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Is Videotaping the Police a Felony?
AtomicSnarl writes "When Carlisle, PA, police noticed their traffic stop was being videotaped, they arrested the fellow with the camera for felony wiretapping. From the story: 'Kelly is charged under a state law that bars the intentional interception or recording of anyone's oral conversation without their consent... An exception to the wiretapping law allows police to film people during traffic stops.. [An assistant DA] said case law is in flux as to whether police can expect not to be recorded while performing their duties.'"
I am a videographer. I have a business doing this and on several occasions stopped and videotaped a police event and made some money selling it to the news.
There is a key to doing this. you either need to outnumber the cops, be "live" and look like a film crew as a cop will not DARE to even touch a reporter or camera guy that is on the air live, or do it clandestine.
I have resorted to buying and using a cheap Canon HV20 camcorder with a canon shotgun on the top in a modified bag to shoot police footage of an arrest or other activities that the news likes to pay for. Why? because I have been assaulted by police on several occasions. It's better to be "invisible" while recording them (window glass camera mounts work great at long zoom) than to anger the police and have them accidentally break your camera or confiscate it and then it magically never get's put into evidence nor a report filed.
yes I have had that happen. Now I do it invisible, they dont know I am recording and the news stations around here still accept my video (even more so now it's HD, no other freelance guys in town do it in HD)
I have never met a cop that was courteous or honest when I had a camera on them. Every single one of them got hostile and either threatened me or assaulted me. And I was always out of their way (100 feet or more). others might have had better experiences, I hope one day I will, and i live in a smallish town and shoot in that town and the nearby medium town.
Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
Agreed. Would you say that this is step 5 or step 8?
Between the falling angel and the rising ape
I guess this would fall under "attempting to police the police" (which IS needed in a lot of cases) and is one of the actions listed in the FBI JTTF pamphlet as being the action of a "potential domestic terrorist."
This is bullshit. It's clear that this is an abuse of power to stop people from being able to document further abuses of power. It's meant to also have a chilling effect and prevent others from doing the same.
Remember, one of the stated definitions of "terrorist" by the current administration is people who:
are Defenders of the Constitution
reference the constitution and the bill of rights
are property rights advocates
are loners
this is from an FBI Joint Terrorism Task Force pamphlet which you can see here:
http://www.welfarestate.com/pamphlet/
If a cop is doing his or her job, he or she should be proud to be videotaped.
Now if someone was following a cop all day with a videocam for no good reason, I can see where that could maybe be an issue - but it should be fine to videotape a traffic stop on a public street, especially if you are the one being stopped.
The fascism keeps creeping.
Actually, it is NOT the same in China. Something like this could almost NEVER happen in China. In China the VAST majority of police do not carry guns. Daily policing is divided into two sectors: "Public Peace" officers and "Traffic Police" - those are literal translations. Traffic police are ONLY authorized to regulate traffic, so they have no authority or control over a bystander filming them. Traffic police in China are not armed, so they do not have the power of the gun behind them to intimidate the photographer.
Public Peace officers in China are a refreshing experience compared to police in the USA. Suppose you get in an altercation in China. Most of the time the public peace officers will show up, try to find out what happened, reason with the two sides, decide one side was wrong, and encourage the party that was wrong to make a private settlement. Nobody gets arrested or fingerprinted or put into the legal 'system'. In this respect the average "Public Peace" officers in China are very much like Andy Griffith was in Mayberry, NC.
The common misconception that China is a police state is in reality a myth. China has a population of over 1,500 Million people. For readers in the USA, think of multiplying the number of people in your workplace or in Starbucks by FIVE. That is how crowded it is over here. Spying on that many people is not manageable. China does not have the infrastructure to have that many people in the system. In China, as long as you dont participate in organized government protests the police by and for the most part leave the average person alone.
The United States has 5 percent of the world's population and 25 percent of the world's incarcerated population. We rank first in the world in locking up our fellow citizens. A U.S. Justice Department report released on November 30, 2006 showed that a record 7 million people - or one in every 32 American adults - were behind bars, on probation or on parole at the end of 2005. Of the total, 2.2 million were in prison or jail in the USA. More people are behind bars in the United States than in any other country. China ranks second with 1.5 million prisoners, followed by Russia with 870,000. But China has a population five times the size of the United States, so from a percentage standpoint Chinas incarceration rate is less than 1/7 of the USA and the fraction of people in the 'system' is even smaller.
That is not to say that police in China never act contrary to the law. There are bad eggs in every batch. But in the situation described in this case the chance of the photographer getting locked up for filming a traffic stop would be extremely remote in China. Traffic Police in China would probably just smile and wave to the camera.
I asked the security department at the US Embassy in Manila for permission to take photos across the street on a public sidewalk -- on Philippine soil -- just so they would know who I was and could clear me in advance. The Philippine constitution also has freedom of speech and the press, and the embassy security officer told me there was no law he knew of (US or Philippine) against me taking photos. The embassy had no procedure to for me to get authorization or clearance from them.
However, he made it very clear that if I did so, he would have the Philippine National Police to detain, hold, and interrogate me, after which they would detain, hold, and interrogate me. Again, this detention would be for conduct they don't consider unlawful, and I openly disclosed to them. I'm also a U.S. citizen, for what that's worth, and I'm a professional photographer. Like the incident in the article, this is presumably a civil rights violation.
The problem is that even if you prevail, the experience chills freedom of the press. It makes exercising one's rights unnecessarily costly and burdensome. People will reasonably have to weigh exercising their rights against harassment, legal or not, by those who neither understand nor respect the rights of others to make recordings in public places.
There have been protests outside the U.S. embassy in Manila, newsworthy events. It is lawful to photograph them, but military, police, private security guards, shop owners, or just the general public might harass or detain you based on ignorance of the legal right and logical entitlement to take photos in public places.
When it was google street views, many people on slashdot labeled it invasion of privacy. Now that the police are saying they, too, don't want to be recorded in public, it's perhaps more relatable that anyone can record anything in public, as once you start making exceptions, freedom of the press is no longer a right. I always assumed this is why freedom of the press applies equally to all citizens, not just those the government decides are entitled to that right.
www.cgstock.com
As a fire fighter, I work with PD frequently. Despite what you see on TV, most of the FF/PD back and forth is overall friendly or at worst good natured sparing.
I know many officers. Some are good, some are not good. Most are somewhere in the middle. The youngest, smallest ones have in my experience been the ones closer to the stereotype. I refer to these as "25 year olds with their first mirrored shades and a gun" and are dangerous to themselves as much as the public they insult. Most though, grow up and become good natured and humble just like we all try to.
Cops are people, and suffer the same foibles as the rest of us. For them, like all others, power is a drug to be taken in small doses.
When you give a little man a little power, you create a big problem.
The problem with quotes on the internet, is that nobody bothers to check their veracity. -- Abraham Lincoln
These are people who pretend to be part of the targeted group and commit acts of violence and incite others to commit acts of violence in order to justify the violent police responce to follow.
Even if all that fails, the police can still lie and say that they were defending themselves, as the National Guard did at Kent State. They shot and killed four students, claiming that someone fired on them, when the order "Right here! Get Set! Point! Fire!" was recorded on an audiotape.
All of this makes it that much more important that the events be recorded so everyone can see the truth of the matter.
>> We really need more people filming the police.
Couldn't agree more. In a more perfect world, competent and conscientious (read, honest) peace officers should not fear being filmed.
Sadly, I can relate to a police office's fear of being filmed. While I think it smacks of dishonesty or abuse of power at best (police officers objecting to being filmed/photographed)... Can anyone refute the contention that most law is so nebulous (open to a huge range of judicial interpretation and/or special interest manipulation) it's not impossible (or even unlikely) police officers could be sued (and be found guilty of misconduct) for entirely legitimate police conduct. If a burglar can effectively sue a home owner for bodily injury suffered why burglarizing said home, couldn't a police officer loose a civil suit for enforcing the law in a manner most of us would consider appropriate.
All that aside, I still believe there should be a federal statute 100% sanctioning a civilian legal right to film police conduct (excepting situations where filming poses an obvious and immediate risk to officers or others).
Police can be assholes independently of any citizen actions. I was getting a slow flat that I didn't notice immediately. Later I was told I'd run over a spike which caused the leak (covered under tire warantee!). I was starting to notice the steering was getting less responsive -- driving on a curvy 4-lane highway. At first I thought it was a fluke or maybe I wasn't paying attention, but paying full attention, it became difficult to avoid going into a center divide, and the tire blew the rest of the way then. I calmly signaled to get over in outer lane (no loss of control of vehicle), pulled over at a turnout. I was followed when pulling over by an off-duty cop who thought I was "inebriated". At that point, I wasn't quite sure what had happened (had I hit something? (no), did my tire or car hit the center divide and that's what caused the blow out? (no). I was on my way to a doctor's appointment. Was a hot day and was wearing a skirt, light top and middle-to-low height sandals (not flats, but not high heels -- fine for shopping in, but not taking outdoor hikes in). The policeman called fellow pigs to the scene and convinced them I was under the influence of "something".
I was quite cooperative, told them any meds I was taking (none of which would have caused impairment -- had been taking them for long time). On the side of the road, on rough gravel and on a hill side, they had me trying to walk the straight line in the mid-heeled sandals that, at best, might be comfortable to walk in, but not pirouette on an incline and rough gravel. So they decided to arrest me. Then they refused to allow me to get a jacket, sweater, or any warmer clothes. Even lied to me, saying they'd get my bag (they didn't) so I could put on a jacket. They then took me downtown and my car was towed. The breathalyser on the scene was negative, but that wouldn't have showed effects of other drugs. Downtown they took a pee test AND a blood test (both, a week or two later came back negative). But meanwhile, they locked me up for 8 hours to "sober up" (since they couldn't get the blood and urine tests back for a few to several days). Locked up, down in basement, where it was 65 degrees -- and I was dressed for 80's and sunny.
