LulzSec Document Dump Shows Cops' Fear of iPhones

jfruhlinger writes "People are starting to comb through the details of the law enforcement documents made public by LulzSec. Blogger Kevin Fogarty noticed one interesting trend: The cops seem very anxious about iPhones, particularly apps that would allow encounters with police officers to be recorded. Ironically, the cops seem extremely concerned with protecting their own privacy, but the documents encourage police to examine iPhones during the course of interacting with the public to see what apps they have."

Oy

[NoKaOi]

First off, according the article, they're not encouraged to search iPhones whenever interacting with the public, but rather when they arrest somebody. Secondly, it's pretty bad that they posted the home addresses of a bunch of cops. Mind you, I'm all for outing all this BS, but not all cops are bad (although there's certainly a lot that abuse their authority). And of course, shouldn't the cops want to be recorded if they're not doing anything wrong? On TV, people being arrested often claim bogus police brutality or some such nonsense. In real life, having a bystander recording the situation could help them. Of course, in real life, if they actually are abusing their authority then they do have something to hide. Seems to me any cop that doesn't want themselves to be recorded while performing PUBLIC duties in PUBLIC places isn't confident that they're not going to get in trouble for doing something wrong.

Re:vehicle cams

[WrongSizeGlass]

Many police cars in US has vehicle front cams, don't they?

They have complete control over those videos (included if and when they get "lost"). They don't have control over phone cameras.

Re:Next Killer App

[Blitter]

Already got it:

http://qik.com/ [qik.com]
http://openwatch.net/apps/ [openwatch.net]

Re:Next Killer App

[Anonymous Coward]

Did you RTFA... that is exactly what scares these cops.
 
 

Specifically the document warns that an app called Cop Recorder can be activated while the phone is in a suspect's pocket to record what happens during an arrest, then upload the audio to a network server beyond the officer's reach.

Re:no expectation of privacy

[Riceballsan]

Since when is it illegal for your boss to record you at work?, if it is just about every convenience store, wal-mart and half the restaurants in the world are breaking the law. If I remember right from when I worked at subway, there was a security camera filming the back room, the register (at an angle to monitor for both robbers and to catch cashiers from taking from their own registers, and it was more then common for someone to get fired for sitting around on the job, stealing from the register etc... based on evidence from those cameras.

Re:Funny...

[Anonymous Coward]

Even in civilian defense classes, you're never taught to "shoot to wound". At least not by any competent instructor.

If your life is in danger, and it's time to shoot, you shoot for maximum effect. If your life isn't in danger, you don't shoot at all.

You always assume that if you discharge your firearm, there's going to be life threatening injury or death. There's no dancing around the issue. Furthermore, being able to reliably hit center-mass, on a moving target, with adrenaline pumping, in low light... that's hard enough. You can't train people to reliably aim for, and hit, limbs.

And to head off the smartasses, there are very rare exceptions (you can find videos of swat snipers shooting weapons out of a stationary person's hands). But those shooters only fire when killing the person in question is a real possibility, and they don't really train for that kind of stunt.