DC Police Chief Lays Down New Cell/Camera Policy: 'Don't Seize. Don't Delete. Don't Interfere.'

from the they're-not-First-Amendment-'privileges' dept

Wed, Jul 25th 2012 8:12am — Tim Cushing

There's a long history of police officers abusing their power to prevent documentation of their actions via cellphones and cameras. For the most part, this has been the norm, rather than being relegated to outlying, "rogue" police departments. Some attempts at "controlling" this interaction have been blatant: illegal seizures of phones and cameras. Others have just been exploitations of the existing system, like twisting wiretap laws to make citizen recordings illegal or somehow insisting on privacy rights despite being a public servant in a public setting.

However, some good news (disguised as common sense) has arrived in the form of the Washington D.C. police force's new cell camera policy. Put together as part of a settlement with Jerome Vorus, who sued the city (with the ACLU's help) after Georgetown police told him to stop taking photos of a traffic stop, the new policy pretty much reflects how most citizens feel the system should have been working all along, which means it's a drastic departure from the way many law enforcement camera policies are worded (if they have them at all).

Washington D.C. police chief Cathy Lanier takes care to (re)inform the officers of the public's constitutional rights and details specifics to hopefully eliminate loopholes and "workarounds." Perhaps the boldest statement is in regards to recording police activity, which minces no words upholding the public's First Amendment rights:

"A bystander has the same right to take photographs or make recordings as a member of the media," Chief Lanier writes. The First Amendment protects the right to record the activities of police officers, not only in public places such as parks and sidewalks, but also in "an individual’s home or business, common areas of public and private facilities and buildings, and any other public or private facility at which the individual has a legal right to be present."

Lanier says that if an officer sees an individual recording his or her actions, the officer may not use that as a basis to ask the citizen for ID, demand an explanation for the recording, deliberately obstruct the camera, or arrest the citizen. And she stresses that under no circumstances should the citizen be asked to stop recording.

It gets even better. Not only are officers prevented from preventing the recording from happening, they are also not allowed to use vague terms like "obstruction" or the ever-popular (but not a real crime) "contempt of cop" to halt recordings.

That applies even in cases where the citizen is recording "from a position that impedes or interferes with the safety of members or their ability to perform their duties." In that situation, she says, the officer may ask the person to move out of the way, but the officer "shall not order the person to stop photographing or recording."

She also notes that "a person has the right to express criticism of the police activity being observed."

Another aspect that Lanier has covered is the seizure of cell phones or cameras, often done under the auspices that footage or photos might be "evidence." This gathering of "evidence" has been abused frequently as well, often resulting in the destruction of "evidence" that reflects badly on the officers involved. Other times, any sort of "evidence" pretext is tossed out completely, with officers seizing cell phones/cameras simply to remove damaging footage. D.C.'s new policy will make this sort of behavior much more difficult (although, certainly not impossible).

Lanier's directive addresses another scenario that is becoming increasingly common: a civilian takes a photograph or recording that a police officer believes could constitute evidence of a crime. Under Lanier's directive, an individual cop cannot take a recording device away from a citizen without his or her consent. "Consent to take possession of a recording device or medium must be given voluntarily," she writes.

In the event that the cop believes the recording is needed for evidence but its owner isn't willing to part with it, the officer is required to call his supervisor. The device or recording media can be seized only if the supervisor is present, only if "there is probable cause to believe that the property holds contraband or evidence of a crime," and only if "the exigencies of the circumstances demand it or some other recognized exception to the warrant requirement is present."

D.C. law enforcement members are also instructed that they may not "under any circumstances" erase or delete images and sound from seized recording devices and that these devices must be maintained and returned intact, with all data present, to the owners at the end of the investigation.

This is all a huge step forward for the public's relationship with law enforcement. Removing the false "expectation of privacy" that has shielded many bad actors is an important change and reasserting the public's First Amendment rights as trumping law enforcement's antagonistic attitude toward observation is very definitely a win for US citizens. It's somewhat unfortunate that it took a lawsuit, the ACLU and a forward-thinking police chief to "restore" these rights, but having a new policy publicly deliver this message should temper future interactions between the public and those sworn to protect them.

