Legality of Film

D

DoneWithYa

New member
So I have had the idea of doing a documentary on Credit Card Fraud. However, it is illegal, as is quite obvious. So, is it illegal to film someone that is committing it/talking about doing it/showing how people do it? Obviously if they are showing how to do it, I will cut out the important parts, but I know on like National Geographic, I have watched documentaries of gangs showing drugs and weapons. How can they do this?
 
Alright. I will do that if I ever decide to get really serious with it, it is just an idea right now. Do you have any reading material about what is legal to record and everything?
 
You can record it just fine. However, you need to ensure that you're not creating evidence to be used against the subject and that you are not encouraging or otherwise enabling the crime to take place. Journalists get to do this, but it is, as was said, a touchy ground. An attorney would have to be involved to navigate carefully and make sure none of those things happen.
 
Here's where it gets to be a problem for you: If a District Attorney can I.D. someone in the video and decides he wants to prosecute someone, he will subpoena your tapes/data as evidence and if you refuse on first amendment grounds, you may be jailed for contempt of court if the judge decides that you should provide the tapes or identify the fraud suspect and you refuse to comply. Remember how long Judith Miller spent in jail in the Valerie Plame case? 85 days. An that's with a battery of high-priced lawyers backing her up. You may also be prosecuted yourself if ANYTHING looks like you abetted the fraud. dangerous territory, and no one will show it on TV unless it's been cleared by lawyers.

I did have to study this in university as a journalism student, but I can't give you the relevant cases. It was too long ago.
More recently, Joshua Wolf did more than 200 days in jail in a case about tapes of G8 protestor violence. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Josh_Wolf

Issues: http://www.ajr.org/Article.asp?id=4105
 
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