Even If You Support Police, Don’t Ban People From Recording Them
Police, questioned over tactics and culturally besieged not too long ago, find themselves with renewed cachet amidst concerns over crime and campus chaos. That means leverage to win themselves leeway in how they go about their jobs—pushing, for instance, laws that restrict the public’s right to record cops making arrests, with Florida the latest jurisdiction to enact such a bill. That pleases fans of law enforcement, but it reduces accountability for an armed and often abusive arm of government.
Florida Proudly Supports Police Unaccountability
“I was proud to sign legislation today to ensure law enforcement officers can serve our communities without worrying about harassment from anti-police activists,” Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis announced April 12. “We will continue to take action to ensure Florida remains the friendliest state in the nation for law enforcement officers.”
The two bills DeSantis signed that day certainly go a long way towards making the state very friendly to cops. H.B. 601 guarantees that police departments will control oversight boards that investigate their conduct. S.B. 184, in line with “buffer” legislation in other states intended to impede recording of law-enforcement activity, lets police order members of the public to remain at least 25 feet distant under threat of arrest.
“We appreciate the importance of protecting first responders but are concerned that the bill prevents citizens from going near or filming first responders within 25 feet if told not to approach,” noted the state’s First Amendment Foundation, which urged DeSantis to veto the legislation. “This bill would undermine citizen journalists and could allow for undocumented police misconduct.”
Lawmakers and DeSantis made much of the threat posed by citizens who “harass” and “threaten” police, and indeed we’ve seen some of that at anti-Israel protests around the country. But agitators already blocking bridges or occupying buildings are unlikely to be deterred by yet one more law. The real targets will be people upsetting cops by recording them at inconvenient moments.
A History of Bad Behavior out of Public View
“Back in 2013, near 33rd and Seward, video shows a confrontation between police and a local family escalated,” Alex Whitney reported in February for Omaha’s KMTV. “The camera shows officers throwing a man to the ground and start beating him. Officers rushed inside the [family’s] home and started seizing and destroying the phones of family members who recorded the incident. A neighbor captured video of the confrontation, which led to a lawsuit and termination of four officers.”
KMTV brought up that story as Nebraska legislators considered L.B. 1185, a bill that, like the new Florida law, would set up a buffer zone around police. The Nebraska bill, which hasn’t passed, created only a 10-foot zone around officers from which they could exclude members of the public. Even so, as the news report pointed out, “courts
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