New Jersey Says People Must Be Allowed To Videotape Government Meetings

from the citizen-journalists,-start-your-cameraphones dept

Remember how Virginia Republicans were upset at Democrats for videotaping them in the State House and putting the videos on YouTube? Apparently, that's not the only place where government officials have been worried about being caught on tape. Over in New Jersey, the state Supreme Court has now said that governments in the state cannot prevent citizens from videotaping public meetings (assuming that the taping doesn't interrupt the progression of the meeting). This certainly seems like a reasonable rule for a governing organization -- but politicians aren't known for being reasonable very often, which is why this case had to end up in the New Jersey Supreme Court.
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  • identicon
    Anonymous Coward, 9 Mar 2007 @ 5:13pm

    probably because

    The court probably made that decision because there are no laws preventing videotaping in the state house.

    My guess is that there will be laws like that pretty soon.

    link to this | view in chronology ]

  • identicon
    SteveO, 10 Mar 2007 @ 10:43am

    Amerika

    Typical Republicans. The one thing they learned from Nixon is don't allow anything to be recorded. Fuck them. Point a camera at these pricks every chance you get.

    link to this | view in chronology ]

  • identicon
    BlueBoy, 11 Mar 2007 @ 3:43am

    Must be Terrorists

    The law prohibiting videotaping in government building will be billed as an "anti-terrorism" measure.

    link to this | view in chronology ]

  • identicon
    a, 11 Mar 2007 @ 5:35pm

    SteveO, Nice comment idiot

    Ummm, New Jersey is pretty heavily Democrat, so your statement should read "Typical Democrats"

    What a fucking idiot.

    link to this | view in chronology ]

  • identicon
    Doug Dante, 12 Mar 2007 @ 8:55am

    In Michigan Too

    Michigan's Open Meetings Act require officials to hold open meetings and to allow any citizen to video or audio tape them. Family Rights Activists have faced difficulties when dealing with Citizen's Advisory Committees in this state, and IIRC, one CAC was actually effectively dismantled rather than allowing its proceedings to be video taped. Also, some boards, most notably the Detroit Public Schools, hold "informal" meetings that may be to some extent "real" business meetings, and members of those boards have been punished for exposing any information from them.

    link to this | view in chronology ]


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