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< | Surveillance v. Surveillance: Civilians' Tit-for-Tat and Its Problems | >
> | The Two-Sided Coin of Police Surveillance: Understanding the Distinctions | | | | | | Introduction | |
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> | Police brutality has historically been a significant social issue for the United States. The controversy surrounding it has been amplified by widespread media coverage that depicts police officers shooting and killing unarmed people of color. Police actions are monitored in two distinct ways: workplace surveillance (bodycam/dashcams) and civilian surveillance. Civilians increasingly use their smartphones to record interactions with law enforcement to expose officers and combat police misconduct against the most vulnerable. Generally, the practice of civilians surveilling law enforcement is protected by First Amendment rights and is perceived as both a safety measure and a retaliatory check on government power. Conversely, the deployment of police bodycams—a form of workplace surveillance—is also framed as a tool for accountability but functions within a public employment framework that’s subject to union protections and codified by collective bargaining agreements. | | | | |
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< | Police brutality has historically been a significant social issue for the United States and it is highly controversial, polarizing, and contentious. This is largely due to the widespread emergence of news and media footage that depicts police officers shooting and killing unarmed people of color. Civilians increasingly use their smartphones to record interactions with law enforcement as a way to surveil officers and combat police misconduct against the most vulnerable. Contrarily, the government is often criticized for overexercising its ability to surveil citizens, which has raised concerns about privacy and misuse of power. Therefore, the practice of civilians surveilling law enforcement is perceived as both a safety measure and a check on government overreach and power. | >
> | While surveillance is meant to enhance safety, it has unintended consequences that threaten privacy and continue to contribute to a broader culture of mistrust and overuse of surveillance. Both bodycams and retaliatory surveillance aim to promote transparency, however, they fundamentally differ in purpose, governance, and legal contexts. Civilian surveillance seeks to empower the public, while workplace surveillance operates within structured employment frameworks where the rights of officers are protected police union negotiations that led to collective bargaining agreements. To effectively address the challenges of surveillance, policymakers must recognize these distinctions and ensure that practices uphold accountability, respect privacy, and foster trust. | | | | |
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< | While retaliatory civilian surveillance is meant to enhance safety, it has unintended consequences that threaten privacy and continue to contribute to a broader culture of mistrust and overuse of surveillance. The best solution to address this challenge is to limit both excessive police and retaliatory civilian surveillance. Surveillance is extremely problematic and it should not be seen as the solution. Therefore, proper boundaries must be set, because without them, these practices risk perpetuating a vicious cycle of invasive oversight that compromises privacy and the very safety that they intend to promote. | | | | |
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> | The Role of Civilian Surveillance | | | | |
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< | The Rise of Civilian Surveillance | >
> | Smartphones provide ordinary citizens with the power to be vigilantes who are capable of documenting instances of police brutality and misconduct in real time. In the last decade, this has becoming increasingly popular with viral videos, such as the killings of Eric Garner in 2014 and George Floyd in 2020, which led to public outrage and demands for accountability by law enforcement. Excessive force is a growing problem as police in the United States are said to use force against 300,000 people each year, according to a report by The Guardian. Ultimately, as more and more individuals feel defenseless in their encounters with police, civilian surveillance provides folks with a sense of empowerment. | | | | |
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> | Protected by First Amendment rights, civilian recordings challenge official narratives, garner public support, and fight for justice. Social media platforms, such as Instagram and X, amplify the impact of videos as isolated incidents can transform into broader conversations and national controversies. For example, on X, hashtags like #BlackLivesMatter and #NoJusticeNoPeace have become a battle cry for movements seeking systemic change. According to a PBS NewsHour Report, the instancy and convenience of social media allows users to share raw, emotionally charged content, which helps to foster solidarity and drive action amongst its viewers. | | | | |
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< | Smartphones provide ordinary citizens with the power to be vigilantes who are capable of documenting instances of police brutality and misconduct in real time. In the last decade, this has becoming increasingly popular with viral videos, such as the killings of Eric Garner in 2014 and George Floyd in 2020, which led to public outrage and demands for accountability by law enforcement. For example, a New York Times article entitled “Black Lives Upended by Policing: The Raw Videos Sparking Outrage” provides readers with 34 cellphone and dashboard camera videos that display police brutality. One of the videos features cellphone footage of yet another unarmed black man, Alton Sterling, being tackled, held to the ground, and eventually shot by two white officers. Excessive force is a growing problem as police in the United States are said to use force against 300,000 people each year, according to a report by The Guardian. Ultimately, as more and more individuals feel defenseless in their encounters with police, civilian surveillance provides folks with a sense of empowerment. With retaliative surveillance and the ability to capture and share evidence of brutality, individuals can challenge official narratives, garner public support, and fight for justice. | >
