TheAgitator.com
Watching the Detectives
Sunday, February 7th, 2010Kudos to Mississippi State Rep. Bob Evans, who astute readers will also recognize is Cory Maye’s chief counsel.
Evans has introduced a bill (PDF) in the Mississippi legislature explicitly making it legal to videotape or record an on-duty police officer, firefighter, or conservation officer.
I think I just saw a pig fly….
As an LEO, I agree with this 100%. It can only help the profession and our citizens. Hope it passes and takes hold elsewhere.
I’d like to see this enacted as an amendment to the Constitution. Furthermore, maybe we could mandate that everyone own a camera sort of like Switzerland requires that everyone own a gun (and for the very same reason — to protect the country from those who would do it harm).
Lets see who lines up against this….
Holy crap! That bill is just waaaaay too short and makes too much common sense. No way it can pass.
Dave Krueger–They require everyone to own a gun in Switzerland? Can that be right? And surely you aren’t serious about obligatory camera ownership.
Lets see who lines up against this….
The usual suspects, cops, cop unions, cop bootlickers, DAs who rely on cop perjury, police chiefs, city attorneys …
The bill doesn’t say you can keep the videotape.
This bill is unnecessary, as it implies that it’s currently ILLEGAL to do what the bill is making LEGAL, and thus necessary. Since it’s not illegal to video and/or audio record police, then why does the bill exist? Only those that contort their heads and use doublespeak and triplethink would interpret any existing law as “it’s illegal”.
I understand where you are coming from BamBam. That being said I think it is prudent in this situation to take a look back to the constitution. There were parties that, at the time, made the argument that things contained therein were self-evident and that writing them down was unnecessary/implied the state was “granting it.” I think it is fairly clear that if we had not specifically stated out the legality of such things people would long ago have “assumed” them away from us.
So long story short, while I completely agree with you I unfortunately think things like this are necessary for the reason that people have already begun to try to interpret/assume it away.
That was a little tongue-in-cheek, although I think Switzerland requires compulsory service in the armed forces and members keep their weapons at home.
I was mostly trying to make a somewhat facetious metaphor that a camera could be considered a weapon for defending national security if one is of the opinion that law enforcement is getting out of control enough to be categorized as a threat to national security.
Only those that contort their heads and use doublespeak and triplethink would interpret any existing law as “it’s illegal”.
Police officers and prosecuters, IOW.
Did anyone see the “green police” Audi add during the Superbowl? You would think German car companies wouldn’t cheerfully promote authoritarianism. You know, after using slave labor during WWII.
Guys & gals (and both),
I agree that filming LEOs, firefighters and conservation officers is not NOW illegal in MS. BUT, most LEOs either think that it is, in fact, illegal or they react like it is.
While you may win your case in court if you are now charged in MS with filming a cop on the job, you shouldn’t have to hire a lawyer and go to court to defend yourself against doing something that’s not illegal.
As such, I decided to try to CODIFY that filming is, in fact, legal. At least the LEOs who can read (and care to) will know that they’ll have to charge you with something other than filming (such as failure to obey a lawful order) if the bill passes.
Which it won’t, by the way. The MS Senate will kill it dead, dead, dead.
Too anti-cop. By the way, the Sheriffs’ Association and the DA Association are both trying to kibosh it. Funny that the ones who would tell you that you shouldn’t object to a LEO searching your vehicle if you don’t have anything to hide are the same ones who won’t apply that same logic (?) to filming of LEOs.
Rabbit hole and all that.
Even though Mississippi is a single-party consent state, I would imagine that
cops still give people a hard time is they’re recording an audio track. Also,
if the camera and microphone are not obviously in view, the police may
claim that they are being surreptitiously recorded in violation of face-to-face
recording statutes. If you are recording the interaction between a cop and a suspect,
the police may claim that you have no consent from either party.
This law removes any ambiguity and establishes as point of law that the police
have no reasonable expectation of privacy while conducting their duties.
The proposed statute does not explicitly mention audio recording; I think that it
should state that recording audio or audio in sync with video does not violate the wiretappping laws.
That migh be ok as long as it does not interfere with their work and at the same time it does not curtail their right to privacy. This could also help so that truth will not be manipulated.
Lets see who lines up against this….
I guess it will be the Usual Suspects.
