Journalist recovers video of his arrest after police deleted it

http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/news/2012/02/journalist-recovers-video-of-his-arrest-after-police-deleted-it.ars

by evo_9 • 14 years ago

93 50 14 years ago

brk2• 14 years ago

I surprised we're not seeing more instant offload/stream to server video apps for scenarios like this. With iPhones and 3G service, you could easily have videos auto-uploaded when you put the phone in a "panic" mode. It could even be set to be auto-emailed to some list of contacts in the event you don't checkin within 60 minutes.

Seems buildable, wish I had the time to do so.

phreanix• 14 years ago

Wouldn't iCloud already cover this?

I'm also thinking the "I"m getting arrested" app for android would operate similarly.

brk2• 14 years ago

Yes, iCloud might. However, Apple is a large corporation that might be persuaded to take down videos. I'm not saying they would, but in a scenario like this, would you trust Apple (or Google for that matter) as the sole host of your video?

I think an option to upload to a public service (iCloud, YouTube, etc.) would be one viable option, but personally I'd still want the option to push it to some random server of my own choosing and control as well.

ShabbyDoo2• 14 years ago

Imagine a GoPro-style camera which transmitted wirelessly to a nearby smartphone. From there, the receiving app would sync it to a server ASAP. If you knew you were entering into a situation where video you were capturing might be confiscated, you could tape the phone to your thigh with a lot of duct tape. By the time the police organized themselves sufficiently to cut the tape off of your body, the important video likely would already be uploaded. Could this scheme be expanded upon by some sort of steel lock box around one's waist/ankle/etc? That would give the phone a lot of time to do its work. Furthermore, the box could contain an additional microphone which would continue recording after initial camera seizure. In cases where groups of protesters feared arrest, could Bluetooth be used to create a Tor-esque upload-to-the-cloud network which would eventually reconstitute everyone's video? I'm imagining a bunch of phones talking to each other in a mesh and trading blobs which could be reassembled server-side.

drivebyacct2• 14 years ago

Android supports USB devices, there's no reason you couldn't rig it up with a commodity webcam plugged directly into the phone. I'd had this idea, but as an art project (give the app away and maybe some hats with cams and use the footage for something. I'm not good with art). Anyhow, this setup could be used to stream live video from the frontlines of... anything with cell phone service. (edit, I suppose drivers could be an issue on second consideration)

ADevilsAdvocate• 14 years ago

At least until the police started deploying cell-phone jammers as a matter of 'best practice' during police action.

cypherpunks01• 14 years ago

Simple, just use a livestreaming app.

The Bambuser app is my favorite one, it's available on Android and iPhones and allows people to view your stream on the web. You can also review and download any clips you've streamed in the past, so it would work perfectly for this. In a really serious case, I imagine the company could provide evidence to prove the video wasn't tampered with too.

yardie• 14 years ago

Simple, just use a livestreaming app.

Your entire scenario rests on the fact that you are expecting a negative interaction with the police. It's one thing to go into a protest knowing confrontation is likely, it's quite another to have expect that same confrontation during a normal traffic stop.

akoumjian• 14 years ago

This already exists. You could use ustream or a few different services for instant streaming + archiving. However, this is going to depend on a reliable data connection.

michaelcampbell2• 14 years ago

In case anyone else is curious; there are at least 4 that I know of for Android; ustream, bambuser, justin.tv, and qik.

gnubardt• 14 years ago

That works until they start jamming cell service.

Maxious• 14 years ago

The operation of transmitters designed to jam or block wireless communications is a violation of the Communications Act of 1934, as amended ("Act"). See 47 U.S.C. Sections 301, 302a, 333.

