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.