax dollars pay the salaries of many government agents whose identities are not revealed for safety reasons, like anyone working undercover.
There are plenty of good reasons why filming police is still a right.” commented nwestnine.
“While I agree that it should be legal, I fail to see how it is a constitutional right,” commented LeftLeaningBonobo.
crbiker responded to LeftLeaningBonobo, “Should fall under Freedom of the Press, from a viewpoint that you are going to, and have the ability, to broadcast or otherwise publish the content gathered. Not allowing the content to be gathered would be censoring the right to publish it.”
Andrewticus04 also responded to LeftLeaningBonobo, “Yes, exactly this. The freedom of press is about the publication of information – regardless of that information’s medium or substance – so long as it’s factual.”
Jake8078 said, “One of my close friends was arrested for this, and plead not guilty to the charge of “disorderly conduct”. (Even though she would have only had to do an hour of community service or something like that). Her trial is next month. Edit: time goes by too fast. The court date is actually tomorrow.”
Jake8078 posted a link to the article, “DEAR SUPERCHIEF: I was arrested for filming in public and held in jail for 9 hours on $5000 bail in a french maid costume”. The arrest was caught on video which you can see bellow.
“I was arrested on April 20th, 2012 following an Occupy Hartford street theater action called “Clean the Banks.” We dressed up and brought cleaning supplies to Bank of America and Wells Fargo at State House Plaza, handing out pamphlets along the way. The goal was to spread awareness about these banks’ corruption, greed and bailout participation. We were asked by security to leave each bank, and so we did.
The arrest took place Main Street in Downtown Hartford, CT. We were about 3 blocks away from the site of the action. At the time we had finished and were walking back to our meeting point before dispersing. At the time of my arrest, I was dressed as a French maid. I was holding a digital camera in one hand and a feather duster in the other. I was the only person filming when the police approached us. I was also the only person arrested.” You can read more about the story on “DEAR SUPERCHIEF: I was arrested for filming in public and held in jail for 9 hours on $5000 bail in a french maid costume”.
“Taking photographs and video of things that are plainly visible in public spaces is a constitutional right — and that includes the outside of federal buildings, as well as transportation facilities, and police and other government officials carrying out their duties.”_American Civil Liberties Union.
THANKS Redditors for posting links to my blog. I love Reddit!