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> 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 permissi

by judge2020 5y ago

> 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.

ramesh31 5y ago
> 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".
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
ethbr0 5y ago
8' seems pretty reasonable. 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.
- stonogo 5y ago
  > 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.
  - ethbr0 5y ago
    Wouldn't facial likeness be enough? 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.
    - woodruffw 5y ago
      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.
      - ethbr0 5y ago
        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.
        woodruffw 5y ago
        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. [1]: https://theintercept.com/2020/06/03/nypd-badge-black-band/ https://theintercept.com/2020/06/03/nypd-badge-black-band/
        ethbr0 5y ago
        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.
- conductr 5y ago
  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.

ramesh31 5y ago

> 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".

deleted 5y ago
[deleted]

ethbr0 5y ago

8' seems pretty reasonable. 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.

stonogo 5y ago
> 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.
- ethbr0 5y ago
  Wouldn't facial likeness be enough? 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.
  - woodruffw 5y ago
    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.
    - ethbr0 5y ago
      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.
      - woodruffw 5y ago
        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. [1]: https://theintercept.com/2020/06/03/nypd-badge-black-band/ https://theintercept.com/2020/06/03/nypd-badge-black-band/
        ethbr0 5y ago
        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.
conductr 5y ago
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.