Photograph the Police. Fairfax County Police means Police brutality
Despite court rulings, people are still getting arrested for recording on-duty cops
By
Radley Balko
The
Associated Press reports that police in Chicopee, Mass., have arrested and
charged a woman for allegedly recording her arrest with her cellphone
surreptitiously.
When
you see one of these stories, please remember that it is perfectly legal to
record on-duty police in every state in the country. That includes states that
require all parties to a conversation to consent in order for that conversation
to be recorded. Those laws all also contain a provision that the non-consenting
party has a reasonable expectation of privacy. So far, every court to rule on
this issue has found that on-duty cops in public spaces have no expectation of
privacy and that recording them is protected by the First Amendment. (The U.S.
Supreme Court has yet to weigh in on the matter.) In nearly all cases, the
charges are eventually dismissed. (The exception may be if you’re arrested
under some broad, catch-all law such as “interfering with a police officer” or
disorderly conduct. But even those charges don’t usually stick.)
But
Massachusetts is the one state where the right is still just a little bit
ambiguous. At one time, some of the state’s courts did allow for citizens to be
arrested for recording cops under the state’s wiretapping law (which, again,
required all parties to consent before a conversation could be recorded).
Illinois also once had an even more onerous law, but it was struck down by the
U.S. Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit in 2012 on First Amendment
grounds.
In
2011, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the First Circuit issued a similar
decision. The court allowed Simon Glik’s lawsuit against the police officers
who arrested him for recording them to go forward, again finding a First
Amendment right to record on-duty law enforcement. But in that case, Glik was
recording the officers openly. The court’s ruling applied only to that case,
leaving open the possibility that someone could still be arrested for making a
surreptitious recording of an on-duty cop. And that’s what happened in this
latest case.
If
this case gets to the First Circuit, I suspect this charge will also be thrown
out. It’s notable that the Glik decision didn’t even deal with whether there is
a legal right to record police in Massachusetts. It dealt with whether cops who
illegally arrest someone for recording them should be protected by qualified
immunity. In order to get into court against a police officer, you have to
demonstrate not only that the officer violated your constitutional rights, but
also that the rights violated were well established at the time. (Perversely,
this provides a financial incentive for police organizations to keep cops in
the dark about the latest court decisions with respect to constitutional
rights.)
So
while the First Circuit ruling in Glik didn’t apply to surreptitious recording
of police officers, it did find that not only is the right to record on-duty
police permitted, it’s a well-established right that police should be aware of
by now, and that if they violate that right, they can be sued for doing so. It
seems unlikely that the same court will then turn around and uphold a separate
arrest simply because the woman didn’t tell the police she was recording them.
If
I lived in Chicopee, however, I’d wonder why this woman was charged for
allegedly recording her arrest in the first place. Prosecutors have lots of
discretion about when to charge someone and about what charges to bring. They
are under no obligation to charge every person who breaks every law — it would
be impossible for them to do so. And there’s certainly no obligation to latch
on to the narrowness of a court decision that otherwise indicated a First
Amendment right to record police as an opportunity to charge someone for doing
just that, simply because she might fall slightly outside the scope of that
particular ruling. Just because the courts haven’t yet ruled that police and
prosecutors can’t do something doesn’t mean it’s something they should do.
So
if I lived in Chicopee, I’d want to know why Hampden County District Attorney
Mark G. Mastroianni charged this woman. Does he believe it should be illegal to
record the police? And if so, why?
DAWUD WALID: MORE TECHNOLOGY SHOULD BE DEPLOYED TO DETER POLICE MISCONDUCT
Metro
Detroit has always been one of the more notorious areas in America for police
misconduct and brutality. In my parent’s generation, there was systematic
brutality and racial profiling, from the Detroit Police Department’s notorious
Stop the Robberies, Enjoy Safe Streets (S.T.R.E.S.S.) unit and routine
harassment of black men driving west of Wyoming St. by the Deaborn Police
during the era of Mayor Orville Hubbard.
