As Republicans Turn Off House Live Feed, Reps & C-SPAN Turn To Periscope And Facebook Live Video To Cover Sit In

from the we-all-are-the-media dept

So something fascinating happened in Congress today. No matter what your opinion is on gun control or the various legislative proposals around it that have been up for debate in the past week or so, it's hard to fathom what Congressional Republicans thought they were doing today in shutting off the live video feed from the House floor. A bunch of Democrats decided to hold a sit in on the House floor to push for a vote on some gun legislation. That's a bit of a stunt no matter how you look at it, but the Republicans shot back by helping that stunt get much more attention by not just gavelling the House out of session, but also turning off the live feed of the House floor that flows to C-SPAN and out to the rest of us. C-SPAN doesn't control the cameras and is at the whim of Congress to access that feed, so when the GOP shut off the feed, C-SPAN was left without. This isn't a stupid move that's limited to the Republican side of Congress, apparently. Eight years ago the Democrats did the same thing when they controlled the House and were upset about Republicans trying to focus on a particular issue.

Of course, we now live in a modern technological age, where everyone has the power to broadcast live video in the devices we all carry in our pockets. Thus, despite House rules that forbid any sort of broadcasting from the floor, Rep. Scott Peters started broadcasting from the floor. And even as the Sergeant at Arms tried to stop the broadcasting, more people on the floor started using Periscope, Snapchat and Facebook Live, leading to C-SPAN rebroadcasting those feeds.

C-SPAN claims it's the first time it's done this (and let's not even bother with the copyright questions related to all of this...). But it seems like yet another example of a form of the Streisand Effect. The sit in was designed to get attention, and it certainly would have no matter what. But shutting off the cameras and trying to shut down the entire process only seemed to drive that much more attention to what was going on, and modern technology helped let the story still come out, no matter what the "House rules" happened to say.

Filed Under: cameras, congress, democrats, facebook live, gun control, periscope, republicans, streaming, video
Companies: c-span, facebook, snapchat, twitter

DailyDirt: You Gotta Show Some Flex

from the urls-we-dug-up dept

Sometimes, the key to kicking off a whole new world of technology is a brand new material. The discovery and/or creation of new materials with useful properties is pursued in engineering, chemistry and physics — sometimes with world-changing results, and other times producing only curiosities. Lately, it seems like a lot of the most interesting material advances have to do with flexibility in one way or another, like these four creations that might end up enabling the devices of the future:

• An elastic material that goes from matte to shiny when stretched could have future applications in flexible displays. But there are a lot of tests to be done to see if that's really a possibility — for now, it looks like this substance might be more useful as a passive strain sensor for other materials. [url]
• MIT researchers have taken very early steps towards creating "fabric" that can capture images like a camera lens. The system captures images with a distributed fabric mesh, though all it's captured so far is a rudimentary smiley face. [url]
• "Flexiramics" is an ultra-thin, foldable and flexible material that shares a lot of key properties with ceramics and might help create flexible circuit boards. It's non-conductive and can withstand over 24 hours in a 1,200°C oven. [url]
• This newly-created metallic glass is both hard and elastic, thanks to an almost-completely-disorganized atomic structure. It has the highest impact resistance of any material in its class, and goes by the not-so-memorable name of SAM2X5-630. [url]

After you've finished checking out those links, take a look at our Daily Deals for cool gadgets and other awesome stuff.

Filed Under: cameras, ceramic, elastic, fabric, flexiramics, glass, materials, plastic, sam2x5-630, sensors

Court Says Cops Can't Testify In Case After Destroying Footage Of DUI Arrest

from the if-we-can't-see-it,-you-can't-talk-about-it dept

Cops like cameras.

No, wait. Hear me out.

Obviously not on them or aimed at them.

They like automatic cameras that record license plate and location data. They like surveillance cameras aimed at citizens around the clock. They even like dashcams and body cams, provided the released footage is limited to exonerating officers of wrongdoing.

