Jodie Amato

November 22, 2016

The First Amendment rights insure us as Americans that we have certain
and specific freedoms such as: religion, expression, assembly, and the right
to petition. We are also guaranteed freedom of expression and the rights to
speak freely, assemble peacefully, and petition government. We have the
right to peacefully protest a law, and achieve goals such as social change
through

symbolic

protests,

civil

obedience,

economic

or

political

noncooperation, or other methods, without using violence. Today millions of

Americans use a device with a camera giving us access to record what is
right in front of us. With the increase of police brutality, people have started
to

video

tape

police

officers

in

action.

Some

restrictions

may

be

constitutional; for example, if you are taping law enforcement activity you
may not get involved. But simply prohibiting the recording of police activity
is not constitutional. Police officers do have a right to tell you to stop
interfering with their work, but they still are not allowed to destroy film or
delete any evidence. Photographing and videotaping something or someone
is a form of power, and people are loath to give up power, including police
officers. It is a power struggle where the citizens are protected by the law,
but because it is a power struggle, sometimes that is just not enough.
Over the years, the nation's courts have moved towards recognizing First
Amendment protections for citizens who film public servants carrying out

public duties.

There are quite a few court cases that address freedom of

filming police officers in action and how our First Amendment rights are
protected. In 2007 a man videotaped a crime scene, the officers arrested the
spectator. The police confiscated his cell phone and a computer flash drive;
later he filed a civil rights action against the officers and the city for alleged
violations of his First and Fourth Amendment rights. He won this case and
was proven not guilty. Also in December 2009 Christopher Drew, a street
artist was arrested while selling art on the streets of Chicago; since Chicago
has an anti peddler law. During the arrest, police officers found a small audio
recorder that was recording and charged Drew under felony wiretapping
laws; unfortunately unlike the first case I talked about Drew spent 4 years in
prison. Even people who are photographers and journalist for news and blogs
have been arrest for taking pictures and videos of police. If we have first
Amendment rights, then why are so many people being arrested for
exercising their first Amendment right? According to Izzi, if you are arguably
Constitutionally protected while photographing police in public while during
the course of their public duties, no matter where you are, you should have a
basic idea of what that entails. "Public duties" means while police officers
are: On patrol Investigating in public detaining an individual in public
Conducting a traffic stop If you are asked to stop filming or making
photographs, politely remind the officer that you have a First Amendment
right to engage in expressive conduct in a public place that is not interfering
with their duties (Izzi/2016). If you are taping a police officer during their

duty it is important to stay calm if they come over and ask you what you are
doing. Cops are not celebrities; therefore they are not used to having
cameras in their face when doing their everyday job.
Community policing today has a expanded through social networking to
locate missing children, alert neighbors of suspicious activity, and even
inform the public about crimes committed in their neighborhoods. Social
media is a way many people use to exercise their First Amendment right.
People use Facebook and Twitter to post how they strongly feel about an
issue happing in the news. Police brutality is an issue that has been going on
for a while now, and when people videos tape the police in a crime scene
they feel intimidated to post it on their Facebook and YouTube. When people
post a crime scene on line it becomes a valuable intelligence-gathering tool
for law enforcement agencies, as well as a source of evidence for defense.
According to Dwyer, While no one wants to find themselves on YouTube or
any other social media site, the present-day reality is that there is increased
public scrutiny of officers and an added avenue for bringing to light some
objectionable officer behavior. This is not necessarily a bad thing because it
has resulted in police departments being able to dismiss marginal officers for
behavior that may have otherwise not been able to be substantiated but for
a citizens recording. Arrests of citizens who videotape police in public would
be justified if the citizen is otherwise interfering with the performance of the
officers duty (Dwyer/2011). Although people post on social media about

negative police activity; they will also post about a good thing a police office
did that might get ignored by the main stream news.
Our digital devices hold vast amounts of personal information about us
probably more than anything. This sensitive data is worth protecting from
prying eyes, including those of the government. The Fourth Amendment to
the U.S. Constitution protects us from unreasonable government searches
and seizures, and this protection extends to your computer and portable
devices. The only way a police can search your phone is if there is a warrant
requirement out for you. There are some circumstances when police can
confiscate your device. According to Reardon, As long as an officer has
probable cause to believe the seized item is evidence of a crime, and has
objectively reasonable grounds to believe he must act immediately to
preserve that evidence, the seizure is reasonable notwithstanding the
officers subjective motivation or the mere evidentiary nature of the seized
material. That calculus changes but little when police seize items protected
by the First Amendment (Reardon/2013). If a person gives their consents to
hands over their phone, an officer can usually upload the needed information
relatively quickly at headquarters. But, if a person refuses to give up their
phone and police believe it contains evidence of a crime, then officers can
seize it. A search warrant isnt needed at the time officers seize the phone,
but one is in order to download information from the device.

