More Courts across the country are telling police, citizens have the right to record them.
From Georgia to Nevada, police are arresting people who are photographing or videotaping their activities from public space or their own property, seizing their equipment and erasing the images. No one keeps data on the frequency of such arrests. But a spate of high-profile incidents in several states suggests the numbers are growing.
“Nobody should stand for this,” said Lucy Dalglish, executive director of the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press, an Arlington, Va., based nonprofit organization that provides legal help to reporters and news organizations.
Police can arrest people who are interfering with their investigation or are committing a crime themselves, she said. “If you are throwing a rock at police officers with one hand and holding a video camera in the other, you are not protected.” But as more and more videos of confrontations surface on the Internet, it appears that in many cases the officers just don't want to be taped.
"For whatever reason, some cops didn't get the message that I learned 30 years ago," said David A. Klinger, a former Los Angeles police officer and expert in police procedures who is now an associate professor of criminology at the University of Missouri-St. Louis,. "When you're doing your job, just assume you're being videotaped."
The people taking video claim they have a constitutional right to do so.
Davis and Peters called on journalists to take action.
"Enough of us in journalism are sitting idly by while civil liberties are trampled and new laws make us all criminals merely for doing our jobs," they wrote. "Public officials will stop overinflating their expectations of personal privacy only if the press pushes back."
http://www.thecrimereport.org/news/articles/2011-11--cameras-cops-and-the-first-amendment
Can Citizens Use Cellphones to Record Cops? Joining 1st Circuit, Oregon Appeals Court Says Yes:
http://www.abajournal.com/news/article/recording_cops_on_smartphone/
N.H. Judge Upholds Right to Record Police in Public
http://www.thenewamerican.com/usnews/constitution/9635-nh-judge-upholds-right-to-record-police-in-public