Arizona moves to ban recording video of police | Hacker News Reader

Arizona moves to ban recording video of police

fox10phoenix.com

Since you are allowed to film your own interaction, you just can't be a bystander withn 8 feet, I think that just means go ahead and film anyway, because simply by being ther, it is your interaction also.

If a cop is harassing someone for loitering, and you for violating the 8ft rule, either way, you are involved in an interaction between a cop and yourself, and so you are allowed to film it, and so what the hell was the point of the excercise, except to make people afraid and inhibited from protecting themselves?

If a policeman gives you an order, that sounds like an interaction to me. If I am being forced to do something by the police at threat of arrest, I certainly have a right to record it.

But I am guessing republicans will find a way to warp logic around this.

I'm sure in the end the way it works is you get the fine because the cop was not originally seeking you out, you sought them out.

IE, you have a right to film your interaction about violating the 8ft rule just like you are allowed to film your interaction about breaking a speed limit. And just like you might actually be guilty of beeaking the speed limit, you might actually be guilty of breaking the 8ft rule, of someone else's interaction.

It's not even really invalid, just somehow still pretty convenient for one party, and it's the party that already wields the power of the state.

It's so jarring to read comments like this because shows me how wide the range of interactions with police really is.

Do you think the police care about your rights? They've certainly never given a shit about mine.

I'm 40 something. Never had a good interaction with police (Oakland, Berkeley, SF, Seattle, Portland).

I'm sure they don't care about our rights.

I've had a number of positive interactions with the police. Many, many times I've been let off, warned, been given advice, etc.

I bet I could film the police and it'd be fine.

I am, of course, a straight, white, wealthy male. So sad that's how it goes.

> I bet I could film the police and it'd be fine.

Here's a YouTube channel chock full of videos of straight white males (and others) getting arrested (or threatened with arrest) for video recording police (and other constitutionally-protected activities). [0]

[0]: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCbEPXqDvej-3mciZxwYmdew

...those people are doing a lot more than, "just video recording police."

I didn't say "just video recording". I said "video recording", which is where most of those videos come from: the public video recording police. There is some body cam footage (which are public records) on that channel, too.

And the "a lot more" they're doing is all constitutionally-protected activity.

For example, here's a recent video of a straight white male who is holding a protest sign on a public sidewalk getting arrested. [0]

[0]: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=87opWHYxwh0

Okay? I did say "just video recording" (or at least nothing more than "video recording"). I was the one you replied to, I was the one saying what I think I could do.

This link isn't really relevant to what I said.

Honestly, this feels like a bout of violent agreement.

Were this to be enacted, it will come down to the Supreme Court. The court will have to invet a new doctrine as they did with "Reasonable Suspicion" in Terry v. Ohio. Given the court's 50 year track record I would expect they will find a way to carve out this new right for police at the expense of our 4th, 9th and 14th amendment rights.

> what the hell was the point of the excercise, except to make people afraid and inhibited

Those aren't unfortunate side effects it's the entire purpose.

>It also now allows someone who is in a car stopped by police or is being questioned to tape the encounter *and limits the scope of the types of police actions that trigger the law to only those that are possibly dangerous.*

I've read that several times, and I think they're saying you can't record the encounter if it's not dangerous? Of course, the police would say there was never any danger, as they're there "to protect and serve".

Dangerous encounters trigger the law which prohibits filming up close.

So if they start beating you, you have to stop filming? (Kidding... Kind of)

I can't see how this could reasonably constitutionally hold, but that rarely stops legislators.

Catch-22. You should only film them if you're in danger, & you're not in danger if they're being filmed, but if you're filming then you're not in danger, so you shouldn't film them, but then you feel in danger because they won't let you film, so then you can film, but now you're not in danger, so you can't film

You can't record if the situation is dangerous

> I've read that several times, and I think they're saying you can't record the encounter if it's not dangerous?

It’s poorly worded. The law is to be limited in its application by the police officers to situations they deem dangerous. In other words don’t ask people not to record within 8ft of an interaction/arrest unless it’s a potentially dangerous.

>The law is to be limited in its application by the police officers to situations they deem dangerous.

Considering one of the current complaints against police is poor discretion as to what counts as a "dangerous situation" (e.g. going for lethal force against unarmed citizens), that seems intentionally rife with opportunities for abuse.

> that seems intentionally rife with opportunities for abuse.

Lets say you are <8ft away recording an officer interaction or arrest that isn’t particularly dangerous and another officer asks you to stand at least 8ft back for safety, and you comply even though you don’t think the situation is potentially dangerous, the harm isn’t all that great so the potential for abuse is minimal. If the officer decides to fine you, you have video for your defense if it helps prove it really wasn’t a dangerous situation, so the potential for abusing discretion is there, but once again the harm is minimal.

> to make people afraid and inhibited

Ding ding ding. Arizona resident here. This state sucks.

Thats exactly the point. It's legislation that in practice leaves enough room to still be constitutional and democratically viable, but can be communicated in a way that deter people from documenting police

Commonly referred to as a “chilling effect”: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chilling_effect

It's more devious than just the chilling effect. Police officers have a lot of leeway when the perform an action in good faith. If you make the law complex enough, then cops can enforce whatever they want and then just claim they were mistaken. Boom, instant legal immunity from civil action.

Meanwhile, for everyone else, ignorance of the law is explicitly not a defense.

By the way, the law changes every few days, runs to tens of thousands of page and there's no real way it's communicated to you.

It's amazingly ironic that in America, that the people tasked with enforcing the law with state-sanctioned violence and should be expected to know it, are the only people allowed to use ignorance of the law as a valid excuse to break the law.

The rest of you plebs, tough luck. Didn't know. Still guilty, not a valid excus3

> and you for violating the 8ft rule, either way, you are involved in an interaction between a cop and yourself, and so you are allowed to film it, and so what the hell was the point of the excercise

It’s not about the original interaction (who as you point out would have the right to record), it’s about the secondary crowds that record the original police interaction and endanger the officer/interfere.

15ft or 8ft is kind of arbitrary either way I’m sure there will be abuse, but I’ve also seen some ridiculously entitled people recording on their phones that begin interfering and escalate very tense situations when officers are performing their duties and probably legitimately concerned for their safety and safety of others. Then there are situations like the woman who recorded George Floyd’s murder that was basically crying and pleading for the officer to get off of Floyd.

If they're endangering somebody, why not make that illegal rather than the recording?

The goal is usually narrowly tailored laws “no recording officer interactions/arrests within 8ft when it’s potentially dangerous.” There is still a small amount of discretion, but what you propose is a very broad law with total discretion “it’s illegal to endanger people.”

They didn’t make recording illegal, any more than a speeding ticket makes driving illegal. They made it a finable offense to record within 8ft of a potentially dangerous police interaction.

Since recording can sometimes be a crime, does this mean the police can confiscate the phone off any bystanders because it may be evidence of such a crime?

damn

What a bizarre downvote. What did someone think I was saying?

For the record, I was saying sort of "It's remarkable how such a cynical idea is probably exactly true."

I think such a law would clearly violate the first amendment.

https://www.vox.com/future-perfect/2020/1/23/21078810/kansas...

Right. It won't survive a lawsuit.

But it will have a chilling effect while the court system works its way to the case, and even after it (hopefully) gets overturned.

I doubt it. You'll never stop people from making cell phone videos.

The chilling effect is reminding the victims of the police that they have no friends in the establishment, surely?

The law not surviving the court system would be contrary to that.

hey quick question when a law goes away what do you think happens to all the people in prison for violating that law

> Kavanagh’s bill makes a violation a petty offense, the lowest-level Arizona crime that can bring a fine but no jail time. Refusing to stop recording when an officer orders it would be a low-level misdemeanor subject to a 30-day jail sentence.

So you would have already served your 30 days and lost your job, and you would be awarded an apology.

What's the alternative?

