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Comment by BrainVirus | Hacker News Reader

"Nobody walks up to a cop when he is questioning a suspicious person or arresting somebody and stands one or two feet away. Common sense says you’re asking for trouble," Kavanagh said on Arizona PBS.

Common sense tells me Kavanagh is a manipulative bullshitter. I am so tired of this governmental and corporate double-speak.

This should not require any new laws. If you are interfering with official police business, it's already illegal. If you are not interfering, then recording them should not be a problem.

The response itself is a classic manipulation technique. You add more words to a statement without changing its meaning, but confusing people about its purpose.

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Noting that this is the sponsor, Rep. John Kavanagh of Arizona, not Supreme Court Justice Kavanaugh, whose name is frequently misspelled in that fashion.

What is going to happen, of course, is that you start filming from 50 feet away, and then one of the officers will walk over to you, and tell you to stop filming. Which happens all the time already, but thanks to this, will turn it from a request, into a legal requirement.

The purpose of this law is to protect the police state.

You didn’t read the law but seem pretty sure of your take.

This was discussed prior - a police officer standing next to you isn’t included in the defined police activity.

>This was discussed prior - a police officer standing next to you isn’t included in the defined police activity.

Unless they are enforcing the law. Which they will be, because they will be enforcing this law.

If they are enforcing a law against you, the 8 feet doesn’t apply., you are free to record.

Yikes. Like 90% of the comments on this throw out wild scenarios that clearly don’t apply if you read the law which is less than one page.

How can this law ever be enforced if an attempt to enforce it automatically makes any offender an exception to the law?

That’s not how it works.

You could illegally film someone else’s arrest closer than 8ft.

When the cops arrests you (unlikely it’s a misdemeanor) you’re free to film your own interaction.

Because some of us live in the world of reality, were cops only tangentially know the laws, unfairly enforce the laws, and this law will give the police the perception that any recording with in 8 feet of them is illegal and will be enforced as such even if not technically true

The law will be abused by the cops on the ground, this is 100% a sure thing going to happen, it will be used to ruin someone life. I mean that legitimately because unlike popular opinion of internet commenters on the law, a simple arrest can have life alter consequences including job loss, you could end able on any number of mug shot sites that could impact your ability to be hired get rental property, all kinds of things.

Let alone if you are convicted under this law, or if they try to arrest you can you reflexively pull your arm away... bam now your a felon resisting arrest...

So keep "reading the one page law" and if you think it is no issue I would encourage you to go record on some police at 8.1 feet way, do that enough I am sure you will have a different opinion in just a few interactions

>Yikes. Like 90% of the comments on this throw out wild scenarios that clearly don’t apply if you read the law which is less than one page.

Your certainty is completely unwarranted.

Here is a lawyer from Arizona talking about it:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2Id3RJ3tCuM

It's a short bill, but it has complex implications, especially considering that it's somewhat self-referential (law about law enforcement). It's going to be a mess in practice.

A police officer "enforcing the law" is covered as law enforcement activity. That seems open to (mis)interpretation.

Although if you then get arrested, you'd fall under the exception for persons subject to police contact. So it all works out in the end!

Read the law. Police activity is defined as: questioning a suspect, conducting a search or arrest, or detaining an emotionally unstable person.

If you record and they start questioning you, you are exempt from 8 ft.

If they try to arrest you, you are exempt from 8 ft.

If they claim you are emotionally unstable, you are exempt from 8 ft.

If you are just a bystander, you need to stay 8 ft away from the police activity.

- Police begin questioning a suspect.

- You begin recording from 8 ft away.

- Police continue questioning the suspect, but move 1 ft towards you.

- You're now breaking the law.

So, when a cop walks up to you, and tells you to stop filming, and you tell him that you've read the law, and he tells you that he knows the law, and that you need to stop filming, or he will arrest you, who do you think will come out the winner of this curbside legal debate?

What do you think will happen to you?

What do you think will happen to the officer when we discover that his legal interpretation is incorrect?

The police don't actually need to know the law they are enforcing. And it's no sweat off their backs when they are wrong about the details.

> Read the law.

I did, or at least tried to. That's why I put "enforcing the law" in quotes.

Maybe I read the wrong law? In https://www.azleg.gov/legtext/55leg/2R/laws/0376.pdf, the definition of "law enforcement activity" includes this, from section E(2):

> CONDUCTING AN ARREST, ISSUING A SUMMONS OR ENFORCING THE LAW

My point is that "enforcing the law" seems like a very broad umbrella. Prior to this law being written, I think I'd be on OK ground if I was filming an arrest from 10 feet away and an unrelated police officer came up to me and told me to stop.

Now, it's less clear to me. The officer who comes up and tells me to stop clearly thinks he is enforcing the law. Am I now breaking the law if I don't stop recording?

Then this law is utterly useless, because police could always make someone standing over their shoulder move away. Why did the legislature pass it?

Why did one of the officers at the George Floyd killing walk over to the camera man, and tell him to stop filming? If he has this law behind him, he wouldn't have covered for the murder by also interpreting it in a self-serving manner?

If you're in that situation, what exactly do you think you're going to win by getting into a legal debate with a cop?

The real yikes here is the presumption that the police will behave legally, honorably, and with the public's interests in mind. They don't. It's not in their culture to do it, it's not in our culture to enforce that they do.

The point is that Laws have interpretations. This law is unnecessary and not required. Police already can arrest you for interfering. This law is an attempt to stop citizens from recording the police.

Before this law: I as a citizen can record a police activity reasonably from anywhere. Even up close as long as I am not interfering for which I can already get arrested

After this law: I as a citizen am never sure if it is a good idea to record because the new law can have many interpretations. Do I want to risk filming and getting approached by a Bad Cop on a Power trip who will tell me it is illegal to record ?

> Do I want to risk filming and getting approached by a Bad Cop on a Power trip who will tell me it is illegal to record ?

That was already the case. If you assume bad intent, this law changes nothing. If you assume good intent, this law is codifying reasonable behavior.

What if I'm filming from 8 feet away with good intent and a cop who is doing naughty things walks towards me so they have a legal basis to keep me from filming? And to confiscate what I've already filmed?

I disagree. Now the Bad Cops have a reason to try and intimidate you further. It is a pointless Law in my opinion but we can agree to disagree.

Maybe, maybe not, and that is the problem. There is a phrase "the process is the punishment". So they arrest you, and you drag you through the system, you hire a lawyer, lose days at work, etc... You're out several thousand dollars, exhausted, and they eventually just drop the charges without another word, maybe the officer gets a little extra overtime even.

Yeah, people don't because they're afraid of the police and don't want to get involved.

One "solution" to that is to, as Kavanagh seems to favor, make people even more afraid... the opposite approach is to protect them and make them less afraid.

Since there's nothing inherently wrong with filming police, the government should do the latter. In fact, the government should be encouraging the filming of police because police time and again have abused their power and betrayed the people's trust and their own duty.

Instead, this bassackwards law makes people more afraid.

Considering it’s not unusual for cops to be assaulted by family members or friends of the person they are questioning or arresting, I don’t agree that standing 1 ft away from a cop who is trying to conduct police work is reasonable in terms of security.

> Considering it’s not unusual for cops to be assaulted by family members or friends

That’s already illegal.

> I don’t agree

You don’t disagree either (yet), because that statement doesn’t contradict the parent comment.

The parent comment is highlighting the poisonous way Kavanagh engages in politics discourse. You’re demonstrating it.

Sure attacking a cop is already illegal. But you’re suggesting a cop, in the process of arresting someone, should allow someone to stand 1ft away from them as long as the purpose is to record them?

Yes, cops already have leeway to maintain a safe distance between themselves and spectators, but as others have said, this just puts an exact number on a fuzzy limit the courts have already supported.

Considering that would already be illegal, as the comment you're replying to states, I don't agree that has any relevance to this new law.

Sounds like a reasonable enough statement to me. If nobody is getting up close to cops while they're involved with a suspect then it won't be an issue. But we all know there a bunch of people out there who lack the sense to not keep a reasonable distance and this law will cover those instances.

I don't see a law enforcement carve-out. By my reading a fellow cop with a body camera getting next to another cop enforcing the law would result in their violation of this law. Wonder if you can citizen's arrest a police officer for violating this law.

Except laws aren't interpreted and enforced with autistic rigidity.

The law should be applied equally. In fact the equal protections clause of the 14th amendment could invalidate prosecution of laws not applied uniformly.