What they don't like are cameras that don't show their side of the story. A camera is inherently trustworthy -- much like a confidential informant -- until it isn't, at which point any footage captured is claimed to be devoid of "context" or unable to show "the whole picture." In some cases, the cameras don't show anything at all.

Sure, the footage may have been available at some point. But it's suddenly missing when the defense needs it.

In Illinois, this mysterious lack of footage has resulted in an exoneration.

A motorist accused of drunk driving walked away after cops in Chicago, Illinois refused to hand over video evidence of the incident. In a ruling last month, the Illinois Appellate Court said Richard Moravec was entitled not just to any dashcam videos of his arrest, but also relevant footage from the city's network of surveillance devices known as "police observational devices" or POD cameras.

Chicago has lots of "PODs" running 24 hours a day and monitored by officers. (For extra fun, scroll down the page and read the section entitled "POD Success Stories.") All footage is saved for two weeks. Obviously, if the footage is central to a criminal prosecution, the footage is supposed to be saved until the case is concluded. But when this motorist challenged his arrest, the footage suddenly couldn't be found, despite his lawyer asking for the footage to be turned over before the two-week retention period ended.

When asked for the footage, a host of technical issues appeared out of nowhere.

A Chicago police officer stopped Moravec at the intersection of Thomas Street and Western Avenue in Chicago, a location in sight of three separate police surveillance cameras. Police officials told Moravec's attorney that no dashcam video of the arrest had been found and that video taken at the police station was unavailable due to "technical issues with the video system." Finally, the surveillance camera footage had allegedly been overwritten.

The driver wasn't found not guilty, but in light of the Chicago PD being unable to produce the recordings, the presiding judge sanctioned the department by forbidding the officers involved from testifying for the prosecution. "Our word against yours" doesn't mean nearly as much when those words aren't allowed in the courtroom.

Of course, the Chicago PD felt this was too harsh and objected to the judge's sanctions, claiming it was "too heavy" in relation to the apparent misdeed. The judge disagreed.

"The correct sanction to be applied for a discovery violation is a decision appropriately left to the discretion of the trial court, and its judgment shall be given great weight," Justice Simon wrote. "The trial court gave due consideration to the fact that both the state and the Chicago police department failed to preserve the videos, even though they were timely notified to do so... Therefore, the trial court did not abuse its discretion in precluding the testimony of the police officers when the state committed a discovery violation."

This is a heartening decision considering the number of cameras in use by Chicago police officers. The granting of the defendant's motion for sanctions specifically notes that a lack of footage -- for whatever reason -- should be construed against the state, rather than accepted as something beyond anyone's control.

Following the parties’ oral argument, the trial court granted defendant’s motion in limine to prevent the testimony of the police officers and stated that “without there being explanation as to a legitimate basis for the tape not being available, that has to be construed against the State.” The trial court asserted that it granted defendant’s motion in limine and for sanctions pursuant to Kladis, a case where the supreme court upheld the judgment of the appellate court that granted the defendant’s motion for sanctions and barred the State from presenting testimony as to the events surrounding the defendant’s arrest after it was discovered that the State destroyed the police squad car’s recording of the defendant’s arrest.

This is where the burden should fall. If police departments are going to deploy an increasing amount of surveillance equipment, any lack of relevant footage should be law enforcement's burden to bear. If the agency decides it's not worth the time or money to repair malfunctioning cameras, then it should have to deal with the consequences of de-prioritizing surveillance equipment that mysteriously seems to function best only when it's exonerating officers or being presented as evidence by prosecutors.

Filed Under: body cameras, cameras, destroying evidence, police, richard moravec

Comey Sells The 'Ferguson Effect,' Blames Spikes In Violent Crime On Citizens With Cameras

from the worst.-FBI-director.-ever. dept

FBI director James Comey is now beclowning himself by endorsing the so-called "Ferguson Effect." Some major US cities are experiencing increases in violent crime, and law enforcement agencies are blaming this on the fallout from the Michael Brown shooting.