The real test will come when violations are reported. The policy itself has a lot of verbal teeth but there are many badly-behaving police officers who have run afoul of the laws they were hired to uphold and escaped with little more than some stern words and paid vacation. If D.C. can take the lead, both in instituting a tough set of policies and, more importantly, enforcing these policies, one would hope that the rest of the nation's police forces would look to this as the model on which to base their own policies.

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Filed Under: citizen rights, dc, police, public rights, videotaping

41 Comments

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Anonymous Coward, 25 Jul 2012 @ 8:22am

anyone know who has been lined up to take her place as Washington D.C. police chief? just because she has now put into print exactly what the policy was/is and how it should have been regarded by police officers anyway doesn't mean she is safe from losing the job. the only thing on her side is the court case just sorted out and how that could be used to her advantage if she was sacked
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STStone, 25 Jul 2012 @ 8:25am

This looks like a good step forward.

Now to wait for the next step.
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Anonymous Coward, 25 Jul 2012 @ 8:28am

The real fun will be when some idiot is filming police and gets shot by the perp or gets hit by a car while standing in the road to film - and then sues the police for letting him film.

The US is so predictable.
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The Groove Tiger (profile), 25 Jul 2012 @ 8:31am

INB4 Pirate Mike, Pirate Tim, Pirate Police Chief, Pirate Phones, Paywall bob, paywall police, paywall DC, why don't you want to debate me, fuck off and die, journalism, this site is blah, koolaid, freetards, Lone Starr gave me the raspberry.
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alanbleiweiss (profile), 25 Jul 2012 @ 8:33am

Re:
and people who look at the U.S. with holier-than-thou bogus concepts are equally so predictable. We have a document. It's called the Constitution. We're afforded rights as citizens. To play the "just wait til blah blah blah and the person sues" card is nonsense.

It's disingenuous within the light of the problem at hand, the disregard for our legally established rights as individuals.

That is the bigger issue because those situations lead to a police state.
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alanbleiweiss (profile), 25 Jul 2012 @ 8:34am

Re:
WTH is this blabber? Troll troll troll...
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VMax, 25 Jul 2012 @ 8:42am

Re:
But think of the children!
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Tony MC (profile), 25 Jul 2012 @ 8:48am

Re: Re:
when was the last time Constitution really mattered to anyone in power?
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MrWilson, 25 Jul 2012 @ 8:49am

Re:
Hey, you can't pirate their trolling. You're "stealing" their work!
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Stig Rudeholm (profile), 25 Jul 2012 @ 8:52am

But what if....
"Don't Seize. Don't Delete. Don't Interfere."

But what if there's dancing involved? Surely there must be an exception in there somewhere for dancing?
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alanbleiweiss (profile), 25 Jul 2012 @ 8:54am

Re: Re: Re:
that's the beauty of the D.C. chief's actions. It's a sign (yet to be tested, let alone reverberated across the country) that someone in power actually does care. Or was woken up to care. Or is pretending she cares in the hopes that she'll be able to leverage this with the majority of D.C. citizens who hate the cops. :-)
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Tony MC (profile), 25 Jul 2012 @ 9:05am

Re: Re: Re: Re:
that would be the rare time i would like the whole country to actually listen what D.C. guys have to say...
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Palmyra (profile), 25 Jul 2012 @ 9:28am

Re:
"The real fun will be when some idiot is filming police and gets shot by the ""perp"" or gets hit by a car while standing in the road to film - and then sues the police for letting him film."

Watching too much TV friend.
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Donnicton, 25 Jul 2012 @ 9:29am

Re: Re:
Why do you hate our children/troops/elderly?
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Machin Shin (profile), 25 Jul 2012 @ 9:48am

Re:
You mean the two steps back that are bound to follow?

