It would. Do we have credible examples? Because we have a lot of evidence of cops lying, and only being caught on account of recordings, with disastrous effects. If one side is hypothetical and the other substantiated, it strikes me as reasonable to favour one over the other.
There's a reasonable distance that a law enforcement officer (or paramedic, or firefighter) need to be in control of, in order to focus on their job. Maybe it's 1ft, maybe it's 50ft: the courts should decide.
There's also a reasonable public expectation to be able to record police officers doing their job, for subsequent review.
Hopefully we can all agree that someone loudly "recording" shoulder to shoulder with police officer disrupts their ability to resolve situations? Just as we can agree that not having any recording of a police officer's potentially illegal actions is antithetical to ensuring justice?
There are disingenuous protesters who abuse recording excuses to disrupt law enforcement.
There are corrupt cops who abuse recording limitations to disrupt transparency.
Both of these things are wrong.
Right, it's already illegal to interfere with police.
It's unreasonably escalatory in situations that instead need more calm.
If you're in that position, particularly for something as simple as he took something you said the wrong way, the cameras might keep the officer from going overboard too.
Along with ensuring that hardware reliability and UX clearly communicates camera functioning to officers. (I'm not young enough to still assume widely-deployed tech, procured by the government, in real world scenarios is always functional)
Sure. We can also agree that throwing rotting sea slugs at anyone eating a hamburger is disagreeable. But absent evidence of it (a) happening and (b) going un(der)punished, any legislation to ban it is performative.
Performative legislation isn't bad per se. Ideally, it would have no effect. But given almost any increase in legal surface area brings rise to unintended consequences, the result is a net negative.
> are disingenuous protesters who abuse recording excuses to disrupt law enforcement
Again, do you have examples of people recording police disrupting law enforcement where those recording weren't punished (sufficiently)?
> Both of these things are wrong
If one is occuring more frequently, and moreover going more-frequently unpunished, then tipping the scale further in that direction is counterproductive.
If police abuse is running rampant while nobody can find unpunished instances of disruptive recording of the police, then these rules are more likely to further the abuse than facilitate legitimate law enforcement. (To say nothing of the wasted political capital, given the myriad of problems Florida has to deal with.)
It’s already against the law to interfere with an arrest. A mob of people surrounding officers attempting to arrest someone is already illegal, whether they have cameras in their hands or not.
This assumes sane body camera policies are in place, like immediate dismissal if the camera/mic is turned off/covered, during any part up to or during an arrest.
Assuming fantasies is rarely helpful when judging the effects of legislation.
Zero tolerance and enforcement should be the starting place.
(Coupled with adjusting policies and procedures to be more in line with actual experience, if we're going fully transparent)
You'll realize people get very uncomfortable very quickly when you start heading down a near bulletproof solution. They want the chaos, the charade and they definitely want the "vagueness" of laws because they can't handle the black and white nature of a lot of laws that were drawn up lazily.
If you have non-omniscient enforcement, there's a certain amount of lubrication between the law and reality.
If you have omniscient enforcement, the onus is on the law to account for reality.
Body cam is off? He's just a citizen with a nightstick. When he's tried, prosecution is held in contempt of court if they allow the jury in any way to know that, were his camera on, he would have been a police officer. Same with the defendant: if he mouths off about what was otherwise his job, he's going to jail for as long as it takes to convene a fresh jury, no bail, contempt.
Mandatory body cams were also dismissed by the cynical, and it's the rule in many forces now, perhaps even most. This is just an extension of that policy.
I think every single copy would be fired because of this. I've yet to see any body cam footage during an arrest where the camera wasn't covered up at some point. And since you are the one proposing clarity and specifics here, you've just demonstrated by having these specifics in place don't always help.
After all, can you, with 100% accuracy, measure with just your eyes 25.1 feet? What's the cop going to do? Break out the measuring tape? Where do they measure from? Also, how do they prove the intent part. After all, that's subjective. If I'm recording but my intent is not to do anything that is listed in the law, it doesn't apply to me.
