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What To Say When the Police Tell You To Stop Filming Them
HughPickens.com writes: Robinson Meyer writes in The Atlantic that first of all, police shouldn't ask. "As a basic principle, we can't tell you to stop recording," says Delroy Burton, a 21-year veteran of DC's police force. "If you're standing across the street videotaping, and I'm in a public place, carrying out my public functions, [then] I'm subject to recording, and there's nothing legally the police officer can do to stop you from recording." What you don't have a right to do is interfere with an officer's work. ""Police officers may legitimately order citizens to cease activities that are truly interfering with legitimate law enforcement operations," according to Jay Stanley who wrote the ACLU's "Know Your Rights" guide for photographers, which lays out in plain language the legal protections that are assured people filming in public. Police officers may not confiscate or demand to view your digital photographs or video without a warrant and police may not delete your photographs or video under any circumstances.
What if an officer says you are interfering with legitimate law enforcement operations and you disagree with the officer? "If it were me, and an officer came up and said, 'You need to turn that camera off, sir,' I would strive to calmly and politely yet firmly remind the officer of my rights while continuing to record the interaction, and not turn the camera off," says Stanley. The ACLU guide also supplies the one question those stopped for taking photos or video may ask an officer: "The right question to ask is, 'am I free to go?' If the officer says no, then you are being detained, something that under the law an officer cannot do without reasonable suspicion that you have or are about to commit a crime or are in the process of doing so. Until you ask to leave, your being stopped is considered voluntary under the law and is legal."
What if an officer says you are interfering with legitimate law enforcement operations and you disagree with the officer? "If it were me, and an officer came up and said, 'You need to turn that camera off, sir,' I would strive to calmly and politely yet firmly remind the officer of my rights while continuing to record the interaction, and not turn the camera off," says Stanley. The ACLU guide also supplies the one question those stopped for taking photos or video may ask an officer: "The right question to ask is, 'am I free to go?' If the officer says no, then you are being detained, something that under the law an officer cannot do without reasonable suspicion that you have or are about to commit a crime or are in the process of doing so. Until you ask to leave, your being stopped is considered voluntary under the law and is legal."
Where I'm from if you backtalk a cop, they take you to jail (if you're lucky they don't beat you for "resisting arrest" too). They make up some charges after-the-fact. Or maybe there are no charges and they let you go after 48 hours of sharing a cell with crackheads. Either way, the lesson is "don't backtalk."
SJW's don't eliminate discrimination. They just expropriate it for themselves.
I tried to use my tablet to take a picture of the new American Embassy building outside Vientiane, Laos. I was told by the guards that this is prohibited. I went out to the street and took a picture from a public road on Lao territory, but they again told me to delete the picture. I figure they had no right to prohibit the picture, but I deleted it anyway. Then they had the paradox that they were insisting that I delete the picture, but they could not touch my tablet and I could not delete the picture because it was already gone.
So two days later, while I was in a taxi driving from downtown Vientiane to the Thai bridge, I pulled out my tablet and shot a video as we went past the new Embassy building. As soon as I got home I posted the video on my web site at
http://www.andycanfield.com/Th...
So far the idiots in the U.S. State Department haven't contacted me. Is it an act of treason for you to look at it? Ask your lawyer.
The biggest risk to you is that you die. Less likely than being arrested and having to spend money on a lawyer and so on, but piss off the wrong cop in America and ending up shot, choked to death, beaten to death, etc isn't an unexpected outcome.
Thats fine that 1 in 1000 officer is still significant enough to justify correcting the system. We have learned time and time again authority must be tempered with oversight. We now have the technical means to reasonably oversee all interactions the police have on duty.
It has been shown police do not follow the law hell even use ignorance of the law as an excuse. Real substantial change in policing will take decades, with unions and politicians scratching and clawing to keep the status quo.
I grew up with cops, I've seen a lot more than a one night ride along and I pretty much don't watch TV. Having been around cops I will tell you the number is a lot higher than 1 in 1000, I would want to loose at least 1 in 10 cops and suspect that number would go far higher. I can say cops policing their own community tend to be far better than those that live elsewhere. I can also say police chiefs feel/are handcuffed by the unions and lawyers in getting rid of these bad cops.
No sir I dont like it.
