zlacker

Yeah, if someone commits a crime at my neighbor's house, I appreciate that there's an easy way to collect data from any cameras that might be used to catch them. This kind of thing is far more useful for good things than for bad.

It isn't like they were pulling videos without consent to send tickets for rolling stops. Although if they did, they could collect enough revenue to fix every road in the country. :lol

>>_ea1k+(OP)
I have a friend who’s abusive and manipulative partner setup ring cameras around the house. After they broke up, the bad ex then took videos of day to day life and sent them to the police as evidence of physical abuse.

A good lawyer got the case dropped pretty quick, but not before she spent a weekend in jail, got fired as a teacher, and spent thousands on legal fees. The police had “video evidence” and therefore refused to drop the case even when the ex retracted the claims, and required months of fighting the legal system.

Beyond that awful freak incident, there’s tons of cases of police planting evidence, police ignoring real evidence, and police using an individual’s voluntary will to help them catch one crime to implicate an innocent person in a petty crime unexpectedly. There’d have to be a pretty big crime for me to voluntarily show the police any video of myself.

>>vineya+r2
I'm confused. If you are being falsely accused, wouldn't you want video evidence? Otherwise it becomes one person's word vs another, which often comes with its own biases (first to call the police wins, better lawyer wins, etc).

>>vineya+r2
Sorry, but what does this have to do with the topic? A manipulative ex manipulated police... is not new nor does it have anything to do with the question of voluntarily handing video evidence to police.

If we were to structure our lives around things that evil people misused good-intentioned processes for, then we would be continually paranoid and society would grind to a halt.

I am certainly in favor of limited police powers, but the conversation you are having is a different one from that.

>>_ea1k+Z6
Carefully selected video evidence, out of context, can be highly misleading.

>>Eisens+k7
My point was that “more cameras” and “police access” doesn’t always translate to “only bad people get hurt”.

And that police do bad things, and someone giving them more evidence of their own life is probably not in anyone’s best interest. Because no one can guarantee that the police won’t decide to use it against themselves.

Considering the point I was replying to was someone discussing using cameras to watch for crimes, I think we’ve pierced the topic around paranoia and structuring life around evil people - that’s the whole topic at hand with security cameras.

>>vineya+r2
There's a reason for "Don't talk to cops without your lawyer present." Even if you have nothing to hide, your words can be misconstrued against you.

I'm fully on board with assisting with a real investigation. But unless they have a warrant, I get to have oversight of what they get.

>>ceejay+W8
True, but nothing about this stops someone from having their own cameras and selecting for themselves. The part that this restricts is the police selecting for themselves. So which do you trust less, the abusive partner or the police?

That's setting aside that this was also all about interior cameras, which are really a different subject from the exterior cameras. There are much stronger arguments for public requests for external camera feeds than interior ones.

>>_ea1k+Sj
> So which do you trust less, the abusive partner or the police?

"Which do you want for dinner, broken glass or razor blades?"

> True, but nothing about this stops someone from having their own cameras and selecting for themselves.

A lack of a time machine does; the post upthread says "after they broke up". You won't be able to go back in time and install a second set of cameras to provide the cops with the full context.

>>ceejay+em
> A lack of a time machine does; the post upthread says "after they broke up". You won't be able to go back in time and install a second set of cameras to provide the cops with the full context.

I feel like my point wasn't clear. Nothing about Ring's decision here stops the bad one from doing what they did in your scenario. If the bad person controlled the cameras (and it sounds like they did), they'd still do the same thing regardless of this policy.