Woman who records traffic stop spends nite in jail
- Thread starter Chris0nllyn
- Start date
Hijinx
Well-Known Member
I don't know what is going on with police lately. I have read in the last couple of weeks of officers who arrested Firefighters for not moving their equipment out of the road where they have parked it to protect their crews. Yesterday I read of two volunteers who were ordered to move, when they refused, they finished their duties and went home where they were arrested.
Police Officer Arrests Firefighter At Accident Scene In California : The Two-Way : NPR
SC fire chief, firefighter arrested after brawl with deputies
Firefighter Wins $17,500 after Bad Arrest « Total Criminal Defense
In the one incident it appears the Fire boys got a little too demanding, but why weren't they arrested on the scene?
We also see in the lades video what officers call an assault. Looking at them too hard is sometimes considered an assault.
In a previous post
http://forums.somd.com/news-current...unk-cripple-found-not-guilty.html#post5342601
We saw an officer try to wring a man's arm off and when the man responded he was beaten.
Perhaps they should teach some common sense, courtesy, and patience to some of these officers.
I am happy that Police and Fire Crews in Southern Maryland are not trying out piss each other on the scene.
Hijinx
Well-Known Member
How come it is not legal for you to video them, but it is legal for them to video you?
And why are they frightened if they are performing their job correctly.
Chris0nllyn
Well-Known Member
It's legal to record them.
Unfortunately, some officers still believe it's not.
Don't worry though, after you get your phone taken, hand cuffed, throw in jail, and strip searched, you'll get released. No big deal.
Or you could just not record. Anything to make it easier for everyone.
glhs837
Power with Control
Well if they are recording you, they tell you up front, just like so many customer service lines. In theory, if she had told him, "Sir, I am going to record this" before hitting record on the phone, he would have had no reason to go after her. But since she said it after the start of recording, she had already recorded him without his permission, the supposed felony he talked about.
From what that report says though, it's still BS. See, what a lot of police are doing is taking old 1970s wiretapping laws and applying them to modern cell phone and helmet/dashcam recording applications. Those laws, written in an age when you had a cassette system hooked to your phone, usually refer to making audible recordings of persons without their knowledge.
Those laws were never intended for use in a public space, and certainly not for police/citizen interactions , which is why here in MD, and from what the report says, FL, the AGs in those states have said specifically that those laws dont apply, as no officer has a reasonable expectation of privacy in the course of normal citizen interactions. Now, if the officer is interviewing a domestic abuse victim on the sidewalk, and a bystander wants to record it, that's not valid, nor if an officer is meeting with a confidential informant.
But oddly enough, we never see cases like that, it's always being done by some officer who thinks he's freaking Judge Dredd.
if the Uniformed Officer is standing in a 'Public' Space ... anyone should be allowed to record the interaction , if a detective wants to meet a CI in a back alley, he is probably not going to be getting random people stopping and recording ...
and he Police want to do their thing with no one questioning them .... I am COP OBEY ...
LibertyBeacon
Unto dust we shall return
Anyone IS allowed to film/record. There is NO expectation of privacy in public. If you can see it with your eyes, you can film it.
You do need to keep a perimeter around a crime scene or other police activity. But this is something that is often abused by cops. Much like resisting arrest, where anything but abject submission to these a-holes is considered "resisting", the amount of perimeter you need to maintain is left up to what side of the bed the cop woke up on and whether or not he was serviced by his wife or girlfriend that morning.
Cases in point:
(Guy was smart, counting tiles. Aware of his surroundings)
glhs837
Power with Control
Agreed, but do keep in mind, while some places like CA have codified a citizens right to record barring interference with the officers, a lot of places have not. MD and FL, for instance, while there has been guidance issued by the AG, but that is not law, just the AGs guidance on what they will or will not prosecute. Small department like down here, the SA says dont do it, you can feel pretty sure it's not going to happen. Baltimore or MSP? Maybe not so much.
That does not bar, as you saw in the OP, an officer going after you for this, knowing full well it will never go to trial, just doing it to harass and make the point that recording officers might net you a night in jail
That does not bar, as you saw in the OP, an officer going after you for this, knowing full well it will never go to trial, just doing it to harass and make the point that recording officers might net you a night in jail
Aye
I saw the Subway video story ... officer Roas is Lying his ass off in his report
LibertyBeacon
Unto dust we shall return
Isn't the right to record codified in the 1st Amendment? We are all citizen journalists. We are all media. We are all press.
