They tell us over and over again that we should have no expectation of privacy or not being filmed in public. Well, IMO they should not have any expectation of privacy or not being filmed when on private property and conducting the work _that we pay for_. They work for us.
That is not just your opinion, that is the opinion of multiple United States Court of Appeals circuits in many many cases, and by its declining to overturn these cases, that is also the opinion of the United States Supreme Court. The United States is a common law country, so really what that means is that your opinion is actually not an opinion at all; you have simply stated the established law of the land.
That is, in fact, what the law says and what the courts have agreed with multiple times.
and I imagine that if the INVERSE of this case had come up, the police suing for defamation would have been protected by qualified immunity so no lawsuit would have been possible.<p>The police being able to leverage civil law against citizens to control their behavior in ways that citizens cannot leverage against cannot to comment on the abuse of power is entirely unacceptable no matter what our laws and judiciary chose to allow.
> They work for us.<p>Ooh sweet summer child.
Cynicism is very cooler-than-thou, but it's not because we don't know better.<p>It's because we <i>do</i> know how the system fails, and holding power accountable to those high aspirations is the only thing that pushes back the equilibrium.
I understand what you're saying, but I was speaking in the ideal or purpose, rather than the defacto/pragmatic.
It's logistically a fact. Their paycheck comes from taxpayers. If you believe they're doing a bad job it's unrelated.
er... if you'll excuse me confirming the "HN is the 'well actually capital of the internet' stereotype"...<p>If you look throughout history, you'll see that before the advent of what we'd call 'modern states', most people who got their paycheck from 'taxpayers' did not see themselves as working for said 'taxpayers'.<p>Example: Pharaonic Egypt. Alexander's Empire, Bourbon France, Tsarist Russia, or more generally <i>any</i> kingdom, empire or any sort of duchy/earldom/county/etc where you have someone (the King, Tsar, Emperor, Duke, etc), whose job it is to lord over the peasants and take a cut of their work, not because they are an elected public servant doing the will of The People, but because they believe God Almighty has decreed that living off the wealth of others, and occasionally wasting large amounts of that wealth on building palaces or waging costly wars is what they were born to do.<p><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Divine_right_of_kings" rel="nofollow">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Divine_right_of_kings</a><p>as such, if you view the modern state as "basically an oligarchy masquerading as a democracy", then the police are not in fact working for 'Joe Taxpayer', but are just playing the same role that medival knights played for the Kings of France - they are the armed force of the extractive state, whose job it is to keep the peasants in line via violence so that they can continue to live off the fruits of peasant labor.
well, to be fair, there are a higher-than-average number of business owners on here, so they really might work for them
Only insofar as those business interests align with the government's interests.<p>The police get paid by and do the bidding of the government. They work for the government.<p>While you can screech about the degree of overlap between government interests and big business interests, and it absolutely is something worth screeching about, acting as though they are one in the same is counterproductive to understanding either.
yes.<p>It is also worth noting that in some cases, government and business owners have diametrically opposed interests - namely governments can nationalize companies (and if I'm not mistaken, some governments, like the Nazis, did, or would use the threat of nationalization to make business owners do their bidding with no regard for the interest of the business owner)
> In one of the music videos, “Will You Help Me Repair My Door,” surveillance footage shows officers swinging open a gate, kicking down a door, and roaming armed around a living room and a kitchen.<p>>The other, “Lemon Pound Cake,” shows one of the officers, gun in hand, pausing briefly in Mr. Foreman’s kitchen by a cake inside a glass cloche. “It made the sheriff want to put down his gun and cut him a slice,” Mr. Foreman sings in the song.<p>The man has a sense of humor.
Seems like the Streisand effect to me. Suing him over this calls attention to the inappropriateness of police raiding his house. I hadn't heard this story and now I took away from it some embarrassing stories about the cops.
