EFF Updates RSSNo Face, No Case: California’s S.B. 627 Demands Cops Show Their Faces
KellyAnn Romanych (she/her)
Yes, You Have the Right to Film ICE
https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2025/02/yes-you-have-right-film-ice
Yes, You Have the Right to Film ICE
Across the United States, Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) has already begun increasing enforcement operations, including highly publicized raids. As immigrant communities, families, allies, and activists think about what can be done to shift policy and protect people, one thing is certain...
mvarioFederal Court Says Sheriff Violated Citizen Journalist’s Rights So Hard There’s No Need To Bring In A Jury | Techdirt
Federal Court Says Sheriff Violated Citizen Journalist’s Rights So Hard There’s No Need To Bring In A Jury
As they say, the wheels of justice grind slowly. The presumed upside is that they grind finely, which means every periodic iteration should produce better outcomes. And maybe that’s true in s…
PixelJones#RightToPrivacy for Me but not for Thee: Armed police raid a family's home on false premises & then SUE b/c the officers' privacy (boo hoo?) was violated when the family posted video taken inside their _own home_ after their door was busted down.
https://www.fox19.com/2023/03/22/afroman-sued-by-law-enforcment-officers-who-raided-his-home/
William Lindsey 
The statement by Witness that I just shared about the right to record as a human right is accompanied by the video linked below.
#RighttoRecord #HumanRights #media #SocialJustice
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Right to Record: Protest. Resist. Exist. | Explainer
Witness writes,
"At WITNESS, we view the right to record as the right to take out a camera, cell phone, or other recording device to film the police, military and law enforcement officials without fear of arrest, violence, or other retaliation. This right has been recognized by the UN Human Rights Council.
'The right to record gives us an opportunity to preserve history, an opportunity to tell our stories and own our narratives.'"
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Xun-ling Au 歐迅灵MilkTeaAllianceCalendar (Repost)
New Event!
9th Dec 9am Eastern time
Join
https://www.witness.org/
&
engagemedia.org
for a learning & sharing huddle: "The Right to Record"
Part of the #RightToRecord: Protest. Resist. Exist! campaign!
Live on YT:
https://youtube.com/watch?v=x82JDsjjaTM
petapixel (unofficial)International Photojournalists Sue NYPD Over Arrests and Beatings
A group of five photojournalists who were arrested and or beaten during last year's protests against racial injustice has sued the NYPD in an attempt to stop what they call egregious and repeated violations of journalists' right to record police activity on public streets.
The suit is being led by the National Press Photographers Association (NPAA) in partnership with David Wright Tremaine LLP, a leading First Amendment litigation law firm. The suit has been filed in the Southern District of New York and a jury trial has been demanded.
The five plaintiff photojournalists have published their work in leading global news outlets, including The New York Times , The Times of London, The Guardian, The Wall Street Journal, Paris Match, Le Monde, CNN, The BBC, The Atlantic, Rolling Stone , and more. They say that none of them interfered with police activity in any way.
"There has been a longstanding failure on the part of the City to train, supervise, and discipline police who interfere with the media trying to do their jobs," Mickey H. Osterreicher, general counsel to the NPPA, says. "With this action, we're asking the court to finally call the NYPD to account for its unlawful practices."
© 2020 Mel D. Cole
Amr Alfiky, a photography resident at National Geographic and former photography fellow at the New York Times, was arrested while capturing police activity on the Lower East Side and, in a second incident, violently attacked by an officer while covering protests in Brooklyn.
Diana Zeyneb Alhindawi, a renowned documentary and news photographer, was assaulted by a baton-wielding officer while photographing police beating a young man in Lower Manhattan.
Mel D. Cole, a widely published visual journalist and music photographer, was documenting police-protester clashes from the Brooklyn Bridge footpath when he was arrested, stripped of his cameras, and held for seven hours.
Jae Donnelly, a well-known photographer and regular contributor to The Daily Mail, was assaulted by a baton-wielding officer while photographing protestors in the Hell's Kitchen neighborhood.
Adam Gray, chief photographer for the British press agency South West News Service, and BPPA (British Press Photographers’ Association) Press Photographer of the Year 2020, was assaulted without warning, arrested, and detained while covering protests in and around Union Square.
