6 ms·

Federal judge halts Arizona ban on filming police within 8 feet

130 points by emptybits 4y ago

ddingus 4y ago
This one was interesting. Many were critics of the law. Cop watchers in AZ were basically going to test it and the clarity on distance saw a lot of positive comments.
- tiku 4y ago
  But what was the intention of the law? 8 feet seems close enough, you don't want people interfering with police work, just to film.
  - thehappypm 4y ago
    it’s ridiculous stupid bullshit, that’s all. If you aren’t doing anything wrong, officers, why are you worried about being filmed?
  - google234123 4y ago
    Honestly, the law seemed redundant. There are already laws that cover this - just write a memo to the police telling them to enforce it more.
  - Fatnino 4y ago
    The intention of the law is (was?) to equip cops with an invisible 16 foot diameter circle around them. This circle is to be used when one cop is misbehaving his partner walks towards any bystanders who happen to be filming and just has to brush this circle on them and then arrest the footage.
    - zimpenfish 4y ago
      > his partner walks towards any bystanders who happen to be filming That wouldn't work - it only covered cops who were "actively involved". Getting your partner to move towards someone with a camera would mean they were no longer covered by that. Otherwise they could just station cops on 16ft grid and prevent any filming for 100s of ft. (Not that I am defending the law - it was clearly a spiteful protest at cop oversight.)
      - arcticbull 4y ago
        > That wouldn't work - it only covered cops who were "actively involved". Getting your partner to move towards someone with a camera would mean they were no longer covered by that. Otherwise they could just station cops on 16ft grid and prevent any filming for 100s of ft. If only there was footage to corroborate the partner's statement on the matter. Quip aside, I can think of a half dozen ways off the top of my head for a partner to get in the way while remaining actively involved. It's ok for the balance to tip in favor of the people once in a while.
        zimpenfish 4y ago
        > I can think of a half dozen ways off the top of my head for a partner to get in the way while remaining actively involved. Sure but none of them are "walk towards the camera and the magic circle goes with them", right? Which is what a lot of people think is the "GOTCHA!" this law gives the cops.
        jebronie 4y ago
        Wow, extremely naive. All laws will be abused by bad actors.
        spoiler 4y ago
        Police officers are just people. There's always going to be people who abuse theirs power. Petty and malicious bullies revel in it a even. Unfortunately, the nature of the job attracts those people sometimes. I'm not trying to do the police as a career a disservice (which in general is a noble one, IMO), but they shown time and time again that they have plenty of bullies and bad apples (universally, not in any given place, but some places are worse). Edit: some other comments illustrate this better
        sonotathrowaway 4y ago
        The idea that it won’t be used by a cops partner to arrest bystanders to prevent their filming is patently laughable, and verges on being a bad faith argument. It’s clearly the intent of the law, and the idea that it won’t be used for such is impossible to reach without motivated reasoning.
  - skhr0680 4y ago
    They can ask you to stop filming, and you're free to say no, just like you are to any other civilian
    - Bilal_io 4y ago
      They shouldn't have the right to ask you to stop filming. They're public servants with guns, they're intimidating. If they ask a citizen to stop filming, said citizen could interpret it as an order and assume that's the law.
  - Cthulhu_ 4y ago
    I'm fairly sure interfering with police work is already covered by other laws and/or common sense. The cameras are there to keep the police honest; if they didn't want to be recorded or be made to wear body cams, they shouldn't have done things like plant drugs or kill people. I strongly feel like police who do that kind of thing should be tried as civilians, the police protecting their own is a big part of the issue.
    - mrguyorama 4y ago
      >police who do that kind of thing should be tried as civilians POLICE ARE CIVILIANS. They are not above the law, nor are they military members, or anything like that. They are bound by the same law as everyone else, no matter what they seem to want.
- lozenge 4y ago
  Who exactly gave it positive comments? Fox News didn't find any - https://www.foxnews.com/politics/arizona-gov-doug-ducey-signs-law-banning-video-recording-8-feet-police-activity https://www.foxnews.com/politics/arizona-gov-doug-ducey-sign... It didn't create a "safe to film" zone. Police could still argue you are obstructing their work at 9 feet. Or just move one of the officers to within the 8 foot range where you're automatically committing an offense regardless of whether your behaviour is actually interfering with their work.
  - ddingus 4y ago
    I oppose the law, because it seemed poorly written. Some of the cop watchers I saw were basically using the distance measure to ward off calls to retreat, saying "soon, it is 8 feet"
jaclaz 4y ago
As a side note, I have seen here (Italy) a lot of ads on TV recently about the Meta-EssilorLuxottica spectacles with a recording camera and the "recordiquette" expected. And BTW they have already been criticized because the led that should signal that the recording is on is tiny and not easily visible, and surely it won't be that difficult to cover it one way or the other. If those (or similar) devices for whatever reason start becoming common, I would expect that there would be no way in practice to know whether someone is recording, besides policemen, everyone else, anywhere.
- junon 4y ago
  Seems they learned nothing from the Google Glass fiasco.
  - jaclaz 4y ago
    But these are completely different devices, these are sold for 330 Euro here, which on one side is a lot of money, but on the other they are not that much more expensive than any "normal" designer pair of sun glasses. If any "influencer" will start using them you can be sure that everyone will want them, and they will become a way to show off not unlike the latest-latest iPhone or similar fashion items, and if they become common enough they will be misused.
- aa-jv 4y ago
  If you are in public, there is nothing you can do about being recorded. You should assume that the only place you will find true privacy is in your own home. Beyond that the expectation of privacy is unreasonable.
  - dereg 4y ago
    Amazon is chipping away at the idea that one should expect privacy on their own home.
    - walthamstow 4y ago
aa-jv 4y ago
This is a huge relief. One of the last defensive weapons we civilians have against the military industrial complex that desires to create the police state, is the fact that we can record everything. I can only hope that those who are behind this ban are learning that the right of the people to to hold their police force - and other violent forces - accountable, shall not be abrogated. IMHO, the 1st Amendment Auditors are a new class of heroes, we all need right now ..
- xbfivhvu 4y ago
  The auditors. Now there is a YouTube rabbit hole I haven't been down in a while.
  - aa-jv 4y ago
    If I'm free to go, I'm free to stay.
- mrguyorama 4y ago
  One big problem is that we record all these horrible offenses and needless violation of basic human rights, and nothing happens. A cop gets a paid vacation and is offered counseling for murdering someone. Maybe if you are lucky, you take the city to civil court and get money. But there's still only a couple cops going to prison, and zero changes to make policing kill fewer people per year. Worse, a significant segment of the population says that any negativity towards police is unacceptable.
  - jjeaff 4y ago
    I think we are improving some in that regard. I am seeing a lot more "resigned for unrelated reasons" for cops that get caught on tape abusing their power. They may be moving to another police force somewhere else. But at least it's some progress. And I think police forces are starting to see cops with a public record like that as a liability.
  - aa-jv 4y ago
    I don't think its the case, necessarily, that 'nothing happens'. Police are being held accountable, more and more - but if we don't have the facts, the accountability can't be enforced with prosecutions. So, this is definitely a step in the right direction.
ChoGGi 4y ago
Is there a list of the individuals that pushed this law?

