In Glik v. Cunniffe, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the First Circuit holds that a bystander videotaping an arrest by police is exercising rights protected under the First Amendment. The court also rules that the police officers who arrested the cameraman are not protected under the doctrine of qualified immunity from a claim that they violated his constitutional rights.
Looks like a good decision to me.
Good. Let’s see if it stands; I doubt the police will just say “okay” and not appeal.
Excellent decision. What are we supposed to do, avert our eyes?
I just got done reading the whole decision. That was quite the judicial smackdown.
This is soooo very troublesome. The first idea that pops into my head is that the only reason police would not want their actions recorded is because they plan on doing bad actions that would get them into trouble if recorded. Ay, there are actually many officers out there who plan on doing illegal things during arrest? That is really scary.
The officers even charged him with “aiding in the escape of a prisoner” for recording the arrest with his cell phone camera. Does no one in the law in that court district care about clearly egregious and false arrest? Even being as charitable as possible, it casts a light on police officers who need remedial training in the law.
I’m amazed that this could even make it to court, but given that it did, they reached the correct decision.
Is there a debate here?
I’m curious. To save me from having to read the decision, can you tell me what part of the First Amendment was invoked to guaranteeing the right to record an arrest?
So… I know they are passing laws that say recording police officers is illegal. Does this invalidate those laws, or what?
Freedom of the press. In this day and age we are all potential reporters and deserve the same rights as traditional reporters.
Essentially the ruling cites both freedom of the Press and freedom of speech and cites a number of Supreme Court decisions holding that the freedom to gather and disseminate information about government officials engaged in public business is an essential First Amendment right.
By the way, the state had already dropped the charges against Glik as being groundless. This particular ruling basically says that Glik has the right to sue the cops, and they did not have qualified immunity.
The state itself is not even trying to defend the constitutionality of the arrest.
In the First Circuit, the opinion concludes, those Supreme Court decisions add up to the right to openly record cops.
I say that not to correct you – your summary is accurate – but to point out that the opinion acknowledges the existence of a contrary, albeit unpublished, Fourth Circuit opinion. The First Circuit goes on to dismiss it as having no precedential value and thus not fodder that the cops might have relied upon.
Good cops should be relieved at being recorded. It can vindicate them against unfounded allegations just as easily as it could implicate them in nefarious behavior.
Too bad the ruling didn’t go further and state that it’s okay to record anybody (not just police) in a public place, and that the recording didn’t have to be obviously being done. I think it’s reasonable to want to covertly record a cop who is beating the crap out of someone, lest the police turn their aggression on the person recording. The fact that many people are getting arrested for filming cops is illustrative that those particular cops are assholes.
Too often footage taken by cops is lost when it could provide either damaging evidence to a case or show criminal behavior on the part of the police.
The decision is based on the importance of people monitoring government activity. I don’t see any reason why it should have said that it’s okay to covertly record just anyone.
It wasn’t necessary to draw that conclusion to resolve the case, I agree. It will be litigated in the future and I predict it will be held that you can record a person in public, without their knowledge, and not run afoul of any law, generally. This is as it should be.
Concur with the OP. If citizens have no expectation of privacy in a public place, why should law enforcement?
Besides, if the police are on the level, they should welcome being filmed instead of fighting it.
Bri2k
I disagree. People in general who are engaged in private behavior should have the right to control their privacy and their image/likeness.
The only rational that I can come up with for officers to not want to be taped might be incomplete footage showing an incomplete portrayal of a situation.
I agree with the ruling, however. Officers have a lot of power to suppress the rights of the citizenry and should have the extra scrutiny.