OpenWatch is a project that publishes open/free apps for Android and iOS; the apps (called "OpenWatch Recorder" and "CopRecorder") covertly record audio and, at your direction, transmits it to the OpenWatch site. There, it is reviewed for significance, stripped of personal information, and published. It also has a video mode. The OpenWatch site looks for regional patterns in authority-figure interactions -- for example, whether a county operates its drunk-driving checkpoints in an illegal fashion.
To me, something like OpenWatch could help solve a major problem for investigative reporting in an age when newsrooms are shrinking. We've still got plenty of people who can bulldog an issue once it's been flagged, but there are fewer and fewer reporters with deep sourcing in a community, fewer and fewer reporters who have the time to look into a bunch of different things knowing that only one out of a hundred might turn into a big investigation. Perhaps providing better conduits for citizens to flag their own problems can drive down the cost of hard-hitting journalism and be part of the solution for keeping governments honest.Policing the Police: The Apps That Let You Spy on the Cops (The Atlantic)At first, the app did not have grand aspirations. Jones built it for some friends who'd gotten into some trouble with the law and who could have been aided by a recording of their interaction with law enforcement. But Jones' worldview began to seep into the project. Informed by Julian Assange's conception of "scientific journalism," Jones wanted to start collecting datapoints at the interface of citizens and authority figures.
"It's a new kind of journalism. When people think citizen media, right now they think amateur journalism ... I don't think that's revolutionary," Jones told me. "I don't think that's what the '90s cyberutopianists were dreaming of. I think the real value of citizen media will be collecting data."
(Thanks, Rich!)
While I support the goals of this software, a word of caution: users could run afoul of their jurisdictions’ wiretapping laws, which may require the consent of all parties to the conversation before recording.
@Tdawwg – That is sort of the point. Privacy is quickly eroding and it’s showing no signs of stopping, no matter what the ACLU/EFF try. So we need to redefine what privacy means, to give the public a better stake. If the rules of the game are going to be “you won’t mind if you have nothing hide” – then lets play.
And I’m going to mention this because it’s such a small world – Cop Recorder is mentioned in those leaked LulzSec documents: http://i.imgur.com/BehJM.png
Well, chipping away against privacy from below while the police state blasts it away from above is certainly a redefinition of privacy! More data is more data, regardless of who collects it.
The PDF you supply actually says “Take the time to check an arrestee’s phone for anti-surveillance apps” (paraphrasing here): so for the benefits gained by surveilling cops (and there are indeed benefits), we’ll possibly see a normalization of cops’ searching one’s smartphone upon arrest or being stopped. Countermeasure, meet counter-countermeasure.
Look, this is a fascinating, much-needed thing. I mean, really. But technology is a value-neutral tool that can be used for any number of unforeseen purposes, and I guess I’d like to see a more public airing of the possible downsides to this. That’s all.
Funny thing about the linked LulzSec document- it looks like the police aren’t aware that the digital scale app doesn’t really work. So, it seems they’re taking the apps at face value. So rename the app to “Gallery” or something innocuous. I’m not to sure how even a real digital scale app would be used against an officer.
I’m not too sure how CopWatch/OpenWatch are much worse than someone using Qik for recording the same stuff.
You’re right, centralization /is/ bad. That’s why OpenWatch is Free and Open Source Software. There wont only be one destination for recordings.
Well, when I clicked the link I went to the main site, with their Media page, with all of the uploaded media. That sounds pretty centralized from that perspective, regardless of how the data got there. It’s not too incredibly reassuring that the Panopticon has become open- and crowdsourced: that just makes for a bigger, better, more permanent Panopticon!
I mean, read the mission statement:
Those are seriously debatable claims. For one, they explicitly state that the surveillance state has value “in terms of security and justice,” whereas most watchdog, privacy, etc. rhetoric has argued that we’re less secure with more surveillance. Their idea that surveillance technology only belonging to powerful folks is a problem is right: but they don’t acknowledge how a project like this could simply be used by the powerful as just another surveillance tool. And while abuse of power is certainly a critical problem facing all free societies, there’s no thinking here about how empowering more surveillance actually makes us less surveilled, and more free.
Where they’re arguing that “good” surveillance is an counterweight to “bad” surveillance, I’m arguing that Surveillance is furthered, heightened, entrenched by this, whatever positive power-balancing happens as a result. And I think that’s a seriously problematical question, not to be left to crusading startups alone.
This app may have its drawbacks, but building the panopticon is not one of them. The panopticon was designed to keep the watchers invisible; this app does the opposite.
I’ve been hoping someone would build this for a while. Imagine if every cop knew that his brutality could generate a Rodney King riots.
