Police fight cellphone recordings

[Liberal_in_LA]

Police fight cellphone recordings
Witnesses taking audio of officers arrested, charged with illegal surveillance
By Daniel Rowinski

Simon Glik, a lawyer, was walking down Tremont Street in Boston when he saw three police officers struggling to extract a plastic bag from a teenager’s mouth. Thinking their force seemed excessive for a drug arrest, Glik pulled out his cellphone and began recording.

“One of the officers asked me whether my phone had audio recording capabilities,’’ Glik, 33, said recently of the incident, which took place in October 2007. Glik acknowledged that it did, and then, he said, “my phone was seized, and I was arrested.’’

The charge? Illegal electronic surveillance.

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There are no hard statistics for video recording arrests. But the experiences of Surmacz and Glik highlight what civil libertarians call a troubling misuse of the state’s wiretapping law to stifle the kind of street-level oversight that cellphone and video technology make possible.

“The police apparently do not want witnesses to what they do in public,’’ said Sarah Wunsch, a staff attorney with the American Civil Liberties Union of Massachusetts, who helped to get the criminal charges against Surmacz dismissed.

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“The statute has been misconstrued by Boston police,’’ said June Jensen, the lawyer who represented Glik and succeeded in getting his charges dismissed. The law, she said, does not prohibit public recording of anyone. “You could go to the Boston Common and snap pictures and record if you want; you can do that.’’Continued...

Ever since the police beating of Rodney King in Los Angeles in 1991 was videotaped, and with the advent of media-sharing websites like Facebook and YouTube, the practice of openly recording police activity has become commonplace. But in Massachusetts and other states, the arrests of street videographers, whether they use cellphones or other video technology, offers a dramatic illustration of the collision between new technology and policing practices.

“Police are not used to ceding power, and these tools are forcing them to cede power,’’ said David Ardia, director of the Citizen Media Law Project at Harvard’s Berkman Center for Internet and Society.

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But one Pennsylvania jurisdiction has reaffirmed individuals’ right to videotape in public. Police in Spring City and East Vincent Township agreed to adopt a written policy confirming the legality of videotaping police while on duty. The policy was hammered out as part of a settlement between authorities and ACLU attorneys representing a Spring City man who had been arrested several times last year for following police and taping them.

In Massachusetts, Wunsch said Attorney General Martha Coakley and police chiefs should be informing officers not to abuse the law by charging civilians with illegally recording them in public.


http://www.boston.com/news/local/massachusetts/articles/2010/01/12/police_fight_cellphone_recordings/

[sendero]

1. "illegal surveillance"?

.. yet another law made up on the spot by police. I hope he sues their asses off.

[havocmom]

2. Yeah, haven't there been ample decisions re no right to privacy in public spaces?

Yep, there should be LOTS of lawsuits until local governments get the message that they damned well need to keep their law enforcers within the law.

[Angleae]

6. No it isn't.

It depends on which state you are in. Here in WA it is illegal to record someone without their consent or knowledge.

[Cessna Invesco Palin]

10. Query:

How does that work with CCTV cameras?

[Mosby]

12. a lot of state laws allow for video or audio recording but not both.

so businesses that use camera surveillance are OK because they don't record the audio.

[Cessna Invesco Palin]

13. Interesting. I had no idea. Thanks. n/t

[annabanana]

3. Just like all of us, what they do in public is without the

"expectation of privacy". .

I'd like to see some strong judicial smack-down of this trend....

[backscatter712]

4. Pigs don't like it when you film them committing crimes.

They're nothing but the most well-funded and well-armed gang in the U.S.

Fuck the pigs. The only reason they ever bother to read the Constitution is to look for loopholes in the Bill of Rights, so they can ruin more lives.

[Festivito]

5. They don't want to share being in charge of truth in the courtroom.

It's an abusable power, having the judge always believe you. They've abused that power at times.

It only follows that they would abuse videographers with harassment to further protect their ability to abuse.

[Raine]

7. Cops in fear of their actions being seen

and heard by the public ... I love it! :thumbsup:

Edit: added word

[winyanstaz]

8. Isnt that in the patriot act?

That we cant film the police or public buildings etc because we might be "terrorists"?

[ManiacJoe]

9. No, it is not.

According to the lawyers and judges who pretend to be weekend photographers, there have been no new laws in the USA regarding photography since before 9/11. Unfortunately, many police and security guards need repeated reminders of this.

[winyanstaz]

11. Thank you for clairifying that fact......

[Grand Taurean]

14. And there lies the problem.

"Police are not used to ceding power", to which I say shame on you cops!
You are public servants. You eat because we pay your salary. Your children eat because we pay your salary.

[Odin2005]

15. Fucking Pigs.

:grr:

[TexasObserver]

16. Police State by the goons who hate the constitution.

Ironic, isn't it, that the person most likely to violate one's constitutional rights is a person who swore to defend the constitution.

[vadawg]

17. i got no problem with being filmed, none whatseoever..

my issue is the idiots who film and think that its okay to interfere or get in the way, worst i had was an idiot of a women who decided to film a traffic stop and decided the best vantage point was the middle of the road, when i advised her it was not a good idea she got all bent out of shape about it and accused me of everythign under the sun, personally i just didnt want to do the paperwork if she got herself run over and id have hated for the person who hits her to have gotten hurt...