New App Brings Police Accountability To A New Level

Hey officer, why did you smash his camera phone like that for?  Was it because he filmed you bashing that innocent guys skull in for asking a question.  No problem officer, there’s nothing to worry about, not in the states listed below with this awesome app. Your video of police state brutality is synchronously transmitting video directly to ACLU servers. So If an out of control cop decides to smash your phone, or if you lose it, it’s all good, your video is preserved and waiting.

Claire Bernish(The Pontiac Tribune) – The ACLU of California now offers an app which ensures that your right to film police interaction won’t be compromised — even if authorities attempt to delete the footage or destroy your phone. Mobile Justice CA works by synchronously transmitting video directly to ACLU servers with an option to ‘report’ that footage when recording stops, thereby preserving the encounter, even if you lose physical control of your phone.

“We want to multiply the number of cameras that can be trained on police officers at any time” executive director of the ACLU of Southern California, Hector Villagraexplained. “They need to know that anything they do could be seen by the entire world.”

The need for civilians to record the police is crucial as incidents of brutality and murder by law enforcement continue around the country. Though the filming police is a constitutional right, LEOs are increasingly hostile toward people who record them. In one case, a California woman was filming when a US Marshal aggressively approached her, slammed her phone to the ground, and kicked it down the street — though a third party recorded the encounter and uploaded it to YouTube. Murder charges against South Carolina officer Michael Slager, whoshot unarmed Walter Scott in the back as he fled, almost certainly wouldn’t have been possible if the crime weren’t captured on tape by an alert citizen. He wisely decided to turn the footage over to the New York Times instead of police.  Because the Mobile Justice app automatically transmits and saves a copy, the decision of how to divulge video is taken out of the equation.

Once the report option is pressed, the ACLU considers it to be a request for legal assistance and analyzes the tape. Nothing further is done unless a formal request is made, and since it’s considered a legal matter, vital confidentiality is preserved. The ACLU can still share the video with media or other organizations as they deem necessary, in the interest of holding law enforcement accountable for their actions. Also included with the app is Know Your Rights, which are guides for understanding what is constitutionally protected when filming a local, state, or federal police interaction.

Mobile Justice does have critics, who point to privacy concerns for those appearing on tape, as Loyola Law School professor Laurie Levenson stated, “Everyone wants to keep an eye on the police. But in these incidents, the police are interacting with an individual involved in the worst conduct of their lives”.

But the ACLU emphasizes that since only those tapes which show significant cause for public concern will be disclosed, the necessity for recording trumps individual privacy. Southern California ACLU senior staff attorney, Peter Bibring, explained, “Obviously an interaction with a police officer isn’t someone’s brightest moment, but when you weigh that against the 1st Amendment right to film police, the 1st Amendment wins out.”

Mobile Justice is available in English or Spanish from Apple’s App Store and Google Play for users in California and Oregon. Mississippi and Missouri have similar versions, and 40,000 videos have been uploaded on New York City’s version in the three years since its inception.

Recording instances of abuse and brutality by police is absolutely vital in the fight to hold them responsible for such actions, but a proposed law in Texas would make it a crime to do so, on the grounds of ‘interference’, so pressuring lawmakers is key. The Constitution and Bill of Rights were written with a keen amount of foresight, even though the authors could never have predicted the level of technology now in existence. It is of paramount importance that we ensure our rights and protections don’t simply slip away, unnoticed.

(Feat. Image: ACLU of Southern California/YouTube)

Source:http://pontiactribune.com/new-app-brings-police-accountability-to-a-new-level/