Good Reason article on: Recording police = wiretapping in many jurisdictions

[D.R.E.]

Not strictly 2a, but since many 2a advocates reach for cameras and many 2a cases really need video to be successfully fought, worth reading:

http://reason.com/archives/2010/12/07/the-war-on-cameras

Record police = felony charge in many places. Even if the charge gets dismissed, it's not a free ride. And many people plead out.


This problem doesn't seem to be on the radar in most legislatures, unfortunately.

One easy, actionable piece of advice is to not move to Illinois.

[jtmkinsd]

WOW...what a great read!!

This is the kind of crap that really ends up hurting the honest LEO:

In the College Park case, a campus police surveillance camera was pointed at the area where Jack McKenna was beaten. But there’s no security video of the incident. Campus police say the camera coincidentally malfunctioned at the time of the beating. A local news station reported that the officer in charge of the campus surveillance video system is married to one of the officers later disciplined for McKenna’s beating.

and this:

In 2007 Andrea McCarren, an investigative reporter for the D.C. TV station WJLA, was pulled over by seven Prince George’s County police cars as she and a cameraman followed a county official in pursuit of a story about misuse of public funds. In a subsequent lawsuit, McCarren claimed police roughed her up during the stop, causing a dislocated shoulder and torn rotator cuff. McCarren won a settlement, but she was never able to obtain video of the incident. Prince George’s County officials say all seven dashboard cameras in the police cruisers coincidentally malfunctioned.

Really makes my blood boil

[voiceofreason]

Public officials doing their duty should not have anything to hide. There is no expectation of privacy in public for civilians. Why would public officials be exempt from this?

If anything, they should be held to a higher standard, not lower.

[voiceofreason]

Public officials doing their duty should not have anything to hide. There is no expectation of privacy in public for civilians. Why would public officials be exempt from this?

If anything, they should be held to a higher standard, not lower.

[Stonewalker]

Everybody who cares about the Bill of Rights here and loves Calguns needs to head on over to The Electronic Frontier Foundation and get educated. They are to the 4th amendment what CGF is to the 2nd. They are fighting this kind of stuff.

[Coded-Dude]

So in Illinois, are dash cams allowed in LE vehicles? How can public officers violate a private citizens "right to privacy" but are protected from the same violation? Seems like a double standard.

"We record you for our protection, but you are not allowed the same protection because we are the law!"

[D.R.E.]

So in Illinois, are dash cams allowed in LE vehicles? How can public officers violate a private citizens "right to privacy" but are protected from the same violation? Seems like a double standard.

"We record you for our protection, but you are not allowed the same protection because we are the law!"

I'm not a fan of double standards, but in this case the consistent problem w/ dash cameras in IL (and pretty much everywhere else) is not that they record, but that they develop "glitches" when subpoenaed.

I'd much prefer there was a huge bank of recording devices for each LE encounter rather than there merely being the LE's written account of how things happened. That one thing would clear up a huge amount of misconduct.

[Wherryj]

WOW...what a great read!!

This is the kind of crap that really ends up hurting the honest LEO:

Campus police say the camera coincidentally malfunctioned at the time of the beating. A local news station reported that .

and this:

.

Really makes my blood boil

Check out the thread about the SLO SD video. There was a poster from San Luis Obispo that was aware of a similar case that was won for a man who claimed that officers beat him up. If I remember correctly the seven recorders at the scene and a recorder during an interrogation all coincidentally malfunctioned.

Here is a site that details a few other cases. http://reason.com/blog/2010/08/12/wh...eos-go-missing

I really don't see why it is illegal for a citizen to record an officer or "Official". Are these people really of a class that is more important? Sure there can be editing of civilian videos, but the same is obviously happening with police video. It is just one more piece of evidence to be considered and potentially no more or less valid than the "official" video.

This is a major issue that needs to be examined. Just WHY are officers and "officials" allowed to videotape while it is a felony for anyone else? Are these people really considered elite or privileged while the rest of us are just peons?

If not, just why is it allowed for one side only to record? It makes little sense, although that isn't exactly unusual when it comes to laws.

[The Shadow]

I think the bottom line with police who want to make recording them illegal, is purely criminal intent. In other words, just like other laws they refuse to obey according to the article, police will ignore laws when it suits them. This Casilly character falls into that category. The fact that private citizens feel the need to record an encounter with police should be a wake up call to police that the public doesn't entirely trust you. That's a sad state of affairs when the public has to guard themselves from those that the public pays to protect them from the criminals. Fortunately, for those of us who live in California, the boundaries are well defined and the private citizens right to record a public encounter is iron clad. One of the few good things left in California.

[BobB35]

WOW...what a great read!!

This is the kind of crap that really ends up hurting the honest LEO:

Campus police say the camera coincidentally malfunctioned at the time of the beating. A local news station reported that .

and this:

.

Really makes my blood boil

Shhh....this didn't really happen...all LEOs are upstanding paladins that will fight for the constitution to the death, even when told to do otherwise by unscrupulous politicians. This stuff is more the norm than people realize.

[Kukuforguns]

Illinois police cars do have dashboard cameras that record video. All of my research indicates that in Illinois the cameras do not record audio, which is why the dashboard cameras do not violate Illinois law.

[GrayWolf09]

Thank God for the ACLU!

[Uriah02]

Awesome read! I wish some of the examples included events in CA as they mentioned CA has had such situations occur.

[nicki]

police state.

Look at the source, Illonis.

I wonder who pushed the original legislation. Seems that in the 1960s the Black Panthers were recording police civil rights violations.

It was when the police started attacking the people recording police abuse, that they started carrying guns which lead to the Mulford act.

Many Open Carry people do carry recording devices to record any violations of their rights.

Nicki