Payment for time served directly from police budgets and the legislators salary instead of generally from the taxes of the residents.

How does that get back my job and my 30 days?

It wont. It will, however, cause law enforcement to be "more careful" and less people will lose their jobs.

By then it has done its job.

And of course, they'll just put out a new law some time after the first one is overturned. Maybe they'll spend time rewording it a bit, but I suspect they'll eventually stop bothering with such tedious ceremony.

In effect, their desired law will be the law for the vast supermajority of time regardless of constitutionality.

It can still do a lot of damage. Arrest and exposure to the criminal legal system carries heavy costs and risks for very many people. Those things aren't undone when, years later, it gets declared unconstitutional because someone else's case finally made it through the process.

Yes, but in the meantime, the cops are allowed to beat, detain and arrest you. While your case rises to a right-wing packed SCOTUS, you will most likely lose your job, have issues with any kind of clearance (resisting arrest can be a felony depending on circumstances), face difficulties during any custody battle and possibly be incarcerated. Then if the courts rule in your favor, you receive nothing except your world reduced to ashes. In the US justice system, the process is the punishment.

This entire hypothetical assumes the law remains in place as the lawsuit works it's way through the system.

A longstanding political technique in the US is to pass patently unconstitutional laws and then ignore their enforcement. This accomplishes both goals: it scares citizens into changing their behavior (in this case, not recording police abuses), and it keeps the lawsuits away (the current standard for legal standing in the US requires demonstrable or imminent harm, which doesn't exist in the absence of enforcement).

That technique is unlikely to succeed in this particular case (since the 1A standard for harm is much lower), but it's worth noting.

I read title and comments and was ready to be enraged. Heck, I WAS enraged.

And then I clicked the link and... 8ft? That's what, just over 2 meters? Who wants and desires to be within a NBA player's distance of a police interaction anyway? At that point you're not observer or recorder you're a participant. I find the title very very very misleading.

I believe police interactions should be recorded. I believe we should be free to record them. I believe they should be held to higher standard as the powers they get and their propensity to abuse them are huge. But if you're inside 8ft it feels you're just interfering.

Maybe there are angles I have not considered...

What about the person being accosted by the police?

This is important. If you are in a car that was pulled over you will not be able to film. Some of those videos are for self protection.

> The revised bill [...] allows someone who is in a car stopped by police or is being questioned to tape the encounter and limits the scope of the types of police actions that trigger the law to only those that are possibly dangerous

That's just it though - I feel you too, like myself, and possibly most of us here, are enraged / commenting before actually reading article,let alone the law. Second paragraph addresses the car scenario explicitly. Other portions address you being subject of police attention, as well as close quarters etc.

I'm not saying I'm hugely FOR the law. I'd rather it weren't. But I've cooled down significantly between reading title and comments, vs then actually reading article and skimming the law.

Yes. Within the article it's clear that you are allowed to film yourself as well. Just not bystanders

Original headline is “Arizona House approves ban on close-up videotaping of police officers”. Not sure why OP changed it

If the interaction occurs within a place where it's not possible to be more than 8 feet away and still need able to witness the interaction. Alleys, anywhere indoors, vehicles of any type

From the revised bill summary:

> Directs that for an activity occurring inside a closed structure on private property, a person authorized to be on the private property may make a video recording of the activity from an adjacent room that is less than eight feet away from the activity. (Sec. 1)

Additionally from a separate amendment:

NOTWITHSTANDING SUBSECTION A OF THIS SECTION, A PERSON WHO IS THE SUBJECT OF POLICE CONTACT MAY RECORD THE ENCOUNTER IF THE PERSON IS NOT INTERFERING WITH LAWFUL POLICE ACTIONS, INCLUDING SEARCHING, HANDCUFFING OR ADMINISTERING A FIELD SOBRIETY TEST. THE OCCUPANT OF A VEHICLE WHO IS THE SUBJECT OF A POLICE STOP MAY RECORD THE ENCOUNTER IF THE OCCUPANT IS NOT INTERFERING WITH LAWFUL POLICE ACTIONS."

So who pays for the expert witness when you're 9 feet away and get arrested? The cops will say "in my professional judgement, they were within 8 feet". You then have to counter with analysis of the video, which is not something your court-appointed attorney can do.

This law will be used to harrass people documenting police misconduct, and absolutely nothing else.

And what happens if a cop, who is not in physical contact with the arrestee but is arguably part of the arrest, approaches you about your filming? Anything legally ambiguous is risk for the cameraman.

> This law will be used to harrass people documenting police misconduct, and absolutely nothing else.

Only a Sith deals in absolutes. You need only see 1 YouTube video in the category of "am I being detained?" or "cop gets oWNeD by former lawyer" to know this is not true

Well the footage will show they were further away

Bystanders could simply find themselves that close without wanting to be.

For example: a crowded bus, train, or plane. Or a packed nightclub. Or any place with auditorium seating, like a movie theater, city council meeting, school, or church. Or in many rooms in houses or office buildings.

(I do agree that the title is way too broad, though.)

Both the article and actual law explicitly deal with that in fairly open and agreeable way.

I won't disagree with slippery slope arguments but again I feel a lot of discussion is based on title and not the law.

and, as has been demonstrated countless times, LEO will simply lie about the circumstances.

In addition to good points posted by others, consider that if the problem is people obstructing or interfering with police, they could just prosecute them for that. Calling out videotaping specifically has a nefarious purpose.

> But if you're inside 8ft it feels you're just interfering.

No, that's not what the law says. It says within 8 feet with a camera.

Also, what is that 8' from? Every single officer? What if you are filming from a dozen feet away and the officer's partner approaches from the side unbeknownst to you? Now are you within 8 feet?

It's clear the goal of the law isn't safety. The law does nothing to discourage me from getting closer than 8 feet. And if there is, then this law is useless. The only reason this law exists is to discourage people from recording police.

You have to explain to me why someone holding a camera 8 feet away is dangerous, but someone closer than 8 feet and not holding a camera isn't dangerous.

As they lower their voices, place unknown substances, and actively destroy evidence, you might be too far from them to capture it.

You're standing there, recording from 10 feet away. A cop approaches you. Now you're less than 8 feet away. What now?

Also who has the tape and is measuring 8ft. This law criminalizes regular behavior. The actual implementation will inevitably mean a police officer that doesn't want to be recorded can't be recorded. And he will get away with it

There are several comments regarding the 8ft rule making it impossible to record when indoors or in a car, etc.

These these cases are mentioned explicitly in the bill. For the sake of clarity, these are the relevant parts as they appear:

IF THE LAW ENFORCEMENT ACTIVITY IS OCCURRING IN AN ENCLOSED STRUCTURE THAT IS ON PRIVATE PROPERTY, A PERSON WHO IS AUTHORIZED TO BE ON THE PRIVATE PROPERTY MAY MAKE A VIDEO RECORDING OF THE ACTIVITY FROM AN ADJACENT ROOM OR AREA THAT IS LESS THAN EIGHT FEET AWAY FROM WHERE THE ACTIVITY IS OCCURRING, UNLESS A LAW ENFORCEMENT OFFICER DETERMINES THAT THE PERSON IS INTERFERING IN THE LAW ENFORCEMENT ACTIVITY OR THAT IT IS NOT SAFE TO BE IN THE AREA AND ORDERS THE PERSON TO STOP RECORDING OR TO LEAVE THE AREA.

A PERSON WHO IS THE SUBJECT OF POLICE CONTACT MAY RECORD THE ENCOUNTER IF THE PERSON IS NOT INTERFERING WITH LAWFUL POLICE ACTIONS, INCLUDING SEARCHING, HANDCUFFING OR ADMINISTERING A FIELD SOBRIETY TEST. THE OCCUPANT OF A VEHICLE WHO IS THE SUBJECT OF A POLICE STOP MAY RECORD THE ENCOUNTER IF THE OCCUPANT IS NOT INTERFERING WITH LAWFUL POLICE ACTIONS.

