An App Promises Mobile Justice to Protestors When Law Enforcement Violates the Law

It’s no surprise, now that protest culture has made social media and smartphones vehicles for political change, that the federal government is attempting to regulate those forms of communication. Last September, FBI Director James Corney was vocal about his disappointment that Apple had decided to no longer unlock iPhones at the request of law enforcement. All too often, video evidence that could incriminate police is subject to confiscation and or deletion after arrest, making the design of Mobile Justice that more crucial for exposing abuses.

Working with your phone’s camera, Mobile Justice allows users to take video of public exchanges with police and other citizens. When the video has ended, it automatically uploads to the American Civil Liberties Union, keeping the file from being deleted if the phone is confiscated. The other functions include a “Witness” function, which is identical to “I’m Getting Arrested,” by alerting other Mobile Justice users nearby to assist in recording. The “Report” function allows for a more-detailed account of people’s interactions with police by filing an incident report that gets sent directly to the ACLU.

Mobile Justice is available for download through the ACLU offices in Missouri, Mississippi, Nebraska and Oregon. The app already had a direct role helping combat racial profiling in New Jersey and New York, where it was known as “Stop and Frisk Watch” and has been downloaded over 30,000 times. It was a direct response to the chronic misuse of police authority in making random stops of citizens, and disproportionately Blacks and Latinos.

The events of Ferguson made the need for Mobile Justice technology in Missouri abundantly clear. Yet with the footage of Eric Garner’s wrongful death at the hands of the NYPD still not resulting in a conviction, the effectiveness of the app is difficult to forecast. In Oregon, the Portland Police Department has taken a progressive approach. They’ve embraced Mobile Justice as way to remain transparent so that questionable officers are weeded out.