Recording on-duty cops may get you arrested

[Eric T Cheng]

It is illegal in three states to record on-duty police officers, even if you on a public street. (http://gizmodo.com/5553765/are-cameras-the-new-guns)


The legal justification for arresting the "shooter" rests on existing wiretapping or eavesdropping laws, with statutes against obstructing law enforcement sometimes cited. Illinois, Massachusetts, and Maryland are among the 12 states in which all parties must consent for a recording to be legal unless, as with TV news crews, it is obvious to all that recording is underway. Since the police do not consent, the camera-wielder can be arrested. Most all-party-consent states also include an exception for recording in public places where "no expectation of privacy exists" (Illinois does not) but in practice this exception is not being recognized.

[kerzain]

Only three states take privacy seriously?

[Mordrak]

When you're a public official, working in public, claiming recording you on the job unknowingly is an abridgment of your personal privacy seems pretty absurd.

The police are going to make a record of the incident and more than likely that will enter the public record. Why shouldn't we be able to do the same?

[Anti-Bunny]

Only three states take privacy seriously?
http://i46.tinypic.com/2mi51jr.jpg

[Woolen Horde]

When you're a public official, working in public, claiming recording you on the job unknowingly is an abridgment of your personal privacy seems pretty absurd.


Police aren't just public officials, but they're public officials who are authorized to carry and use deadly weapons in the course of their duties, which makes them quite a few steps higher on the "can fuck up your life in an instant" ladder than, say, a dogcatcher.

[Blackadar]

This seems like an open-and-shut First Amendment case, but with the makeup of the current Supreme Court all bets are off.

[Tortilla]

I'm the kind of guy who doesn't blink an eye at the idea of a national ID database, or of pervasive government CCTV monitoring of public places, or a move to digital currency with every transaction reported immediately to the government. It's obviously the direction we are headed and there are some powerful efficiency gains to be realized with this level of information being captured. However, the government resisting any attempts by the public to leverage the same technologies to monitor the goverment right back is the sort of shit that really really scares me.

Orwellian big brother nightmare scenarios will never happen no matter how much the government monitors the citizenry as long as the citizenry can monitor the goverment right back. If the level of information is roughly symmetrical both ways, there's very little possibility for tyranny

[Fugitive]

Police aren't just public officials, but they're public officials who are authorized to carry and use deadly weapons in the course of their duties, which makes them quite a few steps higher on the "can fuck up your life in an instant" ladder than, say, a dogcatcher.
Having that kind of power would seem to me a good reason they should be open to more scrutiny, not less.

[kerzain]

As a Fugitive your opinion is biased.

[Skipper]

That Anthony John Graber case is extremely disturbing. So it's legal for a cop to use video in trial, but a person with a helmet mounted camera cannot record a session with a cop allegedly acting in a non-professional manner.

I'm going to side with Kraaze here, I have no problem with a two-way street. It's when they cut off my rights to prevent defending myself against their statements ... I'm sorry, no. That's not right.

Fortunately, checking here (http://www.ncsl.org/IssuesResearch/TelecommunicationsInformationTechnology/ElectronicSurveillanceLaws/tabid/13492/Default.aspx) shows that my state only requires one party consent.

[Jag]

Anyone interested in the subject, should see Carlos Miller's website Photography is Not a Crime (http://carlosmiller.com/), except that now...maybe it is...I guess he should change the name.

[Moore]

I thought the biker issue was the audio, not the cam

[MatthewF]

Here's a nice catch-22 for you: the plainclothes cop in the Graber case jumped out of his car and immediately drew his weapon. He did not identify himself as a police officer until he approached the bike.

So, if it's 2-party consent that's required, what possible option did Graber have in that situation? He didn't know he was a cop, so he wouldn't have immediately told him that he was being recorded. And, even after he knew he was a cop, if he asked him if he could record him, the cop #1 would have said no, and #2 the video and audio recorded before his announcement as a police officer would still have violated the wiretapping law. He'd still be arrested, because even though Graber didn't know he was a cop, that doesn't mean he wasn't.

Fucking insane.

[Tortilla]

There are all sorts of stupid catch-22s involving undercover cops. The laws protecting police are designed to give maximum protection to police even if it comes at the benefits of the liberty of citizens or of common sense.

[NoWayJose]

Here's a nice catch-22 for you: the plainclothes cop in the Graber case jumped out of his car and immediately drew his weapon. He did not identify himself as a police officer until he approached the bike.

So, if it's 2-party consent that's required, what possible option did Graber have in that situation? He didn't know he was a cop, so he wouldn't have immediately told him that he was being recorded.
What does the second party being a cop have to do with it? Two party consent applies (in these cases) to all parties, regardless of profession. Graber's responsibility is to inform the people he's recording that he's recording them, not decide whether to do so based on their being cops or not.

[MatthewF]

How are you supposed to do that? What if you're at a park with your kid, recording him on the swing set. There's a bunch of other families around. Are you supposed to yell out to everyone in the park that you're recording and they may appear/be heard on the recording? Do you need to have them sign a waiver so they won't sue you for appearing in the kid's video?

This just sounds like "no video cameras recording anything, ever." The problem is, you're supposed to be allowed to record anyone at any time as long as you are in a public place and there is no expectation of privacy. That's where the wiretapping law doesn't apply. What I was getting at is that nobody would reasonably have someone arrested for having been recorded in a public place by them, but a cop that gets embarrassed by having it put on the internets, well, you're going to jail, buddy.

That's the problem with the Graber case. A guy records police abuse (drawing a weapon without identifying himself, hell, just drawing a freaking weapon for a traffic stop) and then what do the police do? Apply further abuse for recording the abuse.

[Woolen Horde]

Having that kind of power would seem to me a good reason they should be open to more scrutiny, not less.

I remember something regarding this in a media law course I took in college. The prof is the guy who wrote the textbook on media law (it was up to the 17th or so edition by the time I took it, and he was a consultant to CBS and many others).

The gist of it is that some newspaper looked into and wrote articles about cops. The cops objected, citing privacy. The judge threw the cops' argument out, saying the community has a vested interest in cops, since they are public officials who carry the power to kill someone, which is about as serious as power gets.

[Kurdel]

I read this as off-duty cops, and thought that was great seeing that their personal security and well being off the job can be endangered.

But not being able to film on-duty cops is just stupid. They should be irreproachable in their actions and filmed evidence should only enforce that notion.

[Staff Sergeant]

The Taser thread here is a pretty good showcase of why cops really don't want to be recorded. It's no fun abusing your power if some pesky citizen is going to document it and give it to the media.