Des Moines Register reporter Andrea Sahouri arrested during a protest she was covering for the newspaper on May 31, 2020.
It’s nothing new for photographers and videographers to be assaulted by police officers while trying to document police activities or other controversial issues.
During the Trump presidency, emboldened by the gross hostility towards the First Amendment from the chief executive, police suppression of press and citizen photography accelerated.
Yet the courts have consistently upheld the rights of citizens to take video of police in action, as in a July 10, 2017, a Third District Court ruling.
According to the American Civil Liberties Union, taking photographs and video of things that are plainly visible in public spaces is a constitutional right. And yet, there is “a widespread, continuing pattern of law enforcement officers ordering people to stop taking photographs or video in public places, and harassing, detaining and arresting those who fail to comply.”
For example:
- May 31, 2020, Des Moines Register reporter Andrea Sahouri was arrested at at BLM protest and charged with to misdemeanor counts: failure to disperse and interference with a public official. Following a jury trial, she was found not guilty on both counts in March, 2021.
- In April, 2020, New York police seized the drone of photographer George Stienmetz in apparent retaliation for taking photos of mass burial sites on Hart Island in New York harbor. The charges were dropped and the drone returned in August 2020.
- March 2019, New Orleans police hit a man recording video – then arrested him.
George Steinmetz, Hart Island, April 18, 2020.
- In July, 2017, Capitol Hill police required photographers to delete images and video of protests in the Capitol during debates over the repeal of Obamacare.
- Release of police body cameras following fatal incidents is now mandatory in New Jersey but discretionary (and unlikely) in Pennsylvania. The New York Times urges caution in closing off public access in a July 2017 editorial. A study by the Urban Institute is looking at the pluses and minuses of police body camera disclosure.
- Body camera footage of a mental patient Irvo Otieno’s apparent death by smothering was released in March, 2023, over the objections of seven deputies and three hospital workers accused of second degree murder.
Ag-gag laws: State suppression of speech by animal rights activists
In 1990 and 1991, the first state laws to ban videotaping of cruelty in livestock production facilities passed in Kansas, Montan and North Dakota. A second wave of laws hit legislatures, and some even passed, in 2011 – 2013. The early laws were aimed at the actions involved in animal “liberation” and were often accompanied by laws about making false statements on employment applications and laws against publishing untrue statements about agricultural products (“veggie libel” which we will take up in the Libel section).
The idea behind “Ag Gag” laws, plainly, is to silence critics of factory farming, as noted in this Mother Jones article from summer 2013. Many of the laws blur the line between action and speech in ways that many believe are probably not Constitutional. (An award-winning student essay also makes this point in some detail, arguing against prior restraint.).
Recordings and permissions
In some states, anyone being recorded in a non-public space needs to consent to the recording. In others, such as Mississippi and Virginia, only one party needs to consent. In the summer of 2022, this led to the release of a police chief’s racist rant and subsequent removal from office.
The Reporter’s Committee for Freedom of the Press has more information on this topic. ‘
Reading
June, 2022, RCFP: “Police, Protesters and the Press”
Also. Recording and consent,
ACLU video 2012: