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Comment by Lord-Jobo | Hacker News Reader

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.

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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.

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?).

> 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?

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