ReadWriteWeb

In a show of good faith today, Google touted the fact that it has refused to cooperate with local law enforcement agencies in the U.S. who requested the removal of YouTube videos of police brutality and criticisms of law enforcement officials. Google cited its transparency report from the first half of this year, but to mention it today is telling. With violent crackdowns at Occupy Oakland this week, citizen media like YouTube have been a vital channel. From Google's mid-year transparency report:

"We received a request from a local law enforcement agency to remove YouTube videos of police brutality, which we did not remove. Separately, we received requests from a different local law enforcement agency for removal of videos allegedly defaming law enforcement officials. We did not comply with those requests, which we have categorized in this Report as defamation requests."

Improved mobile phone cameras and the ability to live stream anything from a phone has proved threatening to police who don't like to be filmed, but an app used by the University of Maryland police department could be the future of 9-1-1.

The University of Maryland police department is testing an app that will allow police to monitor live video of an emergency situation and will allow a mobile user to beam video to the police station in a time of need.

A study of 1,089 official and unofficial law enforcement Twitter accounts shows about 21 percent don't tweet, nine percent tweet personal opinions about crime or criminal justice, and three percent have tweeted in a way that could be interpreted as racist or sexist.

Furthermore, the vast majority of agencies did not include legal disclaimers or refer to a social media policy on their Twitter accounts.

The "Dark Figure of Crime" is not, as one would imagine, a London-fog-bedecked, cloak-and-dagger figure slinking down a shadowy alleyway. It sounds very Hollywood, but "The Dark Figure" is simply a term used by statisticians to describe a crime that goes unreported.

Serious and even violent crimes go unreported for a myriad of social, political and personal reasons. What does this have to do with Twitter? Criminologists have for years grappled with that dark figure, and while police science research on social media is in its infancy, the ability to compare official and real-time crowdsourced data could change how we research crime.

The Australian Federal Police insist that Facebook hire a compliance officer and install a "rat button" on its site that will allow Australians to report anyone to the police with click.

The social media company and the AFP have been going back and forth over the responsibility Australian law enforcement believes the company has in regards to local law enforcement.

In a breathtakingly risky move, a former Russian police officer has taken to the Internet in full uniform to detail the corruption, danger, and brutality of his line of work.

In an open video address to Prime Minister Vladmir Putin, Alexei Dymovsky says, "Maybe you don't know about us, about simple cops, who live and work and love their work. I'm ready to tell you everything. I'm not scared of my own death." How much does Dymovsky have to fear? The answer might surprise those of us who are accustomed to the relative freedoms of self-expression.