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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.'"
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.
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?
I bet we'll find a bunch of cops using this as an excuse to take away your camera...
Nope. From the linked orders
So, they may not tell you to stop recording, and they may not take your camera. Later on in the order it explains in more detail how they MAY NOT TAKE your camera as evidence without probable cause, even then they need their supervisor present, and under no circumstances may they delete recordings.
Protoplasm. Quiet Protoplasm. I like quiet protoplasm.
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.
For your security, this post has been encrypted with ROT-13, twice.
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.
I hate to correct but to say our rights derive from the Will of The People is completely false. Our rights are inherent, we are imbued with them by our creator. The Will of The People is what stops the government from infringing on them.
We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.
Sorry, teleporters just kill you and then make a copy. A perfect, soul-less copy.
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.
Note to ACs: I usually delete AC replies without reading them. If you want to talk to me, log in.
...under no circumstances may they delete recordings.
Well, no, because that would be spoliation. Not that this doesn't happen a LOT.
Refer to the Rodney King case for a bloody good reason for a cop to want a video recording to disappear. More recently, the Ian Tomlinson murder trial which resulted in the cop who was videotaped in the act of killing a man was acquitted by a bought jury.
So continues the record of the British police, not a single member of whom has ever been convicted of causing or by omission of action causing, a wrongful death.
We know different.
Operation Guillotine is in effect.
Isn't loitering just the best law ever. You can be arrested for standing there, doing absolutely nothing.
Theory and practice are quite different, and in NYC, people photographing the subways are still harassed by cops even with a printout of the specific law allowing them to take photos.
Also, refer to the video of that woman that was taping an arrest from her private property - the front lawn of her home. The cop who was making the arrest some 30 feet away claimed he felt threatened and arrested her. Ironically, the people that were initially being arrested were let go on the scene.
Uh... so... my mom and my dad?
A Law Enforcement Officer cannot enforce the Law if they do not know what the Law is.
Any officer who doesn't know the law already shouldn't be in uniform.
And, yes, I'm totally cool with requiring a law degree before you can wear a uniform. Think about how awesome it would be to have police officers worthy of the badge for a change.
He put his boots up on the table and made a face. "The sig," he smirked. "You can waste your life in search of the sig."
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.
Citation please? I have a K9 dog, I know some trainers and Im friendly with a few policemen with K9s, and I've never heard of such a thing. I could be wrong or uninformed so I'd yield to a citation, but without one and having seen the dogs and trainers and handlers in action I dont believe it without confirmation. The bit about "most dogs react to food smells" is utterly false though, being distracted by a nice juicy steak is the fastest way to get a dog kicked out of any training program, and a working dog has very little interest in food when performing a task. The average cop may not give a rats ass about people, but a K9 handler training their dog to "lie" is disrespecting the dog and I dont know a single handler that would do that ever.
http://www.ucdmc.ucdavis.edu/welcome/features/2010-2011/02/20110223_drug_dogs.html
It's not that trainers train the dog to lie. Dogs are pack animals and pick up on cues from the pack leader (the handler); if the human thinks "this guy must have drugs", the dog picks up on his pack leader's subtle (possibly unconscious) cues and performs as he believes he is expected. No maliciousness required on the part of the trainer or handler, just a ridiculous legal precedent that allows a dumb (as in unable to properly communicate) non-human animal to make legally valid "judgment" calls that trump citizens' constitutional rights.
...sometimes, in order to hurt someone very badly, you have to tell that person terrible lies. - PA