I guess I'm just a bit paranoid but seems like this country is striving hard to become a police state. Makes me a little weary of celebrating things too quickly.
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Michael, 25 Jul 2012 @ 9:51am

meh...
They will still simply just cause a confrontation by bumping or blocking the person with the camera, arrest them (effectively seizing ANY property they have on them) and then destroy and deny. They still have the courts seeing their testimony as bullet proof in most cases even in the face of conflicting evidence.
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Machin Shin (profile), 25 Jul 2012 @ 9:52am

Re: Re: Re:
It seems to have been quite a while. I suspect that it will start to matter a lot more to them before too long though. A lot of people here in the US are getting sick of those in power ignoring the Constitution.
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Anonymous Coward, 25 Jul 2012 @ 10:04am

Re: Re:
"and people who look at the U.S. with holier-than-thou bogus concepts are equally so predictable. We have a document. It's called the Constitution. We're afforded rights as citizens. To play the "just wait til blah blah blah and the person sues" card is nonsense. "

Umm, what the heck are you talking around? Don't you get it? The police get ordered not to take action, someone gets hurt or killed while using their "right" to film, and then blames the police force for not keeping them secure, while they were right at the scene.

It's not for all situations, but in some cases, it could easily happen. What do you think the liability would be?
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Anonymous Coward, 25 Jul 2012 @ 10:12am

and then you will have the morons shoving cameras in the cops faces getting fully in the way and screaming you cant touch me the D.C. police chief Cathy Lanier said I could, like little spoiled children, how about just stay the hell away and film from a safe distance, but you wont do that, you want to be in their face screaming about your rights, while interfering with their job
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Anonymous Coward, 25 Jul 2012 @ 10:13am

Re: Re:
no, its the truth, someone WILL do this, claiming the police didn't protect them
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Digitari, 25 Jul 2012 @ 10:15am

Re: Re:
can we get a referendum to get this put in place Nation wide??

Hell, I would register to vote just for this
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Anonymous Coward, 25 Jul 2012 @ 10:16am

Re: Re: Re:
How about you read the article, the police are still fully capable of having you physically move to a new location just like they always have been. They just can't do anything, in any way shape or form, that has the intention of preventing you from recording an event.

English is a tricky language and I'm sorry you don't read and comprehend it well, but you should probably ensure you understand what you are reading before you start shooting your mouth off.
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MrWilson, 25 Jul 2012 @ 10:16am

Re:
I imagine this will be the behavior of a significant minority of the people filming police, just as it already is.
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Ben (profile), 25 Jul 2012 @ 10:24am

Hmm
I look forward to the TSA rolling this out too
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Anonymous Coward, 25 Jul 2012 @ 10:24am

Re:
Then the police will film such behaviour and use it against such people who want to abuse the rights they were given, numbnut, because the behaviour you describe does count as obstruction. Who the hell is saying that the police can't protect themselves within reasonable limits?

Why don't you try that in D.C. and tell us how it works out, since you're so confident that what Lanier says legitimises the behaviour you describe.
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alanbleiweiss (profile), 25 Jul 2012 @ 10:24am

Re: Re: Re: Re:
shooting? there's been a shooting? Quick! Call the police! And let's all meet there with our smart-phones so we can capture it for youtube, in the hopes that the gunman shoots us in the process, so we can sue the cops we've called!
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Atkray (profile), 25 Jul 2012 @ 10:48am

Re:
You forgot "misleading headline"
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DH's Love Child (profile), 25 Jul 2012 @ 10:54am

Re: Re: Re:
Actually, there have been several court rulings that specifically stated that the police are not obligated to protect citizens.

http://constitution.org/legis/03hr0648.htm
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Warren_v._District_of_C olumbia

So someone may sue, but it wouldn't go very far.
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DH's Love Child (profile), 25 Jul 2012 @ 11:03am

Re: Hmm
Yeah.. and I've got my skates all honed for that matchup with Wayne Gretsky on the river Styx...
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The Groove Tiger (profile), 25 Jul 2012 @ 11:17am

Re: Re:
Hey, the headline is misleading! It doesn't specify which DC, they could be talking about direct current!
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That One Guy (profile), 25 Jul 2012 @ 11:37am

Re: Hmm
They already have, they just replaced all the instances of 'public' with 'TSA agent'.
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John Fenderson (profile), 25 Jul 2012 @ 11:50am

Re:
The real fun will be when some idiot is filming police and gets shot by the perp or gets hit by a car while standing in the road to film - and then sues the police for letting him film.

