Recording Police is Now Illegal

[ilaughatrightwingers]

Due to recent internet videos of police brutality, at least three states have outlawed recording on-duty police officers. It doesn't matter if the encounter with police involves you, is necessary for your defense, or is in a public area, video recording on-duty police officers is now illegal.

The so-called legal basis for this rests on eavesdropping and wiretapping laws. In some states, all parties must consent to being recorded unless a TV news crew is doing the recording. Police never consent, and so the non-press camera operators can be arrested. Illinois, Massachusetts and Maryland are among the 12 states with all-party consent laws.

Massachusetts Chief Justice Margaret Marshall said, "Citizens have a particularly important role to play when the official conduct at issue is that of the police. Their role cannot be performed if citizens must fear criminal reprisals."

"The police are basing this claim on a ridiculous reading of the two-party consent surveillance law - requiring all parties to consent to being taped. I have written in the area of surveillance law and can say that this is utter nonsense," said Jonathan Turley, a professor and Legal scholar.

Most courts seem to support the ban on recording police, however. An Illinois court recently refused to drop the eavesdropping charges against Christopher Drew, who recorded himself being arrested for selling art on the Chicago streets without a permit. Eavesdropping is a Class I felony and carries from 4 to 15 years in prison.

In 2001, Michael Hyde of Massachusetts was also arrested for recording his encounter with police, and the court supported his imprisonment for doing so in a 4 to 2 decision.

A recent arrest in Maryland during the month of March also provides another example. John Graber III was pulled over for speeding by a plainclothes policeman in an unmarked car. The officer approached Graber while screaming and waving his gun. Graber wasn't arrested right away, but he had recorded his encounter with the cop and uploaded it to YouTube. The police, feeling embarrassed, secured a warrant for Graber's arrest and he is now being accused of wiretapping.

"It's more ‘contempt of cop' than the violation of the wiretapping law," said Baltimore criminal defense attorney Steven D. Silverman. He also stated that he had never heard of the police using the wiretapping law in this manner before Graber's arrest.

Carlos Miller of Photography is Not a Crime, apparently an expert on the matter, had this to say: "For the second time in less than a month, a police officer was convicted from evidence obtained from a videotape. The first officer to be convicted was New York City Police Officer Patrick Pogan, who would never have stood trial had it not been for a video posted on Youtube showing him body slamming a bicyclist before charging him with assault on an officer. The second officer to be convicted was Ottawa Hills (Ohio) Police Officer Thomas White, who shot a motorcyclist in the back after a traffic stop, permanently paralyzing the 24-year-old man."

However, Spring City and East Vincent Township of Pennsylvania have written into law that it is legal to record on-duty police in public places. This came as part of a settlement with the ACLU.
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From: http://partisan-news.blogspot.com/2010/06/recording-police-is-now-illegal.html

[Oldtimeralso]

1. K&R

[blue sky at night]

2. fuck it...sounds like it is best to shoot first (the video) and ask...

questions later. I had a fellow duer accuse me of living in "fear" because I interated that "we no longer live in america"....alluding to the eric cantor and other incidents....well fuck that, this is more proof that we no longer live in america, we live in a police state. then i asked him for the videos of his encounters, after all, he would go wherever and do whatever he wanted, guess it may take awhile.

[Nostradammit]

3. No, I accused you of trying to instill fear

"oh, and by the way, don't show up at a repuke event and proclaim you are a democrat, because you are going down" - blue sky at night

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=389x9410164#9410681


That looked like a veiled threat to me. America has ALWAYS been a struggle for the rights of the common person
and always will. Your posts always seem to promote an overly defeatist attitude and that is the last thing
we need.

[mrbscott19]

4. I live in Illinois

So does that mean the police cannot video tape me without my approval since I can't tape them without it?

[Nostradammit]

5. I don't know the answer to that, mrbscott19

but that is an excellent point.

