Political blogging and the proper scrutiny of police

I think my problem with blogging is the same as my problem with writing in general: it's not that I don't have great ideas (or at least, ideas that I think are great), but that I have difficulty making the transition from 'diversion' to 'habit' that is necessary to produce writing on a consistent basis. Weeks will go by in which I either don't think of blogging, or think, 'oh yeah, I should do that sometime' and then do something else. And yet I want to stick with it. I finally figured out how to delete an old blog, and removed the class blog I had to produce sophomore year, and might yet delete this one, but only after backing up my posts, and only if I am confident that I will be more successful at sticking to my next one. In the meantime, I have posts from April and May in various states of completion (and that's another problem; starting ideas and then trailing off and leaving them in stasis for months), so hopefully I'll get to those shortly; I'm also mulling over a future post on the gradual dehipsterization of my taste in music.

In the meantime, more and more often when I think about political topics, I find myself framing it in terms of what I would say were I an elected official dealing with such a thing. Which is an interesting train of thought my mind has been following these last few months, I think. I'm not sure it's a realistic ambition, or even an actual ambition; while I might be ok at the actual law-making part of the job, I'm not sure how someone as introverted as I would fare on the campaign trail, especial when just starting out, when meet-n-greet takes precedence over out-of-state attack ads. But it's a fun thought experiment, and who knows? Maybe if teaching jobs continue not to be found, I can start over with a law or poli-sci degree? In any case, I've already written one such post, and I rather expect I'll be writing more, and leaving them up here for future political foes to dig up and use against me. Good times.

So.

As a diligent reader of the internets, I was of course aware of the recent and hilarious legal kerfluffle involving The Oatmeal, in which a scrubby joke-compiler website hired a scrubby lawyer to make scrubby and unsubstantiated threats to extort money from the writer of the Oatmeal.  Who promptly and amusingly retaliated with massive and public scorn, backed by the full force of his large and loyal fanbase and the not-inconsiderable legions among the wider internet community who enjoy making fun of scrubs.  Things got much, much funnier when the scrubby lawyer in question, one Charles Carreon, got his undies in a wad and decided to take on Oatmeal, IndieGoGo, The National Wildlife Federation, The American Cancer Society, and pretty much everyone who made fun of him. He later backed down, although not without finding a few new ways to wallow in fail on the way out the door; the matter might or might not rest at that.

But this isn't the topic of this post; this is just background.

The main thing I got out of this, in addition to amusement and schadenfreude, was an introduction to the world of legal commentary blogs, which are interesting. My favorite so far is Popehat. Not only was their ongoing coverage of the Oatmeal thing scathingly funny and informative, but in reading through other posts (it's now a regular part of my internet rotation), I've gotten an insider's view of some of the ongoing legal and media cases involving first amendment rights, anti-SLAPP statutes, and other fascinating topics.  Most of it is presented in a fairly libertarian light (you do NOT want to know how these people feel about the TSA. Just kidding, you do), but then, I think you probably have to be a libertarian to become a first amendment lawyer. All in all, good stuff.

I've seen a couple stories now dealing with conflict between citizen activists and police.  The most recent was this one (cross-posted by one of the Popehat writers to The Agitator, which is another fine site), which also led me to this one on another site, but this is something that I've been thinking about for a while, ever since an AP story passed my desk at work about Minneapolis police using YouTube to post videos countering what they saw as misleading or edited videos by Occupy protesters that purported to show police overreach and/or brutality; the story mentioned that this is an alternative tactic to the efforts in some jurisdictions to pass or enforce/make up laws passed making it illegal to film or record law enforcement officials in the course of their duties, or to conceal and bury such recordings once made.

(To be clear: I am entirely in favor of the MPD's approach to this; I think it's a splendid example of the basic truth that the best counter to speech is more speech. That doesn't necessarily let them off the hook for any possible misdeeds performed by officers in removing the protesters, but it is absolutely the right way to establish and defend their side of the story. Bravo.)

