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First Circuit Upholds First Amendment Right to Secretly Audio Record the Police

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Email updates on news, actions,and events in your area.DEEPLINKS BLOGShare ItEFF applauds the U.S. Court of Appeals for the First Circuit for that the First Amendment protects individuals when they secretly audio record on-duty police officers. EFF filed an in the case, Martin v. Rollins, which was brought by the ACLU of Massachusetts on behalf of two civil rights activists. This is a victory for people within the (Massachusetts, Maine, New Hampshire, Puerto Rico and Rhode Island) who want to record an interaction with police officers without exposing themselves to possible reprisals for visibly recording.The First Circuit the to the extent it prohibits the secret audio recording of police officers performing their official duties in public. The law generally makes it a crime to secretly audio record all conversations without consent, even where participants have no reasonable expectation of privacy, making the Massachusetts statute unique among the states.The First Circuit had previously held in (2011) that the plaintiff had a First Amendment right to record police officers arresting another man in Boston Common. Glik had used his cell phone to openly record both audio and video of the incident. The court had held that the audio recording did not violate the Massachusetts anti-eavesdropping statute’s prohibition on secret recording because Glik’s cell phone was visible to officers.Thus, following Glik, the question remained open as to whether individuals have a First Amendment right to secretly audio record police officers, or if instead they could be punished under the Massachusetts statute for doing so. (A few years after Glik, in (2014), the First Circuit held that the plaintiff had a First Amendment right to openly record the police during someone else’s traffic stop to the extent she wasn’t interfering with them.)The First Circuit in Martin held that recording on-duty police officers, even secretly, is protected newsgathering activity similar to that of professional reporters that “serve[s] the very same interest in promoting public awareness of the conduct of law enforcement—with all the accountability that the provision of such information promotes.” The court further explained that recording “play[s] a critical role in informing the public about how the police are conducting themselves, whether by documenting their heroism, dispelling claims of their misconduct, or facilitating the public’s ability to hold them to account for their wrongdoing.”The ability to secretly audio record on-duty police officers is especially important given that many officers retaliate against civilians who openly record them, as happened in a recent case. The First Circuit agreed with the Martin plaintiffs that secret recording can be a “better tool” to gather information about police officers, because officers are less likely to be disrupted and, more importantly, secret recording may be the only way to ensure that recording “occurs at all.” The court stated that “the undisputed record supports the Martin Plaintiffs’ concern that open recording puts them at risk of physical harm and retaliation.”Finally, the court was not persuaded that the privacy interests of civilians who speak with or near police officers are burdened by secretly audio recording on-duty police officers. The court reasoned that “an individual’s privacy interests are hardly at their zenith in speaking audibly in a public space within earshot of a police officer.”Given the critical importance of recordings for police accountability, the First Amendment right to record police officers exercising their official duties has been recognized by a growing number of federal jurisdictions. In addition to the First Circuit, federal appellate courts in the , , , , and Circuits have directly upheld this right.Disappointingly, the recently dodged the question. For all the reasons in the First Circuit’s Martin decision, the Tenth Circuit erred, and the remaining circuits must recognize the First Amendment right to record on-duty police officers as the law of the land.Share ItSAN FRANCISCO–A new Arizona law that bans people from recording videos within eight feet of police violates the constitutional rights of legal observers, grassroots activists, and other Arizonans, says by the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF), two Arizona chapters of the National Lawyers...When people fear that the police are about to break the law, they pull out their phones and hit “record.” Doing so promotes police accountability and public discussion of important issues. So, it is great news that yet another federal appellate court has ruled that people have a First Amendment...We are disappointed that the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit this week a critical constitutional question: whether individuals have a First Amendment right to record on-duty police officers.EFF had filed an in the case, Frasier v. Evans, asking the court to affirm...Like the rest of the world, we are horrified by the videos of George Floyd’s murder. Once again, police brutality was documented by brave bystanders exercising their First Amendment rights. Their videos forcefully tell a painful truth that has further fueled a movement to demand an end to racism and...The First Amendment protects the public’s right to use electronic devices to record on-duty police officers, EFF argued in an filed in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit. The case, Frasier v. Evans, was brought by Levi Frasier against five Denver police officers for...Journalists face increasingly covering public protests, presidential rallies, corruption, and police brutality in the course of work as watchdogs over government power. A case before the U.S. Supreme Court threatens press freedoms even further by potentially giving the government freer rein to arrest media people in retaliation...Congress should not broadly authorize federal agencies to destroy and wiretap private drones, or give its implied endorsement to biometric screening of domestic travelers and U.S. citizens. Congress definitely should not sneak these invasive provisions into a last-minute, must-pass, thousand-page . Yet Congress is poised to do so. Please...The First Amendment protects the right of members of the public to record first responders addressing medical emergencies, EFF argued in an filed in the federal trial court for the Northern District of Texas. The case, Adelman v. DART, concerns the arrest of a Dallas freelance press...The First Amendment protects our right to use electronic devices to record on-duty police officers, according to a new by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit in . This right extends to anyone with a recording device, journalists and members of the...Does the First Amendment guarantee the right of individuals to record police officers exercising their official duties in public? That is the question being considered by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit in two consolidated cases: Fields v. City of Philadelphia and Geraci v. City of Philadelphia....Share It

Email updates on news, actions,and events in your area.DEEPLINKS BLOGShare ItEFF applauds the U.S. Court of Appeals for the First Circuit for that the First Amendment protects individuals when they secretly audio record on-duty police officers. EFF filed an in the case, Martin v. Rollins, which was brought by the ACLU of Massachusetts on behalf of two civil rights activists. This is a victory for people within the (Massachusetts, Maine, New Hampshire, Puerto Rico and Rhode Island) who want to record an interaction with police officers without exposing themselves to possible reprisals for...

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First Circuit Upholds First Amendment Right to Secretly Audio Record the Police

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