Are Cameras the New Guns?

Agreed. This is a serious issue. Public officials should be held accountable for their actions. It's all for the sake of covering the bad cops' asses.

A few weeks ago, an Illinois judge rejected a motion to dismiss an eavesdropping charge against Christopher Drew, who recorded his own arrest for selling one-dollar artwork on the streets of Chicago. Although the misdemeanor charges of not having a peddler's license and peddling in a prohibited area were dropped, Drew is being prosecuted for illegal recording, a Class I felony punishable by 4 to 15 years in prison.

This is incredibly disturbing. The guy was protesting the requirement for a peddler's license basically, as stated later in the article. They dropped the misdemeanor and are prosecuting him of a felony. 4 to 15 years in prison, for recording the arrest? If you tell cops that they can confiscate and destroy any recording of them, and arrest the people recording them, you're giving them power beyond what they should have. And a lot of them abuse that.

As a fan of Power Rangers, I am very disappointed in these officers. To abuse the job as an officer of the law makes them twice as bad as the criminals they're supposed to bust.

They undermine all of the good cops and all of the incredible work they do. Most cops are dicks, but there are some good ones out there that truly want to serve and protect. The others just serve themselves and their own personal agendas. They make all cops look bad, unfortunately.

This is incredibly disturbing. The guy was protesting the requirement for a peddler's license basically, as stated later in the article. They dropped the misdemeanor and are prosecuting him of a felony. 4 to 15 years in prison, for recording the arrest? If you tell cops that they can confiscate and destroy any recording of them, and arrest the people recording them, you're giving them power beyond what they should have. And a lot of them abuse that.

There are hundreds of instances of where this can put completely innocent people into jail. As this may be the beginning of it, what happens when a tourist in Orlando, FL has their camera rolling and an officer is arresting somebody in the background shot of their video, and the police are going to arrest them as well? I'm suprised this hasn't been discussed on national media, oh wait, no i'm not.

If this takes a hypothetical turn for the worst, this is the beginning of the minority report? I guess we should've seen this coming after the patriot act was enabled by our government.

Cop punches 17 year old girl.

I'm impartial on this incident. She shouldn't have gotten involved first off, you subject yourself to getting slammed/kicked/tazed/maced whenever you interrupt an arrest; however, he shouldn't have thrown a punch. He should've just tazed her, bro.

Never hit a girl. Unless she has a knife.

I'm impartial on this incident. She shouldn't have gotten involved first off, you subject yourself to getting slammed/kicked/tazed/maced whenever you interrupt an arrest; however, he shouldn't have thrown a punch. He should've just tazed her, bro.

Ya I'm sorry ladies, but If I gotta put up with equal rights political correct bullshit with women, then they open themselves up to the same physical means of being subdued as does a man. The only thing that ought to be taken into consideration is the size of the woman, as it should be with any person. The same force needed to subdue a 250 lb person would not be the same as to subdue someone who is 120 lb. Since in general the weights of women are less than men, then this would obviously lend them to being subdued by less physical means (again, in general). In this case it seems fine. Notice after he did punch her, he didn't continue to hit her or anything, he simply did what he was trying to do in the first place.

Yeah, it isn't as if he had her on the ground beating the shit out of her. She interfered with a police officer doing his job, and he used a very swift and efficient punch to deal with her rather than start fighting with her like he was fighting with her friend. He was just doing his job, IMO. Anyone stupid enough to try to help their friend that is being arrested/dealt with by a cop by getting between said friend and said cop deserves a punch to the face.

I guess this could technically fall into this thread.

Remember a little while back of that leaked video showing the military chopper gunning down civilians? Yeah, well the soldier that was involved in leaking the video is now going to be charged.

http://news.blogs.cnn.com/2010/07/06...-video/?hpt=T1

The U.S. military said Tuesday it is pressing criminal charges against Pfc. Bradley E. Manning, 22, for allegedly transferring classified data onto his personal computer and adding unauthorized software to a classified computer system. Manning of Potomac, Maryland, is suspected of leaking a classified 2007 video of an Apache helicopter strike that killed 12 civilians in Baghdad, including two journalists from the Reuters wire service, the military said. Manning was deployed with the 2nd Brigade, 10th Mountain Division, in Baghdad, Iraq, according to the military. According to Wired.com, Manning leaked the video to the whistle-blower website WikiLeaks.com, which posted the video in April. Wired.com reported that Manning confessed to the leak in a series of online chats with a former computer hacker. He allegedly owned up to leaking other items to WikiLeaks, including a classified Army document assessing the threat level of the website, according to the article, as well as State Department cables.