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Comment by Brian_K_White | Hacker News Reader

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?

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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

>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".

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

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.

> 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.

You can't record if the situation is dangerous

> to make people afraid and inhibited

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

> 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.

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.

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."

> 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.

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