Source: https://www.azleg.gov/legtext/55leg/2R/bills/HB2319H.pdf

They need to make the act of denial a misdemeanor itself elsewise the bad police will always claim youre interfering when you're not.

They are making it complicated so people will be afraid to record. The language of the law doesn't matter. It's an attempt to create a chilling affect so they can beat and choke people to death without the public recording it because they'll be afraid of going to jail for that recording. This is a direct reaction to George Floyd and police thinking they shouldn't be held accountable for such things and Republicans kowtowing to the Police Unions.

https://slate.com/technology/2018/12/right-to-record-police-...

well, good luck.

Nice job reading the article /s

For some context not in this thread yet, I’m sure this is being driven in part by cop watchers like James Freeman who are really doing God’s work by bringing attention to rampant corruption of police against recording.

Highly recommend watching a few of his videos, here’s a mix of his run ins with Tucson police: https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLEHv5tmOgVtXPiKPLK1cCp8An...

Those saying “8 feet seems reasonable” haven’t thought through this at all. Watching James’ videos the cops are constantly trying to push him, crowd him and generally do anything in (and out) of their power to try and shut him down. With a rule like this they would absolutely abuse it by just having one officer move forward into your space even if you back away. You absolutely cannot give them leeway like this, if you don’t believe me watch some of the videos. It’s really eye opening what they try and get away with.

Sean Paul Reyes of the YouTube channel Long Island Audit is another good example:

https://www.youtube.com/c/LongIslandAudit

He has multiple videos of himself engaging in constitutionally protected activity -- filming in public -- but police officers routinely harass him, and in some cases they get physical.

In one recent case in Connecticut, he was assaulted and had his phone thrown by an officer who lost his temper, and no other officer intervened:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k0Wa33J2Aws

I get that some people think the First Amendment Audit community is made up of people who are trying to provoke law enforcement, but Reyes is a great example of an auditor who does nothing provocative other than engaging in lawful, constitutionally protected activity, and yet still gets regularly harassed by police and other public servants.

This is an issue in Germany, as well. People are prosecuted for recording police interactions regularly; sometimes they get away with it, sometimes they don't. As far as I know, there are no laws specific to recording the police, it's based on laws that apply to recording private conversations and taking/publishing pictures without consent.

https://www-deutschlandfunk-de.translate.goog/fotos-und-vide...

Such laws are great, but there should be explicit exceptions for public servants on duty such as police.

In the U.S., the law is delineated where there is "an expectation of privacy." In other words, you can record anyone anywhere in public, but you can't record in a bathroom or dressing room. Police officers should not have an "expectation of privacy." Interestingly enough, you can record through the windows of someone in their house, the courts have determined.

Crooks

In France you can record and broadcast police when doing their job.

There was an attempt in 2020 to limit this but it was rejected.

> The original proposal from Rep. John Kavanagh made it illegal to record within 15 feet of an officer interacting with someone unless the officer gave permission. The revised bill was approved on a 31-28 party-line vote Feb. 23 and lowers the distance to 8 feet.

And the exception for recording when in a car:

> It also now allows someone who is in a car stopped by police or is being questioned to tape the encounter and limits the scope of the types of police actions that trigger the law to only those that are possibly dangerous.

> limits the scope of the types of police actions that trigger the law to only those that are possibly dangerous.

And that means the entire law will be applied at will, by the sole discretion of the officer involved. It's the same nonsense they've used for decades to harass anyone they claim "smelled like marijuana".

8' seems pretty reasonable.

Are there circumstances where you would have a valid interest in filming from closer than 8'?

This feels like a response to someone shoving a phone in an officer's face and claiming they're protected by the First Amendment. Which... seems unreasonable.

There's a clear public safety interest (both to the officer's own person, and to anyone the officer is interacting with, by not distracting anyone and/or increasing tension in the situation) and the public's right to record seems unimpinged by an 8' limit.

But this is from someone recently of Georgia, where we had people on both sides of the election fiasco harassing people while claiming journalistic protections.

> Are there circumstances where you would have a valid interest in filming from closer than 8'?

Aside from the fact that these are public officials doing public work for public money, any video where you want the officer's name tag or badge number to be legible might get tricky to film from far off.

Wouldn't facial likeness be enough?

I assumed that even in the most corrupt cases, what officers were at what incident was logged into official records. Which would mean discriminating between 2-5 people.

Current masking aside, I'm not sure I could positively reidentify an officer wearing a full-face helmet and other riot gear. Especially amongst 30-50 of their identically-dressed peers.

Riot gear is a good point. But I'd say making identification clearly visible from >8' is probably the better solution than requiring camera-persons to get closer than that to riot police.

It's very difficult to get the police to reliably identify themselves. Here in NYC they like to cover their (legally required) identifying information with little black strips of cloth[1].

But the point about 8' raises something else: there's nothing stopping the police from walking up to you and demanding that you turn off your camera. These laws also invert the burden of proof: it's now your word against a cop's that you really were more than 8' away, and not 7.5'. These are not acceptable powers to yield to a largely unchecked authority.

[1]: https://theintercept.com/2020/06/03/nypd-badge-black-band/

The alternative (requiring no minimum distance between a police action and a protected recording) seems worse to me.

8' is a quantified line.

An unstated number of feet is more open to interpretation. Were you "interfering" with an arrest at 4'? 10'? 50'? That's a very fuzzy line in a court system that's typically deferential to law enforcement.

So, to me, it seems like an improvement on the certainty of rights. If you are 8' away, during a dangerous situation, or other caveat lesser distances as specified in the law, you have followed all legal guidelines and are not interfering with police action.

Ultimately, we'll see what the Supreme Court has to say. But to me, this sounds like a middle ground, rather than a sky-is-falling option.

> The alternative (requiring no minimum distance between a police action and a protected recording) seems worse to me.

Others have pointed out that the lack of a minimum distance is in fact an excellent thing: we don't get to choose how close we are to a crime when it happens. I could be on a bus sitting next to a victim of police brutality while it happens; should I have to stand up and shove my way through people until I am "far enough" away to legally record it? How does that serve the interests of justice?

Barring evidence that filming is itself a form of interference in police activity, it's not clear why we should have a separate standard for it. Interfering with a police investigation is, after all, already illegal.

(I also don't think the sky is falling. But I do think this inverts a currently very reasonable burden of proof, i.e. that the police must show that you are actually interfering with their work, and not merely recording it.)

I agree that the burden of proof should lay with the police: to prove that you were < 8' away, that you interfered with a police action, and that the action was a dangerous situation.

But the "I don't get to choose where I am" situation feels like nerd rules lawyering.

If I am sitting right next to someone on a bus, and the police run in and begin assaulting that person, my first action is going to be to get 8'+ away from what's happening. I'm not going to immediately pull out my cell phone while someone is getting beaten right next to me and start shoving it in the officer's face.

The constructed situation requires that (1) the only bystander is < 8' from the police, and (2a) there isn't an easy way to move away (in an environment that isn't specifically noted in the law as an exclusion) or (2b) the action is over before the bystander could move 8'+ away.

That doesn't describe a lot of police incidents I've seen or seen recordings of. Usually there's zero or 2+ bystanders. And usually the action escalates over at least 2 minutes, in an open environment.

My rationale for why there should be a separate standard for recording is that we should be encouraging more citizen to do it! Everyone record the cops!

But...! Recognize that adding stress to an already stressful situation is unlikely to produce positive results. Most people are idiots, especially when tempers are running hot on all sides.

If I were a cop, having a bunch of angry citizens < 8' from me, recording and yelling things at me, is unlikely to lead me to be a calmer officer and make deescalatory choices. It's going to increase tension; I'm going to make worse decisions; and that isn't going to end well for anyone. Myself, the supposed perpetrator, or the citizens around me.

