TheAgitator.com
If You Aren’t Doing Anything Wrong, Then You Have Nothing To Worry About
Tuesday, January 12th, 2010The Boston Globe reports that police n Massachusetts are using the state’s wiretapping laws to arrest people who record cops on the job. Massachusetts is one of 12 two party consent states, which cops are interpreting to mean you can’t record them without their permission.
The state’s supreme court upheld such a conviction in 2001, finding that “Secret tape recording by private individuals has been unequivocally banned, and, unless and until the Legislature changes the statute, what was done here cannot be done lawfully.” I’d think you could make a strong case that a public employee entrusted with the power to forcibly detain and kill falls outside the scope of a “private individual.”
According to the Globe, subsequent cases have turned on whether the recording was done secretly (in which case convictions are usually upheld), or openly (in which case the charges are usually dropped).
Boston police are claiming that recording them while on duty violates their privacy rights and may interfere with their ability to make arrests.
Harvey Silverglate wrote about one Massachusetts case for the Boston Phoenix in 2008. My argument for ensuring that it’s always legal to record on-duty cops here.
Reference the dissenting opinion by MA SC. It provides a glimmer of hope, so of course it is the minority:
Read this article this morning. ACLU has a sound position that these (and other) cops aren’t interpreting the law correctly(imagine that) basically because cops don’t like peasants with ANY power at all.
I think protests and demonstrations are about as useful as nipples on men, but here might be an exception. 1,000 protesters with their iPhones marching thru Boston would be a good start.
But if I’m reading this correctly, the Fist can record me whenever they want (public or private), but I can’t record anything anywhere anytime. So much for camcording my vacation.
How is it that uniformed police can claim any presumption of privacy, when they are 1) supposed to be a conspicuous presence, and 2) supposedly accountable to the public?
As I understand it, only notification (not consent) is required to comply with the law. As long as you inform the cop that he/she is being recorded, then you are in the clear. Unfortunately that will undermine the sole purpose of private recording, and really piss off the poh poh.
So, is the 7-11 is breaking the law by having security cameras set up?
What if you set up a camera in your house and record a person break into your house, rob you blind, and kill your dog. Can you not use this video as evidence because the thief didn’t give his consent? Can you then be charged under this law?
I guess most people taping cops are doing so openly (not hiding the camera) so they would not fall under this law, but it’s still a terrible law that should be repealed.
#3: video and audio are often treated far differently under the law.
Nando, rtfa.
It’s not the video camera that is the problem. It’s voice recording. Have you ever called technical support or customer service and heard “This phone call may be recorded for blah blah purposes”? They do that to comply with the same law the police are abusing here.
If a 7-11 is also recording audio, they will have a sign up that lets you know.
There is only one and only one reason an on-duty cop would want to avoid being recorded – to get away with crime. Your rights to privacy simply don’t outweigh the rights of private citizens to record what happens in public or in their homes.
If you secretly record the actions of a LEO, their actions may be different (i.e., more brutal), than if they see you openly recording their actions.
Bottom Line: The police do NOT like to be video-taped.
Most law enforcement agencies have video and audio set up to record from their vehicles. Officers have a mic to broadcast the audio while video is captured from a dash mounted camera. Is this not the case in MA? If it is then are the officers themselves not violating the law? Or do they tell the person they are interacting with that everything is being recorded? If the person does not consent to the recording does the officer switch it off?
I think the term “private individual” refers to the person doing the recording, not the person being recorded. In other words, it’s ok for a government person (a cop, for example) to record you since he’s not acting as a private individual, but you, as a private individual, can’t record him.
Cops get privacy, “civilian” don’t. Because we shouldn’t care if we have nothing to hide. But obviously, that line of thought doesn’t apply to them. Only in a right wing, red state full of conservatives could this happen. Liberals would never tolerate this.
So let me see if I understand this. If you record a cop, you have to tell him you’re recording him, so he can destroy the evidence against him. If you don’t tell him you’re recording him, the evidence is illegal and presumably can’t be used against him.
The thing that really bothers me about this is that 99% of the voting population wouldn’t see anything wrong with it unless you explained it to them and even then they probably still wouldn’t see anything wrong with it, but they would think you’re a paranoid nutcase.
HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!
This article, like many others written before, begs the question:
Quis custodiet ipsos custodes? is a Latin phrase from the Roman poet Juvenal, which is literally translated as, “Who will guard the guards themselves?”
Protect & Serve (Themselves!)
“The thing that really bothers me about this is that 99% of the voting population wouldn’t see anything wrong with it unless you explained it to them and even then they probably still wouldn’t see anything wrong with it, but they would think you’re a paranoid nutcase.”
Us paranoid nutcases have rights, too.
Personally, I would record secretly and then let the evidence speak for itself. The police can do a lot worse to you with the camera off.
“Only in a right wing, red state full of conservatives could this happen. Liberals would never tolerate this.”
Oh, that’s right, Massachusetts — the last bastion of hyper-conservatism.
(Sorry, you kind of set yourself up for that one!)
So Massachusetts is one of 12 two-party consent states. What are the other 11?
It was a joke everyone. It was meant to point out that liberals are full of law and order bullshit as well as conservatives.
So if I am in MA and an officer tapes an interaction without my consent, is that ‘evidence’ in return not admissable?
“So Massachusetts is one of 12 two-party consent states. What are the other 11?”
Maryland, for one.
Sounds like an old saying needs updating: “Character is what you are when you’re being recorded without knowing it.”
While the MA Supreme Circus, er, Court may have ruled in favor of the law, I find it somewhat telling that in the cases quoted by the news story, both were dismissed.
Which says to me it’s less about levelling charges and more about stopping the recording.
Didn’t I see something about a videocamera built into a watch a while back?
IMHO, states need to pass laws to explicitly state that government agents have no privacy interest in their interactions with the public, and further make explicit that illegitimate actions are never part of a cop’s legitimate duties (so that if e.g. a cop gets shot while breaking into someone’s house in a manner not justified by a legitimate warrant nor by exigent circumstances, the cop shall not be deemed to have been shot ‘while carrying out his duties’).
What if I wear a t-shirt with the disclaimer “I may be video taping you secretly right now”? Is that enough notification?
You’d have to drop the word “secret” or they would arrest you and confiscate the shirt, claiming it was a written confession or guilt.
That should have been “OF guilt”.
When searching to find out whether NY was one of the two-party consent states, I found this web page “Summary of Consent Requirements for recording of telephone conversations”.
http://www.aapsonline.org/judicial/telephone.htm
Unfortunately I don’t know how old (outdated) the information is on that page. So take it with some measure of salt.
So what are the other 11 two party consent states?
Boston police are claiming that recording them while on duty violates their privacy rights and may interfere with their ability to make (wrongful) arrests.
Fixed.
Here is a list of states showing which are one and which are two-party.
If I remember my ComLaw class correctly, a citizen can record any activity taking place in public, or in the public view. I can record my neighbor’s front porch, I can record anything viewable through their front window, as long as I’m on public property or my property when I make the recording. My interpretation, and I’m not a law talking guy, but I did watch law and order while staying at a holiday inn express, is that you can record any activity taking place in public, and that means a traffic stop on a public road is fair game. In addition, if you’re in your own vehicle, that space is technically private and you have the right to record activity in private spaces under your control. You can’t distribute that recording commercially without written consent of all parties, but non-commercial distribution should also be legal.