130 points by emptybits 4y ago

This one was interesting. Many were critics of the law. Cop watchers in AZ were basically going to test it and the clarity on distance saw a lot of positive comments.

tiku 4y ago
But what was the intention of the law? 8 feet seems close enough, you don't want people interfering with police work, just to film.
- thehappypm 4y ago
  it’s ridiculous stupid bullshit, that’s all. If you aren’t doing anything wrong, officers, why are you worried about being filmed?
- google234123 4y ago
  Honestly, the law seemed redundant. There are already laws that cover this - just write a memo to the police telling them to enforce it more.
- Fatnino 4y ago
  The intention of the law is (was?) to equip cops with an invisible 16 foot diameter circle around them. This circle is to be used when one cop is misbehaving his partner walks towards any bystanders who happen to be filming and just has to brush this circle on them and then arrest the footage.
  - zimpenfish 4y ago
    > his partner walks towards any bystanders who happen to be filming That wouldn't work - it only covered cops who were "actively involved". Getting your partner to move towards someone with a camera would mean they were no longer covered by that. Otherwise they could just station cops on 16ft grid and prevent any filming for 100s of ft. (Not that I am defending the law - it was clearly a spiteful protest at cop oversight.)
    - arcticbull 4y ago
      > That wouldn't work - it only covered cops who were "actively involved". Getting your partner to move towards someone with a camera would mean they were no longer covered by that. Otherwise they could just station cops on 16ft grid and prevent any filming for 100s of ft. If only there was footage to corroborate the partner's statement on the matter. Quip aside, I can think of a half dozen ways off the top of my head for a partner to get in the way while remaining actively involved. It's ok for the balance to tip in favor of the people once in a while.
      - zimpenfish 4y ago
        > I can think of a half dozen ways off the top of my head for a partner to get in the way while remaining actively involved. Sure but none of them are "walk towards the camera and the magic circle goes with them", right? Which is what a lot of people think is the "GOTCHA!" this law gives the cops.
        jebronie 4y ago
        Wow, extremely naive. All laws will be abused by bad actors.
        spoiler 4y ago
        Police officers are just people. There's always going to be people who abuse theirs power. Petty and malicious bullies revel in it a even. Unfortunately, the nature of the job attracts those people sometimes. I'm not trying to do the police as a career a disservice (which in general is a noble one, IMO), but they shown time and time again that they have plenty of bullies and bad apples (universally, not in any given place, but some places are worse). Edit: some other comments illustrate this better
      - sonotathrowaway 4y ago
        The idea that it won’t be used by a cops partner to arrest bystanders to prevent their filming is patently laughable, and verges on being a bad faith argument. It’s clearly the intent of the law, and the idea that it won’t be used for such is impossible to reach without motivated reasoning.
- skhr0680 4y ago
  They can ask you to stop filming, and you're free to say no, just like you are to any other civilian
  - Bilal_io 4y ago
    They shouldn't have the right to ask you to stop filming. They're public servants with guns, they're intimidating. If they ask a citizen to stop filming, said citizen could interpret it as an order and assume that's the law.
- Cthulhu_ 4y ago
  I'm fairly sure interfering with police work is already covered by other laws and/or common sense. The cameras are there to keep the police honest; if they didn't want to be recorded or be made to wear body cams, they shouldn't have done things like plant drugs or kill people. I strongly feel like police who do that kind of thing should be tried as civilians, the police protecting their own is a big part of the issue.
  - mrguyorama 4y ago
    >police who do that kind of thing should be tried as civilians POLICE ARE CIVILIANS. They are not above the law, nor are they military members, or anything like that. They are bound by the same law as everyone else, no matter what they seem to want.
lozenge 4y ago
Who exactly gave it positive comments? Fox News didn't find any - https://www.foxnews.com/politics/arizona-gov-doug-ducey-signs-law-banning-video-recording-8-feet-police-activity https://www.foxnews.com/politics/arizona-gov-doug-ducey-sign... It didn't create a "safe to film" zone. Police could still argue you are obstructing their work at 9 feet. Or just move one of the officers to within the 8 foot range where you're automatically committing an offense regardless of whether your behaviour is actually interfering with their work.
- ddingus 4y ago
  I oppose the law, because it seemed poorly written. Some of the cop watchers I saw were basically using the distance measure to ward off calls to retreat, saying "soon, it is 8 feet"