Also LEO data terminals use commercial LTE these days.

spodek• 14 years ago

What does it say about our world that we need the latest in high-tech equipment to protect ourselves from the police breaking the law to punish innocent people?

hyperbovine• 14 years ago

Things are getting better...? Abuse of authority is as old as time. The only thing new here is that now the common man has a way to fight back.

robertskmiles• 14 years ago

The latest dropbox app (currently in beta) can be told to automatically upload all new photos and videos on a device to dropbox. Then a remote server anywhere can watch your dropbox for changes and do something with the files - encrypt them, make remote backups, mail them out, whatever.

fingerprinter• 14 years ago

Can a lawyer comment about evidence tampering or something else? Do not know how the police could delete the videos and not be held accountable for something.

a_a_r_o_n3• 14 years ago

How can the police not be held accountable? Who investigates the police? Other police. Who investigates other police? Other police.

It's the police.

tkahn6• 14 years ago

Your comment seems to imply police are never punished for misconduct and yet that is obviously not true. Internal Affairs is a very real thing.

icebraining3• 14 years ago

Replace 'police' for 'people' and we find out that no one can ever be held accountable.

"The police" is not a single body, there are multiple police forces which are mostly independent. I don't know the US system very well, but at least where I live the cops that work on the street have a completely different chain of command than the detectives who investigate them if necessary.

el_presidente• 14 years ago

The whole point behind destroying evidence is to avoid accountability

NathanKP• 14 years ago

He also hopes to determine the exact time the video was deleted, which could substantiate his charge that it was deleted while under police control.

Is this possible? As far as I know most cameras just delete the file from the storage medium, and there is nothing in the storage medium which could be used to determine this.

hartror• 14 years ago

Depending on the underlying filesystem there could be evidence of the last time it was altered though it could be faked with enough knowledge.

true_religion• 14 years ago

I'm not sure---the last FS usually only posts a modified date if the file is modified and not deleted.

If its simply deleted, it'd those sectors as 'gone' in the file table but there's no notation in the file table to say when modifications to it were made.

joelhaus• 14 years ago

This is one of the reasons why Android's "Instant Upload"[1] feature is so awesome. Every Android device running 2.2+ is capable of instantly uploading photos and videos taken with your phone into a private folder on your Google+ account... not sure if the iPhone Google+ app will also do this, can anyone confirm?

There are other solutions proposed in this thread, but if you have an aversion to Google services (or perhaps an iPhone), you can also try out the new Dropbox beta that also has automatic uploading of photos and videos from your phone[2].

[1] http://support.google.com/mobile/bin/answer.py?hl=en&ans...

[2] http://lifehacker.com/5881692/get-up-to-45gb-of-extra-space-...

  P.S. This issue is another reason why it's so important
  that the tech community has a voice in the upcoming
  FCC spectrum auctions. Congress is currently trying to
  prevent the FCC from placing conditions on the auction,
  which will surely keep the spectrum in the hands of the
  biggest telco players and prevent more competition &
  innovation in the wireless market.

daenz• 14 years ago

> "Miller was charged with a single count of resisting arrest. ... 'we do not understand how, absent some other underlying charge for which there was probable cause, a charge of resisting arrest can stand on its own?'"

The most infuriating part of that article.

anamax2• 14 years ago

>> "Miller was charged with a single count of resisting arrest. ... 'we do not understand how, absent some other underlying charge for which there was probable cause, a charge of resisting arrest can stand on its own?'

That's settled law. The cop's mistake wrt whether an arrest is valid is not a defense against a resisting arrest charge.

Supposedly you get to make up for the unlawful arrest later.

I'm not claiming that this is good (or bad), just that it is fairly settled law.

kkowalczyk• 14 years ago

Isn't "lack of probable cause" crucial here?

There's a difference between arresting someone when you have a probable cause and arresting someone just because you can.

The standard for probable cause might be low, much lower than a standard for proving a crime has been committed, but surely there is a standard.

If the cop cannot show that there was probable cause to arrest someone, he a) should be accountable in some way b) he shouldn't be able to arrest someone for resisting the arrest that he had no right to make in the first place as that's absurd.

Not to mention that based on the description of the events, the "resisting arrest" in this case is an excuse and not something that actually happened.

danssig3• 14 years ago

I think it's settled alright [1]. You're allowed to resist unlawful arrest, to the point of killing the officer.

[1] http://constitution.org/uslaw/defunlaw.htm

Journalist recovers video of his arrest after police deleted it

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