The summary isn't quite right. A warrant would not be required to seize your phone or other recording device if the officer has probable cause to believe it contains evidence of a crime (and exigent circumstances exist, which they probably do). Then he can try to get a warrant to get that evidence off your device. An example would be they roll up on a crime scene and you were recording before they got there, or, maybe you got video of the suspect assaulting the police. They wouldn't need a warrant to seize it at that point, because exigent circumstances (you could leave, the evidence could easily be destroyed if they don't secure the phone) would justify seizure without a warrant. However they could not legally search it without a warrant. (Typically in a case where a bystander has video of the crime they'll be cooperative and send the video to the police if possible, or give consent to them to get it off their device).
The smarter police aren't going to go around taking phones. If they believe you have evidence on your phone they'd probably like to talk to you about what you saw anyway and ripping your phone out of your hands isn't going to help that. But just be aware that they can most likely legally seize your phone without a warrant, if they have probable cause it has evidence of a crime, and if seizing your phone is the only way to preserve that evidence from being destroyed or lost (you could delete the video or walk away before a warrant could be obtained).
What?
Let's be honest here: the biggest risk to you is that they beat you to death and then concoct some bullshit to justify it after-the-fact.
That said, if you let that scare you so that you "COMPLY", then you've let the totalitarians win.
"[Regarding the 'cloud,'] ownership was what made America different than Russia." -- Woz
Don't RUN from the cops. The one common denominator from most of the recently publicized cop shootings of citizens, is that the citizen generally ran from the officer.
And this is a clear violation of department policy and law everywhere I'm familiar with and should result in the immediate charging of the officer(s) involved. A person that runs away is not an imminent threat, and therefore there is no justification for use of force. The problem is that officers are often not charged, even with video evidence, far too often. Honestly, officers should shoot second, unless going into a known shooting situation, and should never shoot to kill unless actually attacked. Furthermore, when there are options, such as a guy standing alone outside his house waving a knife, stay far enough away until enough backup comes to assist in taking the guy down. There's plenty of non-lethal means to incapacitate such a person. The preponderance of evidence of late is that too many cops are gun-happy or just aggressive thugs and continue their ways even after multiple incidents.
The cesspool just got a check and balance.
And how exactly is that supposed to work when the police who break the law are not punished?
Sorry, teleporters just kill you and then make a copy. A perfect, soul-less copy.
The "Hands Up" app ( http://www.handsuptheapp.com/ ) has just been released and is designed to deal with these issues. It's quite clever and records the your interaction with the police as usual, but also:
- Turns the screen blank but keeps recording;
- Automatically uploads geotagged video segments to Dropbox every few seconds, preserving the recording even if it's erased or the phone is destroyed; and,
- Sends a text message to your emergency contact notifying them of the recording's existence.
No. Well...maybe. Actually, yes. It really just depends.
and should never shoot to kill unless actually attacked.
I agree with everything you said except this, this is a nonsensical statement. Shooting IS shooting to kill, there's no other expected outcome. It's lethal force and should always be treated as such. Yes the technical phrase they use is "shoot to stop" or "shoot to disable" but in actuality it is ALWAYS shoot to kill and should ALWAYS be treated as such. If killing the target is not an acceptable outcome then shooting should not be used period.
Don't be so melodramatic. The ones who died at the hands of the cops are those with multiple infractions and long rap sheets who physically resisted arrest. Or waved around what appeared to be a weapon and refused to drop it when ordered to do so.
Or were looking at a BB gun in a store and a cop just kills him without giving any orders.
Don't resist arrest, don't get into a wrestling match with a cop; especially don't make a grab for his gun, and you will have nearly zero chance of getting killed or abused.
Also don't try to buy a BB gun. And don't drive with your friends after dark into an area where cops are looking for a suspect. Good luck guessing where that is.
That all said, we all certainly have a right to record anything in public, and no cop should tell you otherwise. Hell, it might even be to their benefit sometimes, as a lot of videos don't supply full context or show the events leading up to an arrest.
Did you see that video recently of the cop who took a woman's phone and smashed it because she wouldn't stop recording? We only saw that because he didn't see the second person with a phone recording her.
I think it's better if the police know you're filming them. They tend to be a little more polite.
