Film Tha Police

From Hullabaloo:

There has been a nationwide move to restrict the people's right to film the authorities in the course of their duties and I would expect there to be much more of that as the culture of dissent explodes across the country.

In one of the most pointed opinions yet, the U.S. First Circuit ruled unanimously against the police in one of these cases:

And

"Naturally, the police officers moved to dismiss on the basis of qualified immunity, but Judge Young was having none of that, denying the motion from the bench and ruling that 'in the First Circuit . . . this First Amendment right publicly to record the activities of police officers on public business is established.' The police officers then appealed to the First Circuit, but they have now struck out on appeal as well, with the First Circuit ruling that 'Glik was exercising clearly-established First Amendment rights in filming the officers in a public space, and that his clearly-established Fourth Amendment rights were violated by his arrest without probable cause.'"

More here.

I've written on this topic fairly recently, about how extraordinarily important it is that we "watch the watchers," as it were, and compared the need for doing so to the reasons that the founders adopted the second amendment. That is, our founding fathers believed so strongly in counterbalancing government power with an armed citizenry that they made the ability to keep and bear arms a foundational right, on par with freedom of speech and freedom of worship; recording video of the police while they work fulfills essentially the same function as an armed citizenry.

What I didn't realize the last time I visited this topic is that there is, apparently, an abundance of case law that makes recording public police actions an activity protected as free speech under the first amendment. So perhaps my call for "civil disobedience" in my last post was premature. If recording the cops falls under the first amendment, any and all laws and ordinances against it are unconstitutional from the get-go. I mean, that doesn't stop states and municipalities from passing anti-recording laws, and you may need to get an ACLU lawyer or something to point out to asshole prosecutors and cops that they're breaking the law by putting you on trial, but, in the end, you're rock solid when you shoot video of the police.

Really, in addition to being a civil right, filming the police is your civic responsibility. Checks and balances, and all that.

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