> The original proposal from Rep. John Kavanagh made it illegal to record within 15 feet of an officer interacting with someone unless the officer gave permission. The revised bill was approved on a 31-28 party-line vote Feb. 23 and lowers the distance to 8 feet.
And the exception for recording when in a car:
> It also now allows someone who is in a car stopped by police or is being questioned to tape the encounter and limits the scope of the types of police actions that trigger the law to only those that are possibly dangerous.
> limits the scope of the types of police actions that trigger the law to only those that are possibly dangerous.
And that means the entire law will be applied at will, by the sole discretion of the officer involved. It's the same nonsense they've used for decades to harass anyone they claim "smelled like marijuana".
Are there circumstances where you would have a valid interest in filming from closer than 8'?
This feels like a response to someone shoving a phone in an officer's face and claiming they're protected by the First Amendment. Which... seems unreasonable.
There's a clear public safety interest (both to the officer's own person, and to anyone the officer is interacting with, by not distracting anyone and/or increasing tension in the situation) and the public's right to record seems unimpinged by an 8' limit.
But this is from someone recently of Georgia, where we had people on both sides of the election fiasco harassing people while claiming journalistic protections.
Why then is video the subject of the law? If they are trying to create a safe radius around active police interactions, they should just write the law in that way. This seems specifically targeting video recordings of police and using the safety perimeter to signal reasonableness while chipping away at constitutional rights.
> Are there circumstances where you would have a valid interest in filming from closer than 8'?
Aside from the fact that these are public officials doing public work for public money, any video where you want the officer's name tag or badge number to be legible might get tricky to film from far off.
I assumed that even in the most corrupt cases, what officers were at what incident was logged into official records. Which would mean discriminating between 2-5 people.
Current masking aside, I'm not sure I could positively reidentify an officer wearing a full-face helmet and other riot gear. Especially amongst 30-50 of their identically-dressed peers.
Riot gear is a good point. But I'd say making identification clearly visible from >8' is probably the better solution than requiring camera-persons to get closer than that to riot police.
It's very difficult to get the police to reliably identify themselves. Here in NYC they like to cover their (legally required) identifying information with little black strips of cloth[1].
But the point about 8' raises something else: there's nothing stopping the police from walking up to you and demanding that you turn off your camera. These laws also invert the burden of proof: it's now your word against a cop's that you really were more than 8' away, and not 7.5'. These are not acceptable powers to yield to a largely unchecked authority.
The alternative (requiring no minimum distance between a police action and a protected recording) seems worse to me.
8' is a quantified line.
An unstated number of feet is more open to interpretation. Were you "interfering" with an arrest at 4'? 10'? 50'? That's a very fuzzy line in a court system that's typically deferential to law enforcement.
So, to me, it seems like an improvement on the certainty of rights. If you are 8' away, during a dangerous situation, or other caveat lesser distances as specified in the law, you have followed all legal guidelines and are not interfering with police action.
Ultimately, we'll see what the Supreme Court has to say. But to me, this sounds like a middle ground, rather than a sky-is-falling option.
> The alternative (requiring no minimum distance between a police action and a protected recording) seems worse to me.
Others have pointed out that the lack of a minimum distance is in fact an excellent thing: we don't get to choose how close we are to a crime when it happens. I could be on a bus sitting next to a victim of police brutality while it happens; should I have to stand up and shove my way through people until I am "far enough" away to legally record it? How does that serve the interests of justice?
Barring evidence that filming is itself a form of interference in police activity, it's not clear why we should have a separate standard for it. Interfering with a police investigation is, after all, already illegal.
(I also don't think the sky is falling. But I do think this inverts a currently very reasonable burden of proof, i.e. that the police must show that you are actually interfering with their work, and not merely recording it.)
I agree that the burden of proof should lay with the police: to prove that you were < 8' away, that you interfered with a police action, and that the action was a dangerous situation.
But the "I don't get to choose where I am" situation feels like nerd rules lawyering.
If I am sitting right next to someone on a bus, and the police run in and begin assaulting that person, my first action is going to be to get 8'+ away from what's happening. I'm not going to immediately pull out my cell phone while someone is getting beaten right next to me and start shoving it in the officer's face.
The constructed situation requires that (1) the only bystander is < 8' from the police, and (2a) there isn't an easy way to move away (in an environment that isn't specifically noted in the law as an exclusion) or (2b) the action is over before the bystander could move 8'+ away.
That doesn't describe a lot of police incidents I've seen or seen recordings of. Usually there's zero or 2+ bystanders. And usually the action escalates over at least 2 minutes, in an open environment.
My rationale for why there should be a separate standard for recording is that we should be encouraging more citizen to do it! Everyone record the cops!
But...! Recognize that adding stress to an already stressful situation is unlikely to produce positive results. Most people are idiots, especially when tempers are running hot on all sides.
If I were a cop, having a bunch of angry citizens < 8' from me, recording and yelling things at me, is unlikely to lead me to be a calmer officer and make deescalatory choices. It's going to increase tension; I'm going to make worse decisions; and that isn't going to end well for anyone. Myself, the supposed perpetrator, or the citizens around me.
And isn't that what we should be focused on? Maximizing the chance of good outcomes for everyone?
And the exception for recording when in a car:
> It also now allows someone who is in a car stopped by police or is being questioned to tape the encounter and limits the scope of the types of police actions that trigger the law to only those that are possibly dangerous.