[cascadiance]

6. Record them recording you...

That would seem to build the foundation for an EXCELLENT court case to take up the ladder to challenge the bums. If you're both recording each other, then either you're both guilty of a crime or both innocent. Doesn't seem like they should be able to justify only making the citizen a criminal without in effect outwardly stating that we live in a police state.

[blue sky at night]

11. defeatist or realist...

seems to me you completely ignore the post we are comenting on, let's see; it is now illegal to video record the police for any reason but i am a defeatist. pretty simple huh?

btw, who or what gives you the right to judge what we "need" around here...like i am the only poster that points out negative things?

"and that is the last thing we need." indeed.

[Nostradammit]

13. From the post we are commenting on:

"However, Spring City and East Vincent Township of Pennsylvania have written into law that it is legal to record on-duty police in public places. This came as part of a settlement with the ACLU."
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Where I live it is not illegal to record the police either. And if it were to become so I'm certain the citizenry could, unless they succumb to hopelessness
and nihilism, force the politicians to change the law.


Pretty simple, huh?

[blue sky at night]

14. ok, I didn't read the last sentence in the post...

but you have to admit the situation referred to is pretty messed up and made me look on the negative side of things...but you didn't answer the question about who died and made you the arbitor of "what we need around here"...if you are going after everyone around here that is negative right now, you have a lot of work to do.

[Nostradammit]

15. Indeed, I do.

:toast:

[Wednesdays]

7. I have just two words...

Rodney. King.

If it weren't for videotape, the world would have never seen his attack. If they want to try to get my camera, they can peel it from my cold, dead...

[littlewolf]

8. I don't think it will stand up to a court challenge ....

[Enthusiast]

9. Moving ever so closer to that

'police state' we have always heard about. It is coming in increments, like boiling the frog.

[guruoo]

10. So does this include security cams? nt

[Jumping John]

12. Ruling Protects Right to Film Maryland Police

The right to video police in Maryland was deemed to be legal in Maryland recently. Police and a prosecutor were trying to intimidate a citizen after a State trooper was off duty acting like the Gestapo who obviously thought it was OK to pull his weapon for an off duty traffic stop.

More here:

Ruling Protects Right to Film Maryland Police
by Charles Davis September 28, 2010

All Anthony Graber did was record his encounter with police -- an encounter that involved an aggravated plain-clothes cop jumping out of an unmarked car and pointing a gun at him for the crime of going 15 miles-per-hour over the speed limit. But when he uploaded that recording to YouTube, the 25-year-old Maryland Air National Guardsman had his house raided by police and faced the prospect of spending 16 years in prison for an offense that almost seems quaint in the age of warrantless searches and the war on terror: illegal wiretapping.

However, in a victory for commonsense and the right of citizens in Maryland to hold law enforcement accountable, a state judge this week threw out that charge, rejecting the state's argument that videotaping on-the-job police violated their supposed expectation of privacy.

"Those of us who are public officials and are entrusted with the power of the state are ultimately accountable to the public," Judge Emory Pitt Jr. wrote in Monday's ruling, according to The Baltimore Sun. "When we exercise that power in public fora, we should not expect our actions to be shielded from public observation." (Read more after the jump.)

The state's case against Graber stemmed from a March incident in which he was pulled over by an undercover cop for pulling a wheeling on his motorcycle and going 80 mph in a 65 mph zone. Graber recorded the incident by way of a camera in his helmet, which he regularly used to record his rides, and captured the officer aggressively rushing up to his bike with a pulled gun long before announcing who he was.

The videro of the cop: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BHjjF55M8JQ&feature=player_embedded

http://criminaljustice.change.org/blog/view/ruling_protects_right_to_film_maryland_police

[ilaughatrightwingers]

17. THANK GOD

I go to college in Maryland, so this ought to be a sigh of relief.

[jimlup]

16. This is freaking amazing!

What a loss of freedom and step towards a police state. Have we forgotten the whole idea of the bill of rights?