Recording police will lead to “excessive snooping” says Judge

One of the benefits of our rapidly improving technology is that it puts ways to easily record events and the people involved in them in the hands of the average citizen. While some see this as a good thing and an equalizer of power there are others that are really afraid of that kind of accountability that results from being easily recorded.

It has gotten to the point where police and others in power are trying to convince us that turning this lens or microphone of accountability on those in power is a bad thing and should be illegal. Photographers are constantly having to remind police of their constitutional rights to be able to document events. People are having to go to court to fight charges by the police for recording what these public servants are doing.

Now we have Judge Richard A, Posner of the US Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit who thinks that all this recording by citizens of the police will lead to more snooping around by reporters and bloggers.

At the heart of this is the motion from the ACLU to strike down a particularly offensive law in Illinois that makes it illegal to record someone without their consent, even though the recording is done openly and in a public place.

He [Judge Posner] was particularly worried that allowing recording would impact police work. “I’m always suspicious when the civil liberties people start telling the police how to do their business,” he said. He speculated that gangs would love the ACLU’s argument because recordings would make it easier to discover and retaliate against informants.

via Ars Technica

Luckily for us Posner’s fellow judges don’t feel the same way and appear to be being swayed by the ACLU arguments.

Both of Posner’s fellow Seventh Circuit judges seemed more receptive to the ACLU’s argument. They reserved most of their fire for the government’s attorney. “The statute criminalizes any audiotaping without regard to expectations of privacy, even if those events that are being audiotaped occur in the open, in public, for anyone to see and hear and otherwise observe,” one of the judges said. “It’s extremely broad.”

via Ars Technica

Finally, a little bit of sanity.