Since
then, we’ve had numerous events ranging in severity and media scrutiny, from
the fatal beating of Malice Green in 1992 by Detroit Police officer Larry
Nevers, to Grosse Pointe Park Police suspending five officers last year after
it was revealed that a black man with diminished mental capacity was made to
make ape sounds while in police custody.
Last
week, dashcam video was made public regarding an incident in which a Dearborn
Police officer is seen kicking an unarmed Lebanese immigrant who was being
restrained on the ground. The man who was kicked multiple times barely speaks
English and has diminished mental capacity, similar to the gentleman who was
humiliated last year in Grosse Pointe Park.
These
incidents, spread across decades, makes one wonder if there’s a greater law
enforcement culture issue at hand.
Sure,
there are many honorable officers serving in our region and being in law
enforcement is never an easy task. However, the reflex in which police chiefs
have to defend their officers, seemingly at all costs, helps perpetuate actions
such as what took place in Dearborn.
But
thank God for technology.
We
can lawfully take smartphone video of officers in action, and many police
vehicles are outfitted with dashcams, which pick up audio and video of police
interactions.
All
officers, as public servants, should be mic’d at all times while on duty.
Officers’ interactions should be public record, except for detectives
investigating sensitive cases and/or taking official statements of witnesses to
crimes. Every sheriff and police officer’s car in Michigan should be compelled
to have dashcams.
For
many people, behaviors do not change without consequences. Greater
opportunities to scrutinize the behaviors of law enforcement officers may serve
as a deterrent against police misconduct.
Apple Helps Cops Hide Police Brutality / Stop Phone Filming
May
12, 2014 by Jack Blood
Here
is the link to the patent which Apple holds for this technology.
The
rapid emergence of smart phones with high definition cameras leads to
consequences for law-breaking cops.
Recently,
law enforcement throughout the country has been trying to pass laws that would
make it illegal to film them while they’re on duty.
But
Apple is coming out with a new technology that would put all the power in a
cop’s hands.
Apple has patented a piece of technology which
would allow government and police to block transmission of information,
including video and photographs, from any public gathering or venue they deem
“sensitive”, and “protected from externalities.”
¬In
other words, these powers will have control over what can and cannot be
documented on wireless devices during any public event.
And
while the company says the affected sites are to be mostly cinemas, theaters,
concert grounds and similar locations, Apple Inc. also says “covert police or
government operations may require complete ‘blackout’ conditions.”
“Additionally,”
Apple says,” the wireless transmission of sensitive information to a remote
source is one example of a threat to security. This sensitive information could
be anything from classified government information to questions or answers to
an examination administered in an academic setting.”
The
statement led many to believe that authorities and police could now use the
patented feature during protests or rallies to block the transmission of video
footage and photographs from the scene, including those of police brutality,
which at times of major events immediately flood news networks and video
websites.
Apple
patented the means to transmit an encoded signal to all wireless devices,
commanding them to disable recording functions.
Those
policies would be activated by GPS, and WiFi or mobile base-stations, which
would ring-fence (“geofence”) around a building or a “sensitive area” to
prevent phone cameras from taking pictures or recording video.
Apple
may implement the technology, but it would not be Apple’s decision to activate
the “feature” – it would be down governments, businesses and network owners to
set such policies, analyzes ZDNet technology website.
Having
invented one of the most sophisticated mobile devices, Apple now appears to be
looking for ways to restrict its use.
“As
wireless devices such as cellular telephones, pagers, personal media devices
and smartphones become ubiquitous, more and more people are carrying these
devices in various social and professional settings,” it explains in the
patent. “The result is that these wireless devices can often annoy, frustrate,
and even threaten people in sensitive venues.”
The
company’s listed “sensitive” venues so far include mostly meetings, the
presentation of movies, religious ceremonies, weddings, funerals, academic
lectures, and test-taking environments.
Cyclist Arrested For Videotaping Cop During Red Light Stop
Photographing and videotaping
anything in public view—including federal buildings and the police—is legal in
NYC as long as the documentation does not impede any law enforcement activity.