All of this has had me thinking.  There clearly is a real undercurrent of suspicion and defensiveness among police against people recording, videotaping or otherwise publicizing their behavior, and has been ever since Rodney King.  And there is an obvious line of thought, even among non-police, that citizen oversight is intrusive and impedes the ability of police to do their job (as mentioned near the bottom here; which cites a federal judge who cut off an ACLU lawyer and said:

"I'm not interested, really, in what you want to do with these recordings of peoples' encounters with the police." Posner then added his concerns about meddling citizens: "Once all this stuff can be recorded, there's going to be a lot more of this snooping around by reporters and bloggers.... I'm always suspicious when the civil liberties people start telling the police how to do their business."

"Snooping." "Telling the police how to do their business." The clear underpinning assumption, (although I'm sure Judge Posner would state it otherwise) is that, in the course of their duties, the police NEED to do things that a flip-phone camera would clearly reveal to be illegal, and that by recording them, citizens are infringing on the right of police to infringe on the rights of citizens.

(Another useful thing about reading lawyer blogs is that I sometimes get nice phrases in Latin.  In addition to "vade et caca in pilleum et ipse traheatur super aures tuos", which I absolutely will not translate for you, I found the Latin translation for a particularly apt phrase: "Sed quis custodiet ipsos cutodes?" Who watches the Watchmen?)

So I've been pondering this, and as I mentioned near the start of this exceedingly long blog post, I've been thinking of it in terms of a political statement. Tonight, during a lull at work, I started putting word to ... screen? Anyway, I feel like this is what a lot more people in Madison, Washington and elsewhere need to be saying.

<mounts soapbox>

So. Certain members and defenders of law enforcement say that videotaping them makes it hard for the police to do their job? That officers are hesitant to exercise authority because they're afraid of a public backlash? 

Good. 

They should be afraid. They should lie awake sleepless at night and wake up petrified in the morning by the thought that today might be the day that they misuse and abuse the enormous power vested in them by society.  

Ideally, they should fear this because they are honest, decent men and women trying to do the right thing and to use their authority to make their communities better without exercising it for personal gratification or gain.  And many, perhaps most, of them are.  But we all know, and have countless examples to prove, that not all members of law enforcement are like that. There are bullies. There are pompous and self-important windbags. There are thugs who kick defenseless women in the head and claim self-defense. And there always will be officers like that on the beat, and it is both vain and foolish to hope that a mere sense of duty and personal responsibility will keep them from disgracing their office and their authority without a healthy dose of scrutiny. 

Might this mean that well-meaning officers will be caught in a compromising video clip and publicly vilified out of all context and proportion? Very probably. And on such occasions, it will remain necessary for their peers and superiors and level-headed citizens to speak out in their defense. But this remains a regrettable but unavoidable side-effect of the absolutely essential civic work of monitoring and holding accountable the actions and policies of law enforcement officers and institutions. If we do not do this - if citizens smile and nod and accept the fallacy that the police can only do their jobs under a cloak of invisibility and anonymity - then we abandon the numerous personal rights accorded to us in the Constitution and agree to live in meek and unquestioning subservience, trusting that the police know what's best for us. And that is not an America in which I wish to live.

People who choose to go into law enforcement deserve our respect. They are choosing a difficult and often dangerous profession, but one that is absolutely essential to the health and security of our nation. But they also deserve our scrutiny, for their benefit as well as ours, to ensure that no few bad apples pervert and betray the most honored duty of the police officer: to protect and serve. And if any agent of the law feels that public scrutiny and accountability are incompatible with the discharge of their duties, I would encourage them to leave now, and find a profession better suited to their talents and disposition, rather than stay on and risk undermining all the work done by their colleagues who understand that an officer's authority stops and starts with those powers accorded to him or her by the citizens they serve.

<dismounts soapbox>

And Ha! One entire (loooooong) post in one night! Progress.