Videotaping Police Can Get You Arrested

[FoolKiller]

Some of us are old enough to remember seeing the video of Rodney King being beaten by police. Most of us are familiar with the "Don't taze me, bro," incident. And I am sure there are many other incidents that we can all recall where some incidence of police going over the line was captured on video.

But what many people don't realize is that unless the police themselves are recording that video it may lead to your arrest.

http://abcnews.go.com/US/TheLaw/videotaping-cops-arrest/story?id=11179076

Just a snippet from the four-page article:

That Anthony Graber broke the law in early March is indisputable. He raced his Honda motorcycle down Interstate 95 in Maryland at 80 mph, popping a wheelie, roaring past cars and swerving across traffic lanes.

But it wasn't his daredevil stunt that has the 25-year-old staff sergeant for the Maryland Air National Guard facing the possibility of 16 years in prison. For that, he was issued a speeding ticket. It was the video that Graber posted on YouTube one week later -- taken with his helmet camera -- of a plainclothes state trooper cutting him off and drawing a gun during the traffic stop near Baltimore.

In early April, state police officers raided Graber's parents' home in Abingdon, Md. They confiscated his camera, computers and external hard drives. Graber was indicted for allegedly violating state wiretap laws by recording the trooper without his consent.

Arrests such as Graber's are becoming more common along with the proliferation of portable video cameras and cell-phone recorders. Videos of alleged police misconduct have become hot items on the Internet. YouTube still features Graber's encounter along with numerous other witness videos. "The message is clearly, 'Don't criticize the police,'" said David Rocah, an attorney for the American Civil Liberties Union of Maryland who is part of Graber's defense team. "With these charges, anyone who would even think to record the police is now justifiably in fear that they will also be criminally charged."

Carlos Miller, a Miami journalist who runs the blog "Photography Is Not a Crime," said he has documented about 10 arrests since he started keeping track in 2007. Miller himself has been arrested twice for photographing the police. He won one case on appeal, he said, while the other was thrown out after the officer twice failed to appear in court.

Now, here is my big issue. First, the law being violated apparently has something to do with wiretapping laws. That is big considering our recent history with warrant-less wiretapping in this country.

But the problem is that in many of the same states where the police make these arrests, those same police would have no issues with red light cameras, speed cameras, cameras in police cars, or accessing security camera footage to aid in prosecutions. Heck, they probably love watching Cops. In none of those cases has the suspect given his permission to be filmed, and thus the police are violating the same laws. Assuming a law actually is being violated.

And that is where my biggest issue is coming from. This is not about a violated law. In every case I can find where someone is arrested for videotaping police they are not found guilty (the article mentions other cases too), because they are videotaping a public official, performing an official act, in the public space. There is zero assumption of privacy for anyone involved. The police making these arrests understand and know this, as they all likely have recording devices in their vehicles.

What they also know is that the threat of a felony charge, and all the expenses in fighting it, aid them in not being put on You Tube pulling a gun on a guy speeding on a motorcycle. Imagine how much easier it would be for police to bring convictions for their cases or skirt charges of misconduct if there is no evidence against their testimony.

Now, I am not accusing all police of improper conduct, but one should question when police make a concerted effort to discourage the public from creating evidence that they should be able to use if they are doing their job properly.

 

[Eric.]

I agree, it doesn't make a bit of sense that police recordings could be used as evidence against you but you cannot provide the same evidence to support yourself. Classifying it as wiretapping must've been the result of a bunch of idiot lawyers grasping at straws. As you said, this happened in public. I would think it falls under the same Freedom of Speech as writing an article about what happened. And a video will be more authentic than words would ever be, since you can't just make up everything on the video like you could with words.

 

[Public'sTwin]

It mentioned Maryland state laws - presumably those differ from the national consensus on what is and isn't legal in the realm of public/private recording?

I know police were confiscating SDHC cards from people's cameras this past June at the G20 protests in Toronto, Ontario, despite it being legal to photograph them for the same reasons outlined above. The police force even contradicted that very policy when they called upon the public's resource of images from the protests to aid in the convictions of those arrested for vandalism and property damages etc.

 

[Eric.]

Seems like a great opportunity to use microSD cards and an SD adapter...at the end of the day the police have tons of adapters and no data...

 

[LeftyWright69]

Trying to make sense of the logic that goes into prosecuting these “criminals” by the people who can read the law, and infer that the local prosecutor has the right to bring charges should find a new line of work. After they have made the leap, that the law says there was a crime, should fall under the same laws for malicious prosecution.