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Cook County Judge Says Law Banning Recording Police Is Unconstitutional
schwit1 writes "A Cook County judge Friday ruled the state's controversial eavesdropping law unconstitutional. The law makes it a felony offense to make audio recordings of police officers without their consent even when they're performing their public duties. Judge Stanley Sacks, who is assigned to the Criminal Courts Building, found the eavesdropping law unconstitutional because it potentially criminalizes 'wholly innocent conduct.' The decision came in the case of Christopher Drew, an artist who was arrested in December 2009 for selling art on a Loop street without a permit. Drew was charged with a felony violation of the eavesdropping law after he used an audio recorder in his pocket to capture his conversations with police during his arrest."
Hello,
On this internet site people think privacy and transparency can work together. They can, when we work together.
Thank you,
Agent Smitz
Law enforcement officials need to get in line with the fact that society is going to require them to behave.
Those that can't need to find another line of work.
Sheesh, evil *and* a jerk. -- Jade
Police just love it when they record suspects and will use other sources of recordings besides those given with consent against suspects. Those suspects should also have the right to use recordings in their defense. If you ban recordings, then the ban should be on both sides. That would mean every dashboard mounted camera should be removed from all those police cars if this law was allowed to stand.
This is a sig. This is only a sig. Had this been an actual sig you would have been informed where to tune for more sigs.
> The law attempted to prevent audio or video recording anyone without their consent [arstechnica.com], not just police.
IMHO, here lies the problem.
See, Stuart the man has a right about his privacy as anyone else -- but Officer Stuart has not.
People take different roles and live through corresponding different contexts. A Law Officer must be transparent at all times; while I will certainly not want to be nitpicky about how many post-its he uses, I certainly want his use of the gun monitored. A Police Officer has a public job and as such, he is accountable.
And it's sad that we're here to cheer about something that should have been the status quo in the first place.
The law never should made it illegal to record the police. I suspect this is mostly a law designed to protect slippery government officials from getting snagged by whistle blowers.
I any case... it's disgusting this ever was law in the first place.
The police cannot be a legitimate servant of the law or the people so long as such laws remain on the books. They are entirely and manifestly unacceptable.
I've decided to stop wasting my time responding to AC trolls/sockpuppets... so if you want a response from me... login.
Cops love to be dicks. Trust me.
They dont want to be recorded because it would force them to behave.
For bad police, cameras are terrorism.
HBI's Law: Frequency of calling others Nazis is directly correlated with the likelihood of the accuser being Communist.
There needs to be a "+1, Terrifying" mod option.
The short of this is that we need a federal law (or supreme court decision) that specifically makes recording of law enforcement officers performing their duties in public places legal. Full stop. No restrictions or loopholes.
The problem we're fighting is there's too much abuse of power and lack of outside accountability within most law enforcement groups. (sorry, an "internal investigation" leaves much doubt as to the impartialness of the findings) Recordings have been used over and over again to change the course of internal investigations that were attempting to (or had already) neatly sweep things under the rug and "failed to find any evidence of misconduct". The need for these recordings has been demonstrated so many times, and I don't recall a single incident of the recordings being challenged for any reason other than an attempt to cover up or retaliate. They have NO reasonable or lawful basis to deny this law. Law has no expectation of privacy while performing their duty in public, that should be obvious to all.
I work for the Department of Redundancy Department.
I agree. Once a police officer puts on thier uniform s/he waves any right of privacy until they are off duty. Recording officers on duty creates evidence that can be used in court or by the departments internal affairs personell to punish bad cops or reward good cops.
Is there anything in the Constitution that actually forbids such laws?
You mean other than the Ninth Amendment, which clarifies that people have other rights that happen not to be listed in the Bill of Rights, and the Fourteenth Amendment, which requires due process and equal protection from the several states?
That is the stupidest thing that I have ever read. Never threaten violence against a policeman. Ever. That is how morons die. It is also against the law in many states.
Have you noticed that whenever you see anyone say "turn that camera off" you can sense a deep underlying fear in them?
There scared cause there conscious isn't clear
That is not entirely true. I have seen times where someone has been saying "turn that camera off" because they know that the person (or the organization behind the person) cannot be trusted to present what is recorded in context. As an example, someone says, "When he said, 'I don't have to do obey the law.' I told him that he did indeed." Some untrustworthy sources have cut that to show that someone saying, "I don't have to obey the law."
However, you are correct that most of the time when someone says "turn that camera off" it is because they do not want a record of what they are going to do.
The truth is that all men having power ought to be mistrusted. James Madison
Good idea. That way Officer Stuart can wait to beat me up after his shift is over and then arrest me for taping the incident without his consent.
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And actually, I completely agree with the need for such "wiretapping" laws, even in a public space.
However, the point to focus on is whether the individual being recorded has an expectation of privacy.
The problem in this situation is that the law in Chicago states that consent is the only situation where the expectation of privacy is waived. Which is of course, ridiculous.
The problem that nobody seems to want to talk about is I, Bystander B is watching and recording the police dealing with Citizen A. Citizen A is very loudly disclaiming that he had anything whatsoever to do with Woman W, who is also standing by the police clearly accusing Citizen A of doing something nasty and wanting the police to "do something about it".
I take my recording home and realize Citizen A just recently had their picture in the news as some supposedly upstanding person. I now have easy blackmail material or can simply sell my recording to the same news organizations for a tidy profit.
It doesn't matter what Citizen A was or was not doing - their public life will be filled with innuendo and snarky comments. If they happen to be married, that might be over now as well. Just having a recording of someone interacting with the police is grounds for termination from any number of public-facing jobs. So with one recording you get to destroy someone's entire life.
Now, if you are Citizen A and making the recording yourself that is a whole different matter. But what the public wants and news organizations will pay for is Bystander B's recording. Today in most jurisdictions attempting to do something like this openly will get you a trip to the jail and your recording device confiscated - you might get it back if you apply in person and pay the $50 fine. Or you might not. You can assume that if these laws are unconstitutional and go unenforced anyone with a life they value will just run from any interaction with the police for fear of it being recorded and used against them.
Sure, the right attitude is that if there is no conviction there is no crime. But that isn't how things work today. If you are publiclly arrested and questioned about rape or child molestation you can figure it will get out and your life is over - no matter if they have the wrong person or not. Having a recording of some school principal getting a traffic ticket when they were complaining about student drivers is going to be lots of fun for people. So this could really stack up to be quite entertaining.