An Arizona state senator has proposed a law that would make it illegal to shoot close-up video of police activity. The senator justified the bill by saying that being filmed puts officers in danger by distracting them while they\u2019re engaging suspects.<\/p>\n
State Senator John Kavanagh would prevent citizens from filming within 20 feet of any \u201claw enforcement activity,\u201d<\/em> even on public property. It would be a petty offense to violate the law, carrying a fine, but would become a misdemeanor if a person keeps filming after being told by an officer to stop. The bill will be considered in Monday\u2019s session.<\/p>\n \u201cMost cameras have great resolution where you don\u2019t really lose anything when you\u2019re 20 feet away,\u201d<\/em> he said, according to The New York Times. \u201cAt 20 feet you can pretty much pick up small objects.”<\/em><\/p>\n Kavanagh, a Republican and former cop, argued that pedestrians filming law enforcement activity are a distraction.<\/p>\n \u201cHaving one or more persons suddenly walking up behind and around them with cameras is a distraction,\u201d<\/em> Kavanagh said, according to Talking Points Memo. \u201cThe officer doesn\u2019t know if this is somebody who\u2019s a friend of the individual he\u2019s doing law enforcement action against or what.”<\/em><\/p>\n However, American Civil Liberties Union attorney Dan Pochoda says the law would violate the First Amendment, pointing out that courts have previously struck down attempts to limit the ability of people to record law enforcement.<\/p>\n “There’s now a clearly established right in the [9th US Circuit Court of Appeals] and most circuits in this country to observe and record the activity of law enforcement in public spaces,”<\/em> Pochoda said, according to Fox News. “Limiting that to when you’re further away than 20 feet obviously infringes on that established First Amendment right. I know my camera doesn’t work as well when I’m 21 feet away than when I’m 10 feet away, nor do I hear it as well.”<\/em><\/p>\n He added that the law already allows officers to make people move back if they are interfering with police activity.<\/p>\n Kavanagh, who teaches criminal justice at a community college, said that the First Amendment would not be an issue for the bill.<\/p>\n “The First Amendment is subject to reasonable restriction,”<\/em> he said. “And asking somebody to simply stay back 20 feet so you don’t interject yourself into the scene and become a distraction to me seems reasonable.”<\/em><\/p>\n The bill comes at a time of heightened scrutiny of police behavior concerning the deaths of unarmed individuals at the hands of officers. Many pedestrian videos of shootings of unarmed victims by officers have gone viral on the internet, leading to public outcry and nationwide protests.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n Via RT<\/a>.\u00a0This piece was reprinted by RINF Alternative News<\/a> with permission or license.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" An Arizona state senator has proposed a law that would make it illegal to shoot close-up video of police activity. The senator justified the bill by saying that being filmed puts officers in danger by distracting them while they\u2019re engaging suspects. State Senator John Kavanagh would prevent citizens from filming within 20 feet of any […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":215405,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[487,18],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-215404","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-breaking-news","8":"category-latest-news"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/215404","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=215404"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/215404\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/215405"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=215404"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=215404"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=215404"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}