It’s against the law to take picture of police

Unbelievable, but not uncommon. Police don't like you pointing a camera at them just in case they come off as an ass on film. There needs to be a greater outrage against this kind of practice where police can just make up new laws to intimidate you and then letting you go "because it's your lucky day." Too bad this case and other similar cases will probably just get hushed up or settled out of court.
 
Few similar events happened to me but the worst happened when I was a few miles away from a major airport practicing my manual focusing skills videotaping airplanes in the sky getting ready to land. About 5 to 10 minutes later a cop car stopped and a police officer told me to come over and show him my ID and wanted to know the reasons for me videotaping the airplanes. At least he was friendly enough to leave me alone after we talked for a few minutes.

The MBTA (Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority) has a law that nobody is allow to takes pictures/videos of the Train Stations, trains and busses unless they have written permission. This is another bad situation I was in because I was videotaping a train station and one of the workers threatened that my camcorder can be confiscated if I continued.
 
I know fully well that it’s not against the law. I worded it that way to get peoples attention.

Here is an article that I read several months ago. It also has an informative PDF document that you can download.

http://www.krages.com/phoright.htm
 
Ya know, my father's a cop, my two uncles are cops, my cousin's a cop, and my godfather's a sheriff. If I have any advice, it's don't antagonize police officers. Especially since 9/11. They get about as wound up as a person can get day-to-day, kinda like showing up on set and having to go through an easter-egg hunt to find all your filters that the crew hid from you. If you think you might piss off a cop by doing something, save yourself the macing and refrain. It's just courtesy. They're just people, like you and me. People with complexes and guns.
 
Hans Moleman,

So not only do you think the guy shouldn’t have taken that picture but the action of the police officer is legitimate. Just like Duct Tape Films pointed out, there is no law against taking pictures/video of the police especially when something serious is going on.

This may seam like a different situation but what if there is a major accident on the highway and had about 6 police officers walking around. If you’re a news journalist who works for CNN or an AP photographer then it’s your job to take videos/pictures of the incident. You should not fear the police.

While in the US Army I videotaped just about anything I wanted to videotape and nobody ever gave me any problems and this was after 9/11.

What a lot of people need to realize is that we do have free press.
 
Hans,

I think that has far more to do with common courtesy, a trait any journalist or documentarian would do well to have in their arsenal, whether one is shooting a police officer or not. The upshot is, legally speaking, there is no law stopping either situation, nor should there be.
 
Maybe not entirely legitimate, but considerably understandable. Besides, It's one thing if it's your job, another thing if it's gawking/curiosity.
 
With all due respect (and I am indeed thankful for all the work police do), police officers are PUBLIC SERVANTS. They should always be on their best behavior when performing their official duties. And the public should give them some latitude in performing those duties (it's always easy to Monday morning quarterback someone else's actions that were taken in the heat of the moment).

If they are doing something that isn't kosher, then they deserve to be filmed (and it IS the public's right to film them). I happen to think that video is a near perfect mechanism to serve as a "check and balance" against over use of force by subsets of police officers.
 
If they are doing something that isn't kosher, then they deserve to be filmed (and it IS the public's right to film them). I happen to think that video is a near perfect mechanism to serve as a "check and balance" against over use of force by subsets of police officers.
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Agreed.
 
I agree also, but I don't think that this situation qualifies as video being used to prevent abuse of power. I think it's important to make the distinction between what you CAN do, (which is a heck of a lot in this country) and what you SHOULD do. Para exemplo: rattling off ethnic slurs at a reasonable volume to a companion of yours whilst merrily strolling through compton. Can you? Of course, that's rule #1 in America. Should you? That all depends on how much you enjoy hospital food. Can you tape the police? Sure. Should you? Very context-dependent.
 
Hey, the police (and the government) can videotape me anywhere in public. And as long as they have that right, then I feel that it is just as much my right to videotape them (and anything else that happens in the public sphere).

I believe in giving police some latitude in enforcing the law. I don't believe in giving them carte blanche to make up laws as they see fit.

This isn't about shouting obscenities at them. This is about setting up a neutral observer (the camera) to document what happened at a particular place and time.
 
When I was in NYC, filming a documentary on the Repulican Nation Convention protests, filming the cops really was a hit or miss issue, as to whether they wanted to be on camera, just like it is with any other person. I think it really has more to do with personality type, or even mood, than "should you be allowed to film someone with a particular occupation" or not. Some cops were extremely friendly, some were hamming for the camera, some were not so friendly, or were preoccupied. I chalk that up like filming my wife - her first instinct is to push the camera away, hide her face, or threaten me with a lack of love. That type of confrontational footage usually doesn't give me the type of results I'm looking for. I like willing subjects, call me crazy - I find it makes for better footage for my purposes. As for when cops were doing something that seemed out of line, usually they were so busy doing whatever they were doing they didn't have time to notice me, or the twenty other cameras....
 
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In 1985, I participated in a student exchange - two groups of students from Prague (Czechoslovakia) and Riga (then Soviet Union) paid each other visit in these friendly countries - both part of the East Bloc. At the border crossing, the train cars had to have their wheels changed to fit the wider tracks used in Soviet Union. A friend of mine, a fellow student and an avid photographer, took a few pictures of this (technologically interesting) process. He was promptly arrested by the Soviet border guards, his camera and film confiscated, and only through an excellent negotiating effort of one of our professors he was released.

One of the experiences that added up to my decision to say good buy to that part of the world four years later.

Why am I sharing this story? Being able to record public authorities during their performing of their service is an essential civil liberty. Of course, it may have some limitations (national security etc.), but generally, citizens should resist any attempts by governments to limit this liberty. Otherwise, we are moving closer - figuratively speaking - to totalitarian regimes, rather than becoming more distanced from them.

Paradoxically, nowadays I feel more free photographing and videotaping when I visit my old country than here (US & Canada). Gives me the shivers.

But, as I learned from my extensive correspondence with the Global TV station in Toronto and the Canadian Broadcast Standard Council (see the other thread here), since it is considered not only LEGAL, but also ETHICAL, for TV journalists to enter private property and videotape private citizens as long as it serves public interest, I suspect doing the same to public servants should also be alowed.
 
This is absolutely outrageous. There is no way that this law is going to hold up in court. And, what makes this particular situation even more insane is that the guy was on his own property taking the photo. The police then came on to his property and took him away. This is the type of behavior that you expect in a police state (read fascist regime). I guess that I shouldn't be so surprised or outraged. The fact that folks have defended the police actions in this case shows that we are in trouble. The acceptance of this type of behavior is what leads to fascism. Fascism is not imposed. It is the gradual acceptance of the erosion of your rights and liberties. This is what happened in Germany and this is what is happening today in America. The more we allow the erosion of our liberties in exchange for "security" in a post-9/11 world, the closer we come to allowing fascism to thrive.
 
Hans Moleman said:
I agree also, but I don't think that this situation qualifies as video being used to prevent abuse of power. I think it's important to make the distinction between what you CAN do, (which is a heck of a lot in this country) and what you SHOULD do. Para exemplo: rattling off ethnic slurs at a reasonable volume to a companion of yours whilst merrily strolling through compton. Can you? Of course, that's rule #1 in America. Should you? That all depends on how much you enjoy hospital food. Can you tape the police? Sure. Should you? Very context-dependent.
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Spewing racist slurs anywhere is not just stupid, but unethical and stupid. Documenting those who enjoy an enormous amount of public trust is not unethical in the least. Nor would I call it stupid in and of itself (though any action can be done in a stupid manner). Could it be risky to your personal liberty? Definitely could be. That is something entirely different than stupid, though.
 
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