Supposedly, law enforcement officers are afraid to do their jobs properly, fearing reprisal, public humiliation or possible prosecution for deploying any form of force. Further extrapolations of the "Ferguson Effect" theorize that the public's respect for law enforcement has fallen so low citizens are now often openly hostile.

It's telling that this is called the "Ferguson Effect," rather than say, the "Garner Effect." Both officer-involved-killings happened within a few weeks of each other and both touched off massive protests. In both cases, grand juries failed to return indictments against the police officers responsible for the deaths of two unarmed black men. However, the shooting in Ferguson lacked a crucial element: a video recording of the incident. In Ferguson, the evidence presented was a mess of contradictory eyewitness testimonies.

In the New York City incident, clear recordings of an NYPD officer choking Eric Garner to death were all over YouTube before the NYPD could even issue a coherent statement. For some reason, it's called the "Ferguson Effect" even though it was NYPD officers who first stated a reluctance to lay down on the job in response to the backlash.

As Comey sees it, the problem (which doesn't actually exist) isn't with police departments. It's with the people they serve… and their unblinking eyes.

He said his conversations with officers often come back to cellphones. He said they describe encounters with young people and their cellphone cameras "taunting" them "the moment they get out of their cars."

"They told me, 'We feel like we're under siege and we don't feel much like getting out of our cars,'" Comey said.

To put it in the parlance of official police statements: the officers feared for their safety power.

Police have always performed their duties in public, observed by many. But until recently, any footage of these encounters were left to dashcams. In the absence of recordings, it was the public's word against the officer's, and the officer's word usually won out. Now, police officers no longer have the luxury of controlling the narrative. Apparently, it's this lack of control that's preventing them from doing their jobs.

The "Ferguson Effect" narrative goes hand-in-hand with the "War on Cops" -- the bogus theory that cops are being targeted and killed more frequently simply because they're cops. In both cases, there's no data backing up these assertions. Any perceived spike in violence cannot be traced back to law enforcement officers being more wary of deploying force. Even if it could, the problem still lies with the police, rather than the public.

Public servants performing their duties in public should expect to be observed. If officers can't handle the "taunting" of camera-wielding citizens, they should exit the law enforcement business. If they feel imprisoned in their own vehicles by members of the public wielding nothing more dangerous than recording devices, they're not cut out to handle the actual dangers of the job.

Comey's furtherance of this bogus narrative is not just stupid. It's also hypocritical. Constant observation -- a.k.a. "surveillance" -- alters people's behavior. Comey admits as much in his remarks on the "Ferguson Effect."

So the suggestion, the question that has been asked of me, is whether these kinds of things are changing police behavior all over the country.

And the answer is, I don’t know. I don’t know whether this explains it entirely, but I do have a strong sense that some part of the explanation is a chill wind blowing through American law enforcement over the last year. And that wind is surely changing behavior.

Marcy Wheeler points out the obtuseness of this statement, which highlights the side effect of constant surveillance no government intelligence/investigative agency seems willing to discuss.

I actually do think there’s something to the chilling effect of surveillance (though, again, what’s happening to cops is targeted, not dragnet). But if Comey has a problem with that, he can’t have it both ways, he needs to consider the way in which the surveillance of young Muslim and African-American men leads them to do things they might not otherwise do, the way in which it makes targets of surveillance feel under siege, he needs to consider how the surveillance his Agents undertake actually makes it less likely people will engage in the things they’re supposed to do, like enjoy free speech, a robust criminal defense unrestricted by spying on lawyers, like enjoy privacy.

Law enforcement can dish it out, but it can't take it. That's the true definition of the "Ferguson Effect."

Filed Under: cameras, ferguson effect, james comey, law enforcement, police, public, surveillance, transparency, violent crime

DailyDirt: Say Cheese... All The Time

from the urls-we-dig-up dept

Cameras are everywhere now. That's not really a surprise to anyone. Camera technology has vastly improved and gotten a lot cheaper, and sharing and storing photos is incredibly easy and cheap, too. So what's left for cameras to do? Plenty. There are some innovative new kinds of cameras, like the Lytro which lets you re-focus shots after you've taken them (instead of before). We've also pointed out lensless cameras, single pixel cameras, plenoptic cameras, panoramic cameras... and there seems to be no shortage of cameras and camera accessories on the way.

