NYPD barred from telling people they can't film in precinct stations | Hacker News Reader

NYPD barred from telling people they can't film in precinct stations

hellgatenyc.com

260 pointsdanso113 comments

Good.

Barring any attempts to hinder a police investigation or crime scene, the right to record law passed in NY should be absolute.

I see no reason why it's a bad thing to keep law enforcement honest and make sure their actions are legal and above board....because otherwise, their mistakes and ignorance of the law can cost the public money.

It also allows the good folks within police departments to have a straightforward way to root out the bad folks and the corruption that a police union might traditionally try to cover up. If I were a cop and I knew one of my coworkers was a bad apple, and might screw things up for me, knowing that they are getting recorded on the job would give me peace of mind.

The only reason I see is if it captured citizens that don't want the fact that they were in a NYPD Precinct livestreamed.

It's a public place. If a separate law gave them a right to privacy then the police have to make accommodations to bring them into the station privately, like through a back door.

My position is that it is good that everyone going into the precinct should be publicly noticed. Nobody goes in through "a back door". Nobody goes into police custody without the public knowing. Yes, this gets embarrassing. But it keeps people from silently "disappearing". If they're in police custody, everybody knows (or can find out).

Which is fine if you're being arrested, not great if you're trying to report domestic violence.

I get it, it's better like this, but it could have secondary side effects for some people.

Trying to report any crime where the victim fears repercussions. Organized crime, crime by an employer, etc.

Every law is a balance with some compromises toward or against personal and public good. Some of that balance should include alternate channels for reporting things with hazards like this.

To echo the previous reply, it's a ridiculous stance to defend absolving of documentation of their presence when all these situations involved taxpayer money. Whether it's an officer, a congressman,Trump under subpoena, or a random drunk ... if they are being charged with something, they are in the public record. That public record includes public documentation of where they were taken, why, and sufficient documentation to allow both the public to be informed and for intervention in case of abuse of power.

Otherwise, we don't live in a functional democracy. This is a good decision. It's sad the PD is appealing it, but not unexpected.

People often go to police stations for reasons other than being charged with something.

> That public record includes public documentation of where they were taken, why, and sufficient documentation to allow both the public to be informed and for intervention in case of abuse of power.

The problem for the specific case of being charged with something, or even a step before when someone is brought in for questioning, is enough to tarnish the person's reputation for life.

If someone is brought in for questioning on suspicion of spousal battery, rape, or kiddie porn, that stink is not going to subside even if the officers or prosecutors later admit to being completely wrong.

That's a socio-cultural issue, not something related to what the law requires because it's the just thing to do.

Otherwise, we'd have no knowledge of anything. We fought so hard (US-specific) for the FOIA and that barely even works. Crawling backwards into a decades of state and police corruption isn't the answer.

I get what you're saying. There is an imbalance of power between the common citizen and state. Wanting transparency instead of the alternative because of abuse of power is precisely why this should be the norm.

> if they are being charged with something, they are in the public record. That public record includes public documentation of where they were taken, why, and sufficient documentation to allow both the public to be informed and for intervention in case of abuse of power.

> Otherwise, we don't live in a functional democracy.

I agree with all of that but I wonder if this has anything to do with living in a democracy.

Without those protections people can be disappeared or put in jail for no reason (perhaps to prevent their attendance somewhere else). It gets to the heart of habeais corpus

Exactly - we need transparency so the public does not feel threatened by unknowns, has trust in general governance, has trust in the economic system, political system, criminal system...

Democratic secular republics haven't been around for very long. Lest we forget, given how short our lifetime spans, nothing is written for us. We create history as we live it. Trying our best doesn't seem to cut it so far, but I'll take it over any alternative.

You can get arrested without being charged with something though.

Yet what? It's still public record, like anything should be when charged by the state. Transparency is key. Otherwise, we live in an Orwellian quasi-something.

Being arrested, even if it you were innocent and it doesn't lead to a trial or conviction, has very real and harmful consequences to you in the US.