And isn't that what we should be focused on? Maximizing the chance of good outcomes for everyone?

Why then is video the subject of the law? If they are trying to create a safe radius around active police interactions, they should just write the law in that way. This seems specifically targeting video recordings of police and using the safety perimeter to signal reasonableness while chipping away at constitutional rights.

Why is video even mentioned? Either it's safe to be within 8 ft or it isn't, regardless if they're recording or not. By making it about video, your actual motive is crystal clear.

I'm always weary of "legislator/body proposes <thing that seems obviously bad>" headlines since many politicians fundraise via grandstanding bills that are DOA. This passed the house, though, so it's not that sort of thing. And it passed by a party line vote, so with one party having a majority of the senate and governorship, I guess it's going to become law?

If one works at Walmart, for example, one does not get to opt out of being filmed by the employer within the workplace.

For police, the neighborhood is the workplace, and the taxpaying citizen is the “Employer” of the police.

The logic which applies for one, should apply for the other.

You're allowed to record your own interaction.

Cue the totally random inexplicable wave of phones accedentally knocked out of hands in scuffles or confiscated for examination or plain handcuffings.

Standard protocol is to assume it's a gun.

> Standard protocol is to assume it's a gun.

Let me correct that:

Standard protocol is to "assume it's a gun".

I'm actually thinking more attept-at-deniable than that. Like just getting into scuffles where no one can prove the phone didn't get knocked to the ground by honest accident.

People who are willing to do things like play copyrighted music so that videos of them get taken down by the copyright machine, while they are in the very act of supposedly upholding law and order, are willing to do literally anything.

I will be curious to see on what grounds the current right-falling-over court will justify this abomination against the First Amendment.

Self incrimination??? Not being able to present evidence of your innocence is not the same as being forced to present evidence of your guilt.

I don't understand what you mean. How would voluntarily video taping a police office be the same as forced self incrimination?

"Fifth Amendment guarantees the right to a grand jury, forbids “double jeopardy,” and **protects against self-incrimination.**" https://www.law.cornell.edu/constitution/fifth_amendment

Being barred from recording (presumably to show your innocence) is not obviously protected by the 5th amendment.

Hearing AZ and police in same sentence reminds me of Daniel Shaver[1]

[1]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MRlSg1Ww_MY

I think recording ban may be actually a good thing as people recording from further than 8ft away should feel more comfortable doing so.

May Philip Brailsford rot in hell.

The same state that thought it was okay to go around demanding "where are your papers" to Hispanics under Arapaio in the largest county in the state

Small correction

>demanding "where are your papers" to +brown people in general+ under Arapaio in the largest county in the state.

"The original proposal from Rep. John Kavanagh made it illegal to record within 15 feet of an officer interacting with someone unless the officer gave permission. The revised bill was approved on a 31-28 party-line vote Feb. 23 and lowers the distance to 8 feet."

Requiring an eight-foot filming bubble around a working cop seems reasonable in terms of not disrupting their job, and unlikely to trigger a federal first amendment slapdown. With a modern phone you can capture all of the detail that's typically needed at that distance.

I'm a first amendment absolutist to most people, and this bothers me little.

>Requiring an eight-foot filming bubble around a working cop seems reasonable in terms of not disrupting their work, and unlikely to trigger a federal first amendment slapdown.

Nonsense. There's already a ton of laws on the books about not impeding emergency services in public. This would do nothing but give cops carte blanche to arrest anyone with a camera.

I think leaving the law at "don't interfere with the police during their job" is good enough. Making static rules like this is normally a bad idea. And we won't know why until there's a scenario where we regret passing it.

Right. Something that comes to mind is is multiple cops arrive and make a perimeter they can continue to move people back and say they have to be 8 feet away from THEM which could make the cop in question many many more feet away.

It's easy to see how this will be abused. The existing law seems to be working well.

>I think leaving the law at "don't interfere with the police during their job" is good enough.

Those already exist, of course, including[0]:

* Failure to comply with police officer; classification

* Refusing to Aid a Peace Officer

* Obstructing Criminal Investigations of Prosecutions

* Refusing to provide truthful name when lawfully detained

* Impersonating a public servant

* Obstructing a highway or other public thoroughfare

No matter how reasonable the law may read on its face, the clear goal is empowering more police abuse and less oversight. The history of police conduct in arizona makes this readily apparent.[e.g., 1]

[0] https://www.jacksonwhitelaw.com/criminal-defense-law/obstruc...

[1] https://www.forbes.com/sites/erikkain/2011/08/31/actor-steve...

The problem is when officers construe filming video as interfering with their job. I wonder if this law would paradoxically enshrine the right to film officers anywhere outside of 8 feet.

This law is just another attempt to empower police to harass individuals and avoid accountability.

It’s also virtue signaling for red team for the upcoming election https://ballotpedia.org/Arizona_elections,_2022

It’s something for them to point to and imply “I did that because I know how much you dislike people trying to get cops in trouble for /serving and protecting/“

Note that this makes it impossible to film a police officer while they are confronting you.

It's always better to go directly to the source, rather than rely on someone else's summary of something as a source for analysis. Your concern is addressed in the actual text:

https://www.azleg.gov/legtext/55leg/2R/summary/H.HB2319_0223...

> Provision 4: Provides that a person who is the subject of the police contact may make a recording if doing so does not interfere with lawful police actions. (Sec. 1)

Yeah, I actually did that, and just came back to delete my comment, but you've already replied, so I can't any more :)

That is statement is going to be used quite often by cops.

The officer has taken your phone.

Or knocked it to the ground while you were "resisting".

Or you are handcuffed.

Or there are multiple officers but your phone only points in one direction at a time.

The officers own body cams are on while they are within 8 feet of you.

There is no way to make this valid. The supposed rationale falls apart under any scrutiny at all.

So basically, because a cop can lie about you breaking the law, the law should not exist?

Isn't that the case with obstruction as-is?

I'm not following the logic of this question.

The law shouldn't exist because it doesn't express a problem and a solution to that problem that holds water.

All it does is gives cops something they can say to people to get something they don't actually have a right to.

They don't actually have a right to conduct misdeeds in private, but with this on the books, they can confuse and intimidate most people into doing what they want in the heat of the moment, and by the time everyone goes home and googles later, the damage has already been done. The recording was not made and you aren't likely to ever be in the same situation again.

Bad officers can already confuse and mislead. How will this law change anything? It won't. Obstruction of justice already exists, and it is merely a standard instead of a law for how close someone can be to a cop performing an arrest. I really can't understand the opposition to this law. All I see is "cop = bad" logic.

Exactly. Obstruction of justice and interfering with performance of duties etc already exist.

The opposition is that there is no justification for it. It doesn't express problem that survives scrutiny, and doesn't express a solution to a problem that survives scrutiny.

What it does do is give power to people that don't need it, for a reason that doesn't wash.

Only a bad cop even wants this. A good cop understands that their annoyance at bystanders witnessing them is not justification for trying to remove witnesses. Yes they can be annoying and interfering, and dealing with that is part of the job of being a professional officer with any inyegrity. Only a bad cop thinks their life should be easier at the expense of transparency and accountability. Only a bad cop is willing to accept the benefits of a chilling effect and ignore it's fundamental invalidity and dishonesty.

A good cop is willing to use existing means (since they do exist) to deal with actual interference. If a bystander is actually a problem, a good cop has no problem simply classifying them as a problem, dealing with it (arrest them) and defend that action later, because their action was justified and they can say it with a straight face to a room full of people who are not their friends.

All I see is "cop!=bad" logic. Just as dumb.

Being required to film from 9 feet away instead of 4 feet away doesn't sound like it is going to be sacrificing transparency.

It is designed exactly to sound reasonable, while not actually being either reasonable or justifiable. It addresses no valid problem, attains no valid goal, and so needs to be sold somehow.

