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Comment by provost | Hacker News Reader

> Akins also alleged that the defendants violated his rights by removing videos he had posted on the CPD Facebook page, by ordering him to stop filming the filing of a citizen complaint in the CPD lobby, and by posting in the police department a flyer with information about him.

While I support the right to film public officials in public (which Akins did sometimes), it seems he takes his actions too far, to the annoyance of officers.

Perhaps the judge focused on these specific instances behavior, rather than a typical event of filming an arrest?

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It is not about Matthew Akins, but about the ruling of the court and the argumentation it used to arrive at that ruling. US law is based on precedents, so in future similar cases, the court must take into account the argumentation used and apply it to them. Therefore each verdict could potentially mean that new law is created.

In this case, that could mean that a new law has been created that prevents citizens from filming the police. Unless the case reaches the Supreme Court and they make a contradictory ruling that is. But IANAL and I'm happy to be corrected.

> Therefore each verdict could potentially mean that new law is created.

Not potentially - each new verdict is law. All lower courts are bound by law to follow the precedent established by higher courts; in other words, this now applies to all public-camera-bla-bla-bla cases in the 8th circuit.

There is clear and established precedent for how courts can issue rulings that affect only a single case. Evidently that's not the case here.

Disclaimer, IANAL.

Interesting. That appears to be a difference between common law and civil law. For example, here there is a legal uncertainty what the law says regarding snow-covered speed signs. Some people have been ticketed for not following speed limits they reasonably could not have seen without stopping the car and wiping the speed sign clean. Others have been acquitted in almost identical situations. Each court makes a new and independent reading of the law and isn't as affected by what other courts have found. The upside is that new laws aren't created by courts, the downside that legal uncertainties can remain forever.

this thought process is why our freedoms are being eroded. if you have a freedom that can be exercised only to the point of government convenience, then it's not a freedom.

Everything is subject to government convenience sooner or later.

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