• DJI, the Chinese drone manufacturer, is selling a camera for consumers that sits on a gimbal so that capturing smooth video shots is easy. GoPro has a drone, so it makes sense for drone makers to go after high-end cameras. Who wants a selfie stick anymore? [url]
• The Light L16 combines sixteen cameras in a single device, along with multiple lenses with different focal lengths and an infrared-laser range finder. The result is 52-megapixel images that can be taken under challenging low-light conditions and post-processed endlessly. [url]
• For folks who don't want to give up their DSLR -- there's an attachment called the KaleidoCamera that sits between a camera body and a traditional lens. Maybe people should just get used to buying new cameras all the time, instead of trying to adapt new tech onto their old kit -- or maybe someone will finally perfect the digital film cartridge adapter. [url]

After you've finished checking out those links, take a look at our Daily Deals for cool gadgets and other awesome stuff.

Filed Under: camera gear, cameras, digipod, drones, dslr, kaleidocamera, l16, photography, sensors
Companies: gopro, light, lytro

DailyDirt: Digital Photography Magic (aka Photoshopping)

from the urls-we-dig-up dept

Altering a few pixels here and there in a digital photo can have remarkable effects. Sometimes the result is unexpected and hilarious, but sometimes it's simply amazing what can be done to photos. Perhaps you've used software (eg. photoshop) to remove "red eye" from your favorite selfies, but there are some even more advanced algorithms that can make your photos look much better... than they otherwise would.

• If you've ever tried to take a picture through a window (from a train/bus/skyscraper/etc), you've probably encountered the problem of seeing your own reflection obscuring your shot. However, don't delete those photos just yet -- if the window was double-paned, you might be able to save them with an algorithm that removes reflected images under certain conditions. [url]
• It's possible to de-blur some cellphone-take photos by using the front-facing camera to track motion information while the rear-facing camera snaps a shot. Algorithms can make it possible for cameras to get even smaller, as imperfections in small lenses can be compensated for with software. [url]
• There will be an ever-growing number of selfie filter options in the near future. The more advanced ones will combine facial recognition with other effects to generate more stylish photos. [url]
• Maybe you want your outdoor photography to look like it's winter. Or autumn. Or raining. There might be a editing tool for that soon -- from some researchers at Brown University. [url]

After you've finished checking out those links, take a look at our Daily Deals for cool gadgets and other awesome stuff.

Filed Under: algorithms, cameras, cgi, de-blur, filters, photography, photos, photoshop, photoshopping, reflections, selfie

New Jersey Cop Demands Camera From Eyewitness After Police Dog Allowed To Maul Prone Suspect

from the additional-narrative-control-efforts-to-follow dept

If you've done nothing wrong, you've got nothing to hide, right? That's what the government tells us when it wants to erect cameras and fund domestic surveillance efforts. So, what do you tell a police officer who demands a citizen hand over their phone? Even if the officer has done something wrong, he still can at least attempt to hide it. And even if the effort fails, he still likely has nothing to fear. That's the imbalance of power at work and it leads directly to this sort of thing.

New Jersey police may have gone too far when they took the cell phone from an onlooker who recorded their encounter with a suspect who was mauled by a police dog and later died.

The man, Phillip White, had dog bites all over his body last week, his lawyer said, and a jarring video shows cops struggling to pull the dog away.

A police officer took the video from a witness who was recording the arrest — possibly in violation of the law — but the footage was later obtained by NBC Philadelphia.

The tail end of the "arrest" and the officer's questionable demand for the witness' cellphone can be seen here:


[And here's additional, just-released video, courtesy of PINAC that seems to show the suspect was unconscious for a majority of the "altercation."]