So, it seems that things are Orwellian either way.

Most western democracies dont publicise arrests and mugshots like the US. Most of these countries are more free and have better functioning democracies than the USA. In fact, many coutries would consider publicising every minor arrest as an imposition on personal freedom and a massive overstep by the government.

I do agree that police should be filmable in almost all circumstances.

Ah, Europe loves its secret courts.

It's so lovely when HN discussions derail into USA vs Europe. Divisiveness, internet's favorite thing.

The parent comment was comparing the US to other western democracies.

What if a private organization set up cameras observing everyone walking every street and avenue, and stored facial eigenvectors of all the people walking there.

It could then set up shop as a service, and given a picture of someone's face, tell you when and where they went anywhere on foot in NYC.

It's all public, right?

That's what companies do with license plate scanners. I don't think faces would be substantially different in the eyes of the law.

I agree that it's an issue. In Europe there is some expectation of privacy even in public and what you describe would be illegal.

> In Europe there is some expectation of privacy even in public

which is reason #1367 why the UK had to leave the EU.

Thanks, I'll be here all week, until I die.

In thr US that is probably legal currently

It's being done for police, but I don't think there's any legal bar to selling this data to the public instead.

https://www.404media.co/fusus-ai-cameras-took-over-town-amer...

The scenario you're describing is already the status quo.

What if? What do you mean what if? You are obviously to reality bud

You can find that in London right now.

Are you asking if that's legal? Because yes it absolutely is.

I think there's room for protecting people's public image so long as they have not been convicted.

Are you saying that every crime punishment should automatically include loss of privacy? Cause that's what your statement sounds like.

That's a very bizarre reading of this thread of conversation.

I didn't read it well, I guess. "Protecting people's public image" sounds much broader than whether an arrest or conviction is public record.

Every crime conviction is a public record, so that ship has sailed.

I would say that we want to know what crimes our government is convicting people of. Otherwise, you can have the government arrest and convict some one of "secret" charges, perhaps in "secret" courts with "secret" evidence. The convicted just disappeared.

I think we had something like that happen before, it caused a bit of upset.

That is all a matter of public record. Anyone who doesn't want that can file a motion to have it concealed.

I mean pretty much that's a cornerstone of our legal system. There's a strong bias against hidden courts where someone may be convicted in secret and punished in secret.

The public place doctrine is uniquely weird (and American) in that regard. Being seen or heard by others in a public place should not mean that you, as a private person, also gets recorded.

I agree. I think that US law is actively harmful in this regard. It should be possible to be in public spaces without having to worry about being recorded, either by authorities or other people.

This reverses the subject, though: even if we grant that private civilians should have a (possibly limited) expectation of privacy in public, civilians acting in a public capacity, like the police, should not. Given the enormous power they have to act outside the law with impunity, removing the only check on that power— transparency into their conduct— would be a mistake. One only need to consider any of the many times police have been caught outright lying by video surfacing afterward to understand why.

I agree entirely. We give police extraordinary power over us, and it seems completely reasonable that they have little expectation of privacy when using those powers.

What a simplistic view of the world. "It's a public place.". Do I want to be there? No. Do I have to be there? Yes. Oh, the back door, right. And don't forget to make the appointment.

Fact is, if I'm being there as a private citizen dealing with private matters, I don't want some person hanging around there filming me. And at least in Europe I have the right to expect this.

What about crime victims?

What if the mob is paying people to film inside the Precinct?

I get the argument. This is a tough problem, though, because someone recording in a police building can easily prevent citizens from conducting their business in there. I know that if I saw some random person recording in the building (or in other sensitive places), I wouldn't set foot in there. I doubt I'm the only one. Particularly if someone is going in there to deal with an issue where they don't want others to know they're going to the police.

I'm still in favor of absolute recording rights despite all that. You're quite right to point out chilling effects of active recording, but you have to also consider that bad police behavior is chilling in and of itself. People don't want to make reports when the police might make things worse or neglect things they're supposed to help with. Recording can help with that and will become less common as bad police are held to better account. Another thing that can balance that would be for police stations to have a reception desk with a transparent, soundproof box for citizens to make reports with some privacy and safety regardless of recording.

