From: Charles Hixson (charleshixsn@earthlink.net)
Date: Sun Oct 20 2002 - 08:29:17 MDT
On Saturday 19 October 2002 21:37, Ross A. Finlayson wrote:
> On Saturday, October 19, 2002, at 03:25 PM, Eugen Leitl wrote:
> ...
> Freedom of the press should guarantee the right to chronicle police
> activities.
You are correct. But power at the point determines what happens. And if the
evidence disappears, you don't have a case.
>
> Searching for "confiscated the camera" does bring many reports of people
> having their cameras confiscated, there appears to be some blanket claim
> about the recording being evidence. A cop in the United States doesn't
> have grounds to destroy film. I think that a subpoena should be
> required to get a person's camera, but I'm not a lawyer.
You are assuming that the police will always act legally. They are at least
as prone to breaking the law for their own convenience and pleasure as
ordinary people are.
>...
> >> You can follow around a cop with a camera. There's a television show
> >> called "Cops" for example, they follow around cops with cameras.
There is (or was) an organized group that did just that in a city around where
I live. They reduced complaints against the police markedly (after an
initial rise). But the reason that it's an organized group is for
self-protection. Individuals trying the same activity didn't fare well.
> ...
> I've seen tapes of arrests on television. Not all of them were
> sponsored and presumably censored.
News reporters are in active communication with a powerful organization. This
makes individual policemen much more tolerant. If you saw it happen on
television, however, the odds are good that it was "approved" (perhaps after
the fact).
>
> I'm of the possibly misinformed opinion that I can go to a police
> station and get a tour of the whole thing, it being a public building
> provided by taxpayers.
That's one that you not only would not get, but in my opinion you should not
get. Some areas are justifiably private.
>
> >> You can arrest them, it's called citizen's arrest. Being a cop just
> >> means they get to write traffic citations, and they're called upon to
> >> enforce laws.
You'd better have both excellent evidence and a really good lawyer. And you
still might loose. In recent decades the citizen's arrest powers have been
greatly weakened and the requirements hightened. And the risk increased.
Also, I believe that you must be stopping a felony. And I'm not sure all
jurisdictions even recognize it.
...
> So anyways, I still think filming police is legal, and constitutionally
> protected, so anyone can go around taking pictures for their own little
> newspaper they never have to publish.
>
> Ross
Legally and constitutionally you are on firm ground. But if they destroy your
camera, it's your word against theirs, and who do you think the court would
support? Can you prove your case "beyond a reasonable doubt"? If not, then
it's even legal for the court to support the abusing cop rather than you.
Unless they're the one filing the complaint.
Don't put the police on a pedestal. They're people doing a hard and dangerous
job. Sometimes they take "shortcuts". Sometimes they "know" what is
"proper", but couldn't prove it in a court of law. So they "take the law
into their own hands". But that's a slippery slope. And when you give
people power over other people, there is a certain tendency for it to make
them crazy. The more power, the greater the tendency, but if you give a bit
of extra power to a lot of people, then you will have many who abuse it.
Perhaps they'll justify it to themselves, but they sure won't want to be put
on display. And they have the power, if not the right, to stop you.
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