Sure, but what matters for your personal security is not what the book says, but what the men with the weapons think the book says.

In Arizona the proportion of those with weapons is overwhelmingly the general populace and not the police.

Go try arresting one of them and let me know how that goes for you.

The world would be a better place if criminal cops were held accountable.

Which one is the problem? People not keeping a reasonable distance or... cops on a powertrip that now have another tool to fork with your rights?

This law creates a situation where police can just keep walking toward someone filming, demanding that they stop. This is absolutely a tactic that will immediately be used by police to interfere with filming and attempt to prevent video evidence from being used against them.

That reminds me of cops playing copyright music so that videos would get auto-DMCA off YouTube.

I doubt that one would fly. If you have the video of them doing that then presumably a jury of your peers or any sane DA would throw out that case. And if you don’t, then you weren’t recording them right?

Charges can fuck up your life even if you are eventually found not guilty.

The rest of the comment below the quote explains the manipulation: Kavanagh is implying that law enforcement lacks the tools to deal with that kind of interference, when the reality is that they have ample preexisting authority to arrest anyone who actually does interfere with them.

This law attempts to turn an innocent and passive civic action into a kind of interference, which is absurd on face value. If a person is actually interfering with the cops and just so happens to be recording while they do it, the law already allows the cops to arrest them.

Innocent and passive if you aren't basically just trying to get internet points for being a hero, which some people definitely are. Anecdotally, I've seen someone walk past an arrest in which the causal factor had already been eliminated, then started filming too closely and attempting to berate officers about how to handle the person. She was basically an opposite Karen, definitely getting in the way, but I'd wager that most cops aren't in the business of wanting to make secondary pointless arrests

If they feel like they were interfered with, then they could have arrested that person for interference. The law already explicitly admits that case.

The presence of a recording device is, at best, purely immaterial. Criminalizing the act of recording has no bearing on the thing that they’re claiming needs to be criminalized, and in fact already is.

I guess I have a more charitable view of cops' intentions. Police don't want to make more arrests than necessary, so I can see how there would be argument to me made to discourage people from testing that.

You are missing the point. A law like this gives Bad Cops the power to basically stop anyone from recording. All they have to do is to walk towards that person and reduce the distance. Good cops will ignore but the Shitty ones that are on a Powertrip will absolutely abuse this. THe point is that there already are laws related to interfering with Police business and this was not needed. This is nothing but an attempt at violating a Citizen's right. Btw, there is nothing illegal about being a hero/idiot to get internet points. As much as some people are idiots, their rights should not be infringed upon if they are not interfering with Police business directly. This law makes it a lot harder to even risk recording at all because you never know if you are safe to do so.

Ya I get it, but by acting against hypothetically bad intentions pre-emptively, it creates a terrible loop that we probably shouldn't embrace. I believe there are bad cops, but I don't presume cops are bad and have no reason to. Maybe some people do, maybe a lot of people do, but not me.

We also don't want to make many other laws with this line of reasoning. That's how we lose rights

There is an explicit exemption for people filming from 8+ feet away.

The current interference law requires a witness to physically interfere.

I’m sorry, but what would “non-physical interference” even mean in this context? Should a police officer be allowed to arrest me for interference because my tone is insufficiently deferential, hurting their feelings and thereby impairing their abilities?

Even physical interference is an extremely broad standard, encompassing everything from “resisting” to simply failing to move out of the way fast enough for their tastes.

Absent a specific example of “non-physical interference” actually interfering with a police activity, the entire category seems pretextual and ripe for abuse.

Remember that this is Arizona, a known shithole state. Whatever interpretation of this law that you're using to paint it in a softer light, understand that it's not coming from a place of "let's help police protect people".

The Arizona PD are courteous and I've never had problems with them unlike the LAPD who tortured and nearly killed me 12 years ago. Marijuana is legal in AZ, and the wildlife is protected, even plants. It's illegal to cut down cactuses. Firearms are legal which means you have the freedom to protect yourself from violent assailants. Free health care (medicaid) is really good there, such that you can see all the specialists you might need. Why do you call it a shithole state?

Having lived in 5 states including NY and CA, I'd call those two shitholes before I called AZ a shithole.

