Opinion
Policing police
TBO.com
Published: July 11, 2012
The New Jersey branch of the American Civil Liberties Union took civil liberties defense even deeper into the 21st century last week. Combining vigilance, transparency and the awesome power of puns, the branch released a cell phone app simply named "Police Tape."Published: July 11, 2012
The app has exactly three functions: offering advice on citizen rights in a variety of situations; surreptitiously recording either audio or video; and saving the resulting file in a way that makes it difficult for police officers to erase it. Supposedly, the content is also uploaded to a server controlled by the ACLU-NJ for later review.
This is not the first such program to exist. Last month, the New York Civil Liberties Union released "Stop and Frisk Watch," which purports to help citizens subjected to the controversial stop-and-frisk tactics common in New York City. Presumably, both apps serve a valuable function, but Police Tape has a deeply lame pun in its name, so it deserves more press.
Technology of this type is good for everyone. Accountability is a hallmark of stable, fair policing, and yet it is too often tough to achieve. The notion of police officers being devoted crime fighters who sometimes need to bend, or break, the rules for the greater good is an invention of Hollywood. Information is good, and knowing more about how police officers are interacting with the public should be a benefit to all.
But this is obviously not a view shared by all. A common perception seems to be that groups like the ACLU weaken the ability of the police to combat crime by shining light in places light does not belong. The flaw is the disconnect between the rule of law and the actual practices common in police forces that the meddling of the ACLU exposes. We need the police, but we need to help police them as well.