>having already accepted the framing that the only way to prevent this police overreach is to restrict everyone from doing similar things.
My position is people should be free to photograph in public anything they can see. That's currently how the law is written. I don't think it's perfect, but I can't think of a better alternative (thus this discussion).
>The cops aren't the public and should be subject to additional restrictions beyond what the public is subjected to.
I agree as an ideal, but in practice there are a lot of barriers.
- They can legally arrest you, even if you didn't break any laws and aren't required to even know the law.
- They aren't legally required to help anybody.
- They have blanket qualified immunity granted by the SCOTUS.
- Each police department and sheriff's department is their own jurisdiction, so any blanket restraint would need to be done at the federal level.
- They have one of, if not the strongest unions in the country.
- They have strong political support that is just now eroding a bit in blue states.
We are having a hard time just managing police brutality and unnecessary force currently.
An interesting irony is that the more laws / restrictions we ask the government to put on people, the broader jurisdiction the police have over our everyday lives.
An old example is jaywalking. Since jaywalking became a crime, the police can stop / detain you, legally require you to identify (and arrest / charge you if you refuse) and possibly Terry frisk you just because you walked across the street in a certain way.
Because of this, when people propose making a law to prevent people from doing something not-egregious, like say smoking at the beach, I'm against it. It's not worth the intrusion for me and my kids and my kids' kids, etc.
Anyway, I've gotten way off topic. Thanks for the discussion.