> Another thing that can balance that would be for police stations to have a reception desk with a transparent, soundproof box for citizens to make reports

That doesn't really address the issue, though. The issue is that people can be shown to have been at the police station at all.

Surely if it's that big of an issue they could call the police station and arrange a more discrete venue?

Maybe in the best of times this would seem a bigger concern, but in the present day it definitely seems like there needs to be more pressure on police to meet minimum standards.

> Surely if it's that big of an issue they could call the police station and arrange a more discrete venue?

I think that's a bit more than can be reasonably expected of someone who is in active danger and afraid.

There does need to be some way that people can go to the police without being at risk of exposure by "first amendment auditors", but it's hard to see how that could happen. The people doing the recording would probably demand the right to record in any other place that is set aside for such purposes as well.

That's why this is a really difficult issue. The ruling may be technically correct, but it seems to me that this practice does more harm than good.

There are no perfect solutions.

Should other people in a police station have any expectation of privacy? Victims of crimes? People who've been arrested?

People who have been arrested don't usually just hang out in the lobby. There is no expectation of privacy in any public space

That is not universally true, there are some expectations of privacy in some public places. For example, public restrooms, phone booths, dressing rooms, people's person, car, belongings, etc.

> There is no expectation of privacy in any public space

But there should be protection against being recorded against your will.

In a public place? Why?

If you’ve been somewhere others saw you, and it was a place where privacy is not expected (i.e. not someone peeking into your backyard or a bathroom stall), why should others be prevented from recording and retelling this, if they want to?

The line between 'annoying ego-trip' and 'act essential for the preservation of freedom and democracy' is surprisingly thin. In many cases it boils down the manners and this guy seems to at least try to be polite in his videos.

Is thin or non-existent. But still VERY glad that these individuals do what they do. It's just one example of what can be done, besides voting, to uphold civil rights.

they needn't be mutually exclusive

It’s vital and we need people who have the resources to be professionally annoying so that regular people don’t get caught up in this.

You are legally allowed to, but doing so may result in excessive bodily harm and weeks of incarceration, with low or zero repercussions for the police that do it to you. Until Qualified Immunity is uprooted, these lawsuits really wont do much to move a needle. Still a good outcome from the courts.

> may result in excessive bodily harm and weeks of incarceration

It won't, because that's exactly what this law prevents.

The law has historically not been a significant concern for the NYPD.

Put another way: this is a "win" in the sense that there's judicial recognition of the problem, but attempting to test this law is still going to get you harassed and potentially arrested. The question then becomes whether 24+ hours in jail is worth ultimately being vindicated in court.

Compare recent attempts to get the NYPD to stop parking illegally[1][2].

[1]: https://nyc.streetsblog.org/2023/01/23/tipster-sues-nypd-for...

[2]: https://hellgatenyc.com/nypd-try-to-illegally-park-then-tick...

Also in many jurisdictions, arrest records are public and cannot be expunged… even if charges are never filed!

And many people have employers who would not tolerate a zero-notice day of absence, can't afford the fees for a criminal defense attorney (and public defenders are so backed up they're nearly useless), and so on.

> question then becomes whether 24+ hours in jail is worth ultimately being vindicated in court

With a pattern of violations, a civil case for damages emerges. (With an arrest, there is particularised harm in a way parking violations do not tend to create.)

> With a pattern of violations, a civil case for damages emerges.

Agreed, although this is predicated on being willing to put up with arrest. In effect, the cost is asymmetric: to have my civil rights enshrined here, I'd have to be willing to go to jail a handful of times, miss work, suffer physical and verbal abuse at the hands of an agency that rapes detainees[1], etc. All for a judge to potentially grant me damages.

[1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abner_Louima

But... who enforces that law?