It cost me $40 for a taxi ride at midnight to the lot where they had towed my car where I had to pay over $200 for an after-hours "release". I put the spare on the car in 10 minutes and was on way home. Then I had to deal with a DUI charge that I wasn't guilty of. I had to hire a lawyer to deal with the court issues, since otherwise, they'd want me to be in court 45 miles away at 8am to enter my plea. The lawyer was able to talk to the DA's office the morning of the trial. They found nothing in my blood other than the 'scripts I'd told them about and they decided to drop the charges. They refused to return my prescriptions -- and ran me around in circles trying to get them from the police -- who eventually refused because, they claimed, they were not doctors and it would be illegal for them to return my prescriptions as they were not doctors -- I'd need a court order.
At this point I was out $250 for the night I had to get home from jail and another $1200 down to the lawyer. The court order to return my meds would have cost, minimum, another $800-1000, so gave up that idea and just went into the pharmacy for refills a bit early.
So I'm out $1500 due to some cop thinking my "flat tire" causing steering problems was me being "DUI" -- no recourse to get the money. I found out 3-4 years later (!!!) when I went to get insurance on a new car, that the cop at the scene had reported it to the DMV as an accident. The asshole cop didn't even check to see if my car had any scratches on it -- and the tire had no side-wall damage (as would be the case if I brushed against the center divide). Nevertheless the idiot recorded it as an accident which caused me to have to do some explaining to my insurance company to supposedly tell them about my "accident". I didn't know anything about an acc
I'm a native-born US Citizen of Philippine decent, and I stayed in the Manila Hotel and the hotel that's right across the street from the US Embassy (I've forgotten the name) during the ASEAN conference (and resulting demonstrations where demonstrators were hit with water cannon) in 1999. My brother and I made a big joke of making sure the security cameras at the embassy got a good look at us in the hotel windows since we didn't bother formally checking in at the embassy (I don't think that's really necessary in the Philippines, anyway, is it?). Unfortunately, we missed the actual demonstration with the water cannon because I think we were down in Calamba for the day visiting family, or you can be sure we'd have been in the thick of it trying to get pictures. This particular demonstration took place in front of the Manila Hotel, which you will know is just across the park from the US Embassy.
You didn't mention what you were photographing, and in which direction. Let's face it, the Philippines isn't the most stable country in the world (my dad was a classmate of Joseph Estrada, also many members of my family were denied travel privileges under Marcos' regime because my grandfather was a known dissident), and there's quite a lot of terrorism that happens there, not to mention the frequent incidence of domestic unrest. Even back in 1999, we'd already stopped an Al-Qaeda plot that was based in the Philippines (The Bojinka Plot).
As a professional photographer who clearly has world travel experience, you should know better than to ask officials if taking pictures is OK, unless its absolutely necessary to get the shot. Sure, what the security personnel told you is a civil rights violation, but that's not going to do you much good. Presumably it wasn't an actual US Marine who told you this (the Marines probably know better than to answer such a question--they'd kick it up to a commander), so its entirely possible that the person who told you this simply didn't know what the hell they were talking about and was just jerking your chain. Notwithstanding that, as a professional photographer who clearly spent a lot of money to get to the other side of the globe to get some good pictures, maybe you want to avoid doing things that prevent you from getting the pictures in the first place.
The freedom of the press is a natural right. It cannot be taken away, only infringed upon.
It is my belief that police like nebulous laws, or maybe I should say, the powers that be like the police to enforce nebulous laws. It all comes down to how to intimidate people -- if you can charge them with something nebulous like disturbing the peace, it doesn't matter if it sticks or not. A variation on that old saying to kill them all and let God sort them out -- just arrest them all and let the station or DA sort it out.
There will be a day, 10 or 20 years from now, when there will be no privacy left. Cameras will be so cheap and plentiful and ubiquitous that, just as in Diamond Age, even the insides of homes and offices will be on the internet. I consider this the same mixed blessing as the invention of guns, specifically cartridge guns. They level the playing field. It makes it incredibly harder for the rich to control the poor, for the aristocracy to control the peasants. As much as I dislike the idea of someone watching me take a dump, the reality is that very few people would want to. Faced with zillions of cameras to choose from, the vast majority will watch the rich and powerful rather then me. Paris Hilton will certainly have a ton of watchers, but there will also be watchers for Donald Trump and George Bush and the local mayor and police chief and power brokers.
Police are already backing down from personally deciding to be judge, jury and executioner on the spur of the moment. It's going to get better. I don't like losing my privacy, but I think the tradeoff is worth it.
Infuriate left and right