Demanding personal information from an eyewitness is one thing, but demanding the person turn over the phone is something else entirely. Either the demand failed to take or the phone was returned intact to its owner (third possibility: an automatic upload to cloud storage after recording was interrupted) because the footage was later turned over to a Philadelphia news station.

No excuse has been offered for this officer's actions yet, but one imagines the justification will fall under the "evidence of a crime" warrant exception. Of course, any criminal activity committed by Phillip White, the suspect being mauled by a police dog in the video, had long since ceased. The only potential criminal activity captured by this recording would have been committed by law enforcement officers.

The officer's line of questioning gives some insight into his motivations. First, he asks if the witness saw everything. Then he informs the witness that he'll need to take the cellphone.

The police were responding to a "disorderly person" call. By the end of it, the "disorderly" person was dead. Police claimed White was combative and a dispatch recording contains an officer claiming the suspect tried to grab his gun. Eyewitnesses, however, said White wasn't resisting. Even the single eyewitness who did say White was resisting said he wasn't by the time the recording was captured.

Agustin Ayala of Ayala Towing said he was driving down Grape Street in his tow truck when he saw two police cars on the street and two officers trying to handcuff a man.

"He was resisting," Ayala said of White.

The two officers, including a K9 officer, handcuffed the suspect and brought him to the ground, he said. Ayala said he asked the officers to stop because he was concerned for the man's welfare.

An officer then reportedly said to Ayala, "you didn't see him try to take my gun."

So, it would appear the deployment of arguably excessive force was retaliation for White's earlier, alleged gun-grabbing. For making an officer feel fear, he was restrained to death with an assist from a four-legged officer -- one who won't stop attacking until instructed otherwise. And at the end of it all, there's an illegal "request" for a citizen's camera. There isn't much about the incident that looks good and the officer's demand for the unflattering footage seems to confirm he's well aware of this.

Filed Under: cameras, filming police, new jersey, phillip white, police

Texas Lawmaker Wants To Make It Illegal To Film Cops From Less Than 25 Feet Away

from the because-yelling,-shoving,-intimidation-and-confiscation-just-aren't-enough dept

Now that it's pretty much settled that the public has the right to record the police*, legislators are now moving to peel back this begrudgingly "granted" First Amendment protection.

*Exceptions, of course. Far, far too many of them.

Filed by Dallas State Representative Jason Villalba (R), the bill prohibits anyone in public within 25 feet of police to record them. The buffer is even greater at 100 feet, for anyone recording video who is also carrying a gun. Only accredited news organizations, like KENS5, would be allowed to record without the buffer zone.

Guess who gets to decide whether any unaccredited videographers are "too close" to the action? That's right. It'll be the person deploying handcuffs or demanding the camera be shut off/relinquished. It will all be in the eye of the uniformed beholder who's just going to eyeball the distance between him and the unaffiliated bodies of public accountability, and if it's close, just go ahead and call it a crime. A crime with some rather hefty penalties, considering it involves recording public figures in public areas.

Anyone caught filming within the 25-foot radius could be prosecuted for a Class B misdemeanor, punishable by up to 180 days in jail and a $2,000 fine. For gun-carriers who step within 100 feet, it would be a Class A misdemeanor, punishable by up to a year in jail and a $4,000 fine.

Blogger Ex-Cop Law Student calls it the "Kory Watkins Law," after the open-carry activist, who has filmed many of his interactions with local law enforcement.

This is basically a reaction to the confrontational style of Kory, who has a tendency to get very close to the officers while being loud and armed with either a rifle or a black powder revolver. So Villalba decided that a new law was needed, despite the fact that there is already a perfectly valid law on the book that deals with the issue.

Of course, the "valid" law is one that's already frequently abused: "interfering with public duties." This catch-all has snagged many citizens and their cellphones. Villalba's proposal just gives police officers another way to legally violate the First Amendment rights of others.

