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Fields v. Philadelphia has established the right to record police in the U.S. Third Circuit (Delaware, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, and the Virgin Islands):
The First Amendment protects our right to use electronic devices to record on-duty police officers, according to a new ruling by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit in Fields v. Philadelphia. This right extends to anyone with a recording device, journalists and members of the public alike. And this right includes capture of photos, videos, and audio recordings.
EFF filed an amicus brief seeking this ruling. We argued that people routinely use their electronic devices to record and share images and audio, and that this often includes newsworthy recordings of on-duty police officers interacting with members of the public.
[...] The Third Circuit erred on the issue of "qualified immunity." This is a legal doctrine that protects government employees from paying money damages for violating the Constitution, if the specific right at issue was not clearly established at the time they violated it. In Fields, the Third Circuit unanimously held that going forward, the First Amendment protects the right to record the police. But the majority held that this right was not clearly established at the time the police officers in the case violated this right.
According to Slate, similar rulings have been issued in the First, Fifth, Seventh, Ninth, and Eleventh Circuits. The new decision addressed two cases in Philadelphia:
Friday's decision involved two instances in which the Philadelphia police retaliated against citizens attempting to film them. In the first incident, a legal observer named Amanda Geraci tried to film police arresting an anti-fracking protester when an officer pinned her against a pillar, preventing her from recording the arrest. In the second, a Temple University sophomore named Richard Fields tried to film police officers breaking up a house party when an officer asked him whether he "like[d] taking pictures of grown men" and demanded that he leave. When Fields refused, the officer arrested and detained him, confiscating his phone and looking through its photos and videos. The officer cited Fields for "Obstructing Highway and Other Public Passages," although the charges were dropped when the officer failed to appear at a court hearing. Geraci and Fields filed civil rights suits against the officers who interfered with their filming attempts.
Writing for the court, Judge Thomas Ambro agreed that both Geraci and Fields held a constitutional right to record the police—a right that officers violated in both instances. "The First Amendment protects the public's right of access to information about their officials' public activities," Ambro wrote. This access "is particularly important because it leads to citizen discourse" on public and political issues, the most highly valued First Amendment activity. Thus, the government is constitutionally barred from "limiting the stock of information from which members of the public may draw."
Anything you say or do may be uploaded to YouTube.
Previously: Right to Record Police Established in U.S. Fifth Circuit
(Score: 2) by DannyB on Tuesday July 11 2017, @02:23PM (7 children)
It does solve the problem, just not as quickly as you or I would like.
The taxpayers burdened with paying for judgements against dirty cops, will elect different officials that will fix things.
Also, there is nothing that stops courts from issuing judgements against police departments or police officers for criminal wrongdoing. And let's not forget judgements against police onions if they get involved in trying to obstruct justice against dirty cops.
The lower I set my standards the more accomplishments I have.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by takyon on Tuesday July 11 2017, @04:13PM (1 child)
I want to believe that. But there may not be a choice. Good ol' boys tend to win the offices that matter for solving the problem, such as Sheriff.
Taxpayers are burdened with paying for trillions of dollars worth of foreign wars too, but they tend to elect officials that keep on intervening overseas.
Local taxpayers aren't necessarily going to feel the burden directly. Which budget will get cut first, policing or parks & rec?
There are municipalities, states, and territories that are deep in debt. Do newly elected officials tend to solve those debt problems?
Police unions are like onions. They have protective layers and they stink!
The judges and prosecutors are often a part of the problem. There are many judges that will defer to law enforcement. Prosecutors will cover for the crimes of the police, won't do anything about the many illegal detentions and arrests, and can be openly hostile to First Amendment auditors and other people filming the police.
The best outcomes are the election of Sheriffs that are committed to cleaning out bad apples, and the intervention of the feds in the very worst departments. Think Baltimore [nbcnews.com] (extra [wtop.com]) or Los Angeles [go.com] (more recent [latimes.com]).
Many police officers lie on police reports. Cameras and smartphones have undermined this practice. Live streaming has helped further by preventing the potential destruction of evidence. Cameras getting lost in the evidence room, smashed, or just outright deletion of video if the officer is not completely tech-illiterate. The wireless connection from the phone/camera to a cloud service can be a problem. If you watch live streams filmed outside, you'll notice the crap quality and flakiness. Still, we live in great times for police accountability (which requires more than mysteriously malfunctioning bodycams).
[SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 2) by DannyB on Tuesday July 11 2017, @05:35PM
My thinking is that voters have better local control through voting than they do national control through voting.
The lower I set my standards the more accomplishments I have.
(Score: 2) by Arik on Tuesday July 11 2017, @05:10PM (4 children)
Unfortunately this doesn't happen. The taxpayers, for the most part, seem content to write off innocent citizens dead and even multimillion dollar payouts to victims of criminal misbehavior as simply part of the cost of 'security.' Occasionally a particularly noteworthy case may generate enough of a backlash to turn an incumbent out but his successor essentially never manages to 'fix things.' Politicians can't afford to buck police unions, in the great majority of cases.
"Also, there is nothing that stops courts from issuing judgements against police departments or police officers for criminal wrongdoing."
In theory.
You know the difference between theory and practice?
If laughter is the best medicine, who are the best doctors?
(Score: 2) by DannyB on Tuesday July 11 2017, @05:37PM (2 children)
In theory there is no difference between theory and practice.
But in practice exceptions are thrown, debugging, new builds, testing and redeployment are required.
The lower I set my standards the more accomplishments I have.
(Score: 2) by Arik on Tuesday July 11 2017, @05:44PM (1 child)
This is more succinct though.
"In theory, there is no difference."
If laughter is the best medicine, who are the best doctors?
(Score: 2) by DannyB on Tuesday July 11 2017, @08:54PM
In the mid 1990's, the way I heard it.
In theory there is no difference between theory and practice.
But in practice, there is.
The lower I set my standards the more accomplishments I have.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday July 11 2017, @05:50PM
Break it out as a line item on their tax bill and people will start to take notice very quickly. Until then it's "out of sight, out of mind". No one considers it a cost of security, they simply never make the connection.