Mass. Court Says Constitution Protects Filming On-Duty Police

Even in a country and a world where copyright can be claimed as an excuse to prevent you from taking a photo of a giant sculpture in a public, tax-paid park, and openly recording visiting police on your own property can be construed as illegal wiretapping, it sometimes seems like the overreach of officialdom against people taking photos or shooting video knows no bounds. It's a special concern now that seemingly everyone over the age of 10 is carrying a camera that can take decent stills and HD video. It's refreshing, therefore, to read that a Federal Appeals Court has found unconstitutional the arrest of a Massachusetts lawyer who used his phone to video-record an arrest on the Boston Common. (Here's the ruling itself, as a PDF.) From the linked article, provided by reader schwit1: "In its ruling, which lets Simon Glik continue his lawsuit, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the First Circuit in Boston said the wiretapping statute under which Glik was arrested and the seizure of his phone violated his First and Fourth Amendment rights."

Comments

and so they learn

[X0563511]

The police just learned an important lesson: Don't charge lawyers with the stupid rules you use to get away with shit.

Re:and so they learn

[hedwards]

More or less, the legal system in the US has gotten to the point where you really need to be a lawyer in order to understand when you're breaking the law.

Re:and so they learn

[steelfood]

Not to understand when you're breaking the law, but when you're not breaking the law. And more importantly, it requires a lawyer to get out from any repercussions. Because while we laymen may not be breaking the law and know it, they can still harass us and make our lives difficult. And the only ones who are even remotely capable of defending themselves from that kind of behavior are lawyers. And even then, it still takes an ungodly amount of time, effort, and expenses.

Re:and so they learn

[hairyfeet]

That's not true! You can also be very very rich and get justice as well! Everyone else is royally fucked though. I used to live down the street from the county courthouse and used to sit in and watch the proceedings but frankly it got too depressing. the ones that finally broke this camel's back was when a rich guy walked in, it was his NINTH bust for under the influence of booze AND drugs, and his FIFTH hit and run! What did he get? they gave him a $10k fine and actually THANKED him for his fucking time! The next one was a poor guy for his second pot possession charge. they gave him 3 years.

Anyone who thinks the courts in the USA aren't as crooked as any third world really ought to set in on some trials for a couple of weeks. there they will quickly see a pattern, rich can do anything, poor go to prison for less than a tenth of what the rich guy does. it is like that old saying, steal $500 go to jail, steal 500 million become a senator. The thing is so tilted now in favor of the elite it isn't even a bad joke anymore, it is just pathetic and sad.

Re:and so they learn

[micheas]

The SCOTUS does have a member that is effectively being bribed. Clarance Thomas

His defense is that he would be as rabidly pro corporate if his wife was not receiving hundreds of thousands of dollars from people with issues before him.

Scalia and Kagan also have some questionable income sources, but not as egregious as Thomas.

Replacing Thomas with someone like Judge Bork might not change the decisions of the court much, but would greatly reduce the appearance of corruption.

But, the perception of the US Congress being bought and paid for might be reduced more by increasing the number of members of the House of Representatives to much closer to the constitutional limit of no more than one representative per 30,000 people (excluding native amercians). The current number of 435 representatives is arbitrary and fixed to maximize the power of individual representatives. would reduce the need for legislative aides, reduce campaign expenses and allow people to run for congress by knocking on their neighbors doors.

So, yes, America has a veneer of legitimacy over our government, but if you think the average American has more say over his/her government than the average African, you might be unpleasantly surprised.

Federal Court - Big difference

[saihung]

This isn't a Massachusetts court. This is a federal court that actually knows what the 1st Amendment is, and more importantly thinks that it matters. The Supreme Judicial Court, which is the Massachusetts high court, has had its chance to look at this law more than once, and has come to the wrong conclusion every time. It took a federal court to realize what any moron should know - that prohibiting citizens from recording public officials doing their jobs on a public street is an invitation to abuse.

Re:Great News!

[cgenman]

There have been a couple of cases of the internets picking up on a police officer making a wrong call that was an understandable mistake (such as a plain-clothed off duty officer pulling a gun on a motorcyclist). But by far what show up are genuine abuses: officers ruthlessly beating compliant suspects while surveillance cam operators intentionally look the other way. Unarmed men lying on the floor in a prone position getting shot in the back. Rodney King, which reflected the abusive police interactions in LA at the time. Or even this interpretation of this law itself, where your only protection against abuses is considered illegal on a BS technicality. And these show up in the destruction of evidence (collecting cell phones) and denial of evidence (the surveillance camera footage).