I don't know if I'd call Arizona a shit hole (I've never been), but it did have the worst racial profiling under Sheriff Arpaio.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joe_Arpaio

https://www.aclu.org/press-releases/us-department-justice-fi...

In CA, it was Sheriff Bacca.

Literally part of a Neo-Nazi gang: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lynwood_Vikings

Got nailed after his officers tried to kill an FBI agent who was investigating prison abuse.

https://www.justice.gov/usao-cdca/pr/former-la-county-sherif...

With AZ, there was a big issue with prison abuse ie. "Tent Prison" [1]

All I can speak to is my experiences, all of this is really shitty.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maricopa_County_Sheriff%27s_Of...

If you can't see why AZ is a shithole you might be the problem.

There's no such thing as "The Arizona PD"

"If nobody is getting up close to cops"

Someone is recording a Cop 20 feet away. THe cop notices them, doesn't like it and starts walking towards that person thereby reducing the distance and once they hit less than 8 feet, boom it is illegal even though the person did not move. This is what will happen when someone is recording a Cop and the Cop is pissed at them. Now what ?

"IF THE PERSON MAKING THE VIDEO RECORDING IS WITHIN EIGHT FEET OF WHERE THE PERSON KNOWS OR REASONABLY SHOULD KNOW THAT LAW ENFORCEMENT ACTIVITY IS OCCURRING"

A cop walking toward them from 20ft away won't shift the locus of the law enforcement activity (unless he's dragging the prisoner, I suppose) and this should be ruled out as infringement - it would be a ridiculous stretch to say "the mere presence of a cop means law enforcement activity is occurring".

Law enforcement activity is so vague it can be wherever the cop says it is.

It seems pretty reasonable that a court will decide that "a law enforcement activity" isn't a single point in space but an area that encompasses the situation. From there it's a pretty reasonable expectation that all involved officers are included in that area.

Unless you think it really is just a singular point in which case any large situation makes the distance restriction meaningless...

> "a law enforcement activity" isn't a single point in space but an area that encompasses the situation

Obviously it's an area but ...

> it's a pretty reasonable expectation that all involved officers are included in that area

That doesn't necessarily follow - 2 cops arresting someone whilst 10 are on, say, crowd or traffic control shouldn't include those 10 cops in the LEA because they're not part of the "activity", per se, but supporting actors, no? Same goes for one that wanders away from the arrest - they're no longer an active participant and can't be included in the "activity", surely?

(Now, I agree, the courts might well say "wherever cops are is a LEA" but I don't think they'd get away with it without shenanigans like SCOTUS.)

It looks like this contact may now fall under "A PERSON WHO IS THE SUBJECT OF POLICE CONTACT MAY RECORD THE ENCOUNTER" clause, which still allows recording, as they are not longer a bystander, but I'm not a lawyer.

It's already illigal to interfere in police business. You can do this through many mean, not just being within 8ft filming. By lowering the bar for interference the government can now argue that anyone in 8ft for any reason cannot film. It's also in violation of the 1st amendment, as many of these pro-policing laws tend to be.

And given that the police can use laws that don't exist as probable cause which leads to an arrest and conviction [0], I don't think it's unrealistic to expect cops to say "well I thought [the guy filming me from 30 ft away] was too close" to justify an arrest.

Sure, you might be found innocent (on the filming charge), but that's not the point - the cops wanted to stop you from filming, and they won. They might have even seized your phone and deleted the footage, and you have no recourse thanks to qualified immunity [1]. Just you getting thrown in jail and missing work could mean getting fired, being unable to make rent, getting evicted, etc. It creates a chilling effect, which is exactly what they want.

> It's also in violation of the 1st amendment, as many of these pro-policing laws tend to be.

It is, but sadly, SCOTUS will likely find some insane argument to uphold it.