Villalba's hardly a neutral party. According to the Dallas Observer, his best man was a police officer. So are many of his family members and friends. This string of tweets issued as the criticism began to roll in shows pretty clearly which side Villalba is legislating for.


There's nothing wrong with having cops as friends (and you can't choose your family members), but favoring a single subset of your constituents in order to -- at least, indirectly -- shield them from accountability isn't something legislators should be doing. They should be doing more to ensure their non-uniform-wearing, non-government employees are better equipped and more empowered to keep their public officials in line. This bill does nothing but create a larger power gap.

As always, it's an outsized "concern" for certain people's safety that is driving the legislation.

Villalba says cops often can't spare the time or attention to put up yellow tape or ask a photographer to step back. "They have the ability to say, 'Step back, please don't interfere,' but a lot of times these situations are in the heat of a law enforcement officer doing their jobs," he said. With HB 2918, "We're just trying to create enough separation, enough space so that officer feels comfortable."

Here's an idea: if they don't have time to push people around, then maybe they shouldn't waste those valuable moments harassing photographers. Most photographers aren't closing the distance between them and cops. It's usually the other way around -- officers approaching people they see filming. 25 feet is "reasonable" but it shouldn't be a misdemeanor and no legislator should be attempting to criminalize First Amendment-protected activity. Interfering with police duties is already illegal and it can be deployed if there's actual interference occurring. If you're being prevented from doing your job (effecting an arrest, etc.), then it's legitimate. If not, then it's perfectly acceptable, no matter how annoying it might be personally.

Ex-Cop Law Student points out the logical flaw in Villalba's "cops just don't have the time" argument:

Uh, Jason? If they are too busy to tell someone to move back, wouldn’t they be too busy to make an additional arrest? Because the purpose of the law is to criminalize the gathering of information that can be used to exercise the right to free speech. The fact that a law is on the books doesn’t magically make people move back, nor does it encourage the police to welcome citizen photographers. On the contrary, it encourages police officers to suppress free speech.

No matter how Villalba might frame it, and no matter how potentially pure his motivations (highly debatable), the fact remains that this law, if passed, will be just as abused as the one already on the books ("interfering with public duties"). In fact, it will be more heavily abused because it gives the recorded the power to control the recordings.

Filed Under: cameras, free speech, recording police, texas
Companies: jason villalba

John Oliver Has The Solution To The Supreme Court's Refusal To Videotape Supreme Court Hearings: Dogs

from the not-cats? dept

For many years, we've discussed the pure ridiculousness of the Supreme court's adamant refusal to allow cameras in the courtroom, along with the Justices' questionable justifications of the ban. Now it appears that John Oliver has taken up the issue as well, but unlike those just whining about it, Oliver (thanks to the resources of HBO) has a possible "solution." Dogs. Oliver starts out mocking Justice Antonin Scalia's reason for barring cameras: that people would just see 15- or 30-second clips from the arguments, taking things out of context. Of course, as Oliver points out, that makes absolutely no sense, since the Supreme Court already releases audio of the hearings, and thus we already do hear the same clips -- it's just that they're generally paired with artistic renderings of the Justices instead of the actual video.

His solution -- using "an almost immoral amount of resources" -- is to present video representations of the entire Supreme Court... using dogs (and a couple of birds in supporting roles). And, Oliver claims, they're making those videos freely available to any other news provider who would like to create complete reenactments of any court case in a way that is cute and guaranteed to draw more attention than the court renderings, or, hell, actual videos if they were ever allowed. You can see the full ten minutes of footage (and, yes, I watched it all) right here: That video also, helpfully, links to the Supreme Court's oral arguments audio page for people to download. And the video description notes:

Please feel free to use it, post your videos, and tag them #RealAnimalsFakePaws so we can find them.

The only disappointment is that whoever put it up, still officially left it under a "standard" license, rather than the Creative Commons license that YouTube makes available. Still, nice move by Oliver and his team.

Filed Under: cameras, cameras in court, dogs, john oliver, supreme court, video, video of supreme court