When a patient exhibiting symptoms consistent with Ebola infection on United Airlines Flight 998 landed at Newark Airport last Saturday, the flight crew took immediate action to contain the possibility of viral infection: They ordered everyone not to take pictures.
The crew also told passengers there was no risk of infection, but that wasn’t exactly how the Centers for Disease Control read the situation.
It sent specialists outfitted in full hazmat suits aboard the plane, outfitting a man who had been vomiting and his daughter with the protective gear.
Information and pictures about all this got out anyway, though there is no truth to the rumor that United is changing its slogan to “Fly the authoritarian skies.”
The sick passenger turned out not to have Ebola, but that doesn’t make the crew’s behavior forgivable. They joined the ranks of the innumerable authority figures who try to keep us in the dark but find a citizenry well armed — with camera phones.
The Second Amendment was designed to give people the right to the tools to fight back against their government if necessary.
In Rialto, Calif., citizen complaints against police dropped 80% after cops began wearing cameras.
Today we need a new Second Amendment — an express, broad right to film public officials doing public business. Politicians should be made to state a position on the matter.
The death of Staten Island man Eric Garner would have gone in the books as merely a vaguely described death in police custody if it hadn’t been for the citizen camera that documented the way police jumped the asthmatic man as he cried, “I can’t breathe.”
In 2011, in Fullerton, Calif., a homeless man with schizophrenia died after police sat on him and beat on him. Police initially tried to make the case go away, but when images of the incident emerged, public outrage led to a trial for the officers involved.
Those officers were acquitted, and the cops involved in the Garner arrest might be exonerated as well. But videos mean that courts get to make that decision; that we don’t just need to take the police department’s word for it.
If the policeman who shot Michael Brown in Ferguson, Mo., knew his every action was being filmed, Brown might still be alive.
Conversely, such a video might have cleared the cop of the suspicion of wrongdoing and spared the town the anguish and rage that followed.
In any event, Brown’s death has inspired a popular outcry for more filming of police action. Just this week, officials in Cleveland announced that city police will likely be required to wear cameras, perhaps starting as early as the first quarter of next year.
It’s conceivable that in five years we’ll simply be able to look at the video of any controversial incidents involving the police. It’s hard not to think that better, more honest policing will result.
Even police are starting to see the potential benefits: Cleveland police chief Calvin Williams is on board, having noted that in Rialto, Calif., citizen complaints against police dropped 80% after cops began wearing cameras.
Political correctness and arguments from authority (two closely related fallacies, given that elite authority figures are often communicants of the church of PC) are severely jeopardized by citizen cameras. They bring information into the open that our betters would rather we didn’t have.
The rise of the camera phone is yet another example of how grassroots, bottom-up movements upend central power structures.
We need a new Second Amendment — an express, broad right to film public officials doing public business.
In the post-Watergate era, Americans demanded to know more about what their rulers were doing. Authorities interfered or dithered or, at best, passed well-intentioned but toothless legislation.
The Freedom of Information Act and similar laws have proven easily circumvented by authorities who redact documents, delay their release or just plain ignore requests.
I’ve reported on how both the Obama administration and Bill de Blasio’s City Hall, each of which vowed unprecedented transparency, have treated FOIA as a joke.
Moreover, since the average citizen can’t be bothered with the details of a FOIA request, FOIA essentially hands national watchdog duties to the journalist corps. That’s a bit like having Bill Belichick referee the Jets-Patriots game.
A Gallup survey last December found that journalists are among the least-trusted professionals in America, with a 21% approval rating from Gallup. We barely beat used-car salesman and lawmakers, but were tied with lawyers.
Now the barriers to journalism have been shattered. Camera phones make every citizen a potential journalist, and the next Watergate will probably be uncovered by a waitress who just happened to be out walking her dog at the key moment.
Picture an America without FOIA. Now picture an America without camera phones. Which one is scarier? Which one is more transparent, more accountable, more just?