If someone is standing in the road to film, they are breaking a different, well-established and solid law regardless. This doesn't affect that.

As far as getting shot goes, I can't see such a lawsuit getting very far, and would get absolutely nowhere suing the police. You can't successfully sue the police for obeying the law.
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John Fenderson (profile), 25 Jul 2012 @ 11:53am

Re:
and then you will have the morons shoving cameras in the cops faces getting fully in the way

And these morons will still be immediately arrested. The laws against interfering with a cop performing his legal duty are still fully in force. Holding a camera doesn't change that.
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btr1701 (profile), 25 Jul 2012 @ 12:18pm

Re: Re: Re:
> it could easily happen. What do you think
> the liability would be?

Simple. The liability rests with the idiot who was more interested in his cell phone camera than not walking out into traffic or into a live-fire situation.

The police are not required to go around protecting everyone from their own stupidity 24/7.
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JMT (profile), 25 Jul 2012 @ 3:16pm

Re:
The real fun will be when some idiot is watching police and gets shot by the perp or gets hit by a car while standing in the road to watch - and then sues the police for letting him watch.

Oh wait, that's how it's always been...
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JMT (profile), 25 Jul 2012 @ 3:20pm

Re:
"and then you will have the morons shoving cameras in the cops faces getting fully in the way and screaming you cant touch me..."

You won't get away with doing that with a camera for the same reason you won't get away with doing that without a camera.

Stupid AC comment is stupid.
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Anonymous Coward, 25 Jul 2012 @ 3:45pm

Re:
Get a grip. Are we talking about grown up police officers who are wearing their big people pants? If someone cannot handle members of the public being enthusiastic about the rights police officers swear to uphold, maybe police work is not for that person.

As to a small minority of people who might behave less than politely to police just because they are punks, so what? If they are not breaking the law they are within their lawful rights and the overall value of lawful rights to the community far exceeds any annoyance some police officer may be obilged to not act on, in the course of their paid employment.
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alanbleiweiss (profile), 25 Jul 2012 @ 4:05pm

Re: Re: Re: Re:
agreed! If every police officer was required to protect the idiots, what would happen to the Darwin awards! Think of the awards, for cryin out loud! They need to be preseved!
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Anonymous Coward, 26 Jul 2012 @ 4:49am

Re: Re: Re:
So because some people want to be idiots you want everyone else to have to pay for it with no protection from police.

Just because you're an idiot doesn't mean we have to put up with it.
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Dave, 26 Jul 2012 @ 12:04pm

Similar in UK
UK police have been repeatedly warned in a similar fashion by the hierarchy but they still continue to disregard instructions and try to make up the law as they go along:
http://www.blowe.org.uk/2010/08/how-many-times-must-acpo-issue-guidance.html
http://www.lcpu.org/docs/2011/ACPO%20Letter%20Photo%20Law%200810.pdf
Seems that there is very little in the way of punishment or deterrent to stop officers acting this way. Individuals seem to get away with it time and time again. If court action follows, it's the force, not the officer concerned that gets sued.
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Thomas (profile), 28 Jul 2012 @ 7:34pm

and the day
after this...yet another cop in Washington DC confiscated a woman's camera and returned it later minus the SD card which contained the pictures.

Obviously the police chief is just grandstanding and trying to look good to the press while in fact it's business as usual for the cops. Cops still believe that no one has a right to photograph/video them. They want to prevent people from getting evidence when they beat the crap out of innocent people.

Photographing/taking video of a cop is a good way to get arrested or lose your camera or get beaten or all three. Never never photograph/video around a cop if you value your phone/camera and your health.
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