I mean I am glad that states are taking an active role in amplifying these rights that exist. The issue I take is that these rights are not conferred to us by government, but of course by God, our Creator. They exist by virtue of our humanity, not by virtue of a government who gives them to us. My fear is that if we as citizens keep relying on government to pass laws like this we will forget where these rights come from in the first place and become too reliant on government as the source of our rights.
glhs837
Power with Control
No argument from me. You are approaching it from the philosophical angle, while I am talking about the reality of whats actually happening legally. I agree that there shouldn't even be a question, but in reality there is. The law always lags the tech, and police are not the most forward thinking groups out there, as is common in groups who play with life and death, folks like that tend to not like change. We like the stuff that keeps us alive, we know that stuff. Stuff we don't know, not so much. As with most things, for most of them it's not evil intent, rather resistance to change.
if you apply Common Sense ... but no one ever accused the Police of Having Critical thinking Skills
basically they want to hide behavior and act how THEY See Fit ..
... trampling rights, abusing citizens ..
... the possibility of 60% of adults having some sort of recording device freaks them out ... so the get a little pissy
glhs837
Power with Control
I do recommend you both spend some time over at officer.com, just hanging around. You will truly see that there isn't some overwhelming attitude of "Eff the citizens, man, lets go stomp some into a puddle!!!!". The great majority of officers are just folks, guys who go to work, do the best they can to do the job and make sure everyone is safe. Over there, you will see some of the regular officers harass the azzhats. But some wont, a lot will bend over backwards to make allowances, saying "Well, I wouldn't do that myself, but I can see where someone else might think that's okay".
Which, I think is the biggest problem with LE today, that blue line attitude. Look at that trooper in FL, who pulled over a Miami PD officer for going 120 through traffic off duty in his cruiser, and when he refused to comply, cuffed and stuffed him. the good is that it stuck, and he lost his job, as he should have. the bad is that there are thousands of officers who say "Bitch shoulda minded her own business". Her personal info has been pulled hundreds of times illegally by fellow officers, and thats a problem.
Which, I think is the biggest problem with LE today, that blue line attitude. Look at that trooper in FL, who pulled over a Miami PD officer for going 120 through traffic off duty in his cruiser, and when he refused to comply, cuffed and stuffed him. the good is that it stuck, and he lost his job, as he should have. the bad is that there are thousands of officers who say "Bitch shoulda minded her own business". Her personal info has been pulled hundreds of times illegally by fellow officers, and thats a problem.
itsrequired
New Member
It's not the video recording that gets one in trouble in Maryland but the audio recording. You can't surreptitiously record a person as Maryland is a two party consent state. You can't record with one party consent without certain codified exceptions. There is no difference between the media and citizens anytime when it comes to public information.
LibertyBeacon
Unto dust we shall return
That is not completely correct. In Maryland, as in most so-called "two party consent" states, there still has to be an expectation of privacy to for that consent proviso to apply.
In other words, if you have having a telephone conversation with someone, both geographically situated within the state of Maryland, and you want to audio record that conversation, you need consent from the other party. That's because there is an expectation of privacy during the course of a phone call.
If you are in public then by definition there is no expectation of privacy and that proviso doesn't apply.
Source: my lawyer. Also, read about the Anthony Graber case in Maryland. He's the dude that was speeding and/or doing tricks on his crotch rocket in Maryland and recorded the cop doing when he got stopped.
Start here: Anthony Graber | Judge says man within rights to record police traffic stop - Baltimore Sun
glhs837
Power with Control
Well, it's not so cut and dried.
U.S. Justice Department Issues Letters Supporting Citizens Recording Police Officers | CNS Maryland
Anthony Graber | Recording police likely OK, attorney general says - Baltimore Sun
http://www.thenewspaper.com/rlc/docs/2010/md-youtube.pdf
The key point is that in the opinion of the AG (and others, including the USDOJ) very few conversations an officer might have with a citizen qualify as "oral communications", since part of the definition of such is the reasonable expectation of privacy, and since citizens, legally speaking are not allowed to expect such privacy over any conversation with police officers, then it goes both ways. So, no, under most circumstances, recording a police officer, without their knowledge doesn't violate MDs or the Feds wiretapping laws.
Tilted
..
That's not how law works. In order for something to be legal, it doesn't need to be expressly codified that it is legal (with some limited common law exceptions); it just needs to not be codified that it is illegal. There isn't a law in Maryland that makes it illegal to (audio) record non-private conversations (in-person communication that is, as opposed to wire or electronic communications). So, it IS the law in Maryland that doing so is legal. And that's not just based on the AG's guidance, that's based on what the law itself says and what Maryland courts have said.
At this point, if a LEO officer in Maryland arrests someone for recording them performing their duties in public they are either ignorant of the law in Maryland to the point of negligence or they are willfully ignoring what the law is and abusing their power.