Perhaps the valid problem is the public getting too close to police officers performing their duty, commonly while ostensibly filming, endangering either the police officers, or the public in the process.

Does a police officer have to worry about a legitimate journalist or honest citizen 5' away filming them while performing an arrest? No. But how exactly does the cop know the person is a legitimate journalist or honest citizen, and not an acquaintance of the person being arrested?

That is the sales pitch. And it has the problem of most sales pitches.

I take back what I said. It doesn't actually address my concern.

All the officer has to say is that your filming was interfering with their actions, and then they'll slap that charge on you and confiscate your phone, possibly combining with resisting arrest. Also, the worse the officer's transgression is, the more likely that your phone will be "accidentally damaged".

Even if the officer's claim is bullshit, the cost of defending against their bullshit is going to be infeasible for many.

Also, if you are not a hardened criminal, getting arrested is a shocking event, and the support of friends with video cameras can make the difference. Literally, if not often, life and death.

That can already happen without this law.

Scenario: A policeman is performing brutality on someone while multiple peers observe. Those peers approach anyone recording, such that it forces anyone recording to traverse further and further away. (And if those people stand their ground, cops are now able to arrest them for being within 8 feet.) What then?

The person who is the subject of a contact may film that contact without an 8’ buffer. If I’m filming officer A from 10’ away and officer B comes to make contact with me, it does not appear that I’m obligated to stay 8’ from officer B not to stop filming that contact.

> seems reasonable

which is exactly the goal...something that seems reasonable while enabling abuse.

Reading between the lines the purpose of the bill is not to make police jobs easier by keeping clear space around them.

IMO the purpose is to remind the plebeians exactly what's what and what their position in society is.

This is on the front page of Reddit as I type this:

https://www.reddit.com/r/facepalm/comments/thuy4h/the_cop_li...

Looking at this video, is the filming person in the car more than eight feet away from all of the involved police at all times? Because there are cops coming and going, and if one of them approached the car, the filming person would be compelled to either stop recording or get out the other side of the car.

Laws like this are built for abuse. On the face of it, the law is reasonable, if mildly pointless. In practice, it relies on a very specific distance being maintained at all times, even if one of the cops decides to approach the cameraman, and relies on the police to estimate that eight feet in good faith.

This is going to lead to a lot of arrests and a lot of dismissed charges, but the net result will be a general chilling effect on recording police, because there are just too many things that can go wrong and run you afoul of this law.

State Senate better block this. If they don't, SCOTUS better deny it. I don't care that there's a distance limit. Banning stuff like this in such an undynamic manner is terrible.

There can be no justification for this.

Filming within 8 feet seems like a fair restriction. I'm surprised it wouldn't already be covered under existing laws.

So another law to take away rights and pervert the intent of rule-of-law. What is next, taking away the right of women to vote? Making Ponzi schemes legal? Legalizing fraud? Making non-white people illegal? They just keep trying and trying until they get it one way or another and it keeps getting more and more blatant.

Who watches the watchmen?

A Ring doorbell.

This fits with dispatch also going encrypted in a lot of districts. The less people know the better for the police.

We all need to get better at filming without looking like we’re filming. A phone in a pocket and not in our hands. An action cam on our backpack or shirtfront. Anything but holding a phone in your hand where it can be seen — and grabbed.

Would it be a good concession to not to record police if they agree not to record us? This means no more ALPR's (Automatic License Plate Readers), shotspotters, surveillance cameras, bulk internet surveillance, and access to commercially available recordings.

Unfortunately it is not. One group has a monopoly on violence and is only being (slightly) reformed because of overwhelming video evidence of abusive tendencies.

When states pass obviously unconstitutional laws that will disintegrate in (costly) court there should be some federal office of oversight monitoring these things with teeth like loss of federal funding disincentivizing such bullshit.

> like loss of federal funding disincentivizing such bullshit.

What if the Feds want a similar law?

The failure mode is no worse than what you have right now. It's just a lack of enforcement and the state does this fuckery until it ends up challenged in court, no?

I stopped reading when I saw the key stipulation was a distance of within 15 ft. It seems like the only controversial thing here is the ever so typical shitty click bait title.

They want to be able to choke people to death and make it illegal for you to film that is essentially what this bill amounts to. Nice going Arizona.

The title should not be editorialized: The actual title is "Arizona House approves ban on close-up videotaping of police officers"

Agreed, per the HN guidelines: "... please use the original title, unless it is misleading or linkbait; don't editorialize."

That said I _was_ going to leave a comment to the effect of "Fox 10 Phoenix would've had a more accurate--less clickbait (much more verbose)--headline with "In a party-line vote, Arizona House Republicans pass ban on close-up video recording of police officers now on to to the senate."

LOL I bet the people of Arizona didn’t expect THIS when all they wanted was lower taxes

“If you want a picture of the future, imagine a boot stamping on a human face—for ever.”

I laughed, partially in horror. What's the source of this quote?

George Orwell 1984

Of course they have. Because when police are recorded killing George Floyd it's obviously the bystanders recording video that directly contradicts the police report on the incident that are the problem.

I would say this won't survive a lawsuit but I'm honestly not so sure anymore. This Supreme Court seems to be on the verge of being completely unhinged. Take Texas's controversial attempted end run around judicial review by outsourcing enforcement to private citizens with its abortion law.

If that construction holds up, it can be used by bypass any constitutional protection and SCOTUS should know that and they do [1] yet the Court declined to stay the controversial law pending review by the full court [2]. Whether you agree with the law or not, failure to stay a law that clearly alters something that has been established constitutional precedent for 50 years is utterly outrageous.

The outright assault by conservatives on civil liberties in the US is beyond shocking. Some of it is clearly virtue signaling. A lot of it is fueling with culture war with wedge issues (eg all the assaults on trans rights). But after McConnell spent 4 years rubberstamping conservative judges at every Federal level, I'm honestly afraid a disturbing amount of such reactionary legislation will actually stand.

[1]: https://www.politico.com/news/2021/11/01/justices-texas-abor...

[2]: https://www.texastribune.org/2022/01/20/supreme-court-texas-...

The parent comment got down-voted, but I think it is spot on. Maybe officially this new "law" says that it's only illegal to record police within less than 8 feet (or at 8 feet), but of course it will be abused and exploited to harass and arrest persons collecting footage of police violence, and to seize their recording equipment.

Maybe its time to get the sunglasses with cameras in them :/

I was thinking something similar, is there an easy cheap tech solution that can work around distance laws like these...

Just make or buy cheap body cams.

Recording at 8 feet with halogen lamp to the face and pole microphone, ok sir?

obviously they had a problem reading the US Constitution

fascism trending

I’m shocked at the support for this here. It doesn’t matter that it only applies to within 8 feet and if it’s an interaction with someone else. No one should have to know a law about whether they can record police or not. What are you going to do, look up the law when an officer tells you to stop recording? Remember if you refuse it’s a 30 day jail time you could be facing. Want to take bets on whether the officer is lying or you misremembered the allowed distance and conditions? What if a second police officer then approaches you, do they get to box you out by just standing there? There’s no reason this can’t be handled by generic laws for not interfering with police that I’m sure already exist. It’s either pointlessly redundant or will be abused.

The argumentation you're using can pretty much apply to any mature legal system. Usually when this is argued it's in the form of an old Bloomberg opinion piece, "70% of people have done something worthy of jail time and didn't even know it" [1] All that to say, that bit of reasoning is probably more apt for a different discussion.

I don't really have an opinion as to whether it's ethical or not ethical to video a traffic stop. It does kind of sound like lighting a match when soaked in gasoline though.

1: https://www.politifact.com/factchecks/2014/dec/08/stephen-ca...

I don’t see that as relevant to my points. My main point is that an officer can easily abuse this law due to asymmetric information/outcome despite the limits in the text. The officers that would do this are exactly the ones that need to be recorded.

