john_h.1 Posted March 25, 2015 Share Posted March 25, 2015 <p>http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2015/03/25/texas-cop-watcher-bill-under-fire-from-various-groups/</p> Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Matt Laur Posted March 25, 2015 Share Posted March 25, 2015 <p>I was pleased to see that a larger law enforcement group was opposed to this, until I saw that their concern was that the set buffer distances - when set at a hard distance by the law - may <em>not be big enough</em>. Their point was that every situation is difference, and that trained LEOs have the judgement to say things like, "Stay across the street on that sidewalk until we get this situation under control," etc. I agree that cops need to be able to exercise judgement, but they should have that latitude without there being a hard minimum. <br /><br />Another interesting issue: this essentially precludes anyone from using, say, their smartphone to record something like a traffic stop. If you're the driver or passenger in a vehicle being pulled over, this law would make recording that event illegal. I'm sure that many protester-types would also be annoyed to find that if they're wearing a GoPro on their head during a march or some such, that if they allow that GoPro to keep recording as a police officer walks up to them, they're by default falling into the illegal zone, even if they didn't move. Likewise someone with a dash-cam on their car would be breaking the law if they didn't turn it off as they rolled through traffic and came without notice upon, say, a DUI arrest taking place on the shoulder next to their lane. And what about security cameras at a business? If you're recording video 24x7, and the camera that records the door at the front of your business happens to record an officer dealing with someone disturbing the peace or something simliar, within the "buffer" distance of your front door ... poof, you've broken the law?<br /><br />This proposal has a lot of baked-in gotchas before one even addresses the constitutional angles.</p> Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
lex_jenkins Posted March 25, 2015 Share Posted March 25, 2015 Good grief, Texas finally dumped our most recent stupid law that criminalized photographing school wrestling and cheerleaders. Now this? I love my home state but we're seriously in need of a brain transplant. Igor picked the Abby Normal brain jar and we're still suffering from the dumbs. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JDMvW Posted March 25, 2015 Share Posted March 25, 2015 <p>Illinois's old "do not photograph/record an officer" law was struck down, and there is talk of a new law that will ban photography/eavesdropping <em>only</em> where there is an "expectation of privacy". The old principle of "not interfering with an officer ..." is of course true, as it always has been.</p><div></div> Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Damon DAmato Posted March 25, 2015 Share Posted March 25, 2015 <p>This law will do nothing but cost Texas money. Time and time again, these arrests lose in court, or lose at appeal. The resulting false imprisonment and other civil suits almost always go against the overreaching cops or their departments-- and end up being paid by people like you and me at tax time. <br /> <br />The only reason the Supreme Court has not ruled, is that there is <em>no conflict among the appeals courts </em>about public photography in general or photography and other recording of police at work in particular.</p> <p>Colossal waste of time and, eventually, money. I hope his Republican and Libertarian colleagues are proud.</p> Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
craig_gillette Posted March 26, 2015 Share Posted March 26, 2015 <p>It's not about prohibiting photography, it's about controlling interferences with the officers at work. As Matt pointed out arbitrary limits often don't work because there can be a wide range of distances that might make sense and it's really situational. Unlike prohibiting parking near fire hydrants, where an appropriate distance can be worked out.</p> <p>It's not uncommon to consider what a reasonable person might do under the circumstances but that gets into the problem that often the cops are working in an environment where many of the actors are either not reasonable or they are not trying to act as a reasonable person might. FWIW, the distance suggested may have evolved out of the "Tueller rule" (which is not really a rule as such) but as might be expected, the closer someone is to another person, the easier it is to attack them faster than they can respond. So a typical photographer might think that that is generally too far away as a guideline and a cop might not think it's necessarily far enough.</p> Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AJHingel Posted March 26, 2015 Share Posted March 26, 2015 <p>"<em>It's not about prohibiting photography, it's about controlling interferences with the officers at work.</em>"<br> LOL. I hope you are just bantering around for the fun of it, Craig. If not it is seriously worrying.<br> The "Tueller rule" spelled out: "<em>21 Foot Rule - The 21 foot rule states that the average person with a knife or sword can get to and cut a person in about the same time that the average person can draw and fire a handgun."