know, common sense privacy protections, which need to be implemented in order to make sure that neither the police nor suspects or people who are hurt in the commission of crimes, that their privacy is violated. but it absolutely makes a ton of sense. mike claxton and nick gi gillespie, thank you both. the issue of domestic violence in professional sports is the topic of a senate hearing on capitol hill right now. i ll talk to two women advocating for change whether they think congress can make a difference.
what we saw there was a genuine expression of concern and involvement. he even added, i ain t mad at you. mark claxton, former nypd detective and nick gillespie is editor-in-chief of reason.com. thank you for being here. mark, i want to start with you, because one of the things we ve seen in this hubbub over this gesture of hands up by five st. louis rams and the aggressive statement by roorda, i want to read a bit of it. we see a disconnect over what the first amendment means. he writes, i know that there are those that will say that these players are simply exsizing their first amendment rights. then he went on to say the only thing protecting the rams are the very police officers he described as the elements of the real fan base. that struck a lot of people as
protests. that is something that i hope will be discussed and dealt with with this task force that the president announced yesterday. nick, i have a two-parter for you. the first part being, what would be the consequences if, in fact, a police agency, even its union, could command an organization to apologize to it? the second part, if you could talk about the second part because a lot of officers are concerned, and mr. roorda has expressed this in the past, about body cameras being a privacy violation of the officer and maybe even of the public. yeah. well, two things. first is that it s daunting we live in an age where confidence and support for government at all levels and authority at all levels have been hollowed out. that s not because american citizens are bad people. it s because from the federal level to the state level to the local level, people act badly who are in charge of us and really authorities need to understand they don t get that
improper because it was sort of almost threatening in a veiled sort of way. what did you make of that statement? it was implicit threat with that statement. and that s commonly a tactic used by police departments. oftentimes, the false option is either you want the police and will support and endure whatever it is the police bring forward or you ll have no police protection. that s really that is the underlying threat that exists. not only in this particular case, but in other cases as well. nick, i really wanted to have you here today, because this is one of those issues that isn t ideological. it isn t partisan. it s an issue for any american that understands the police are the arm they are the armed arm of the state. this whole question of what the first amendment means. i want to read you from sally jenkins in the washington post.