Contempt of court against a federal district court order? A hacked off (in the case of any actual violation) federal judge with pretty broad direct power, U.S. Marshals,.and, potentially, the applicable US Attorney’s office, FBI, and the rest of thr federal criminal law enforcement apparatus for any criminal contempt or other federal crime involved.

You mean like the constitution and two other laws prevented it?

https://signalscv.com/2023/11/lasd-statement-forthcoming-on-...

Do you think anyone is going to be held responsible for this?

Just curious, how does the law distinguish "public" part of a public place, and "private" part of it like staff's rooms, evidence rooms etc?

signs, locked doors, public ability to go into an area. Generally publicly accessible foyers, hallways, are ok.

I imagine NYPD's response to this will be to set up every precinct so there is a guard station at the front and you have to give a reason to be let in "for security."

That is already common and they go in and film anyway. If the public can legally get there they can legally film

i imagine that policy too would be subject to legal challenge, and if placed immediately after this judgement would probably not draw a lot of sympathy from a judge. The issue is that filming in the public foyer/area of a public building IS legitimate business, even protected activity, so the more they do to make that difficult the worse it becomes for them.

From the article they have this angle covered too, though I don't know whether the judge specifically ruled on it as well:

> and the NYPD instituted its policy without following the Citywide Administrative Procedure Act, which specifies the steps a City agency must take before it can put a new rule in place.

Their response will just be to ignore the order, they don’t care what judges say. NYPD has been revolting against any oversight for years.

Statutory law rarely spells that out, leaving it to judges and case law. My guess is that judges would be pragmatic in such matters, and in those parts of the building where there is no public interest in allowing video recording, they would disallow it.

Likely, those rooms are off limits to the public anyway. And, if I'm not mistaken, as dumb as the public can be, no one's actually attempted to film in those places (though, with the rise of influencers and Youtube and whatnot, maybe we should just be anticipating the coming flood?).

From what I've gathered watching Youtube legal videos, Qualified Immunity doesn't apply when the government officials have been explicitly told by a court that their specific behavior is a violation of a right. With this temporary injunction they have so been told.

Qualified immunity doesn't apply when the officer clearly violates a constitutional right. Unfortunately the article says:

Judge Jessica Clarke, who ordered the injunction last week, ruled that while the First Amendment claim might be a little more complicated, it seems pretty clear that the NYPD violated the state and municipal Right to Record Acts with its policy.

Civil rights aren't just Constitutional rights, else the US wouldn't have a variety of federal and state level "civil rights" acts. State police are subordinate to the State, not just the Federal government.

Cue the copyrighted music playing 24/7 in NYPD stations in 3, 2, 1, ...

No, I'm not joking. This is a real thing that has happened elsewhere, using copyright law to take down evidence of police misbehavior.

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2022/apr/15/california-p...

In most US jurisdictions it is still illegal to film within the confines of a courthouse, unless prior authorized, due to potential privacy violations, but anybody can film on the courthouse steps. These privacy violations may compromise persons charged with crimes, witnesses, jury members, court staff, or plaintiffs. Since the conduct and presence of many people at a courthouse is often involuntarily and yet not part of the public record their privacy concerns, and even potential safety concerns, exceed third-party expression concerns.

> due to potential privacy violations

This may be a thing people say, but it doesn't make any sense to me. The whole premise of the legal system is that it's public. Closed door procedures are the exception. You can generally walk in to nearly any courtroom, observe the whole thing, write down what everybody said, and publish it, and that's 100% legal. So the "no cameras because it might violate privacy" argument always felt weird to me.

But you can't walk in and demand to see the jurors' IDs.

But if it was somehow important to privacy, for example because maybe you could ID jurors, than they would never allow cameras in there, but many judges do allow cameras. Why is it up to the judges if there's an important reason for it?

I see a really huge difference between being able to observe something and being able to record the thing. The latter is so much more intrusive than the former that different standards should apply.

Okay, but why can you transcribe everything that's said and literally paint portraits of the proceedings, but you can't use a tape recorder? Surely the gains in public access and accurate record keeping from an audio recording outweigh whatever extra intrusiveness audio has over text?

