[gregallan]

I think it’s a little misguided to praise the officer for allowing them to film. It would be illegal for him to prevent them from filming him performing his duties in a public place. I also find it slightly ridiculous for you to characterize citizens recording their interactions with police for their own protection as a “citizen surveillance state.” The citizens are not the state. The police here are representatives of the state and must be held to account in every interaction with civilians. I don’t deny that it’s a high-pressure situation for an individual to be in, and like you I find it hard to personally fault him for his strategy to prevent going viral. AFAIK it’s legally fine, and ethically grey depending on his exact intentions, which we can’t really know. In this case however, it’s more likely to result in a Streisand effect.

Edit: on reading the rest of this thread I’m more convinced of the dubious legality of the cop’s playing music with the expectation that the recording will be made public

[015a]

> on reading the rest of this thread I’m more convinced of the dubious legality of the cop’s playing music with the expectation that the recording will be made public

You're convinced by angry internet hobby-lawyers sitting in their Aerons taking a quick break from writing HTML? This is precisely the very low standard of evidence that the officer involved here is trying to short circuit.

[gregallan]

Note that I said dubious legality. I was just qualifying my earlier statement that it was legally fine. Hopefully we’ll get a legal ruling on this sooner rather than later.