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Washington, D.C. Police Affirm Citizens' Right To Record Police Officers
dcsmith writes "Washington D.C. Metropolitan Police Department Chief Cathy Lanier says, 'A bystander has the same right to take photographs or make recordings as a member of the media,' and backs it up with a General Order to her Department. Quoting: The Metropolitan Police Department (MPD) recognizes that members of the general public have a First Amendment right to video record, photograph, and/or audio record MPD members while MPD members are conducting official business or while acting in an official capacity in any public space, unless such recordings interfere with police activity.'"
I bet we'll find a bunch of cops using this as an excuse to take away your camera...
Be seeing you...
A bystander has the same right to take photographs or make recordings as a member of the media
Emphasize "bystander". If the officer is trying to interview you, search you, etc then you are not a bystander.
Nowadays we're all media.
We're all bloggers.
And we can upload pics and vids and stream them around the world.
How about we just remove the rights of Corporate Media from reporting, instead of Citizens?
Corporations aren't People.
-- Tigger warning: This post may contain tiggers! --
Police are supposed to have the same rights as citizens. They are just more highly trained in the area of law enforcement. Citizens and police should be held to the same standards of conduct. In Florida for instance a police officer out of his jurisdiction has the same rights as a citizen to make arrests. They can hold the suspect until the sheriff arrives to take the person into custody. When the case gets to trial you have to show up. If you break the law during the arrest you can be sued as well. Every move police make should be filmed since they are supposed to be experts.
I love Jesus, except for his foreign policy.
Ahah, there's the magic word.
I am about to commence an intense program of police brutality against this suspect, future events with which your recording would interfere. So kindly turn the camera off.
I'm trying to teach myself to set people on fire with my mind... Is it hot in here?
This is why it's important to support Google's right to record audio or EM spectrum signals in public places. If we don't stick up for the uses we don't like, the uses we DO like will disappear along with.
It's worth noting that this order is part and parcel of a lawsuit settlement that the MPD reached with someone who was victimized for recording the police at a traffic stop. This order isn't entirely being done spontaneously because the MPD are good little fonzies. I like Chief Lanier, a lot...but for the most part the MPD remain a group of heavily-armed monkeys, most of whom seem to have a racial issue with whatever races they don't belong to. A white officer recently was suspended for stating...openly, to fellow officers...that he would shoot Michelle Obama. And I can state plainly that I've gotten a lot of trouble from non-white officers, personally. It's one of the reasons I moved from DC to a nearby suburb.
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How about we just remove the rights of Corporate Media from reporting, instead of Citizens? Corporations aren't People.
The controversial "Citizens United" US Supreme Court decision says exactly that. My understanding is that the court did *not* say that "corporations are people" and that this phrase was spin from the opponents of the decision. I believe the court said two things. One: that groups of people have the same speech rights as an individual person, the nature of that group (company, union, special interest, etc) is irrelevant. Two: that media corporations have no special speech rights, all organizations have the same speech rights. Well, that was my understanding from skimming the decision. Perhaps I missed something. If you think I missed something I'd prefer a reference to the decision, not what some talking head on TV said, what some political blogger said, etc. I don't trust these to accurately report a supreme court decision any more than I expect them to accurately report on technical/computer issues.
Police do have special powers, and I'm not sure why you would claim otherwise. I can't arrest someone with the same leeway given to cops (note that your example had to specify an officer out of his jurisdiction). I can't get a warrant to bust down someone's door. I can't pull a car over for speeding. I can't own certain weapons.
And that's how it should be. We want law enforcement officers to have an edge over the regular civilians, because that means they'll also have an edge over criminals. But since we're giving them extra powers, we need to hold them to an extra high standard. Unfortunately, we tend to fall short on that last part.
It's a shame this announcement was necessary. A generation ago, it wouldn't have been required. Now that it's been made perfectly clear, I'd like to see the next DC police officer who interferes with a citizen-photographer lose his job.
You can send feedback here: http://app.dc.gov/apps/about.asp?page=atd&type=dsf&referrer=mpdc.dc.gov&agency_id=1027
Public commendations/complaints go on an officer's permanent record.
I was thinking more about the stories of photographers being arrested at OWS protests and claiming it was somehow wrong because they had a piece of paper on a lanyard around their neck. The fact that they were also blocking traffic didn't count, because they were members of the press!!!
Rather annoying that it's called a "first amendment" right. It has nothing to do with the first amendment. If anything, the ninth amendment is a better justification. The very best justification is that there is no law against it.
I always mod up spelling trolls.
Yeah well, it's still sad when the cops 'affirm' our rights, it becomes a newsworthy event.
“He’s not deformed, he’s just drunk!”
Why don't you just read the damn thing instead of commenting on something you obviously didn't even look at?
Clever signature text goes here.
And don't forget to define jurisdiction. In TX, all cops are empowered by the state. So a college cop for University of Houston has the same powers in Austin as an Austin City Police Officer. Sure, he'll get in trouble if he exercises them without a very very good reason (like visiting a relative and being in a bank when it is robbed, as opposed to pulling over people for random traffic violations), but he has the power without restriction outside his "jurisdiction." Now if he were in Russia at the time, there'd be different issues if he dressed up as a cop and pulled people over.
Learn to love Alaska
I can't arrest someone with the same leeway given to cops
In the state whose laws I know best (Utah) the only additional arrest power given to police is the authority to use deadly force to stop a fleeing felony suspect. Other than that, it's identical.
I can't get a warrant to bust down someone's door.
Technically, you can, if you can get a judge to give you one. In fact, prior to the advent of large organized police forces, nearly all warrants were served by private citizens, and AFAIK the law hasn't changed -- though practice clearly has, and in practice it's unlikely any judge would issue you a warrant.