True, sorry I didn't get to that point. That point is nothing new about police. Ever seen cops stack charges on someone? They write a long list of micro-grievances that you have committed and make you answer for them individually. The system rests on this idea that no one is harmed by charging someone with a crime, and that it is a DAs job to determine whether or not a crime has been committed.

The reality is that DAs rarely drop charges when they should (or don't enough, take your pick) and merely charging someone with a crime has lots of legal and extra-legal consequences. It's a shit system, imo, but depending on the situation people are in they either love or hate this system. If you are an agrieved party, then you likely like this system because it's laced for vengeance and action, while if you're trying to make a case that you didn't violate the law or even know that something was a law it's like walking uphill in a foot of mud.

> I don't really have an opinion as to whether it's ethical or not ethical to video a traffic stop. It does kind of sound like lighting a match when soaked in gasoline though.

What? Under what possible interpretation of ethics might it not be ethical to video tape a public official interacting with a citizen? This just doesn't even make sense as a sentence to me. Segmentation fault (core dumped)

I could see it not being ethical if a person is being provocative. If it's just a dash-mounted camera or one pinned to the person's body (like a cops) that seems perfectly ethical.

Then the provocative behavior is potentially unethical, not the recording? Seems like a very important distinction to make.

Yeah, could be, though I think the two in combination probably makes for a force multiplier.

New app idea to pitch: have the camera app overlay the distance using the lidar system.

The solution to rampant police misconduct and law-breaking? Just make it illegal to gather evidence of rampant police misconduct and law-breaking. Problem solved hand wiping motions

Possible Devils advocate - you can easily gather evidence while not being within 8 feet of an officer. This could be more to do with interfering with police activities than preventing evidence collection. Potentially unconstitutional either way but i imagine there are legit concerns with people/press being that close to officers.

The text of the bill is focused on recording, not physical interference (for which there appears to be existing laws)

https://www.azleg.gov/legtext/55leg/2R/summary/H.HB2319_0223...

Once the police have the ability to arrest people for videoing them, they will use it whenever they please. Then argue after the arrest whether or not it was '8 feet' or not. The person video-taping still gets put into custody and has to deal with all of the consequences of that, including a not so gentle arrest. Then, best case, if they can prove it was outside 8 feet, they might get the charges dropped, but they won't be able to sue or at least it be very unlikely to succeed. The functional result (if this bill passes the senate) is that the police in arizona can, and will, arrest anybody they want to who video tapes them. Following that will be similar bills in other states.

Being arrested is a big deal and you could be in jail for some time, even if the charges are dropped. Whereas unlawful arrest could result in consequences for officers, this law would give that arrest at least a pretext of being reasonable, all they have to say is they misjudged the distance and then are off the hook - "honest mistake".

Yep. They already yell "stop resisting!" at people who are clearly not resisting to prime the memories of witnesses. "You're too close!" fits right into that dynamic.

> Once the police have the ability to arrest people for videoing them, they will use it whenever they please.

Maybe not quite. An interesting dilemma arises. If our law abiding, peace officers arrest someone for filming - then that media becomes the evidence in an arrest. So they may safely arrest someone so long as they (the police) are doing nothing wrong while the cameraman is is "illegally" filming them.

But then why would anyone be filming police who are doing nothing wrong?

As soon as the police are engaged in acts of violence, and people start filming them, it would not be in their interests to arrest anyone, unless they were prepared to follow through, destroy evidence, intimidate detainees into silence or commit perjury.

So this idea puts the police into an interesting bind, and suggests it would only have consequences that lead quickly to tyrannical outcomes.

> As soon as the police are engaged in acts of violence, and people start filming them, it would not be in their interests to arrest anyone, unless they were prepared to follow through, destroy evidence, intimidate detainees into silence or commit perjury.

We already see this happening. IIRC Police unions are the only people allowed to review the evidence for the first 24 hours and are free from consequence were it to get "lost".

This is such a naive take from someone who had never had to face police officers blatantly violating your rights and physical well-being.

> This is such a naive take from someone who had never had to face police officers blatantly violating your rights and physical well-being.

What on earth do you think you know about that?

The problem is if your rights are being violated by an officer, that officer is probably within eight feet of you. It's bullshit that you're not permitted to record your rights being violated.

According to the article, the ban only applies when the officer is interacting with someone other than yourself.

Then the law isn’t necessary because officers already have lawful authority to enforce a “reasonable” safety boundary.

The officer that just took your phone from you? Or handcuffed you? That officer?

Or one of the other officers standing around in any of the other 359 degrees where your phone isn't pointing?

There is just no way to make any of their excuses actually hold water.

"you can easily gather evidence while not being within 8 feet"

Only a bystander can. The person who needs it the most, can't.

Meanwhile, the police's own body cam is on while they are within 8 feet of you. Assuming they didn't turn it off, assuming you get access to it later, in a timely manner, unedited...

There is an argument about interference and safety, but no valid argument in the end, since there is no way to allow the limitation without creating a tool for abuse that's worse.

Better to let actual cases of interference be tried as such. Make the officer have to invoke a process after the fact, and have to defend their claim of criminal or endagering interference in court.

Police body cam. That would be good.

In fact, if my impression of the news is correct, police body cams do more to protect the police from unjustified charges of abuse than they do to protect the victims of police abuse.

Perhaps that is an effect of police unions? Perhaps it is simply a good thing and we should have more of them?

People independent of the police filming it seems like a good idea to me. For all concerned.

If only failing to have the cam present or running were considered a super bad crime instigating a huge investigation with a bias towards guilt and you have to prove innocense.

Instead, at least in some places, cops get away with turning their cams off or otherwise suffering mysterious glitches and data loss.

There used to be standards for certain things where the appearance of imporopriety was bad enough all by itself, exactly because some things can't really be proven, like how you can't prove a negative. That seems to be pretty much gone now. Judges don't recuse themselves from cases where they have a conflict of interest, and the other judges just let them, etc.

So, in the sweet naive child view of the world, a cop merely no being able to produce their body cam footage for some incident, no matter what they say or what the story is should be almost automatic grounds for dismissal of the whole case and maybe the cop too, or at least a huge stink and huge investigation. But I don't think we live in that world we tell gradeschool kids we live in.

> In fact, if my impression of the news is correct, police body cams do more to protect the police from unjustified charges of abuse than they do to protect the victims of police abuse.

This is how they're marketed to police departments, not as cameras that keep cops honest, but as cameras that keep the public from lying about police misconduct. It plays into the trope that is popular with law enforcement, that misconduct doesn't exist, it's just the whiny public and their lawyers who are victimizing cops.

That's why the cameras have buttons that allow cops to turn them off, and why they also often have buttons that require the cops to first turn them on themselves before interactions. Some of them even have buttons that, when pushed, turn the camera on for only 30 seconds.

If the cameras were meant to keep cops honest, those features wouldn't exist. Body cameras are not about documenting potential misconduct, they're about documenting evidence that can later be used against the public in court.

> The person who needs it the most, can't.

This law is only about bystanders - if you’re directly involved you’re still allowed to film

With what? That phone that just got knocked to the ground? Or that phone you can't operate while you're handcuffed or busy trying to breath gravel?

You do need the right to film yourself, but there is no valid rationale for limiting it to yourself, making it so that your defense is entirely your responsibility and if you fail to film yourself for any of the imfinite reasons that can happen, you're out of luck.

It just doesn't hold water. All this does is gives cops something they can threaten bystanders with on the spot, which will work on most people most of the time.

When they go home and google about it later and figure out that actually they could have filmed, or it would just be a harmless fine they would have been willing to risk, the damage is already done. You can't go back and collect the evidense after the fact, and most people don't have repeated incidents with police that are bad enough they would even feel a need to film. That one incident was probably all they may ever have, and they didn't film that one.