So, lots of lack of clarity in between lots of bad specifics.
What I said is not the policy of most stations. I never claimed it was. But, it is a logical implementation that would protect against bad officers. For those places where it is policy, a failure of enforcement doesn't mean we throw out the concept of law, ffs.
> So, lots of lack of clarity in between lots of bad specifics.
You know what's harder to judge than, say, 25.0 feet? Having to completely guess, leaving it up to how grumpy the officer is.
The exceptions are Grand Juries and indictments.
[1] https://www.heddinglawfirm.com/unlawful-police-stop#:~:text=....
Something hanging from a mirror, a broken tail light, out of spec window tint, child seat improperly secured, load improperly secured, weaving in the lane, driving too slow for conditions, too fast for conditions, driving inconsistent speeds, not properly signaling, failure to maintain your vehicle in a safe condition (bald tires), illegally modified emissions controls (exhausts), using a cell phone while driving, etc.
Also, speedometers are notoriously out of calibration, and no one is going to believe the driver when they say they were going x speed without some evidence.
The vehicle code is huge, and it’s a rare driver that can’t be pulled over for something. ‘Fishing’ is a common activity that catches a lot of drug smuggling, people on warrants, DUI, etc.
Speed traps also generate a lot of revenue for many departments, depending on state laws.
If you look like you keep your nose clean, you’ll usually get left alone though, unless they’re bored.
I’ve personally had at least 2 instances where I was driving on rural highways at night, and was followed for 15+ minutes by police trying to find a reason to pull me over so they could search me though. They both let me go after it was obvious I wasn’t a drug smuggler or DUI.
I don't want to open up that messy box. The rule should be simple, stay at least 25ft away and record if you want to. This shouldn't even be up for debate.
Like who even wants to be within 25ft of anything remotely dangerous unless someone you know is involved. Why are we even having this discussion.
My theory: Because people want to neuter the police so that they can sow chaos and destabilize society. Bonus points, they take away the people (police) keeping the violence and bullies at bay through the threat of fear and consequences.
I was profiled, verbally assaulted, shouted down, searched, etc. All while AK assault rifles were being waived around to scare me while my car was searched.
I knew I did nothing wrong and it was just corruption and intimidation and fishing. So I responded with yes sir, no officer, etc. Eventually it blew over.
No idea how it would have went if bystanders started getting involved and causing chaos with proximity to the police.
I will agree that such recording has interfered with the arrest process at times, and that is more problematic.
But I'm a paramedic/firefighter and often have to work on patients (in an MVA, for example) in much closer proximity to rubberneckers.
Like when I teach EMTs and paramedics, and we cover things like extricating patients from vehicles. "This is great. The vehicle is level, you're in an apparatus bay at a fire station, you have great lighting, no noise, it's not pouring rain..."
More often than not, I see police escalating situations with people of interest and bystanders, rather than the other way around.
Law enforcement are often trying to handle a person they view as dangerous and, if there's a crowd of people around who are vocalizing their displeasure with you, you're going to feel more in danger.
I don't disagree with you about police escalating _violence_ in these situations which is why I specifically said "tensions".
IMO, a bad cop who is completely in the wrong and prone to violence will be more likely to commit violence if their attention is split between their suspect and the antagonistic crowd. Being surrounded by unfriendly people doesn't make people react better than they would have otherwise.
There are plenty of bad cops around. All I'm advocating for is that, if you're recording an altercation you believe unjust, record it and don't become part of it.
Does Norway have a problem with an excessive number of people filming police interactions in public?
I think this makes sense. Would be bad if every time a police officer tries to stop a crime, suddenly 20 hard of hearing people need to crowd around him really close in order to record him. Oh look, the criminal got away again. There are situations where different laws will conflict, and I hope in those situations crime prevention and safety take precedence.
Modern phone cameras are really good and 25 feet isn't very far. Seems like a good compromise so that cops can do their jobs but there can be some citizen oversight.