Privacy Law's Dark Side: The Michael Hyde Story - Center For Individual Rights Seeks Plaintiffs For Right To Record Police Case

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Published on Tuesday, 25 March 2008

Written by Know My Rights

Eugene Volokh of The Volokh Conspiracy got this request from Michael Rosman at the Center for Individual Rights:

Like many of your readers, I was intrigued by your recent post concerning the conviction of individuals for taping or videotaping police officers while the officers are doing their job in public. Some of your readers thought that there may be some federal constitutional problem in laws that make such tapings illegal. My employer, the Center for Individual Rights, is interested in possibly representing individuals who want to challenge such laws as a violation of constitutional rights.

Ideally, a potential client would be a person or organization that legitimately is concerned about being arrested for taping police officers, or who would engage in that conduct were it not for a law making it illegal. Obviously, it would have to be in a state where the law makes that concern reasonable. (Your post referred to Massachusetts. We believe that Pennsylvania may be another such state, although the law there is more in flux.) Someone who has already gotten in trouble for violating such a law is fine, but we would not be the best lawyers to represent someone currently involved in an ongoing criminal or civil proceeding in state court.

If any of your readers are among those who would like to challenge a law of this kind, or can help us identify the states where such laws exist by giving us cites to relevant statutes or cases, (s)he can email me at rosman [at] cir-usa.org.

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