That is both true and false. The actual watchers were to have been hidden, thus increasing the likelihood in prisoners’ minds that they might be watched at any time: thus, an internal regulation, an inner surveillance, was to obtain that would effectively keep the prisoners in a constant state of subservience and fear (thus creating conditions for their reform, according to Bentham). Apps like this simply increase surveillance, thus extending the Panopticon’s reach, converting it to civilian purposes, mobilizing it, making it go viral.
That such a mobile, crowdsourced Panopticon 2.0 will sometimes (or even often) make dents in state power is not the point: that it will increase surveillance, decrease privacy, and help to further the regime of constant surveillance, mediation, etc., is the point. The furthering of ubiquitous surveillance is not necessarily a good thing, even if intelligent, civics-minded folks are doing it.
Well, Rodney King was a long time ago, and we’ve seen both an increase in surveillance by both state and civilians, and an increase in paramilitary police actions, police brutality, etc. I’d love to see the hard data on how all this decreases police brutality. I’m thinking of the infamous NYC cop knocking a biker to the ground, or the Vancouver Kissers being beaten by cops’ shields, or the funny-horrifying London Medical Cop bashing someone with his “wellness stick.” And the Rodney King cops were acquitted. And so were the BART cops. Further instances could be adduced. Dunno if any of those folks saw the justice this app and others like it are envisioned as bringing. And I really dunno if “possible riot generator” is a good selling-point, either commercially or societally, for the app.
Again, I’m dwelling pessimistically on the possible drawbacks. This kind of tech is an obvious, necessary evolution of countersurveillance. I’d love to see a Benthamite reforming of penitent, paranoid cops, but I haven’t see that yet, and am rather wondering what this will do to achieve it. Mobile recording does seem to work with civilian-civilian encounters: the radiantly outraged woman busting her flasher on the NYC subway, or the Hollaback! campaign come to mind. I’m way more pessimistic about civilian-state encounters coming out in similar ways.
I was going to post something snarky about this when i realized that I live in the one state in the union where recording a traffic stop is good for time in the Big House. (although it’s not clear anyone has ever been successfully prosecuted for violating the Illinois wiretap statute for recording police, some people appear to have gotten seriously jammed up)
I do wonder about the putative anonymizing. It would seem to me that an anonymized recording would have to contain enough information for someone to recognize the offending officer or his voice. “Hey, Joe! I heard you over on that openwatch site tuning up that hippie, good job!” oh oh.
Which, as i said, could land you in a bucket of sludge in Illinois.
Maybe they should also have a streaming option so you don’t have to hide the memory card in your mouth when the cop deletes your files or smashes your phone.
At last; proof for the rest of us, and as long as there is no crash or out of service problem it’s permanent. No cop smashes the camera as three others beat down the photographer or drag off the housewife. Two potential problems though:
1) This has to actually work, unlike just about every computer, printer, program or other techie toy since the day that hp discontinued the 41. It would be real nice if someone besides apple made something that would function the first time – or even the 15th.
2) All the evidence in the world won’t convict a bad cop till judges and juries stop worshiping them and letting them lie, fabricate evidence, maim and murder because they are “professionals”. Pinochet was a professional too.
3) Notice how i sidestepped using the Hitler analogy there?
@bzishi – we are on it.
On that note, if anybody knows about VoIP deployment, please get in touch!
I’m thinking bumper-sticker saying something like
“By stopping this vehicle you agree to be audio/video recorded…”
and all the usual disclaimers.
I was discussing with a friend the need for an app of this sort the other day. As has already been commented, the idea of dumping the material to a single, central location seems unwise. When we were kicking this around we came up with the idea of being able to dump the media to the phones of other users of such software to ensure that it is truly distributed. The idea other was a sort of “alarm” button, hit that and your phone transmits your location to other users of the software, so if any are in the area it is possible to assemble an impromptu flash-mob to record anything of interest, hopefully overwhelming the police’s ability to illegally confiscate cameras.
That’s a great idea! It does open up a new set of problems though. For example, cops could abuse it to draw potential witnesses (or “rioters”) to where they want them. I think perhaps if it were a more generalized app that had mass appeal… imagine it was just a kind of basic silent alarm system translated to the smartphone era: It would use the phones location data to transmit the signal to nearby people, it would use the phones social network access to signal anyone you know. Perhaps it could have a few basic signal content choices, like “medic!” or “can I get a witness!?”…
So, when your CopWatch app gets activated it can use this other app to call in reinforcements from across the spectrum, and because the app itself has general utility it’s not inherently “suspicious” to authoritarians for everyone to have it installed. It’s not going to be a flash mob of CopWatch users rendering aid, it’s going to be everyone in the vicinity and everyone you know.