Ah, you're talking about during an actual court proceeding? I was thinking just in the courthouse/police station/etc. generally.

In an actual court proceeding, things might be a bit different. In my state, anyway, the court itself makes audio and video recording of the proceeding and prohibits others from doing so. I'm OK with that, but I wouldn't have a huge issue if they allowed others to do it too. Outside of a court proceeding, though, I have a larger issue.

from what I understand this isn't true. Basically restrictions on filming in courts are judicial orders (and they're basically gods in courthouses) but restrictions on filming in public areas of a courthouse building in general are more complicated. You don't have any expectation of privacy there, and if you did they would need to accommodate it.

In the UK apparently you can’t record past precinct property —which can be just beyond the sidewalk, or if there’s a gate to the parking lot… of if there's police activity on a public street.

There's a guy who goes around challenging them: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z5G2mL_7BMg

It's a good ruling, but the NYPD will almost certainly ignore it. The worst part is that any restitution will come in the form of fines, which are paid not by police officers, but by taxpayers.

NYPD officers can break the law with complete impunity, because a third party (the taxpayers) is paying for both their legal fees and any punitive fines.

The activist that fought this in court and won will come back and do it again.

NYPD will take you down violently if you show them any lip. No silly regulations will get in their way of running your ID if you catch their gaze.

the public needs something on par with Administrative Law Judges (ALJs)

(for the uninitiated, many state corporations and agencies have judges on staff and inhouse that can hear an agency’s case the same day, getting emergency injunctions done at a moment’s notice.)

it would be cool if this was like a perk with unions or something that wouldnt get too bogged down by the general public immediately, but for the general public.

One of the best things about Youtube (and now TikTok) is the growing popularity of videos that reveal the shocking extent of police misconduct.

Thanks to camera phones we have all become outraged at the way may police treat black people, and I credit camera phones as the driving force behind the social movement now known as BLM.

But the creators on TikTok and YouTube who focus on police misconduct are going beyond BLM and focusing on the routine, institutionalized bullying of citizens of all ages, races, etc.

We should all be very outraged by this, and we should all rally to support these creators, BLM, etc.

This is what the internet was supposed to give us. Better transparency into government misconduct, and defense against oppression committed against citizens by government.

The only problem is there’s no step in social media to activate people to put pressure on the government to reduce police abuse. I want stuff like cops who beat their significant others taken off the force. Cops sent to jail if they rape or sexually assault their detainees. I want a reversion to the legal precedent that cops have no duty to defend civilians from crime. But there’s no way to do this without large popular action,.

Hell even with BLM mass protests, no city actually defunded the police!

Cops do not get sent to jail if they rape or sexually assault their detainees?

In some cases no.

https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/albertsamaha/this-teena...

Hah. There was a case a few years ago where a cop "had sex with" a female teen (minor but above age of consent) who was handcuffed and in custody. He argued it was consensual, and the court agreed.

The sister reply has this stunning statement:

> She had no idea she lived in one of 35 states where officers can claim a detainee consented.

Why is any state allowing LEOs to have sex with detainees, "consensually" or otherwise?

I find it even more stunning that there were two cops in the police van, and they both had sex with the handcuffed girl while on duty, confirmed by sperm DNA samples in the girl afterwards.

Neither cop got any serious punishment, and this was due to their word against hers in court.

If there had been in-van cameras or even just audio, it would almost certainly have corroborated her word as rape victim saying "no" repeatedly, or the cops' word that it was a fully consensual offer to have (presumably unprotected) sex with both cops in exchange for her freedom. (The cops' claim sounds like such a bizarre defence to me, because it obviously should be illegal to accept such an offer. But apparently it was allowed.)

> Cops do not get sent to jail if they rape or sexually assault their detainees?

Frequently, no, because of pro-cop bias among (in what is simultaneously approximately the order of both strength of pro-cop bias and temporal order in which the biases apply to a case) cops (who are the first line investigators of crime), prosecutors (who's involvement is necessary for criminal charges), judges, and the public (i.e., the jury pool.)

