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from the 'give-me-your-Bill'-said-the-officer dept.
In the light of the heated discussions about a certain bill signed in Indiana, here is a more refreshing news about a proposed bill in Colorado. The state of Colorado is considering a bill that outlines punishments for police officers who interfere with photographers. House Bill 15-1290 is titled "Concerning Prohibiting A Peace Officer From Interfering With A Person Lawfully Recording A Peace Officer-Involved Incident".
The bill states that if a person is lawfully documenting a police officer and then has their imagery seized or destroyed without a warrant, they are entitled to $15,000 for actual damages plus attorney fees and costs. The bill also would be applied when a police officer intentionally interferes with a person's ability to capture images.
It seems the bill came up as a result of the number of news reports about police officers telling people "Give me your camera", or taking the data away.
The story is covered further in The Denver channel and PetaPixel.
(Score: 5, Informative) by Thexalon on Tuesday April 07 2015, @01:50PM
The reason it's not redundant is that crooked cops will use other laws (e.g. wiretapping) as an excuse to arrest the person making the recording and seize the device with the incriminating-the-police recording, and once the case is thrown out by a court (as it always is) the recording has been mysteriously erased. This law would make the original arrest illegal, whereas before the wiretapping arrest was legal but incorrect.
The thing is, rules like this don't make it impossible for cops to get revenge on somebody. Consider, for example, the case of Ramsay Orta, who filmed Eric Garner's death and is now being held in Riker's prior to trial: The cops followed him around everywhere he went waiting for him to make a mistake, and a couple of weeks later searched him illegally and came up with an unregistered firearm (Orta was apparently feeling more than a bit paranoid at this point).
The only thing that stops a bad guy with a compiler is a good guy with a compiler.