[0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heien_v._North_Carolina

[1]: https://eji.org/issues/qualified-immunity/

I looked up the text of the (original) bill:

  6 A. IT IS UNLAWFUL FOR A PERSON TO KNOWINGLY MAKE A VIDEO RECORDING
  7 OF LAW ENFORCEMENT ACTIVITY, INCLUDING THE HANDLING OF AN EMOTIONALLY
  8 DISTURBED PERSON, IF THE PERSON MAKING THE VIDEO RECORDING DOES NOT HAVE
  9 THE PERMISSION OF A LAW ENFORCEMENT OFFICER AND IS WITHIN FIFTEEN FEET OF
  10 WHERE THE LAW ENFORCEMENT ACTIVITY IS OCCURRING. IF THE LAW ENFORCEMENT
  11 ACTIVITY IS OCCURRING IN AN ENCLOSED STRUCTURE THAT IS ON PRIVATE
  12 PROPERTY, A PERSON WHO IS AUTHORIZED TO BE ON THE PRIVATE PROPERTY MAY
  13 MAKE A VIDEO RECORDING OF THE ACTIVITY FROM AN ADJACENT ROOM OR AREA THAT
  14 IS LESS THAN FIFTEEN FEET AWAY FROM WHERE THE ACTIVITY IS OCCURRING,
  15 UNLESS A LAW ENFORCEMENT OFFICER DETERMINES THAT THE PERSON IS INTERFERING
  16 IN THE LAW ENFORCEMENT ACTIVITY OR THAT IT IS NOT SAFE TO BE IN THE AREA
  17 AND ORDERS THE PERSON TO STOP RECORDING OR TO LEAVE THE AREA.
  18 B. THIS SECTION DOES NOT ESTABLISH A RIGHT OR AUTHORIZE ANY PERSON
  19 TO MAKE A VIDEO RECORDING OF LAW ENFORCEMENT ACTIVITY.
  20 C. A VIOLATION OF THIS SECTION IS A PETTY OFFENSE, EXCEPT THAT IF
  21 THE PERSON FAILS TO COMPLY WITH A VERBAL WARNING OF A VIOLATION OF THIS
  22 SECTION OR HAS PREVIOUSLY BEEN CONVICTED OF A VIOLATION OF THIS SECTION,
  23 IT IS A CLASS 3 MISDEMEANOR.

https://www.azleg.gov/legtext/55leg/2R/bills/HB2319P.htm

Given its text, I do not find the original statement reasonable at all. Simply recording police from 7 feet and not immediately stopping when a cop tells you to is a misdemeanor. This is crazy and has little to do with protecting reasonable police activity.

That's an early version of the bill. The final version [^1]:

        A. IT IS UNLAWFUL FOR A PERSON TO KNOWINGLY MAKE A VIDEO RECORDING OF LAW ENFORCEMENT ACTIVITY IF THE PERSON MAKING THE VIDEO RECORDING IS WITHIN EIGHT FEET OF WHERE THE PERSON KNOWS OR REASONABLY SHOULD KNOW THAT LAW ENFORCEMENT ACTIVITY IS OCCURRING, EITHER RECEIVES OR HAS PREVIOUSLY RECEIVED A VERBAL WARNING FROM A LAW ENFORCEMENT OFFICER THAT THE PERSON IS PROHIBITED FROM MAKING A VIDEO RECORDING OF A LAW ENFORCEMENT ACTIVITY WITHIN EIGHT FEET OF THE ACTIVITY AND CONTINUES TO MAKE A VIDEO RECORDING OF THE LAW ENFORCEMENT ACTIVITY WITHIN EIGHT FEET OF THE ACTIVITY. 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 LEAVE THE AREA.
    B. 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 OCCUPANTS OF A VEHICLE THAT IS THE SUBJECT OF A POLICE STOP MAY RECORD THE ENCOUNTER IF THE OCCUPANTS ARE NOT INTERFERING WITH LAWFUL POLICE ACTIONS.
    C. THIS SECTION DOES NOT ESTABLISH A RIGHT OR AUTHORIZE ANY PERSON TO MAKE A VIDEO RECORDING OF LAW ENFORCEMENT ACTIVITY.
    D. A VIOLATION OF THIS SECTION IS A CLASS 3 MISDEMEANOR.
    E. FOR THE PURPOSES OF THIS SECTION, "LAW ENFORCEMENT ACTIVITY" MEANS ANY OF THE FOLLOWING:
    1. QUESTIONING A SUSPICIOUS PERSON.
    2. CONDUCTING AN ARREST, ISSUING A SUMMONS OR ENFORCING THE LAW.
    3. HANDLING AN EMOTIONALLY DISTURBED OR DISORDERLY PERSON WHO IS EXHIBITING ABNORMAL BEHAVIOR.

[1]: https://www.azleg.gov/legtext/55leg/2R/laws/0376.htm

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