You also have to be careful because of these states where there are "mutual consent" laws about recording. i.e. in some states you can record a conversation surreptitiously, while in others, all parties to the conversation must know it's being recorded. The authorities have actually tried to use this against people who film their encounters with the police. There was a case in MD where an off-duty cop pulled over a motorcycle driver who was wearing a helmet cam and they tried to say he broke the "wiretapping" laws by recording without the cop's consent.
They tried the same thing in Massachusetts. Only problem: the guy filming was a lawyer and he fought it. Courts came back and said that filming a public official in a public place was completely legal. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/G...
THAT IS A LIE, AND YOU ARE A LIAR. Counterexample: Tamir Rice.
"[Regarding the 'cloud,'] ownership was what made America different than Russia." -- Woz
Okay, try this. Go get a gun and walk into a police station.
Good luck.
Where I live, we do this all the time. In fact, we open carry and concealed carry into there every other Thursday for the meeting of our local gun rights organization. This is 5 miles from Washington D.C.
James M. Boyd. Video here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?...
You are continuing to blatantly lie.
Tamir Rice "waved around" precisely nothing, and "refused to drop" precisely nothing. He was in fact shot to death before he would have even had a chance to do anything remotely resembling that!
"[Regarding the 'cloud,'] ownership was what made America different than Russia." -- Woz
The idea that groups have rights is simply the mistake of the far left wing, and their "Group Politics", and a big reason why Civil Rights Movement has failed.
As a long time Democrat and coming from a staunchly, fiscal conservative Democratic family I can say unequivocally that the idea that individuals have no rights and only groups do is NOT a "far left wing" idea. The left is not the group that is making corporations (a group of people that work for a legal document that creates a non-entity and gives it tax status) "people" and forcing Christian religious dogma and doctrine on the citizens of the United States. I'm sorry, but your view of the "far left wing" in the United States is sadly misinformed.
I have rights, society doesn't. Society is built to protect the rights of the individuals. This is the part of "Liberty and Justice for all". The defense of liberty is the primary function of government. Justice is how that liberty is protected.
1. Everyone in a society governed by democratically elected representatives has rights (privileges, actually [see George Carlin])
2. Groups have rights and is why we have laws that protect minorities and other disenfranchised groups of people (think Native Americans, ethnic groups, etc.)
3. Society is built to protect the rights of that society, not just the individual
4. "Liberty and Justice for all" is a line from the Pledge of Allegiance, not the Constitution and is therefore NOT part of how we as a society are governed. It's dogma at best, propaganda at worst
5. The primary function of government is governing, that's why it's called government
6. Liberty is protected by force. Period. Whether that be force of arms or the force of the vote, but it's protected by force and force alone.
7. Justice protects the innocent and prosecutes the guilty and has little or nothing to do with liberty unless the law enforcement part of a government is wholly and completely corrupt (see Ferguson, Missouri; Baltimore; Maryland, et al). In that case there is not justice and no liberty.
Anything less, is simply a step towards tyranny.
Not really since your underpinnings are not properly formed. Basically, I don't think your idea of tyranny is the same as that defined by history or the dictionary, let alone current events. Sounds like you want to call anything you don't agree with as tyranny or persecution and I'm sorry, that's just not the way it works. Tyranny is when a group or entire society is being made to suffer by a single, authoritarian individual or group. That's just not happening in the United States, unless you're talking about the billionaires and mega-corporations that practically own our government right now. That's bordering on oligarchy and not democracy and will only lead to tyranny down the road, but that's because society as a whole will suffer, not just a minority nor an individual.
On topic. Check your local laws before you pipe up to a cop while you are recording his/her activities. The laws vary from state to state, but Illinois and Massachusetts are currently the only states where you are not allowed to record a police officer under any circumstance. There are over a dozen states where consent of all parties to a recording have to be received before you can record, and 39 states where, as long as the activity is going on in public or in full view of the public, you can record whatever you want.
It's best you check the laws where you live and PRINT OUT THOSE LAWS and have them handy if you are going to make a habit or passing fancy out of recording police officers while they perform their duty. Otherwise, have a lawyer next to you. One other thing to keep in mind is that even if it is legal for you to record, local cops can put you in their cross hairs forever if you piss them off. I'm not saying they will do anything illegal, but they can legally make your life miserable if they so choose. Do one little thing wr