jaclaz 4y ago

As a side note, I have seen here (Italy) a lot of ads on TV recently about the Meta-EssilorLuxottica spectacles with a recording camera and the "recordiquette" expected. And BTW they have already been criticized because the led that should signal that the recording is on is tiny and not easily visible, and surely it won't be that difficult to cover it one way or the other. If those (or similar) devices for whatever reason start becoming common, I would expect that there would be no way in practice to know whether someone is recording, besides policemen, everyone else, anywhere.

junon 4y ago
Seems they learned nothing from the Google Glass fiasco.
- jaclaz 4y ago
  But these are completely different devices, these are sold for 330 Euro here, which on one side is a lot of money, but on the other they are not that much more expensive than any "normal" designer pair of sun glasses. If any "influencer" will start using them you can be sure that everyone will want them, and they will become a way to show off not unlike the latest-latest iPhone or similar fashion items, and if they become common enough they will be misused.
aa-jv 4y ago
If you are in public, there is nothing you can do about being recorded. You should assume that the only place you will find true privacy is in your own home. Beyond that the expectation of privacy is unreasonable.
- dereg 4y ago
  Amazon is chipping away at the idea that one should expect privacy on their own home.
  - walthamstow 4y ago

aa-jv 4y ago

This is a huge relief. One of the last defensive weapons we civilians have against the military industrial complex that desires to create the police state, is the fact that we can record everything. I can only hope that those who are behind this ban are learning that the right of the people to to hold their police force - and other violent forces - accountable, shall not be abrogated. IMHO, the 1st Amendment Auditors are a new class of heroes, we all need right now ..

xbfivhvu 4y ago
The auditors. Now there is a YouTube rabbit hole I haven't been down in a while.
- aa-jv 4y ago
  If I'm free to go, I'm free to stay.
mrguyorama 4y ago
One big problem is that we record all these horrible offenses and needless violation of basic human rights, and nothing happens. A cop gets a paid vacation and is offered counseling for murdering someone. Maybe if you are lucky, you take the city to civil court and get money. But there's still only a couple cops going to prison, and zero changes to make policing kill fewer people per year. Worse, a significant segment of the population says that any negativity towards police is unacceptable.
- jjeaff 4y ago
  I think we are improving some in that regard. I am seeing a lot more "resigned for unrelated reasons" for cops that get caught on tape abusing their power. They may be moving to another police force somewhere else. But at least it's some progress. And I think police forces are starting to see cops with a public record like that as a liability.
- aa-jv 4y ago
  I don't think its the case, necessarily, that 'nothing happens'. Police are being held accountable, more and more - but if we don't have the facts, the accountability can't be enforced with prosecutions. So, this is definitely a step in the right direction.

ChoGGi 4y ago

Is there a list of the individuals that pushed this law?