Flutterby™! : Okay to video cops 2011-08-29 14:52:50.614257+00

Okay to video cops

2011-08-29 14:52:50.614257+00 by Dan Lyke 3 comments

US Court of Appeals for the First Circuit says public has right to video police in public places. This in response to Simon Glik's arrest when he used a cell phone to videotape a drug arrest on the Boston Common. Of course I expect this will get escalated, but it would be really nice to get a solid definitive decision from the Supreme Court.

PDF of the ruling, which came Via Slashdot which I got to from a tip from MarkV.

I think I mentioned before that in our visit to Massachusetts last year we were very uncomfortable with some of the police behavior we witnessed there.

I've been following these kinds of cases on Eugene Volokh's blog/website. We may be moving to the surveillance state, but the sword cuts both ways. It's long past time that police learned that it is perfectly legal for citizens to record them in public as long as they are not interfering with official duties. The claims by the police in Maryland are ridiculous.

#Comment Re: made: 2011-08-30 16:19:58.243484+00 by: m [edit history]

The case of the woman being tried for a 15 year felony for the audio recording of police in Ill was also concluded with a not guilty verdict last week.

In Georgia, and I think most states, as long as one side of the conversation knows it is being recorded there is no law broken in recording a phone conversation. I believe the intent in the states that require both parties knowing and agreeing to the recording is to keep private conversations private. With that being the intent I fail to see how any of these state wiretap laws can be applied to public conversations.