Glad to see that the effort is being made, but I don’t see a consequence for violating the law. While the provision which essentially says the legislature “shall make no law…” is one thing, I suspect that (some? most? all?) cops will simply ignore a law which tells them they can’t do something but does not penalize them if they do it anyway.
The man makes an awesome sausage…and knows the law.
+1 for Bob Evans, for introducing a bill that’s actually for the People, not the System, even though he knows it will be defeated.
And +1 for Radley, for referencing the better famous Elvis, and reminding me of a great song with a great video.
Cops try to act like the one or two party consent law applies to them. That law regards things like phone conversations were you have a reasonable expectation of privacy. In PUBLIC there IS NO RIGHT TO PRIVACY.
What is doubly ironic is that most of these authortarian types are the ones who vote to install justices who believe that ‘there is no right to privacy’ period.
Bill at #18 makes a point…what IS the penalty for a LEO breaking this proposed law?
And I would respond to Mark@Israel (#16) by saying that first, I don’t trust LEOs not to misuse any reference to “doesn’t interfere with performance of duties” and second, I believe that while ON DUTY, as armed agents of the state, LEOs have NO right to privacy. OFF DUTY, of course, I’d say they do.
They don’t think it is, they simply know that they face no punishment if they falsely arrest someone for filming them. “You can beat the rap, but you can’t beat the ride.”
We need to reach a point where false arrest is more than a tort.
I agree with #18 – this needs to be expanded to specify the punishment that an agent of the government is exposed to when breaking this new law. As we’ve seen with the Bill of Rights, having a restriction with no punishment does little to stop law-breakers.
@ Mark @ Israel
Why would you assume that an on duty officer has any right to privacy? I have never heard a compelling argument for a private citizens right to privacy in -public- let alone for someone with as much power/responsibility as a LEO. In fact, I can only think of reasons that LEOs and other public officials have implicitly given up any right to privacy, at least while on duty. Outside of the glaringly obvious fact that they are basically given power of life and death over the rest of us (outside of all the other ways they can ruin someone’s life) they allegedly are there to serve and protect us, the population, and as such whatever they do on the job should be open to our scrutiny and observation.
The logic of “if you have nothing to hide” has been applied in all the wrong ways. “If you have nothing to hide” should never have been for “the citizens” but for LEOs and others who are supposedly there to serve us.
As more and more cops find their misbehavior on youtube, you can be sure that there will be a serious drive to ban video recording of cops. I think I can say with some certainty that there will be very little incentive to support the recording of cops. The people who would be doing that recording don’t have a lobby nor do they control a large block of votes and the public largely sympathizes with the cops.
I agree with others that, without teeth (a penalty), this law would be ignored anyway. Laws that target civilians always specify penalties which shows that even this law presupposes preferential treatment for government. You can write all the laws you want about government conduct, but without penalties, they will be ignored. Governments have a long colorful history of trampling people’s rights without anyone ever being charged with a crime. Today’s government reform is tomorrow’s government corruption. Under those circumstances, rights exist in name only.
I certainly appreciate the introduction of a bill like this, but I think the systematic diminishment of the rights of civilians to record cops is as inevitable as government growth is inevitable.
Although there is no statutory punishment, in actuality there are many civil remedies. Money out of the LEO’s pocket would be much better than the “criminal” penalties they always seem to “avoid”.
A public employee performing public business in a public location can have no expectation of privacy.
//I agree with #18 – this needs to be expanded to specify the punishment that an agent of the government is exposed to when breaking this new law.//
Actually, what needs to happen is for people inside and outside government to recognize the REAL meaning of laws (including the Supreme Law of the Land) which protect certain activities from infringement: no government agent has authority to violate them, and any government agent who does violate them does so WITHOUT LEGITIMATE AUTHORITY. A cop who arrests someone without being able to articulate probable cause to believe they did something which is actually illegal is a KIDNAPPER and should be prosecuted as such. A cop who breaks into someone’s house with the intention of accosting the occupant, and without reasonable beliefs both that (1) his actions are reasonably calculated to avoid unnecessary risk or damage to persons and property, and (2) his actions are justified either by exigent circumstances, or by a warrant which was issued based solely upon truthful sworn statements, is a ROBBER and should be prosecuted such. If anyone dies as a result of a cop’s unlawful actions, the cop is a MURDERER.
Note further that people have a right to use deadly force to resist kidnappers, robbers, and murderers. Cops have a duty not to behave like any of those crooks. If they are injured or killed because they fail in that duty, it’s their own fault.