Personally, I think we do give officers a lot of moderated attitude. A friend had a gun pulled on him at a (15 mph) speeding stop by a trainee officer. The elder officer overseeing her pulled her aside, taught her proper procedure, and let my friend off with a non-documented warning. It was a completely non-procedure way of dealing with an officer drawing her gun without provocation, but it was handled well. I had a gun drawn on me for having a broken white plastic Halloween samurai sword as a teenager. But the professionalism of the officer never made me feel in danger.

A lot of these officers are not used to being on the internet. They're not used to the level of abuse where if 10,000 people are calling for the immediate dismemberment of you and your family, you're doing fine. Someone makes a flash video of you beating down dancing flower children, it pretty much goes with the territory. Unfortunately, most people don't have a thick enough skin for the internet, and it is sad that this may be their first exposure (except the beating down of the dancing flower children cop. That guy deserved it.)

95% of the officers I've interacted with have been professional, helpful (or at least trying to be), and safety-conscious. But some are abusive when they think they can get away with it, and the only protection we have is documentation. The moment we lose the right to document our interactions with the police, is the moment the police go from helpful to a threat. And that puts everyone, civillians and police, at risk.

Re:Great News!

[znerk]

Dead cops and dead marines is your preference, coward?

Honestly? I think there's more than enough cops. Way too many, if you ask me.

Think about it for a minute. How many "law enforcement" agencies have jurisdiction over you where you sit right now? "Just a few", you might think... Let's count, then, shall we?

We'll assume, for the sake of argument, that you live inside a major city. We will also only count the offices that can legally break into your house with "probable cause", and maintain staff trained and equipped for exactly that.

1: City Police
2: County Police (Sheriff)
3: State Police
4: Federal Marshals
5: FBI

Nothing surprising so far, right?

6: Border Patrol (in a surprising large number of places that aren't actually near a "border")
7: Department of Homeland Security
8: Drug Enforcement Agency
9: Internal Revenue Service (yes, they maintain personnel for "active" law enforcement duties)
10: Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives
11: Public School District Police Department ("Resource" Officers - yes, they are real police, and yes, they can break into your house to arrest you)
12: Local College Police Department (see above)
13: Highway Patrol (admittedly a bit of a stretch, but there are several circumstances where it is perfectly legal and within their jurisdiction to "assist" in a raid or otherwise break into your home)

So in this list, there are twelve agencies (thirteen if you want to count "edge cases") that, without a doubt, are capable of breaking into your home to arrest you. These are just the ones that have jurisdiction and authority to break into your private residence, regardless of its location within the United States, to "detain" you. There are also plenty of localized "special task forces" that can be granted "the duties and privileges of rank pertaining to" law enforcement officers, if they don't already have them, for the special purpose of terrorizing^W protecting citizens. Shiny badges and guns seem to make lots and lots of people more than a little power-mad.

To make it worse, there are agencies such as the New London, Connecticut Police Department, who require their officers to be unintelligent in order to make them more likely to follow orders without thinking, and "less likely to get bored".

Youtube is full of normal, law-abiding folks who have been killed or seriously injured by those charged to protect and serve, with little or no provocation. One of my favorite clips is a Boston Area Rapid Transit Officer shooting a man in the back while he is face down on the ground in handcuffs. A favorite headline of mine is the man who died falling from a second story ledge after being tazed by law enforcement officers. Another of my favorite stories is the school resource officer who tazed a fourteen-year-old girl who wasn't even being threatening, she just wasn't doing exactly what she was told quite quickly enough.

There's plenty of reason for ordinary, average, law-abiding citizens to hate and fear law enforcement officers. We get new ones every day. How much fear, uncertainty, and doubt can this institution resist?

I, for one, applaud "dead cops and dead marines" when they overstep their bounds while applying deadly force. Enforcing the law does not place one above it.

Also, I wonder how long it will be before the surveillance society we live in is "good enough" that an audio/video record of any given subject will be available for anything and everything that person has done in the past [24 hours|7 days|30 days|ever in their life]... more importantly, is that a bad thing? Could we do away with [some|most|all] of the law enforcement [officers|agencies] at that point?

As for being a coward... well, say it to my face.
(Yes, the irony is implicit, and the internet is full of tough guys).

--
I may sound paranoid, but is it paranoia if they really are out to get you?