So the technicalities don't excuse this. Police have a goal that they don't have the right to actually mandate (don't film me while I'm operating on behalf of the state), and this rule doesn't technically mandate it, yet still achieves that goal anyway.

I don't think you understand how the GOP operates now. 8ft now, next year, they increase it. It's like what they do with abortions.

> Possible Devils advocate - you can easily gather evidence while not being within 8 feet of an officer.

Until the officer deliberately approaches you to prevent you from recording?

The law specifically states you can film if the officer is interacting with you

How does this even work? Police officer walks to within 7 feet of you: you’re not allowed to film. They tell you to stop filming and then suddenly you’re allowed to because they’re interacting with you?

So he walks up to you silently and then arrests you for having recorded him within 8 feet while he had not interacted with you. The cops do not follow the law in good faith ever and this gives them another trivially abused tool, like when they would stop people because they "smelled" pot that never existed

If a cop is actively walking towards you, do you have to stop recording once they reach 8 feet? How can you gather evidence if there are a dozen cops surrounding the abuse, with them approaching anyone who is outside 8 feet to force them further and further away?

They can arrest you for recording at any distance, and then drop the charges later and likely just get away with it. It won’t matter either way because they already achieved their goal: stop you from recording.

That is a very common tactic in my experience.

Arrest willy nilly, on court day withdraw the charges.

You can sue for "wrongful arrest". That would be a tactically silly idea for almost everybody who has these sorts of encounters

Even if you sued successfully for that it wouldn’t matter. Their goal was to stop your recording whatever worse thing they were presumably doing which can never be undone.

Journalist: records from 9 feet away

Police: Stop recording me.

Journalist: I'm more than 8 feet away, I have the right to record.

Police: You're 7 feet away. Last warning.

Journalist: is still 9 feet away so keeps recording

Police: Arrests journalist, confiscates recording

District attorney: Reviews footage, sees that the journalist was more than 8 feet away, drops charges

Journalist: sues for wrongful arrest

Court: Being able to count distance accurately is not a job requirement for a police officer. Wrongful arrest claim denied

Journalist: files claim for return of recording

Police department: We are unable to find this recording. (Or, alternatively, they wipe the media before returning it.)

You know what’s going to happen. The cop sees the person recording and walks towards him asking if they are recording and gets inside 8 ft and arrests them. Easy! Or another cop dashes the person recording just to stop and arrest the recording

I bet it goes through because 8 feet is close enough to get to a cop without getting bit, and it’s up to the cop saying it’s dangerous which they’ll never do unless it really is.

LOL. What would you do if you had evidence of police misconduct? Take it to the police? Take it to the prosecutor? Take it to a judge?

Unless you can get it into the media you cannot get any justice. From personal experience, even if you take hard documentary evidence of misconduct to the police, prosecutor or judge, each of them will laugh you out of the room.

Who watches the watchers?

Even then most media will ignore, youtube will take down

> Even then most media will ignore, youtube will take down

That is not true!

The media is a sick puppy for all sorts of reasons, YouTube a den of evil capitalist exploitation.

But your statement is untrue

There are pro-law enforcement groups that brigade YouTube and file bogus complaints, including DMCA violations, against uploaded videos of police misconduct and brutality. If they do it enough, YouTube will even ban the uploaders and take down their videos.

I was just watching a video of about 6 officers killing/pinning down someone and that happened about 2 months before George Floyd's story: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ybWJe6G5guc (no-one got charged even if it was caught on video (and not that it matters, but the victim was white)) ... I have see a lot worst before but not when that many officers were involved.

Only a prosecutor can bring charges against the police. How do you think the prosecutor's office is going to get cases if it antagonizes the police that supply them?

We should have another elected official responsible for bringing charges against police, separate from the prosecutors.

We have that in Aotearoa. I thing England does too.

It is a help, better than the police investigating themselves.

But class issues really come into play. The investigators are all lawyers and have never lived the sort of life where they are bullied by the police, and they have no idea of the dynamics.

We can always do better, in this case we are doing better than we were but it is still quite bad

in the US that's the District Attorney or Attorney General, i think, but forget which is which.

District Attorney is the local prosecutor.

Attorney General is the state prosecutor, and the boss of the DA.

The police don't support the DA

I don't know what meaning "support" is carrying here so it's hard to mount a clear defense.

But they work closely together, and each's work depends, to some extent, on the other. So they each have certain incentives, which lead them to generally act in certain ways towards each other.

I am comfortable calling that support? Could you suggest another concise, easily understood alternative term, if you have one in mind?

>(and not that it matters, but the victim was white)

If BLM wanted to add legitimacy to their cause, especially to those on the fence, they would raise awareness to these non-black deaths in the same way that they do when it's black deaths. Standing against unjustified police violence against any person is not at all against the "black lives matter" premise. In fact, speaking up about it would help people relate to their cause. But, for one reason or another, they seem to stay relatively silent.

https://blavity.com/blm-activists-call-attention-to-graphic-...

https://www.nola.com/opinions/article_4f6138fe-ea8c-551b-9e6...

https://www.12news.com/article/news/local/valley/mesa-rally-...

I carefully chose the words "relatively silent." As in, relative to when the victim is black. I don't see how anyone can argue that it's anywhere near the same level of intensity for non-black vs black.

Huh, it's really weird that a group focused on eradicating systemic racism would choose to highlight the racist moments. How strange.

Yes, to their own disadvantage. My argument is that they would persuade many more people to their cause. Is your argument that they shouldn't do that, or that you don't think it would work?

If you think you can do better than the activists for a given cause, I suggest you get out there and do it so we can see the superiority of your position. Otherwise, I think it's basically the same as armchair quarterbacking: people who have less expertise and no stake acting as if they know better than the people deeply involved in the problem.

We're having a discussion, and I asked a fairly direct question. If your response is to stop the discussion because you think no one is qualified here to discuss it, then you are welcome to not participate.

I'm not saying you can't discuss the topic. I'm saying that this particular argument is based in false assumptions, and is anyway moot. Pointing out the sterility of this line of discussion is me participating in the discussion, thanks.

Your response was roughly "if you think you know better, go out there and show us how superior your way is." It was condescending and, from my read, doesn't highlight any false assumptions.

If your point is that you're not seeing my point, I think we agree.

Or, a group focused on accusations of racism would choose to cherry-pick incidents to give the perception of racism, and diverting attention away from incidents that might dispel this perception.

Wouldn't it be better to make a rebuttal in your own words instead of spamming links?

“But, for one reason or another, they seem to stay relatively silent.”

The one reason is they, are not black.

Should my conclusion be that the reasons for unjustified police violence against blacks and the reasons for unjustified police violence against non-blacks have no overlap, and should therefore only be addressed by an identity-oriented organization for each race?

Perhaps one could conclude that the violence by police is not based on race. Perhaps BLM is cherry-picking incidents for another cause, not related to police violence.

Just because you haven't bothered to pay attention doesn't mean it isn't happening.

Consider this whenever you claim "someone" isn't doing something. They very well might be and you look stupid when you are shown otherwise.

I chose my words carefully to say, not that it "isn't happening", but that it isn't happening at anywhere near the same level. If you're going to suggest that I "look stupid", please accurately represent the argument that I "look stupid" about.

> If BLM wanted to add legitimacy to their cause

The cause isn't "stop police violence", it's stop systemic racism within the police forces of the USA. Police violence disproportionally affecting black people is a symptom of that systemic racism.

True.

And systematic racism is a symptom of the cruel bigotry and prejudice throughout society.

Anti racism campaigners are doing work for all of us who find our selves on the outside of the right side.

Edit: I do not live in the USA. I do not have an experience of racism there. I might be missing something

Disproportionately relative to what? Their share of the population, or their share of violent crime*?

