"The Fate of the Iconic Sign: Taser Video" - by Christina Spiesel, Yale Law School

Colette R. Brunschwig

In her article entitled "The Fate of the Iconic Sign: Taser Video," Christina Spiesel (Yale Law School) explores legal or legally relevant videos. In particular, she focuses critically on videos generated by tasers (electroshock weapons). The author calls them tasercam videos. According to Wikipedia's entry on "Taser," "the TASER CAM is a specialized device designed for the Taser X26 to record audio and video when the Taser's safety is disengaged. The CAM is integrated into a battery pack and does not interfere with the Taser's existing function." (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taser; last accessed on November 3, 2010)

With respect to the function of these cameras, Christina Spiesel observes, "Tasers equipped with video and used by the police are made to record the actions of the person using the gun in context for a record of what happened, as evidence." (p. 64) In order to give you an even clearer idea how this article relates to visual and audio-visual law, I would like to quote an interesting passage on the limitations of the taser camera: "While it may run continuously from the moment the video is turned on, it does not provide much context about what was going on prior to deployment and nothing about what happens after the Taser is turned off: The camera is attached to the gun so that viewers are treated to what might be touted in another context as the ultimate immersive first-person shooter experience, where the point of view the viewer assumes is not that of the eyes of the officer above the gun, but that of the gun itself --- lower down in the visual field, more a part of the action and less connected to the head of the operator. Viewers can feel this disconnection from the head, it is a visceral view. This point of view puts us in the action, not just standing back and thinking about it; it seems to turn the standard trope of photographic observation, particularly photojournalism, as non-intervention on its head." (p. 59)

Although Christina Spiesel's paper is centered on American legal culture, it also deserves to be brought to the attention of the European legal community, since tasers are also used in Europe.

For more information, I would like to refer you to: Spiesel, Christina, The Fate of the Iconic Sign: Taser Video, in: G. Sykes (ed.), Courting the Media: Contemporary Perspectives on Media and Law, New York, NY, 2010, 51-73.

Hinweise zur bestehenden Moderationspraxis
Kommentar schreiben