If anyone goes for this, I call dibs on 25% of gross revenue and/or 51% equity in the biz… at my discretion of course ;)
Feature requests:
1) Voice activation via code phrase – it’s illegal to operate a phone while driving, and it’s easier to keep hidden if you don’t have to physically interact with it.
2) Real-time uploading (or near real-time) – for obvious reasons. I think that even just uploading a log of when it’s activated could be helpful. If a cop discovers your phone and wipes your data you at least have some evidence that they did so in order to destroy evidence. It’s not much, but it’s better than nothing.
Seconded. Anybody tried these apps with those spiffy video-recording specs?
Wasn’t there a YA novel where the old folks (like me i guess) wore glasses that recorded what the young hoodlums did and phoned in the videos to the cops? It was a minor part of the story in maybe a David Brin book? There was a post a couple of days ago about a kickstart for hidden video-recording glasses and here’s the phone ap already.
I remember that too, maybe it was Earth? He also wrote a “The Transparent Society”, a non-fiction book on the subject. I think it started as an essay? Maybe on Salon.com in the 1990’s? I remember it being somewhat provocative at the time. I guess we all imagined privacy was still possible.
Poor man’s version:
http://www.google.com/search?q=police+brutality&tbm=vid
http://www.google.com/search?q=police+brutality&tbm=isch
The original and still probably the best:
http://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=unprovoked+police
Fight the culture of authoritarianism every day in every way. Be the change we need in the world, for our children’s sake.
“Push back in the courts. Push back when there’s real injustice occurring. But don’t be an asshole and think it makes you some kind of freedom fighter.”
Let’s see. I have never been arrested, and have no criminal record. How will the courts provide me with a venue from which to push back against the decidedly non-free state of being we increasingly find ourselves in?
The only injustice I could possibly personally intervene in meaningfully is that which occurs to me on a personal level.
Being an asshole to tin-badge fascist authority figures is about all I have in between elections. If you can think of anything more practical to implement in the real world that would achieve something meaningful, I’d love to hear it. In the meantime, I’m going to maintain my stance of not making it easy for the Man. He’ll get what he’s after, no doubt. I’m not serving it up on a silver platter though – he’ll have to fight for it.
“Let’s see. I have never been arrested, and have no criminal record. How will the courts provide me with a venue from which to push back against the decidedly non-free state of being we increasingly find ourselves in?”
That you have to ask speaks volumes.
“Being an asshole to tin-badge fascist authority figures is about all I have in between elections. If you can think of anything more practical to implement in the real world that would achieve something meaningful, I’d love to hear it.”
“Tin-badge fascist authority figures…” Uh. Huh. Wow. Well, you’re a rebel.
1. Join or work for the EFF
2. Run for office
3. Join or work for the ACLU
4. Start a campaign against your favorite injustice
5. Discuss your concerns over your favorite injustice with the head tin-badge fascist in your jurisdiction. Be sure to address him/her as such.
6. Discuss your favorite injustice with the people who were in line behind you at the checkpoint after you’ve delayed them with your power-play against “the man”
7. Write a book. Discuss your favorite injustice and your solutions with talk show hosts during your book tour
8. Go to your local city council meeting and discuss how intrusive drunk driving road blocks are and persuade the city government to discontinue them
9. Become a cop and work from the inside to do away with tin-badge fascism
10. Work for the TSA
Part of me says the police should be subject to recording when performing their duties but another part of me dreads that every tiny thing they do will be put under a microscope (by some useless lawyer of course). “He bumped into the guy while he was searching for a possible gun, that constitutes assault. He also says a bad word under his breath, a clear civil rights violation.”
I wonder how many of us would be willing to submit to that level of scrutiny while doing our jobs.
“I wonder how many of us would be willing to submit to that level of scrutiny while doing our jobs.”
How many of us have the same level of ability to completely ruin and/or end someone’s life in the course of our jobs? They SHOULD be under a microscope, but they are not because of the persistent narrative in our society that do the most dangerous job possible, they HAVE to bend the rules to get the bad guys and that us worthless civilians just don’t get it so we should shut the hell up and let them do their job. They work for us, not the other way around. If they can’t deal with the level of oversight the power accorded to them demands, they should find another line of work or move to a country where it’s actively illegal to question authority and its methods.
