My commenters on the last post got me thinking: police departments (and other professions) demand officers hold themselves to a “higher standard” of conduct. So what’s that standard? What does it mean? How are officers expected to know where the lines are? The “higher standard” is subjective These are not easy questions to answer. Young…
Category Archives: Legal Issues
Just how high does the standard need to be?
Thinking about the Bozeman officer who resigned over his Facebook status updates made me think: What, exactly, do we civilians expect from our police officers? Because I’ve heard comments along the same lines from dozens of other cops. Civilians, too. Take this one from one of my own Facebook friends: “….I suffer fools not at…
Transparency vs. anonymity
An interesting debate has cropped up over on ConnectedCops.net about whether police officers should be allowed to blog anonymously. It started with Lauri’s point in her post on elements of a social media policy (cross posted here and on her blog): 3. Identity. Some bloggers work anonymously, using pseudonyms or false screen names. Law enforcement…
Why cops shouldn’t use social networking
In response to my question, “Do you think more LE don’t get on board w/ social media b/c they fear the inability to size ppl up as they would in person?” I got another response besides those from the previous entry: @cmouser: There are folks telling officers it not safe for them to do it…false…
Why aren’t more cops implementing social media?
Writing a blog entry, I began to speculate about why cops aren’t as involved with social media as, well, I think they should be. Was it the technology? The personal interaction? The anonymity? Or simply that they don’t yet understand it well enough? I didn’t have the experience to say authoritatively. So I opened it…
Can social media help guard against vigilantism?
This week, the Stockton (Calif.) city council approved a budget that will lay off 55 police officers. If you recall, Stockton was the city where—when the likelihood of a significant number of layoffs was announced in April—an armed militia announced plans to “activate” should this actually occur. City officials, as Stockton resident and activist Bill…