The police officers who brutally cracked down on protesters during last year’s occupation of the main chamber of the Executive Yuan have not yet been identified and during protests outside the Presidential Office Building over the government’s bid to join the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank, many examples of excessive constraints on personal freedom occurred as people were dispersed.
In addition, the commanding officer ordered all military police and police officers to remove their badges and insignia, and instructed them to avoid being filmed. He also forbade protesters from photographing and filming law enforcement personnel and even ordered the media to leave.
These actions run counter to law enforcement principles announced by Taipei Mayor Ko Wen-je (柯文哲) and the principles stipulated in the Police Power Exercise Act (警察職權行使法).
Old problems keep repeating themselves. Blocking reporters from entering sites where controversial news is developing is one thing, but when the Taipei city government turns a blind eye to information being gathered in a public place, the slogan: “We do everything in accordance with the law” becomes empty.
Given this adverse situation, the public’s countersurveillance rights and the participatory panopticon — where everyone is watching because cameras are becoming ubiquitous — must be juridically clarified.
Compared with civilians who participate in protests, law enforcement officers usually have a clear advantage. In recent years, they have used increasingly advanced technologies, facilities and data-mining methods to collect data in public spaces and even compared data illegally. The establishment and use of facial-recognition systems in the M-Police Operation System is one example.
Given this, it is only by giving the public countersurveillance rights — the right to gather information about law enforcement personnel — that the democratic principle can be realized.
Audio, video and photography equipment can raise the visibility of misconduct by law enforcement officers and provide evidence of illegal activities. Authorities should not be allowed to use the excuse of information privacy to prevent the public from recording footage at a protest.
The law does not explicitly forbid people from filming government actions in public spaces, so if these ridiculous excuses aimed at protecting law enforcement officers are considered valid, what kind of treatment should the public receive, and what about the protection they should have?
In the execution of their duties, law enforcement officers have no privacy rights that would require a suspension of the transparency of law enforcement activities at public demonstrations. This would be unthinkable in a normal democracy and it should be unthinkable in Taipei.
Granted, the prevalence of smartphones and mobile cameras, and the popular use of video-sharing and social network Web sites, might upset law enforcement officers, because their actions in public spaces or at protest sites can be recorded, but the law is not there to protect law enforcement officers’ emotional wellbeing. Apart from making it possible for the public to gather evidence and protect themselves, and to increase the efficiency of democratic oversight, the ultimate goal of the public’s countersurveillance rights are to protect the right to basic individual freedoms.
This does not only include individual rights to move and gather in public spaces, it also includes the protection of a person’s freedom of expression and right to gather information.
Current law generally allows law enforcement officers to use various methods to collect information and monitor the public, while restricting what the public can do to oversee law enforcement officials. The consequence is ever-increasing government control over the public, which is the greatest tragedy in a democracy.
To avoid this, the fact that power is unevenly distributed must be acknowledged. If the government, which has an information advantage, is allowed to abuse its power, irregularities will be unavoidable, and even more importantly, it must be recognized that behind the preposterous idea that the rights of law enforcement officers must be protected lies malicious authoritarian intent.
Only by doing that can there be real momentum to change the distribution of power. However, to bring about such change, the public’s freedom to film and photograph law enforcement activities in public spaces and at protest sites must be declared, creating a situation in which the public and the government effectively oversee each other.
Liu Ching-yi is a professor in the College of Social Sciences at National Taiwan University.
Translated by Ethan Zhan
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