Nevertheless, plenty of people—including journalists—continue to be arrested
and harassed by camera-shy NYPD officers. Will Paybarah, a 24-year-old Brooklyn
resident, says this is exactly what happened to him in late March, when he was
stopped for running a red light on his bike and then arrested for trying to
videotape the officer with his cellphone. "When I tried to record my
interaction with the officer I was arrested... in 10 seconds flat," he
told us. You can see that interaction quickly play out in the video below.
Paybarah, a designer specializing in lettering and typography, told us he was
stopped on the morning of March 20th while biking west on Houston past
Broadway. He says he was stopped by "Officer Rich" of the 10th
Precinct, who was in an undercover cop car, after he (admittedly) ran a red
light. Paybarah took out his ID and immediately started taking video as the cop
approached him: "After those 10 seconds I was pulled off my bike, pushed
up against the metal fence, placed in handcuffs and put into the back seat of
the car. Other officers came. They joked saying they were going to 'handcuff my
bike to the tree.'"
The NYPD Patrol Guide Section
212-49 states that “Members of the service will not interfere with the
videotaping or the photographing of incidents in public places. Intentional
interference such as blocking or obstructing cameras or harassing the
photographer constitutes censorship.”
While in the back of the car,
Paybarah says he asked the officers why he was arrested for taking video. One
officer responded memorably:
I was told by another officer
while in the car that recording a police officer was illegal because people are
using iPhones as guns and shooting cops through the camera lens...I told him
that I have the right to be recording a cop and he said that there were incidents,
specifically in uptown Manhattan where a kid shot a cop with his iPhone.
Straight face. Very serious.
There are iPhone cases that
double as stun guns, and there have been calls for the "iPhone of
guns," but this is the first we've heard of an NYPD office being shot with
an iPhone gun.
Paybarah was jailed at Central
Booking for 13 hours that day, and though he was originally pulled over for
running a red light, he was also charged with resisting arrest, obstruction of
justice, and criminal mischief. He had his court date this week, and was
sentenced to one day community service (and he'll have the arrest purged from
his record if he isn't arrested again in the next six months).
Asked about Paybarah's
experience, NYCLU Executive Director Donna Lieberman says, “New Yorkers have a
constitutional right to film police activity in public. Cell phone cameras
empower people to expose police abuse and hold law enforcement accountable when
it violates people’s rights." Last year the NYCLU released a free smartphone
app that lets users record police interactions and submit them to the
organization in real time.
Paybarah adds that he's an avid
biker (and used to be a bike messenger), but this is only the second time he's
had a run-in with the law: "The only other time I was pulled over on my
bike was for...get ready for it...Speeding. I was speeding on my bike. When I
went to court for the summons, a clerk looked at the summons and dismissed my
case."
Man Arrested For Filming NYC Cop Ticketing Him
By Edwin Kee on 05/04/2014
Will Paybarah, a 24-year old
who has made New York City his home, was riding his bicycle last March 20th
when he was asked to stop by a policeman who was about to give him a ticket for
running a red light. In this day and age when social media is extremely
pervasive, Paybarah took out his iPhone to record a video of the police
officer’s approach only to find out that he was arrested instead for filming
what was about to happen.
One ought to take note that
there is no such law that forbids the filming of giving out a ticket, and the
arrest was made by a certain undercover officer who goes by the name of Rich
from the 10th Precinct. There were other policemen afterwards who showed up and
made jokes that included how they were going to cuff Paybarah’ bicycle to a
tree.
The NYPD Patrol Guide Section
212-49 does mention that the are not supposed to do anything should someone
want to snap a photo, since that could be seen as a form of censorship.
Paybarah, in a handcuff and seated within a patrol car, asked for the reason of
his arrest only to be told that recording a police officer with an iPhone was
illegal because criminals in the city do use iPhone handsets as a gun to fire
bullets via the camera lens, while citing an example that a kid recently fired
at an officer in the very same manner.
What do you think of the
police’s reaction? After all, there are tasers that have been disguised to look
like iPhones…
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