The filming of

police by civilians has sparked controversy, and it often causes confusion

about what is legal. It is obvious that you can film police on camera you just

cannot interact with their law activates. It gets out of control when people
who are recording are so close to the police officer that they're distracting
the police officer, or the police officer can't tell if it is a camera or a weapon.
Many people and police officers often wonder what is the difference between
interfering with ligament law enforcement activity and filming. Most of the
time the people that are videotaping do not understand what's going on.
They just happen to walk upon the scene, and they just start taping. And
that's their constitutional right, but they cannot interfere with the police.
With the rise of police brutality many people believe that police should
have body cameras, a camera attached to their body. If police had body
cameras it would lower the percent of stop-and-frisks. This would also
prevent cops from planting evidence on someone they think is spacious for
using drugs. When police brutalities incidents happen police often say that
the defender was threaten them or being aggressive and violent. More
police officers would feel intimated and they would diffidently think before
they do an action. Police would less likely to use force; also many members
of a community place will gain greater trust in police. As much as this would
benefit many issues happening, many people do not believe in this
technique. Many people believe that if police had body cameras, their taxes
would go up. Yes, it is probably true that taxes would go up, but if they did it
would go up sparsely. I think people would rather pay an extra small amount
in taxes instead of constantly seeing on the news that a person was killed
from police brutality and then a protest right in their city. People and police

often believe that if body cameras were part of duty it would be

unconstitutional. According to Freund, The First and Fourth Amendments,
state Freedom of Information acts, and state wiretapping statutes all limit
the use of video recording by law enforcement, however, the case law and
statutes were not written with body-cameras in mind, leaving significant
gaps between what is sound policy and what is legal. Policies and legislation
addressing the use of body-mounted cameras should consider a multitude of
factors, including the potential for embarrassment and harm to individual
members of the public, the chilling effect on free speech, the effect on
interactions between police officers and the public, and the privacy rights of
police officers (Freund/2015). Although some people dont believe in police
wearing body cameras, I strongly feel that they should. It is just human
nature that if someone is being monitored they will take their job more
seriously. If police wore body cameras less people would video tape a police
officer in forces. A person would not have to pull out their phone to get the
evidence on tape. I also think that more police have come around to the idea
of wearing body cameras. There are many more cops doing good things in a
community than harm. Lately with news networks posting about police
brutality, cops are not getting a good name. People are losing trust in police
officers, and tend to speak out violently agent them.
Our first Amendment ensures us that we can videotape a police officer,
but it leaves us to wonder why are people still being arrested for this action.
All states have different laws.

Sources:
Izzi, Matthew/ Filming and Photographing the Police/legal match/2016/WEB
Retrieved from:
http://www.legalmatch.com/law-library/article/filming-and-photographing-thepolice.html
Dwyer, Terrence/ Videotaping the police: A brief legal analysis/police one/
2011/WEB
Retrieved from:
https://www.policeone.com/legal/articles/3801254-Videotaping-the-police-Abrief-legal-analysis/
REARDON, C. M. (2013). CELL PHONES, POLICE RECORDING, AND THE
INTERSECTION OF THE FIRST AND FOURTH AMENDMENTS. Duke Law Journal,
63(3), 735-779.
Retrieved from:
http://library.esc.edu/login?url=http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?
direct=true&db=a9h&AN=92883842&site=eds-live

FREUND, K. (2015). When Cameras Are Rolling: Privacy Implications of BodyMounted Cameras on Police. Columbia Journal Of Law & Social Problems,
49(1), 91-133
Retrieved from:
http://library.esc.edu/login?url=http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?
direct=true&db=sih&AN=111550589&site=eds-live