Via Robin Hanson comes news of a disturbing trend:
In at least three states, it is now illegal to record any on-duty police officer. Even if the encounter involves you and may be necessary to your defense, and even if the recording is on a public street where no expectation of privacy exists.
The legal justification for arresting the “shooter” rests on existing wiretapping or eavesdropping laws, with statutes against obstructing law enforcement sometimes cited. Illinois, Massachusetts, and Maryland are among the 12 states in which all parties must consent for a recording to be legal unless, as with TV news crews, it is obvious to all that recording is underway. Since the police do not consent, the camera-wielder can be arrested. Most all-party-consent states also include an exception for recording in public places where “no expectation of privacy exists” (Illinois does not) but in practice this exception is not being recognized. …
I don't feel like this was the intent of the 4th amendment. I always think - what if we removed the cameras or tape recorders (as would've been the case in 1790)? In that case, if I talk to someone and what I hear them say or see them do is illegal, my testimony is absolutely enterable as evidence. In fact, it might be criminal for me not to testify with what I know. And I certainly don't need to get their permission to let me tell a courtroom my version of what happened.
So rather than rely on my fallible memory, we introduce an infallible reproduction of what actually happened and suddenly this is illegal? That doesn't seem right. Technology has allowed us to remove much of the error - both inadvertent and malicious - from people's memory. But we reject the technology so we can keep the error? Again, that just seems backwards.
But nobody seems to agree with me, so I must be missing something.
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