You Have a First Amendment Right to Record the Police

Re:You Have a First Amendment Right to Record the Police by baybal2 on Tuesday June 09, 2020 @08:53AM (#23466187)

> The problem with this is that a policeman with a billy club who beats you because you're recording him doesn't care about your rights and not get fired. So be careful out there

I had this discussion with many Americans: "What makes a constitutionally protected right to bear arms work, without a constitutionally protected right to use them?"

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Re:You Have a First Amendment Right to Record the Police by didgeoridoo on Tuesday June 09, 2020 @09:06AM (#23466309)

Believe it or not, in most states you do indeed have the right to self-defense against the police.[0] If the police are acting with excessive force, likely to cause great physical harm, you are within your rights to choose to fight back (notwithstanding the fact that this will probably get you killed). This principle was a big part of Randy Weaver’s successful defense after the Ruby Ridge stand-off.

[0]: https://www.nolo.com/legal-encyclopedia/resisting-arrest-whe...

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Re:You Have a First Amendment Right to Record the Police by wahern on Monday June 08, 2020 @08:37PM (#23462391)

I wonder, are there any apps that upload video in real-time?

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Re:You Have a First Amendment Right to Record the Police by Nicksil on Tuesday June 09, 2020 @01:01AM (#23463803)

I have not personally used this, but have it bookmarked from previous discussions. Might be worth a look:

https://www.aclu.org/issues/criminal-law-reform/reforming-po...

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Re:You Have a First Amendment Right to Record the Police by randomdude402 on Monday June 08, 2020 @10:44PM (#23463117)

https://www.reddit.com/r/YouShouldKnow/comments/gtnpcv/ysk_t...

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Re:You Have a First Amendment Right to Record the Police by getpost on Tuesday June 09, 2020 @11:50AM (#23467681)

https://www.aclu.org/issues/criminal-law-reform/reforming-po...

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Re:You Have a First Amendment Right to Record the Police by rasz on Monday June 08, 2020 @11:00PM (#23463194)

sure https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PEjipYKbOOU

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Re:You Have a First Amendment Right to Record the Police by bzb4 on Monday June 08, 2020 @08:48PM (#23462457)

Periscope?

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Re:You Have a First Amendment Right to Record the Police by colejohnson66 on Monday June 08, 2020 @09:24PM (#23462668)

Facebook Live

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Re:You Have a First Amendment Right to Record the Police by wahern on Monday June 08, 2020 @11:46PM (#23463462)

I guess I should have been more clear: real-time but not live or automatically published. If it's automatically published then many people may be reticent to begin recording. For example, maybe you don't want the fact that your friend or family member is being arrested to immediately become public knowledge or otherwise shared, embarrassing video and all.[1][2] If in the end there's no police misconduct, the whole incident can remain relatively private. Yet if it turns out you're recording misconduct then it would be important that the footage be uploaded in real-time in case the cop (or anybody else) destroys your phone.

FWIW, I abstain from Facebook, Twitter, and social media in general. Apologies if Facebook Live or any other suggestion does support this.

[1] I'm white but grew up in home environments where the police were called many times, sometimes hauling someone away kicking and screaming. (Typical unintended consequence of alcohol abuse and otherwise bad life decisions, albeit all too common life decisions in poor America.) You have to be sensitive to such situations, especially in the modern electronic era where it's extremely difficult to escape past mistakes.

[2] The arrest could have been mistaken, in which case you definitely don't want a video of it getting out unless there was actual police misconduct or possibly even if there was police misconduct.

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Re:You Have a First Amendment Right to Record the Police by im3w1l-alt on Monday June 08, 2020 @09:35PM (#23462740)

Does getting beat for recording actually happen though?

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Re:You Have a First Amendment Right to Record the Police by mey on Monday June 08, 2020 @11:01PM (#23463199)

https://www.nlg.org/police-targeting-nlg-legal-observers-at-...

https://www.aclu.org/news/free-speech/police-are-attacking-j...

Some sources

Edit: https://pressfreedomtracker.us/

2nd Edit: Quick note about Press Freedom Tracker, since they verify reports, their stats page may be a bit misleading. See https://twitter.com/uspresstracker/status/127005449029361664...

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Re:You Have a First Amendment Right to Record the Police by guerrilla on Tuesday June 09, 2020 @08:53AM (#23466185)

Have you missed the 383+ or so cases of police attacking press this week? stats [1] vids [2]

[1]. https://twitter.com/uspresstracker/status/127005449029361664...

[2]. https://twitter.com/apodoxus/status/1267336229097439239

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Re:You Have a First Amendment Right to Record the Police by grecy on Monday June 08, 2020 @10:55PM (#23463170)

It sure did to this Australian news crew live on air a few days ago

https://youtu.be/wkf-znzWKRc?t=18

also

https://www.forbes.com/sites/sergeiklebnikov/2020/06/04/jour...

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Re:You Have a First Amendment Right to Record the Police by craftinator on Tuesday June 09, 2020 @10:22AM (#23466901)

In Portland OR over the weekend, I witnessed this first hand. It wasn't even random people, it was press, with press badges. Beaten with a riot stick, and maced, multiple times. After he was beaten and maced he started limping away, the officer raised the mace, then hit him in the back a couple of times till the reporter turned around, then maced him full in the face. You can see the first hand and CCTV footage on Cory Elia's Twitter account, @TheRealCoryElia. He's also a news journalism professor at Portland Public University I believe.

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Re:You Have a First Amendment Right to Record the Police by Fjolsvith on Tuesday June 09, 2020 @11:31AM (#23467494)

Will this be any better once the policemen are replaced with brownshirts?

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

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