He's also a savvy businessman, this will be great for his career
The lemon pound cake first features in the first video, "Will You Help Me Repair My Door" and seems to have become popular (a chubby sheriff deputy glancing at a lemon pound cake, gun in hand is a viral godsend!) so he made that second video about it [1] and it completely took off. I have watched videos outside the courthouse after the verdict and supporters were even handing free lemon pound cakes [2]. Has the apple pie got competition?<p>[1] <a href="https://youtu.be/9xxK5yyecRo?si=rnz34IxCeFPRKQ4M" rel="nofollow">https://youtu.be/9xxK5yyecRo?si=rnz34IxCeFPRKQ4M</a><p>[2] <a href="https://youtu.be/pSEOiu0RvLk?si=xx2ZrN1rzEg3n1Ve" rel="nofollow">https://youtu.be/pSEOiu0RvLk?si=xx2ZrN1rzEg3n1Ve</a>
"Mr. Foreman was not at home during the 2002 police raid, but a security camera system and his wife, using her cellphone, recorded the “faces and bodies” of the officers while they were on the property, according to the lawsuit"<p>"2002"
New York Times, everyone.<p>Props to afroman for his perfect demeanor/attitude during all this.
2022. I'm not sure phones recorded useful video in 2002.
There used to be a Twitter account that pointed out typos like this—I think exclusively—in the NYT.
Surprised they didn't write 2ÖÖ2, knowing the Times' predilections
I <i>highly</i> recommend people watch video from the trial--specifically the officer testimonies. It's absurd this lawsuit was even fit for trial.
Serious question: how come the police have not paid for the damage they caused?
They chose not to do so. And the courts are no help, because generally speaking, you can't sue the government unless there's a specific law allowing you to do so (sovereign immunity). The police as individuals are generally immune from civil suits unless they violated some clearly established right (qualified immunity).
Serious answer: cops are not accountable for their behavior, in the vast majority of cases.
If the damaged party tries to sue the police for the damage they caused, the police can get the case instantly dismissed underqualified immunity.
Qualified immunity just protects the police, and other government officials personally. If there is grounds for a lawsuit then he could still sue the government that employs the police department.<p>I think in general, if it is a legit warrant, it is very difficult to win a lawsuit for damage. Though with that video, and how high profile this has been, he might be able to win something. though IANAL, and I'm just going off my gut.
Stealing things out of a person's fridge and eating it is not covered under qualified immunity.
Making up details of the incident doesn't help either. They didn't eat anything, a cop just did a double-take at the lemon pound cake, and Afroman wrote a song about how they wanted to eat it.
um it probably is. Wasn’t there a case a few years ago where a dispensary was raided and the cops stole marijuana, and got away with it due to QI.
Qualified immunity.
which is double genius on afroman, because they forfeited qualified immunity to start this trial. now he can even sue further damages.<p>distrack as legal maneuver.
He is a seasoned professional at this. He was respected in the diss track game in his day, he definitely understands the boundaries of defamation. And what has long been known in rap in newspapers: even if you're right it's not worth it to be on the stand defending defamation. "It's average size your honor."
I'm going to keep this one... underqualified immunity :)
They’re not liable to repair damage incurred from a raid or any other action. If the fire department has to chop your door open with an axe to gain entry to your home, they don’t pay for that either, you do.<p>If the police execute a search warrant on your home and kill your pet or a person, guess who is responsible for cleaning up the blood and mess? I’ll give you a hint, it’s not the police.
Suing for invasion of privacy over a music video demonstrating how they invaded his privacy is wild!!
Cops bust in searching for his drugs, then accuse him of invasion of privacy and humiliation...
<a href="https://archive.ph/sMpjA" rel="nofollow">https://archive.ph/sMpjA</a>
good read. thanks for sharing
[dupe] <a href="https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47436950">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47436950</a>
Related: <a href="https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47436950">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47436950</a>
[flagged]
This is the single funniest thing to happen in at least a decade.