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View Full Version : Judge affirms probationer has a right to tape police officer in her home




aGameOfThrones
08-11-2014, 06:47 PM
Pam
In a statement of findings and recommendations filed last week, a US Magistrate Judge for the Eastern District of California affirmed that a woman on searchable probation had the right to videotape three officers who came to her home to search it.

In February 2011, plaintiff Mary Crago was visited by three police officers, including defendant Officer Kenneth Leonard. Leonard was working on the Sacramento Police Department's Metal Theft Task Force, and he was tipped off that Crago may have been involved in a theft involving a vehicle battery. Since Crago was on searchable probation, the officers entered her home—the door was open—and they found Crago “sitting on a mattress, digging furiously through a purse.”
According to court documents, “Inside the purse, defendant found a four-inch glass pipe and a small baggie with white residue. The white residue subsequently tested positive for methamphetamine.” Crago did not resist the officers' search, but she allegedly told Leonard that she was recording the search on her laptop. Leonard then took her laptop and deleted her recording, telling her that recording was forbidden.

Crago then sued, saying her right to record the police in her home was protected by the First Amendment.

The magistrate who looked at the case this month denied Leonard's request for summary judgment, which would have prevented the case from going to trial. He argued that recording a police officer while conducting official business is not yet “a clearly established right under the First Amendment.”

In recent years, many courts in the US have seen cases that dispute whether the public is allowed to video tape cops in the course of their official business. In 2012, the Supreme Court declined to review a ruling saying that the First Amendment encompasses a right to record the actions of police who are on duty. In May 2014, a federal appeals court said that the public does have a right to film police in public.

Leonard argued that no cases that do assert that taping a police officer is a right involve a probationer. Further, those cases usually say that recording an officer is a right when the recording is made in public, but Crago allegedly recorded the officer in her private home. Because of this, Leonard argued, he should benefit from “qualified immunity,” which prevents government officials from facing civil damages if they don't “violate clearly established statutory or constitutional rights of which a reasonable person would have known.”

The magistrate judge came down in favor of Crago, however:

The location of where the video recording was being made was plaintiff’s place of residence. If a plaintiff has a clearly established constitutional right to record from a public place where the plaintiff has the lawful right to be, a plaintiff surely has such a right in his or her home. There simply is no principled basis upon which to find that although the right to record officers conducting their official duties only extends to duties performed in public, the right does not extend to those performed in a private residence. The public’s interest in ensuring that police officers properly carry out their duties and do not abuse the authority bestowed on them by society does not cease once they enter the private residence of a citizen. To the contrary, there appears to be an even greater interest for such recordings when a police officer’s actions are shielded from the public’s view. Further, there is no reason to believe that plaintiff’s status as a probationer would diminish the public’s interest in how police exercise their authority in a private citizen’s home.


http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2014/08/judge-affirms-probationer-has-a-right-to-tape-police-officer-in-her-home/

TheTexan
08-11-2014, 06:56 PM
Police officers have a very important job to do and shouldn't need to worry about being under constant surveillance and scrutiny 24/7. Officers are good people who do good jobs, but if they are under constant surveillance eventually someone is going to find a tiny little mistake they've made to try to nitpick over.

Additionally, recording their every move could even present a security risk to officers' lives.

otherone
08-11-2014, 07:03 PM
He argued that recording a police officer while conducting official business is not yet “a clearly established right under the First Amendment.”

In other words: Government decides what your Rights are.


http://therealnews.com/t2/hwdvideos/thumbs/tp-77592.jpg

muh_roads
08-11-2014, 07:04 PM
Police officers have a very important job to do and shouldn't need to worry about being under constant surveillance and scrutiny 24/7. Officers are good people who do good jobs, but if they are under constant surveillance eventually someone is going to find a tiny little mistake they've made to try to nitpick over.

Additionally, recording their every move could even present a security risk to officers' lives.

http://www.tfw2005.com/boards/attachments/transformers-3rd-party-discussion/27424758d1394748465-fansproject-stunticons-menasor-aka-m3-intimidator-notsureifserious.jpg

aGameOfThrones
08-11-2014, 07:07 PM
http://www.tfw2005.com/boards/attachments/transformers-3rd-party-discussion/27424758d1394748465-fansproject-stunticons-menasor-aka-m3-intimidator-notsureifserious.jpg

you know nothing, muh_roads.

satchelmcqueen
08-11-2014, 08:03 PM
good call by the judge finally

roho76
08-11-2014, 08:20 PM
Police officers have a very important job to do and shouldn't need to worry about being under constant surveillance and scrutiny 24/7. Officers are good people who do good jobs, but if they are under constant surveillance eventually someone is going to find a tiny little mistake they've made to try to nitpick over.

Additionally, recording their every move could even present a security risk to officers' lives.

Isn't this exactly what they do to us?

TheTexan
08-11-2014, 08:26 PM
Isn't this exactly what they do to us?

Ya, but I dont have anything to hide. Its for my safety, so I'm ok with it. They're looking for terrorists, not people who have jaywalked a few times

Anti Federalist
08-11-2014, 09:40 PM
Ya, but I dont have anything to hide. Its for my safety, so I'm ok with it. They're looking for terrorists, not people who have jaywalked a few times

Ya, you're gonna need to get rid of that sig line if you're gonna pull this off.

Needs to be something like:

"You're either with us or you're with the terrorists" - George Bush.

fr33
08-11-2014, 09:50 PM
Did bxm042 get a lobotomy recently?

amy31416
08-11-2014, 10:08 PM
Did bxm042 get a lobotomy recently?

I never use the /s signal either. If that isn't sarcasm, I don't know what is. Look at the signs--his avatar, his sig and his rep.

fr33
08-11-2014, 10:09 PM
I never use the /s signal either. If that isn't sarcasm, I don't know what is. Look at the signs--his avatar, his sig and his rep.

:p I was being sarcastic about the lobotomy as well.

Mani
08-11-2014, 10:14 PM
Police officers have a very important job to do and shouldn't need to worry about being under constant surveillance and scrutiny 24/7. Officers are good people who do good jobs, but if they are under constant surveillance eventually someone is going to find a tiny little mistake they've made to try to nitpick over.

Additionally, recording their every move could even present a security risk to officers' lives.


BMX says it better than the idiot bootlickers ever could. :p

phill4paul
08-11-2014, 11:20 PM
Score a big one for the home team. :rolleyes:

muh_roads
08-12-2014, 07:42 AM
you know nothing, muh_roads.

Yeah I guess I should've looked at his giant green rep bar.

I can't keep up with u guys here. Too much glass is half-empty around these parts.