A US court of appeals ruled this past week that citizens — whether they’re journalists or not — have a right under the First Amendment to peacefully film or record police officers on the job in public. The question has come up repeatedly as the widespread use of sophisticated camera-ready cell phones has enabled a level of transparency and accountability in public safety that potentially makes every civilian on the street on a backstop against police misconduct.
Police officers from Maryland to California have cited vague state wiretap laws to not only object to the practice but also arrest citizens caught doing it. Some state laws make it illegal to record audio or video of a person without his or her consent. Police officers have also argued that such footage violates their privacy.
Many legal scholars, though, have countered that such logic can’t reasonably extend to police officers performing their duties in public — and that such a policy clearly violates the public interest. A three-judge panel for the U.S. Court of Appeals for the First Circuit unanimously agreed, writing:
It is firmly established that the First Amendment’s aegis extends further than the text’s proscription on laws ‘abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press,’ and encompasses a range of conduct related to the gathering and dissemination of information. … The filming of government officials engaged in their duties in a public place, including police officers performing their responsibilities, fits comfortably within these principles. Gathering information about government officials in a form that can readily be disseminated to others serves a cardinal First Amendment interest in protecting and promoting ‘the free discussion of governmental affairs.’
The case began in October of 2007 when Simon Glik, a lawyer, shot video footage with his cell phone of police officers in Boston whom he believed were using excessive force to arrest a young man. Glik objected to one of the officers, explained that he had recorded footage, and was promptly arrested himself. His cell phone was also taken.
The charges against Glik — which also included disturbing the peace — were dismissed by a judge several months later. Glik attempted to file an internal-affairs complaint with the Boston Police Department against the officers involved. When that complaint went nowhere, he filed a lawsuit, in February 2010, against the officers arguing that his civil rights under the First and Fourth Amendment had been violated.
In siding with Glik, the court stressed that the right to collect information on public officials in public belongs equally to journalists and civilian bystanders, particularly in the age of “citizen journalism” and ubiquitous camera phones. The judges wrote:
Changes in technology and society have made the lines between private citizen and journalist exceedingly difficult to draw. The proliferation of electronic devices with video-recording capability means that many of our images of current events come from bystanders with a ready cell phone or digital camera rather than a traditional film crew, and news stories are now just as likely to be broken by a blogger at her computer as a reporter at a major newspaper. Such developments make clear why the news-gathering protections of the First Amendment cannot turn on professional credentials or status.
The European Court of Human Rights will this month examine complaints against Azerbaijan filed by bloggers Emin Milli and Adnan Hajizade. The pair claim that their detention from July 2009 to November 2010 and subsequent conviction violated articles of the European Convention on Human Rights.
The complaint filed by Milli and Hajizade says that Article 6, on the right to a fair trial, was violated because they were allowed only belated access to their lawyers and because they court took no account of what their lawyers said.
Article 8 on respect for private and family life was violated, according to the complaint, because the two bloggers were denied family visits while held and certain family members were not allowed to testify at the trial.
Article 10 protects the right to freedom of expression, including the “freedom to hold opinions and to receive and impart information and ideas without interference by public authority and regardless of frontiers.”
The two prominent youth activists were arrested in July 2009 on charges of “hooliganism” and “inflicting minor bodily harm”, after a fight in a restaurant in downtown Baku. Reports and eyewitness accounts have said the pair were talking among a group of other civil society figures when they were severely beaten by two sportsmen, who it has been alleged were government-orchestrated provocateurs. After Milli and Hajizade filed a complaint with police, they were arrested, although their assailants were let go, raising suspicions that the duo’s attack and arrest were linked to their activism.
In November of the same year, having both been held in prison for over four months, the pair were sentenced. Hajizade received a two-year sentence and Milli two-and-a-half years. They were released a year later, although their convictions have not been overturned. The Presidency of the European Union, Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (PACE), Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) and various rights groups all condemned the verdict.
Both bloggers had been prolific in using social media platforms such as YouTube, Facebook, and Twitter to mobilise Azerbaijani youth mobilise opposition against the government, speaking out against high-level corruption, misuse of oil revenues and censorship.
Prior to their arrest, the pair had earned their title “Donkey Bloggers” by posting a video satirising the country’s government for having spent a large amount of state money importing two donkeys from Germany. Rights groups had suspected the video was a key trigger in the bloggers’ arrest.
Last year Index on Censorship together with ARTICLE 19, Media Diversity Institute, and Open Society Foundations, produced a report on free expression in Azerbajan: Free Expression Under Attack
The state-owned California Science Center has been embroiled for two years in a legal dispute over a documentary critiquing evolution. The American Freedom Alliance, which says it “promotes, defends and upholds Western values and ideals” — apparently, among them, the dubious scientific theory of Intelligent Design — originally sought to air the film in the rented science center’s IMAX theatre in 2009.
The museum eventually canceled the documentary, Darwin’s Dilemma: The Mystery of the Cambrian Fossil Record, for fear of appearing to endorse its claims. The American Freedom Alliance then sued, arguing that the government-run science center had violated the First Amendment by showing preference for one viewpoint (evolution) over another (intelligent design, generally considered to be a more publicly palatable version of religious-based creationism).
Last week the two reached a settlement: The science center is paying the American Freedom Alliance $110,000 to end the dispute, although, as the Los Angeles Times has pointed out, neither party is admitting wrongdoing in the unusual agreement. As part of the settlement, the science center agreed to invite the film back for a screening, and the American Freedom Alliance agreed to turn the invitation down.
Intelligent Design advocates are properly claiming victory, although their logic is slightly flawed. Said William J. Becker, Jr., the alliance’s lawyer: “It’s a vindication for ID, and First Amendment guarantees of free speech.”
While the latter may be true, the settlement hardly confers on intelligent design some new respectability in the eyes of public institutions. The notion that government may not suppress or favor the expression of certain ideas has nothing to do with whether or not those ideas have any merit.
On Sunday, Sudanese security forces confiscated issues of Al-Maydan, the bi-weekly mouthpiece of the Sudanese Communist Party (SCP). According to the newspaper, this is the sixth time in the last four months that copies have been confiscated.