I could ruin lives easily. I choose not to, and I choose to ask questions of anyone who asks me to. I could have every aspect of my work audited by the public, I have minimal qualms about that. On the one hand, it’s kind of scary. On the other hand, it’s kind of awesome. I am unfortunately a rather honest fellow, and I work hard, so I feel like I have little to worry about from honest hard working people. But honestly, if a pig wanted to stick his snout in my truffles I’d be pretty fucked. All this Boing Boing on the public dime…
“Why are you making this harder than it needs to be?”
“I did not have any alcoholic beverage that night. Things that I was allowed to do but was held against me. I kept my window rolled up with a crack because I am allowed to do so. I refused to answer whether I had anything to drink. (This was when he magically smelled alcohol on me). I refused their field sobriety test. ”
Woohoo! Big victory.
Yeah, if I’m trying to do my job, and you decide to be obstinate to “prove a point”, I’m gonna hold it against you too. Let’s remember, the community wants the police to deter drunk driving to prevent drunk drivers from killing themselves and other drivers.
Seriously, this stuff is juvenile. And Boing Boing covers this stuff all the time like it’s a good thing. Really? Being a dick to cops helps our freedoms? Being a dick to the TSA helps our freedoms? It doesn’t, it makes the real issues not get taken seriously. Pick your battles. Choose battles that matter.
Push back in the courts. Push back when there’s real injustice occurring. But don’t be an asshole and think it makes you some kind of freedom fighter.
I’ve been wondering how it will affect things when a large enough portion of the population gets the capability to casually stream video 24/7 from portable devices, without putting a lot of intent or cost or effort into it. It’s just a matter of time.
I would love to try one of these apps out. Unfortunately, I am to old to get into much trouble and I don’t drive intoxicated or recklessly. So, except for the odd burnt out bulb I don’t have much interaction with the po po.
“you have the right to remain silent anything you say can be used against you in the court of law”
BB had an excellent post of a former cop speaking at a college about this “right”. He proved that it actually works against you, even if you are innocent.
If the conversation is “stripped”, how much is stripped to truly protect the person who recorded it during a one-on-one interaction? It would work well in a group setting where more than one person could have easily recorded the event. But a cop could easily remember his one-on-one interaction. And again, it could be the future of things like this app being ILLEGAL to simply have. Hopefully, these types of apps will exist like radar detectors except in Virginia and D.C.
Also, wouldn’t the transmission history be logged in the phone anyway?
Yes, it was first described in a David Brin short story, the main idea which propelled social change within the story was ever smaller cameras uploading realtime video feeds to remote locations putting power back into the hands of kids. But power can be abused.
I think this was all before he wrote The Transparent Society.
Can’t remember the damn title…
True-Vu Lenses
“Watching, all the time watching… goggle-eye geeks…
What brought on Crat’s sudden outburst was the sight of yet another babushka, glaring at them from a bench under one of the force-grown shade trees… The very moment they came into view, the old woman laid here wire-knitting aside and fixed them with the bug-eyed, opaque gape of her True-Vu lenses…
“No joke, bloke,” Roland replied. “Some of those new goggles’ve got sniffer sensors on ‘em…”
The stare got worse as they approached. Remi couldn’t see the babushka’s eyes, of course. Her True-Vu’s burnished lenses didn’t really have to be aimed directly at them to get a good record. Still, she jutted out her chin and faced them square on, aggressively making the point that their likenesses, every move they made, were being transmitted to their home unit, blocks from here, in real time.
[From 'Earth']
That’s it. I’m pretty sure a part of the novel must have been published as a short story, because I’ve definitely never read Earth, but that’s clearly from the same story that lodged in my mind. Cheers.
And what could possibly go wrong with a massive spike in data funneled through a centralized source, where it can be checked and monitored by the very powers that are the subject of said data collection? Interesting idea, but this has the possibility to build the Panopticon from the ground up, rather than smashing it entirely, or destabilizing it.
2011: We Are All Datapoints
i see several problems with this:
1. even though the app is installed on a multitude of devices and gathered information is stored that way, the apps are still downloaded from one or two sources (who says the apple folks wont screw with it? let it record all the sounds in my bedroom at night and upload it to some place?). the uploading is the other weak spot.
do those guys also operate a website where i can punch in my AmEx numbers to find out if it was hacked? this would be sooo cool (!)
2. can I upload info on my computer? if so, why should i record cops and not 12yo girls in bathing suits?
3. i know there are some bad “authorative figures”, but why should i trust the guy in the video?
4. what about context? will the guys on the website also delete my “fuck you copper!”. if so, why? or why not? what about audio with no video. “i do not want that!” could be a statement about an opposite sex pad-down or referring the marching nazis.
5. what is significance? do we really want to bust a good cop/ detective whatever because he did not greet the drunk guy at an illegal party with “good evening sir, i am officer miller from LAPD”