</em><br> You might notice that noone seems to be armed with a camera. All about guns, knifes and violence.</p> Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tim_Lookingbill Posted March 26, 2015 Share Posted March 26, 2015 <p>I have no desire or interest in photographing police doing or not doing their job. I don't have one photograph taken of police out of over 3000 images I've shot over the past ten years.</p> <p>But I still think this is a dumb, useless law. Is someone suppose to be out there with a measuring tape to see if a photographer gets too close?</p> <p>Poorly, lazily thought out Texas bill. As a native Texan I'm beginning to think it's all the pollen we have here (20K+ oak granules per cubic meter today) in Texas that makes folks who should know better seem touched in the head coming up with sh*t like this. I'm REALLY SERIOUSLY considering this as the cause.</p> Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
johne37179 Posted March 26, 2015 Share Posted March 26, 2015 <p>So, are photographers incapable of taking pictures from 25 feet away? Does anyone ever think about all the reasonable restrictions placed on photographers in operational settings? Has anyone ever accompanied an operational military unit? Photographers can frequently cause a risk to those they are photographing and themselves by interfering with the activity being photographed. I think this is not an unreasonable restriction -- get a long lens and get a life.</p> Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Damon DAmato Posted March 26, 2015 Share Posted March 26, 2015 <p>Right, EJ. Great solution. Get a long lens for the cell phones that take the vast majority of these videos. Genius.<br /><br />I'd like to ask if anyone out there has any evidence of any photographer causing injury or death to a police officer by his presence, and exactly how that happened. <br /><br />I know that I have personally witnessed cops taking it down a notch at street protests because of the presence of photographers and livestreamers. I'm absolutely sure they saved people from injuries, malicious prosecution, and maybe even death at the hand of so-called law enforcement. <br /><br /><br /></p> Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
johne37179 Posted March 26, 2015 Share Posted March 26, 2015 <p>Yeah, my iPhone is totally incapable of taking a photo from 25 feet from the subject.</p> Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
andylynn Posted March 26, 2015 Share Posted March 26, 2015 "So, are photographers incapable of taking pictures from 25 feet away? Does anyone ever think about all the reasonable restrictions placed on photographers in operational settings? Has anyone ever accompanied an operational military unit? Photographers can frequently cause a risk to those they are photographing and themselves by interfering with the activity being photographed. I think this is not an unreasonable restriction -- get a long lens and get a life." The intent here is not to prevent photographers with real cameras photographing police, it's to prevent people using cell phones (which usually have a wide angle) shooting video. At 25 feet with a wide angle it's tough to get a decent shot that shows detail. This isn't about safety or anything reasonable. Police already are able to order people to back away from a dangerous area. It's about giving police an extra tool to intimidate civilians, arrest them and confiscate their equipment, because they're looking at situations like the Eric Garner murder and thinking that the problem is the video, not the murder. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
johne37179 Posted March 26, 2015 Share Posted March 26, 2015 <p>A cell phone from 25 feet with a wide angel lens is fully capable of capturing the scene. In fact, at 25 feet may be much better than closer because it places the scene in context. These are not selfies here, but evidential photos. the 25 foot limitation does not prevent anyone from effectively documenting the activity.</p> Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Damon DAmato Posted March 26, 2015 Share Posted March 26, 2015 <blockquote> <p>Yeah, my iPhone is totally incapable of taking a photo from 25 feet from the subject.</p> </blockquote> <p>It was you that suggested a long lens was necessary.</p> Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
andylynn Posted March 26, 2015 Share Posted March 26, 2015 If I'm trying to film a cop beating a dude using a wide angle I'd want to do it from 10-15 feet so the cop is identifiable and the weakened voice of the semi conscious victim begging him to stop is clearly audible. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
johne37179 Posted March 26, 2015 Share Posted March 26, 2015 <p>Damon, that was a bit of sarcasm on my part. Andy, how many cops beating dudes have you shot video of? I'm guessing zero. Maybe when you have actual experience you might have a different point of view.</p> Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