> | Thus, civilian recordings also serve as a form of retaliation against police misconduct, empowering individuals to hold law enforcement accountable. It is a grassroots effort to ensure transparency and justice as there’s a concern that police footage is often altered or edited. By capturing raw, unfiltered footage, civilians play a vital role in exposing abuses of power and advocating for change. | | | | |
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< | Social media platforms, such as Instagram and X, add to the impact of these videos as isolated incidents can transform into broader conversations and national controversies. For example, on X, hashtags like #BlackLivesMatter and #NoJusticeNoPeace have become a battle cry for movements seeking systemic change. According to a PBS NewsHour? Report, the instancy and convenience of social media allows users to share raw, emotionally charged content, which helps to foster solidarity and drive action amongst its viewers. Civilian footage and its visibility forms somewhat of a protective shield, and the surveillance can be seen as a form of resistance and retaliation. | | | | |
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> | Workplace Surveillance of Police | | | | |
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< | The Why and Consequences of Surveillance | >
> | Police bodycams, sometimes viewed as tools of government surveillance, are a distinct form of public workplace surveillance. These devices are governed by collective bargaining agreements between law enforcement agencies and police unions, which represent the rights and interests of officers. After negotiations, these agreements establish employment policies on privacy, data retention, and usage policies. Bodycams differ significantly from civilian surveillance footage since it’s intended to provide accountability and documentation through an employer and public service. | | | | |
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> | What further exemplifies this distinction between the two practices is the central role of unions play in shaping policies that protect officers’ rights and negotiate terms of surveillance. These collective bargaining agreements reflects the structured governance of public employment and aims to balance transparency with the rights of employees, making it fundamentally different from civilian efforts to hold officers accountable where there is little to no consideration of their privacy rights. | | | | |
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< | Civilian and government surveillance can enhance safety, offer accountability, and be a preventive measure for wrongdoing. Filming police interactions provides folks with a sense of security and empowerment. Many believe that dashcam/bodycam footage is often manipulated and altered to produce a particular narrative that aligns with law enforcement. Therefore, civilian documentation or and the recording of officer misconduct can deter law enforcement from brutalizing others as it provides an unaltered truth. Government surveillance, however, is often motivated by national security concerns, crime prevention, and an effort to maintain “law and order.” | | | | |
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< | Surveillance’s primary intent, to deter misconduct and offer safety, backfires when it is perceived as an intrusive weapon that threatens privacy and overreaches rather than offers accountability. Surveillance contributes to a culture of invasive monitoring that infringes individual rights, affects decision-making, and threatens privacy. For civilians, overuse of surveillance causes individuals to censor their speech and lose autonomy, principles that are foundational to the United States’ “democracy.” Rather than provide civilians with a sense of security, the increased surveillance fuels folks’ mistrust of law enforcement, Alternatively, for law enforcement, constant surveillance can make officers hesitant to act during critical moments, which compromises their ability to make proper judgment calls and perform their duties. Retaliative surveillance makes officers fearful of public backlash for any action they take, even those made in good faith. Therefore, it risks exacerbating police inaction, since some officers may prioritize themselves and their well-being over community engagement and public safety. These dynamics have bred a tense, adversarial relationship between officers and the civilians they’re expected to “protect.” As a result, community trust has been lost and the potential for a collaborative relationship has nearly diminished. | >
> | Balancing Rights and Responsibilities | | | | |
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> | The differences and relationship between civilian and police “workplace” surveillance emphasizes the need for an approach that prioritizes accountability and privacy. Civilians have a constitutionally protected right to record public officials in public spaces, as established and upheld in cases like Glik v. Cunniffe. This right is essential to checking the misuse of government power and holding law enforcements accountable for misconduct and brutality. At the same time, while bodycams promote accountability, this type of workplace surveillance of police must be carefully regulated to align with police unions that advocate for officers’ privacy rights and limits overreach. | | | | |
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< | Solutions & Conclusion | >
