August, 23 2022, 05:17pm EDT
ACLU of Arizona and ACLU Challenge Arizona's Ban on Recording Police
WASHINGTON
The American Civil Liberties Union of Arizona and a group of 10 media organizations, represented by the ACLU and Ballard Spahr, respectively, filed a lawsuit against the state of Arizona today challenging HB 2319, a law which makes it a crime to record police officers within eight feet of law enforcement activity. The suit challenges the law as a violation of the First Amendment, and seeks to stop HB 2319 from going into effect. The constitutional right to record police engaged in official duties is one of the public's most effective accountability tools against police wrongdoing.
Video recording of police encounters and other law enforcement activity in public is one of the few ways community members and the media can hold police accountable for misconduct. Over the last decade, the simple act of recording police misconduct has raised public awareness about police brutality and ignited movements to demand reform across the country. Arizona's HB 2319 would directly suppress free speech rights, while also limiting public accountability and effective protest of government actions.
"At a time when the public is demanding police accountability, Arizona wants to criminalize the public's most effective tool for shining a light on police violence," said Jared Keenan, legal director of the ACLU of Arizona. "This law is not only unconstitutional, it is bad public policy."
Under Arizona's law, a person commits a crime if they film an officer engaged in law enforcement activity within eight feet if they have been warned to stop. This vests far too much power in individual officers to stop someone from recording them if they don't want to be recorded. It also makes it nearly impossible to record police in large protests, where protesters may walk within eight feet of a line of police monitoring the protest from all sides.
"We have a right to hold police officers accountable by recording their activities in public,"said Esha Bhandari, deputy director of the ACLU Speech, Privacy, and Technology Project. "Arizona's law will prevent people from engaging in recording that doesn't interfere with police activity, and it will suppress the reporting and advocacy that results from video evidence of police misconduct. The First Amendment does not permit that outcome."
"We fear that, rather than acting as a shield to ensure 'officer safety,' this law will serve as a sword to abridge the 'clearly established' First Amendment right to video record police officers performing their official duties in public," said National Press Photographers association (NPPA) general counsel Mickey H. Osterreicher. "We hope the court will agree and strike down this law as unconstitutional."
Every federal circuit court to consider the matter has recognized the right to record police engaged in official duties in public, including the Ninth Circuit, which covers Arizona.
The plaintiffs in this case include the ACLU of Arizona and the following media organizations: Phoenix Newspapers, Inc.; Gray Television; Scripps Media; KPNX (12 News); Fox Television Stations; NBCUniversal Media (Telemundo Arizona/KTAZ); Arizona Broadcasters Association; States Newsroom (AZ Mirror); Arizona Newspapers Association; and the National Press Photographers Association.
This case was filed in the U.S. District Court for the District of Arizona.
The American Civil Liberties Union was founded in 1920 and is our nation's guardian of liberty. The ACLU works in the courts, legislatures and communities to defend and preserve the individual rights and liberties guaranteed to all people in this country by the Constitution and laws of the United States.
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Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) argued Tuesday that passing the PRESS Act is "more important now than ever before when we've heard some in the previous administration talk about going after the press in one way or another," a reference to Republican President-elect Donald Trump's threats to jail journalists who refuse to reveal the sources of leaks. Trump, who has referred to the press as the "enemy of the people," repeatedly urged Senate Republicans to "kill this bill."
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"The FTC, along with our state partners, scored a major victory for the American people, successfully blocking Kroger's acquisition of Albertsons," said Henry Liu, director of the commission's Bureau of Competition, in a statement. "This historic win protects millions of Americans across the country from higher prices for essential groceries—from milk, to bread, to eggs—ultimately allowing consumers to keep more money in their pockets."
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Trump has picked Harmeet Dhillon as Assistant Attorney General for Civil Rights. She has stated that it must be "made unsafe" for hospitals to provide trans care, and frequently shares Libs of TikTok posts. She intends to target trans people in blue states. Subscribe to support my journalism.
[image or embed]
— Erin Reed (@erininthemorning.com) December 10, 2024 at 8:14 AM
Reed continued:
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Reed also highlighted Dhillon's attacks on state laws protecting transgender people, as well as her expression of "extreme anti-trans views" on social media—including calling gender-affirming healthcare for trans children "child abuse."
Last year, The Guardian's Jason Wilson reported that the Center for American Liberty made a six-figure payment to a public relations firm that represented Dhillion in both "her capacity as head of her own for-profit law firm and Republican activist."
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