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[Leafsnail]

Alright, let's try something.... You're accused of a crime, arrested for it, etc. Let's pretend you're wearing one of these things, and that the police request the video from the relevant timeframe. You reply honestly, that, you didn't have it recording at the time in question.

The police then:
A.) Accuse you of lying and destroying the video file, trying to draw a negative inference against you for it.
B.) Accuse you of knowingly turning off your camera to commit the crime, "Now why would you suddenly turn off your camera for exactly the time it took you... o... o excuse me.... 'someone'... to commit this crime...?"

This seems extremely unlikely.  I'm not sure I want to live my life constantly terrified of the slight possibility that the police are going to frame me and use ridiculous non-evidence against me in court.  In any case, these things don't autorecord, and if they did, it'd be far more likely that you'd still have the video file of the timeframe in which you supposedly did the crime.

I mean, the situation you've described is bad, but you can come up with a crazy "worst case scenario" for anything.

[GlyphGryph]

And is pretty much super-made-up for by the fact that HAVING the recording on when the crime committed is PRETTY SOLID evidence you didn't do it, while NOT having it on is at best circumstantial.

Unless of course you're stupid enough to have committed the crime while recording it, in which case, well...

You were probably gonna end up in jail sooner or later anyways...

[Truean]

sad really

[MetalSlimeHunt]

People have also been convinced on the unverified words of a cop and absolutely nothing else.

[Truean]

People have also been convinced on the unverified words of a cop and absolutely nothing else.

"The officer detected the scent of marijuana." .....

[GlyphGryph]

You realize the current prison population has jack-shit to do with what we're discussing?

I know bad laws exist. I know they still have (terrible) effects on real people. I'm not an idiot. I know circumstantial evidence can get a person convicted (but not, hopefully, without more than one piece of it. In which case the defense fucked up their job, the jury fucked up their duty, and the prosecutors... well, good job, guys.). A legal case is always, to a certain degree, playing the odds with 12 people you never met and whether or not events have conspired to make you look worse (or better) than you deserve.

But I don't think bad laws existing is reason to say "we shouldn't do this other thing that does more harm than good."
I think bad laws existing indicates "We need to fix fucked up laws."

So, tell me, Truean - You have a client come in, who wears one of these, recording 24/7.

The police have accused him of a certain crime at a certain time in a certain place.

You have access to this recording that shows he wasn't even there.

Is this, in your mind, a bad thing? Is this... no helpful to you for some reason? Is this evidence in some way weaker than it appears?

You seem to be a victim, here and in other situations, of always being able to see what could go wrong, which I'm sure is useful in your line of work, but you seem to have difficulty in seeing what could go right. Do you honestly think there is no benefit a person could gain on a legal front (both as a defense, and in convicting those who committed a crime against them) to these items? Is it inconceivable that for at least some portion of the population, those benefits might be more likely than the negatives, and more valuable, and thus worth it?

[Sirus]

Truean, right now you're just a couple steps above "frothing-mouth tinfoil-wearing homeless man" paranoid on my scale. This is not a good thing, and pulling a worst-case scenario out of something that is barely even a prototype, is in no way mandatory, and has the same functions as the smart phone in my pocket does not an argument make.

Shit, I can pull worst-case scenarios out of eating bran flakes for breakfast. Doesn't stop me from eating them, and it doesn't mean that I should freak out about them.

[Leafsnail]

Respectfully to you both, this sorta shit happens. Basically everyone says, "O that'll never happen to me." And it doesn't happen to a lot of people, but it happens to enough of them. Seriously, why do you think we have procedures for dealing with all kinds of bad stuff? Cause it happens. We have an entire prosthesis industry for people who were never going to lose a limb.... Insurance, hospitals, psychiatric wards. Most people don't have to deal with it, but enough of them do.... Just because it probably won't happen to you, if you're lucky, doesn't mean it won't happen.

You do realize most evidence is circumstantial right? That doesn't mean you can't get convicted on it. Lots of people have been convicted by circumstantial evidence. Scientific proof isn't required, not by a long shot.

Well uh... yeah?  It will happen to a tiny minority of people.  But if the risk is "creating circumstantial evidence" then there is literally no way to avoid that.  Because absolutely EVERYTHING you do could be "circumstantial evidence" that you did a crime you have no idea about.  I don't see how the extremely unlikely camera scenario is any more likely to be circumstantial evidence against you than, say, getting up and going to work (and happening to pass a crime scene on the way).

I mean, I feel you could make a similar argument why you shouldn't own a car/ knife/ rope/ hammer/ toaster because that could be circumstantial evidence that you ran over/ stabbed/ strangled/ beat/ electrocuted someone to death.

Law of averages says it WILL happen. This is also not a worst case scenario. Come one come all into 1984....

I don't think law of averages says anything of the sort, considering the number of things that would have to line up for something that unlikely to happen (buy the camera + set the camera to record all the time + randomly decide to turn the camera off before the crime and turn it on again after the crime + police hate you and there happens to be a crime they can pin on you + prosecution doesn't understand how evidence works + jury hate you and the extremely flimsy camera evidence is what seals the case).

Do you honestly think there is no benefit a person could gain on a legal front (both as a defense, and in convicting those who committed a crime against them) to these items?

Funny you should say this - I have a friend who was mugged while wearing a head mounted camera.  Apparently the muggers didn't notice, and now all 4 of them are behind bars.

[MetalSlimeHunt]

So, tell me, Truean - You have a client come in, who wears one of these, recording 24/7.

The police have accused him of a certain crime at a certain time in a certain place.

You have access to this recording that shows he wasn't even there.

Is this, in your mind, a bad thing? Is this... no helpful to you for some reason? Is this evidence in some way weaker than it appears?

You are aware that evidence can be declared inadmissible and it's very existence kept from the jurors, correct?

[Sirus]

So, tell me, Truean - You have a client come in, who wears one of these, recording 24/7.

The police have accused him of a certain crime at a certain time in a certain place.

You have access to this recording that shows he wasn't even there.

Is this, in your mind, a bad thing? Is this... no helpful to you for some reason? Is this evidence in some way weaker than it appears?

You are aware that evidence can be declared inadmissible and it's very existence kept from the jurors, correct?

Why is it that every "progressive" thread I ever see invariably turns into a "omg guvmint out to GET me" thread? You're freaking out about a HEAD-MOUNTED iPHONE, people! Surely there's a charity running or something you can link to instead?

[Truean]

huh?

[GlyphGryph]

MSH - Yes, yes I am. Do you have a point here?

Or should we all just bow down and lick the boots of law enforcement, because after all, any evidence supporting us will be thrown out and any circumstantial evidence found will be enough to convict us. No escaping it, might as well just give in, right?

In which case the whole eyewear thing just becomes a retarded distraction anyway.

So, yes,

evidence can be declared inadmissible and it's very existence kept from the jurors

but there actually needs to be a reason beyond "it proves my client isn't guilty" or the judge isn't going to do it. And if the judge WOULD, well - you're going to jail whether or not you had a camera at that point.

Truean, I don't know what's up with you - but your managing to not only completely mischaracterize your opposition, but also rip up your own goalposts and run them to the other side of the field. Your arguing against strawmen as if you're trying to score points of some sort, no matter how relevant it is to the conversation.

We are not your clients.

We do not believe (or at least I don't) that bad things won't happen to me.

This does not stop me from going on the occasional car ride, because literally everything you do in life has risks, and sometimes those risks are worth it. No matter how much I value my limbs, skin, and life.

And arming the populace with recording devices, devices over which they themselves have control? History has shown that has a whole fuckload of positives that make the risks more than worth it - not just for the individuals, but for society as a whole. And you've failed to actually attempt to argue that your whole risk issue is even relevant in this case - to do that, you wouldn't have to show the "bad" is possible, but more likely than the "good" (though the degree of bad and good can certainly factor in if you think they are likely to be different).

[Truean]

odd

[MetalSlimeHunt]

MSH - Yes, yes I am. Do you have a point here?

Or should we all just bow down and lick the boots of law enforcement, because after all, any evidence supporting us will be thrown out and any circumstantial evidence found will be enough to convict us. No escaping it, might as well just give in, right?

My point is to let as few of your activities as possible be documented, and more importantly to stay the hell away from cops.

[Leafsnail]

The issue I have is that it's a really small risk and also that you aren't really avoiding it by not buying the camera.  I mean, you can apply the logic to anything...

- Don't buy a car.  Someone could say that they saw a car that fits your cars description near a crimescene.  This would be circumstantial evidence against you.
- Don't buy a knife.  A murder could be committed with a knife similar to yours.  If they found your knife that would be circumstantial evidence against you, especially if you happened to have washed the knife recently.
- Don't buy a rope.  A murder could be performed by strangling near you with a similar kind of rope.  This would be circumstantial evidence against you, especially if you happened to have used that rope recently.
- Don't buy a hammer.  A murder could be performed with a similar brand to the one you use.  This would be circumstantial evidence against you.
- Don't buy a toaster.  If someone is killed by having a toaster dropped in their bath and you happen to have also dropped your toaster in water recently (without killing anyone) then this would be circumstantial evidence against you.
- Don't buy clothes.  Someone may describe someone at a crimescene who happens to be wearing similar clothes to you.  This would be circumstantial evidence against you.

It's just... you can construct a situation where any object can mildly incriminate you.  I don't see why your scenario is any more likely than the ones above (and I also think some of the scenarios above provide "stronger" circumstantial evidence than your case), and therefore I don't think the slight chance of something incriminating you under really unlikely circumstances is grounds to not obtain an object.