andylynn Posted March 26, 2015 Share Posted March 26, 2015 I have not. I have, however, worked in anti-police-brutality both on the policy and litigation sides and understand quite well the importance of photo and video evidence in these cases. More oversight is the answer, not less. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ed_Ingold Posted March 26, 2015 Share Posted March 26, 2015 <p>Several courts of competent jurisdiction have held that recording a a public official in the course of official business in a public environment (no expectation of privacy) is protected by the Constitution. We would have to read a copy of the actual bill to see exactly what is prohibited.</p> Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ken Katz Posted March 26, 2015 Share Posted March 26, 2015 It makes no sense to require someone taking photos/video to stand 25 feet away while potentially allowing other bystanders to get much closer simply because they are not recording the incident. Whatever distance the police deem appropriate to allow bystanders to stand should apply to equally to those with and without photo/video recording devices in their hands. I really believe the thinking behind this proposal is based on the Eric Gardner incident. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jim_service Posted March 26, 2015 Share Posted March 26, 2015 <p>I am troubled that this law creates "classes" of people observing police activity, those who have a camera and those who don't. A photographer is no more likely or capable of "interfering" than anyone else.<br> It is obviously intended to inhibit the recording of police activity by placing you at the back of the crowd, or else it would also include women carrying purses and people with heavy shoes.<br> And if people started showing up with longer lenses, they would just amend the law to seventy five or a hundred feet.<br> It isn't about impeding, it's about recording.</p> Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tim_Lookingbill Posted March 26, 2015 Share Posted March 26, 2015 <p>Hope there is current technology with cellphones to record and embed in the image file the distance from subject so it could be used in court as evidence that said photographer was in compliance of this 25ft. minimum distance when and if this bill goes into law.</p> <p>And "cheez & crackers" could they put in the law that cellphone photogs are required to record in landscape/horizontal orientation. I mean there really should be a law!</p> <p>It really bugs me having to watch a video like I'm viewing it through a cracked opened door.</p> Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
john_h.1 Posted March 26, 2015 Author Share Posted March 26, 2015 <blockquote> <p>"are photographers incapable of taking pictures from 25 feet away?"<br /><br /></p> </blockquote> <p>Sometimes. Obviously. Many camera and lenses people happen to carry may make such imagery useless. Others might be in the way (which defeats the entire purpose of having a distance limit since it only applies to 1st Amendment photography activity rather then proximity itself). The expression related activity can be limited in many ways by such an arbitrary rule which necessarily restricts the nature of 1st Amendment expression to distance based standards.<br /><br /></p> <blockquote> <p><br />"Does anyone ever think about all the reasonable restrictions placed on photographers in operational settings?"<br /><br /></p> </blockquote> <p>Yes. There are adequate laws that interference already which is what those are based on.<br /><br /></p> <blockquote> <p><br />"Has anyone ever accompanied an operational military unit?"<br /><br /></p> </blockquote> <p><br />This doesn't involve a military operation so it is irrelevant.</p> <blockquote> <p><br />"Photographers can frequently cause a risk to those they are photographing and themselves by interfering with the activity being photographed."</p> </blockquote> <p>Non photographers can cause the same thing. As stated before, this is already addressed with interference laws.<br /><br /></p> <blockquote> <p><br />"I think this is not an unreasonable restriction"</p> </blockquote> <p>Based on no ascertainable grounds it seems.</p> Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
john_h.1 Posted March 26, 2015 Author Share Posted March 26, 2015 <blockquote> <p>These are not selfies here, but evidential photos. </p> </blockquote> <p> People photograph police for many reasons that are not for producing evidence. If it were the only reason, you would be calling for restrictions on gathering evidence which is particularly unsupportable.</p> Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
johne37179 Posted March 26, 2015 Share Posted March 26, 2015 <p>John: As a photographer who has worked the street and accompanied operational military units before going to law school and becoming a lawyer. I can tell you that the parallels are applicable and this law is sustainable under the First Amendment. The First Amendment is not absolute and the rights thereunder are subject to reasonable restrictions and a 25 foot rule is eminently reasonable.</p> Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
john_h.1 Posted March 26, 2015 Author Share Posted March 26, 2015 <blockquote> <p>"how many cops beating dudes have you shot video of?"</p> </blockquote> <p><br />Each scenario can be different and effect whether distance related positioning for what is sought to be photographed. Some one may want a close up of something or avoid long lens compression effects and countless other factors. </p> Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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