I can't pull a car over for speeding.
Sure you can, legally. As a practical matter you'd have a hard time doing it without red and blue flashing lights, and there are laws against putting those on your vehicle. I'd bet that if you put yellow flashing lights on, though, you could successfully convince many people to pull over. After that you couldn't issue a citation, but you could get the driver's information and take it to the relevant prosecutor and see if you can convince him to issue a court summons on the strength of the evidence you can provide (mostly, your testimony, same as a police officer).
Again, this isn't a difference in real authority, it's a difference in common practice and who's likely to actually be listened to.
I can't own certain weapons.
You can own anything a police officer can own himself. There are some weapons a police department can own that you cannot, but none that police departments commonly issue. You could, for example, own a fully-automatic M-16 (per federal law, anyway; a few states are more restrictive). It'd cost you $20K+, due to the 1986 law restricting civilian ownership of full-auto firearms to those that were already in civilian hands then (fixed supply and growing demand means the price goes up), and it would take a few months of doing paperwork and waiting, but you could do it if you're not a felon or otherwise legally disqualified due to your own record.
We want law enforcement officers to have an edge over the regular civilians, because that means they'll also have an edge over criminals.
I don't agree that there's any significant "edge" we can give to officers that doesn't serve the same goals in the hands of law-abiding citizens. Granted that citizens rarely have need of them, and that it's better to let the police do their jobs wherever possible, but there are rare circumstances in which it is useful for citizens to exercise their police powers, and in general it's better for society if police don't have a special status in the eyes of the law. It's hard enough to keep them from exceeding their authority even without that.
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This varies state by state in the US. Some states are one party consent states, others are two party consent states. For example, Maryland is a Two Party consent state. Often this law is used against those who film others who break the law. Recent examples include James O'Keefe when he did some undercover video of some very unflattering behavior by ACORN. The state of Maryland went after O'Keefe for obtaining video without permission, while they left ACORN alone.
In general, one party recording consent works better.
As for the instructions from Chief Lanier, it's a good start. She is one of the more level headed police chiefs in this country. I hope others follow her example.
Nearly fifty percent of all graduates come from the bottom half of the class!
Thanks for the pointer. Good reading here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Glik_v._Cunniffe
I work for the Department of Redundancy Department.
What is to stop the officers from interpreting that as:
"a position that impedes or interferes with the safety of public/police"="a postion where they can see what is going on."
"move to a position that will not interfere"="move them to where they can not see what is going on"
"a safe distance"="enough distance that they cannot see what is going on"
Are you going to argue with them when they claim that? Even when they threaten to arrest you for not complying with their order? Do you expect a judge to agree with you? Do you expect the district atorney to file charges against cops who interpret the order like that?
Colour me confused. That article clearly states that he did have a right to record them, that this was upheld by the court, and that Boston settled out of court and paid him $170,000.
For anyone who doesn't want to read it, he filmed the police and, after asking if it included audio, they arrested him for breach of the peace, wiretapping and another charge they basically invented. After it inevitably didn't go anywhere and they refused to investigate internally, he sued the city for violation of his 1st and 4th amendment rights, and they appealed that they had a right to confiscate his equipment under wiretapping laws. However, the judge said he had his constitutional rights to record, and it couldn't have been wiretapping because the camera was in plain sight.
So, contrary to the GP's statement, they actually affirmed Glik's right to record the police as long as he does it openly and doesn't get in the way of an arrest, which is exactly what the DC police just did.
"It does not do to leave a live dragon out of your calculations, if you live near him." - Tolkien
If it is a place you have a right to be and the owner, leaseholder or a representative of the owner or leaseholder (security guards spring immediately to mind) has not forbidden audio and video recording, you may do so. If it is your home, you may do so. If it is your friends home, you may do so unless your friend forbids you to do so. It's always best to make the recording openly, being surreptitious may result in a successful wiretapping prosecution depending on what state you live in.
"Cursed is he who rises early in the morning..." Isiah 5:11
I haven't seen "100s" of instances where they use the "interference with my duties" excuse, but I've seen plenty.
www.copblock.org has some good videos.
Many instances of people getting harassed by armed thugs in blue for filming traffic stops. Including one guy standing in his own garage filming a traffic stop across the street.
The boys in blue will one day regret fomenting this adversarial relationship with law abiding citizens.
This policy statement pertains to one police department and is basically the result of a lawsuit filed by someone who had been mistreated for recording them in the past. This isn't a policy statement by someone wanting to improve their image to enter higher levels of politics or something. The entire policy change is pretty detailed in what the cops can and cannot do including what specific situations that a camera can be seized and how to handle a situation where someone will not voluntarily hand it over.
If you find they are abusing their discretion, file a complaint against the officers. There is even a web site that allows that which is floating around in these comments. My understanding is that the complaint stays with the officer's permanent record whether they find something substantial or not coming from it. It will eventually show a pattern that will eventually catch up with them.
Seriously, read the PDF associated with it. It is very specific and part of a settlement from which someone was mistreated by one of the cops.
As someone living in DC, I see the summary fails to mention a few things: 1) This was the result of a class action lawsuit settlement, not police wanting to respect peoples' rights, 2) police fought this lawsuit for 2+ years as is common when they're caught oppressing people's constitutional rights (Google "DC Trinidad Checkpoints" or "DC pershing park MPD"), and 3) this has always been legal, but the police have commonly violated our rights- we shouldn't give them a cookie for simply following the law.
Common sense has nothing to do with it. As a poster above pointed out, this is purely the result of a lawsuit against the MPD. Just like the Miranda warning, progress most often comes from the court system.