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.
"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.
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.
The thing that has been to some extent reversing that trend is cheap and ubiquitous video cameras.
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.
A cop walking towards you is clearly interacting with you, not a third party, thus the law would not apply.
Mandatory body cam laws would be a lot more relevant in that case, not 8-foot citizen recording laws.
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.
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.
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.
How about we just don’t pass laws giving police more power?
People filming cops isn't a problem. It doesn't need to be regulated.
This is what happens. It's not hypothetical.
It is not ( yet ) illegal to stand in front of a camera, to block something behind you.