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But I wonder what they think of police downloading and cloning your phone's content at their whim.
The seizure clause of the Fourth Amendment would seem cover any case in which they wanted a copy of your data.
I'm wondering is there a Wikipedia article on this issue, I was interested to get more background on this, especially the status in other countries.
(http://www.met.police.uk/about/photography.htm)
(There are extra protections for journalists, which don't appear to be listed on that page.)
EDIT: But see also this page, where police will extract your phone data if they think the phone has been used in crime.
Is it OK to film someone who is being questioned, arrested, etc. by police?
Many states have laws against unauthorized audio recordings of other citizens.
Does this affect the right to record them while in discussions with police (or anyone for that matter)?
Not to burst anyone's bubbles, but just because the DoJ has issued a letter stating that they believe this is constitutional does not make it so. There are opinions, I believe, from the First and Seventh Circuits that state explicitly that this is the case, but, probably until there is a definitive decision from the US Supreme Court or the like, or of an appellate court in a given state, local police could still try…
http://www.nwprogressive.org/weblog/2012/04/supreme-court-sa...
I don't think is a wise idea to take this to the supreme court at this moment. They could easily say that it is illegal to record police.
How does this apply Illinois' law?
its my understanding that due to the supremacy clause, federal (constitutional) law trumps state laws. in some cases, state laws can grant addiitional rights, but they can't abridge the rights granted by the constitution.
One by one, the amendments have been/are being slowly incorporated to protect individual rights against State governments as well, as the result of Supreme Court rulings: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Incorporation_of_the_Bill_of_Ri...
To date, the first, second, fourth, partially fifth, (by and large) sixth, and partially eight amendments have been incorporated, i.e. apply equally to both State and Federal governments. The 2nd (the right to bear arms) was the most recent one, incorporated in 2010 here in Chicago.
Why aren't the police equipped with recording devices that are active whenever they are interacting with the public? It seems that anyone with that sort of power should have an audit trail for their actions.
I run the OpenWatch project - http://openwatch.net Many officers use our software to record themselves on duty. They use this evidence in court for exactly this reason.
I've actually been arrested once for recording a police officer, I went up to her with my cellphone in hand when she was questioning my intoxicated friend on my college campus. She snatched my phone away from me and said I was prohibiting her from doing her job, and so I was taken in with my friend. Looks like i'll be fighting this one. Never thought HN would be a good source for legal advice ;)
Also, going looking for legal trouble on this will get you people to cheer on the sidelines, but not to cover legal expenses (unless you get the EFF or something to sponsor your case).
In my experience, it's better to pick your fights, this one doesn't seem worth it (but I don't know what your situation is, so ymmv).
Here is a case from my state of Maryland where a motorcyclist was charged with recording a police man without the officer's permission; it was very upsetting to me when in happened two years ago: http://weblogs.baltimoresun.com/news/crime/blog/2010/05/stat...
The bottom line with these kinds of cases is that if not for the video, the victims of police brutality and abuse would have nothing to show ... and there have been many cases where police have lied to cover up their actions.
One case that sticks in my mind is when a Maryland basketball fan was attacked and beaten by three police officers completely unprovoked: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OYckCapjdnY
The reporting officer falsified the report and stated that the student had struck the police horse. This video turned up a few days later and shows that none of that happened. If not for the video, those officers would have gotten away with beating up a student and lying about it ... and the victim would have been the one having to pay for it with jail time, fines, and lawyer's fees.
That's exactly the kind of abuse we need to protect against.