*The usual trick is to claim police bias makes measuring violent crime impossible. But if one is not motivated to remain ignorant, there are a few ways to get bias-free statistics anyway. One is victim surveys, that don't involve the police at all. The other is using homicide as a gauge for other crime. Since it requires a dead body, and is mostly intra-racial, there's very little possibility or motivation to fudge these numbers.

Disproportionate relative to their population.

> or their share of violent crime?

It's amusing how you think that American cops need any crime, let alone violent crime, in order to to exact violence and death upon citizens. You must be white.

What does "need" have to do with it? The logic is more violent crime -> more police interactions -> more chances for an incident to occur. Outlier incidents do not disprove the broad statistics you had no issue in invoking before.

Would you make a similar argument to people trying to raise awareness of and research funding for breast cancer? Should they be talking about heart disease too? Just trying for a general increase in research funding for all diseases?

I do agree that BLM made a mistake though--they should have called it "Black Lives Matter, Too". That would have made it clearer what they are going for.

All lives will matter when black lives matter.

That is what it means. To any body not either racist or on the autistic spectrum and very pedantic, it is obvious that is what it means.

It's so painful to have to say this again and again, and I am glad of anyone who does.

I recall when the Daniel Shaver murder happened, a lot of the same people who now criticize BLM were criticizing Shaver for not listening to the police, or saying he deserved what happened to him, and objected to the idea of police brutality existing at all.

Wrt Daniel Shaver, from my experience, most people that I know just didn't care very much. It's sad, it shouldn't have gone down like that (much like many other instances), but at the end of the day, there's only so much emotional bandwidth to spend, and it can't all be allocated on everything at the same time.

Wow, truly incredible and sad.

I have seen many similar videos that haven't resulted in prosecutions... some a lot worst, sadly.

Wow this is so disturbing to watch the victim alive and well at one moment, and these animals murdering him the next, and over nothing, and in the United States of America. I can't imagine what it's like for this man's kids and family to watch this. This makes me very angry and sad. I hope that one way or another these animals eventually get the justice they deserve. Complete police overhaul is long overdue.

It happens daily in the US... and they also shoot a lot of people: https://github.com/washingtonpost/data-police-shootings (about 1000 per year)... I would love to have a source with all killings by police (not just shootings).... I bet it is a lot more then 1,000 per year.

I'll take "hilarious conservative bullshit that will be tossed out in the first court case" for $500, Alex.

The title is editorialized to be misleading. They aren't moving to ban video recording of police.

The ban is on recording from within a distance of 8 feet, while the officer is interacting with someone else, which seems reasonable enough to me. There's nothing you're going to miss by standing 8 feet back from an investigation while you're recording.

You think cops are gonna get out a tape measure before arresting you for refusing to move back further? "8 feet" will be like 20+ feet.

The point of the law is to stop the people filming from tiny distances and getting in the way. You can definitely tell 3 feet for example.

There is already a law that makes it illegal to get in the way.

Maybe it’s not working? I’ve seen examples of people getting in the way a lot. There’s nothing wrong with making more specific laws targeting bad behavior.

If that’s the case, how do more laws fix an enforcement issue?

Raise awareness, make it easier to prosecute - vague laws are harder to convict on.

Cops unlawfully arrest people all the time for multitudes of reasons, but we have courts to deal with those cases of unlawful arrest.

It should be very clear from an officer's body cam whether the recording party is within 8 feet. That's a basic personal space amount of distance.

What if the body cam happened to be off, glitchy, or data was just lost on happenstance? What if even if the arrest was unlawful the victim already lost their job?

If a body cam happened to be off, then it doesn't matter whether a law like this is in effect or not.

It does affect you if the police can force you turn off your camera, or if they can later claim in court that video evidence of their transgressions were illegally obtained, and thus inadmissible.

And cops get away with harassing people all the time. The US courts have been doing an abysmal job of protecting the citizenry from police abuse. (E.g. qualified immunity.)

The thing that has been to some extent reversing that trend is cheap and ubiquitous video cameras.

The problem with that is that they get 12 cops to body-block any cameras 8ft away or more... sometimes you have to be close to get a good angle.

I think you're right. Usually a dozen cops respond to most major calls. Now anybody trying to record, within a block of the action, will be arrested and have their camera seized.

While these people may be arrested and their cameras may be seized, they could easily sue for unlawful arrest if they were more than 8 feet away at the time. Exactly the same as if their cameras were seized before the 8-foot law were in effect.

I forsee many seized cameras being "accidentally damaged" in Arizona's near future.

If police unlawfully seize and destroy your recorded evidence, then it doesn't matter whether there was a law like this in effect. The officer could make up any story to justify their action under any law.

Mandatory body cam laws would be a lot more relevant in that case, not 8-foot citizen recording laws.

It gives them legal cover for seizing cameras. Right now there is no legal justification for doing so.

They can also just block the view so that the camera is useless...

Your comment, like many others in this thread, seems to be of the form "what if the police do this other, unrelated, illegal thing?"

The solution is to make sure there are repercussions for cops doing illegal things, not to prevent laws from being passed because cops might try to twist the intention of the law to try to justify illegal acts.

Courts have a lot of discretion in deciding cases, and many cases come down to a question of intent. If 12 cops intentionally body-block someone who is recording, that's something that a judge isn't likely to look at too fondly.

> If 12 cops intentionally body-block someone who is recording, that's something that a judge isn't likely to look at too fondly.

That’s all fine and well, but when they can just take your device then you no longer have a video of whatever you were attempting to record. Things used in a “crime” are subject to seizure.

So who is going to stop cops from doing illegal things - other cops? The judicial system that is also on the side of the cops?

I can't design a new society in the comments section. The question of how to reform the policing system to make cops more accountable for unlawful actions isn't really in the scope of this article.

The question of how is beyond the scope but the implications of this specific legislation sure is. It is incredibly open to abuse and arguably because of existing legislation already surrounding interfering with police entirely unnecessary outside of its very obvious abuse potential.

Police should be subject to more scrutiny and not less. This specifically makes it easier for them to evade scrutiny. I struggle to see any good faith argument that leads to less accountability or evidence in general. It’s almost comedic in a “What are you afraid of if you have nothing to hide” sense that is often applied in the other direction of police having authority beyond what is reasonable.

Once you pass another law, that gives cops more tools to abuse their power.

How about we just don’t pass laws giving police more power?

If you think US police won't abuse the law to evade accountability then I think you haven't been paying attention.

US police abuse the law to evade accountability all the time, but I don't see how that's relevant to this particular law.

This law gives the police one more tool to evade accountability.

People filming cops isn't a problem. It doesn't need to be regulated.

I have seen Seattle police slam a person's head into the ground, surround them, and appear to purposely cut off any viewing angles. As far as I know, no charges were raised and this person ended up in hospital after immediate medical assistance was blocked.

This is what happens. It's not hypothetical.

> Your comment, like many others in this thread, seems to be of the form "what if the police do this other, unrelated, illegal thing?"

It is not ( yet ) illegal to stand in front of a camera, to block something behind you.

"Excuse me, you with the camera, can you come over here for a second" -> arrested.

"Excuse me, you with the camera, can you come over here for a second".. the person moves away.. "why are you running" -> arrested.

Cop moves towards the person filming -> arrested.

It's a law which will be abused.

The person the officer is interacting with might be concerned in a very different way about what they say to a police officer, vs what they say to a police officer while a random or perhaps not random at all third party is recording. 8 ft seems like a reasonable cutoff.

But something needs to be done about the abuse potential of another officer walking towards the recording person, repeating "eight foot rule! eight foot rule!" to continuously push back the recording person so that their colleagues can proceed unwatched.

As I mentioned, the article clarifies that the law only applies in the case that an officer is interacting with a third party.

A cop walking towards you is clearly interacting with you, not a third party, thus the law would not apply.

Thanks, missed that detail. Surprisingly well thought out then!

The second part of your comment is the exact intention of this law! That’s exactly how it’s supposed to work.

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