Frequently, no, because of pro-cop bias among cops, prosecutors, judges, and the public

So...everyone?

The public in aggregate, yes, but not everyone individually, no.

So do direct action. Go join an org and demonstrate. That's the only way change happens.

I strongly agree, what you are describing is what is needed.

I'm also concerned by the chilling effects we've seen lately on speech, starting with attacks on press freedom by government, but also aided by social media firms cooperating in censorship, and more recently the canceling of people who do things like protest in favor of the Palestinians, etc.

We can observe the extent of status quo social media censorship when we see how much "subversive" but legal and helpful/benign content that is popular on TikTok never got legs on other platforms.

There were cities that literally defunded the police. More accurately, they deliberately engineered a crime crisis to discredit police reform activism under the common misunderstanding that "defund the police" means "I want the Purge" and not "stop sending cops out to shoot at homeless people in a Wendy's drive-thru".

The thing about cops getting taken off the force is that it actually happens fairly commonly. The term of art in law enforcement for them is "gypsy[0] cops", because they jump from force to force whenever they do something that attracts media attention. Ironically, they are enabled by literally defunded police departments who are looking for someone they can pay peanuts to go issue traffic tickets all day. The really abusive bullies are their perfect employee, at least until they cause a media stir and have to be fired to save face.

In all these cases, there actually is active pressure from people to reform and it does go to the people that matter. The problem is that those people have a vested interest in keeping policing brutal, and they are also rhetorically slippery. They will actively misinterpret your sloganeering, they will ignore your political writings and pamphlets, and generally seek to embarrass you until you go away.

Less depressingly, I do recall a few cities[1] run by people with their heads on straight that did what the "defund the police" people meant, not what they literally said. And it turns out that, given not-crooked people in power implementing these things faithfully, it does work. The problem is entirely the people at the top making the decisions. What we need is not merely bottom-up pressure, but an explicit democratic mandate - i.e. infiltrating local government with competent politicians favorable to the cause.

Also, maybe we should change the slogan. I vote for "Refund the Police", because it has a double-meaning: send back the violent interventions and fund non-violent programs instead.

[0] Their words, not mine.

For those unaware, in Europe this word is basically the N-word.

[1] Whose names I frustratingly DO NOT REMEMBER

>There were cities that literally defunded the police. More accurately, they deliberately engineered a crime crisis to discredit police reform activism under the common misunderstanding that "defund the police" means "I want the Purge" and not "stop sending cops out to shoot at homeless people in a Wendy's drive-thru".

That might be the moderate opinion, but let's not pretend there were people unironically calling for the police to be abolished[1]. In this political environment, it's really hard to tell whether something is just a shitty slogan or something to be taken literally. Therefore I wouldn't put too much in your theory that police defundings were some bad faith attempts at interpretation. It's very plausible that they were implemented sincerely.

[1] https://www.nytimes.com/2020/06/12/opinion/sunday/floyd-abol...

I'm glad it's legal to film, particularly when you want to protect yourself when reporting a crime and you fear police reprisal for some reason.

However, I can see some truly asshole-ish behavior resulting from this if the influencers get wind of this decision and they decide to use it to make content. Imagine some Instagrammer gawking at a crime victim on the worst day of their life as they go to the police for help and they sit there smugly saying "It's legal, fr fr bruh, no cap. on god".

EDIT: IDGAF, just curious, why the downvotes?

> I'm glad it's legal to film, particularly when you want to protect yourself when reporting a crime and you fear police reprisal for some reason.

I am not glad it's legal to film, because of the risk of reprisal from criminals you may be going in to the police department to talk about.

> EDIT: IDGAF, just curious, why the downvotes?

The downvotes, I guess, are because this is kind of a silly concern. Steamers do rude things all the time, but that’s not a good reason to change the law to prevent everyone from doing the thing that seems rude in that case.

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