> | To address these challenges, policymakers should focus on creating clear guidelines for both civilian and workplace surveillance. For civilian recordings, laws should reinforce First Amendment protections and ensure that individuals can document public officials without fear of retaliation. For police bodycams, collective bargaining agreements should continue to govern the terms of use, ensuring that surveillance practices respect officers’ rights while providing transparency to the public. Policymakers should also consider the implications of bodycam footage for public trust, ensuring that it is used responsibly and not manipulated to obscure misconduct. Furthermore, police officers should be trained in effective de-escalation strategies to mitigate instances of misconduct and reduce the perceived need for civilian surveillance to hold them accountable. | | | | |
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> | By clearly distinguishing between these two forms of surveillance, policymakers can create approaches and frameworks that promote accountability without compromising privacy, trust or the rights of citizens. Civilian and workplace police surveillance serve different purposes and operate under different legal contexts, and conflating them risks undermining the effectiveness of both. | | | | |
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< | There needs to be a balance between accountability and privacy. While excessive surveillance may offer some form of deterrence, its misuse feeds the public’s mistrust of law enforcement. To address retaliatory surveillance, policies should govern police officers’ use of body cameras so that it is transparent, respects the privacy rights of officers, and prevents manipulation or alteration when wrongdoing arises. For surveillance of civilians, governments should explore alternative ways to maintain national security and prevent crime without infringing on citizens’ inherent rights. To improve the relationship between law enforcement and civilians, states should explore community outreach programs and opportunities that aid an understanding between law enforcement and the public with a shared goal of safety. Ultimately, surveillance is a powerful tool that often contributes to an invasion of privacy and manipulation, so it’s paramount that we seek out balanced solutions that limit it and protect privacy and prioritize trust. | | | | |
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< | Before taking this course, I didn’t fully consider the consequences of surveillance because I, too, saw it as a tool for safety. While I believe it’s important to hold law enforcement accountable for misconduct, the overuse of surveillance shouldn’t exist in the first place. Governments need to abandon the practices, as they offer citizens little to no benefit. Instead, it only increases police presence, exacerbating public discomfort and cynicism toward the government. Meaningful change must begin with the government removing surveillance systems currently in place. | >
> | Brief Reflection | | | | |
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Characterizing police bodycams, etc., as retaliatory surveillance doesn't make sense to me. This is workplace surveillance of a public workplace conducted by the employer. I'm not sure why we ned to worry about balance: police are unionized workers with extremely aggressive and capable union representation. Their on-job surveillance is a mandatory issue of collective bargaining with the agencies that employ them (a fact you don't mention). Why is it reasonable to leave the questions that concern worker privacy and the effect of the monitoring on the outcomes of the job to be settled between those parties?
You do not therefore address the surveillance of police by citizens using recording devices in public. This is the actual second side of your coin. And the analysis cannot be conducted in the rather non-specific balancing structure you use in this draft, because citizens surely have a First Amendment right to record all police behavior occurring in public, as they surely do not have (under Houchens v. KQED) a First Amendment right of access to any of the areas inside police stations. So you need a different approach to what remains your quite sensible initial set of questions.
Sources:
Why aren't these links anchored to the text in the usual Wed way? Why make it hard for the reader to follow what you are linking? Use the "make a link" button in the wiki editor or see TextFormattingRules to do the markdown directly.
- Christopher Slobogin & Sarah Brayne, Surveillance Technologies and Constitutional Law, 6 Ann. Rev. Criminol. 219 (2023)
- Dan Barry, Video Evidence, and a Question of Race, The New York Times (Aug. 19, 2017)
- Randy K. Lippert & Bryce Clayton Newell, Debate Introduction: The Privacy and Surveillance Implications of Police Body Cameras, Vol.14 No.1 (2016)
- Sam Levins, Police Use of Force Data Reveals Violent Trends, Analysis Finds, The Guardian (Aug. 28, 2024)
- Tonghan Zhang et al., A Comprehensive Survey on Graph Neural Networks, arXiv:2212.
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> | Before taking this course, I didn’t fully consider the consequences of surveillance because I, too, saw it as a tool for safety. While holding law enforcement accountable for misconduct is important, the overuse of surveillance should not be possible in the first place. Additionally, police officers have privacy rights that warrant consideration. Governments should abandon these practices, especially since the general public often views footage produced by officers as dubious and of little benefit. Instead, police surveillance only exacerbates public discomfort and cynicism toward the government. Meaningful change must start with the government limiting surveillance systems currently in place for law enforcement. It’s critical that officers receive adequately training in de-escalation strategies so that retaliatory civilian surveillance isn’t a necessary resort. |
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