Mediaboss Marketing

Opinion: HB 2319 is an attempt to silence unwanted speech against police officers. The problem is, filming police activity by citizens is a right recognized by U.S. appellate courts.

Editorial board| Arizona Republic

It is almost a given in this post-George Floyd era that in volatile police encounters, some bystander will have their cellphone out, camera rolling.

Many do so in the name of holding law enforcement officers accountable, others in case something extraordinary happens.

A few use the opportunity to harangue and bait police.

The new normal apparently isnt sitting well with some in law enforcement and the Arizona Legislature, which is contemplating a proposal, HB 2319, that would severely restrict the close-up videotaping of police.

Thebill passed the House along party lines. Its now pending in the Senate.

Lawmakers would be wise to nix it.

The proposed law is simply bad policymaking, both in optics and in practice.

It may be unconstitutional as well.

HB 2319 purportedly takes aim at bad actors by giving officers broad powers to prohibit videotaping police activity within 8 feet. The powers include arresting anyone who refuses orders to stop taping on a misdemeanor charge punishable up to 30 days in jail.

The bills sponsor, Rep. John Kavanagh, said the legislation is needed against hostile community activists who hover dangerously close to film officers as they work potentially volatile situations, sometimes from 1 to 2 feet away.

The intrusion, he said, distracts officers, opens them up to assaults by the people theyre arresting and makes them vulnerable to losing sight of evidence that suspects try to ditch or destroy. HB 2319, the thinking goes, would stop that interference.

The logic is faulty.

Officers already have broad authority to carry out their work unimpeded, including arresting those who obstruct government operations on a charge that carries an even stiffer penalty (up to 6 months in jail) than the one under HB 2319.

More to the point, the aggressive community activiststargeted by Kavanaghs legislation whose filming is uploaded onto YouTube and accompanied by verbal assaults at officers and expletive-filled commentary can be dealt with using disorderly conduct and harassment laws.

Kavanaghs contention that the legislation has been narrowly tailored to limit when officers can invoke the 8-foot rule, is similarly disingenuous.

Under HB 2319, officers could forbid filming whenever theyre questioning or arresting a person, issuing a summons, or simply enforcing the law. That accounts for virtually all police activity.

And thats to say nothing about the difficulty of enforcing the proposed statute.

The 8-foot perimeter is borrowed from a law upheld by the U.S. Supreme Court that sets a buffer zone separating anti-abortion protesters armed with leaflets and posters from clinics and their patients. It works with fixed locations the likes of an abortion clinic; at a police scene thats fluid, including a rally or protest that turns volatile, it begs for inconsistent, capricious interpretation.

The impact would needlessly chill the work of journalists in particular. The legislation, in fact, may well run afoul of First Amendment rights.

Federal appellate courts, including the 1st Circuit Court of Appeals in a 2011 case, have affirmed the right by citizens to film police officers in public.

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 court ruled in Glik v. Cunniffe.

The adverse effects of a ban would carry greater implications today.

HB 2319 comes at a time when police interaction with communities of color is, understandably, under heavy scrutiny. Police critics see citizen video as a counterweight to official accounts a check-and-balance tool against narratives that police largely get to shape for the public.

It is folly to assume citizen videos showing questionable action by individual officers stand as an indictment of all law enforcement. It is equal folly to assume video shot within 8 feet triggers threats against officers safety or their ability to do their jobs.

If there is a parallel to be drawn from the 8-feet buffer zone established around abortion clinics and the proposed one around police activity, it is the proponents motivation: the desire against unwanted speech.

Police advocates like Kavanagh believe they have a right to regulate the time and place of such speech intruding on officers.

Theyre wrong.

Videotaping police amounts to neither an imposition of unwanted speech nor a threat to police work. It needs not to be restricted, especially at the discretion of the very officers being recorded.

HB 2319 serves no purpose other than to create further tensions between law enforcement and the community it serves. It deserves to be voted down.

This is an opinion ofThe Arizona Republics editorial board.What do you think?Send us a letterto the editorto weigh in.

Originally posted here:
Police don't need extra protection against citizens videotaping their actions - The Arizona Republic