"Each of these professional photojournalists was in the process of lawfully, peacefully gathering news by photographing police activity from a public street or sidewalk, when he or she was targeted by one or more NYPD officers," Osterreicher says. "This outrageous interference in their constitutionally protected activities is a threat to the most basic freedoms of a democratic society and to the public's right to know. It must not go unanswered."
Image credits: Header image © 2020 Adam Gray and used with permission. Caption: People attend a protest outside of the Barclays Center, Brooklyn, New York, in protest against police brutality. May 29 2020. Protests have spread around the country since George Floyd’s death in Minneapolis.
#culture #news #journalists #law #lawenforcement #lawsuit #newyork #newyorkpolicedepartment #nppa #nypd #photojournalist #photojournalists #polics #righttorecord
ACLU Challenges Ruling Where Woman Was Arrested for Filming Police
Journalism and civil rights groups have joined in the effort to overturn a West Palm Beach appeals court decision that they think could block the public and press from filming police in the future.
The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) has urged the 4th District Court of Appeals to reconsider its decision to uphold the arrest of Sharron Tasha Ford, a Boynton Beach mother, who began filming when she was summoned by the police force after her son had been caught trespassing into a movie theater.
According to the Palm Beach Post , Boynton Beach police repeatedly told Ford to stop filming, claiming it was illegal, and when she refused, they handcuffed her and took her to jail.
Ford was charged with resisting arrest without violence and intercepting oral communications, and even though state prosecutors refused to pursue the charges, Ford sued the city for false arrest. Her claim was rejected by Circuit Judge Joseph Curley, who ruled that police had probable cause to arrest her.
This month, Circuit Judge Curley's ruling was narrowly upheld by a three-judge panel of the appellate court, with Judge Martha Warner presented dissent and objected to the conclusions reached by the other two judges, Melanie May and Edward Artau. Both Warner and ACLU attorney Jim Green used George Floyd's murder to explain why they thought this was the wrong decision. The two argued that it sets the precedent that had the person who recorded Floyd saying "I can't breathe" to the officers holding him down been in Florida, they would have been guilty of a crime.
Although most police officers wear body cameras and people are not routinely arrested for filming them -- which is an act protected by the First Amendment -- the public is often illegally ordered by officers to put away their phones.
Green argues that "the sweeping decision would give cops the right to arrest people who refuse," which can have a large impact on not just citizens but also the media because the ruling is so broad that it could allow police to stop news organizations from filming police conducting duty on public streets.
ACLU alarmed, seeks to overturn ruling on Boynton mom filming police https://t.co/1WkBpoChm8
-- The Palm Beach Post (@pbpost) May 21, 2021
Judges May and Artau also didn't directly address whether Ford should have been charged with intercepting oral communications under Florida's wiretapping statute, which is a "two-party consent" law. Because they had already agreed that police had probable cause for arrest on the obstruction charge, they said that the wiretapping charge didn't require a decision.
However, Green argues that this was disingenuous because the only thing Ford did that could be seen as obstruction was to record the officers, which she had a constitutional right to do so.
"Courts across the country… have held that ordinary citizens have a First Amendment right to record police officers in the performance of their official duties in public places, subject to reasonable time, manner, and place restrictions," says the ACLU attorney.
In response to this, Boynton Beach police officials have declined to divulge whether Ford's First Amendment rights were violated. Instead, police spokesperson Stephanie Slater states that "the Fourth District Court of Appeal found probable cause for the plaintiff’s arrest for obstruction without violence" and "this decision confirms that Boynton Beach police officers acted in accordance with Florida law."
Furthermore, Slater noted that the department doesn't have a specific policy that dictates how police should respond if the public starts filming them.
Currently, Green is asking for permission to step in while Ford's attorney, Sam Alexander, has also asked the appeals court to reconsider its decision. Green believes that this is "an important case," and as Ford's constitutional rights are at stake, it is possible that the team will opt to skip the Florida Supreme Court and ask the U.S. Supreme Court to hear the case.
#law #news #aclu #arrest #filming #firstamendment #florida #journalism #police #policeofficer #righttorecord
