[Noisebridge-discuss] DoJ supports the right to record police (and to sue if they try to stop you)

[Sai]

Probably of interest to some of you.

tl;dr version: Garcia is a photojournalist. He got arrested for taking
pictures from across the street of someone else getting arrested.

Charges were dropped, he sued the city and the individual police for
violating his civil rights under color of law (42 USC §1983). City &
cops claimed immunity.

Department of Justice filed a "statement of interest" (~= an amicus
brief)… defending Garcia, and saying that the city & cops should *not*
get immunity.

I'd recommend reading that third document in particular, in full. It's
pretty significant that even the DoJ is officially speaking against
police who try to prevent people from recording them.

http://images.politico.com/global/2013/03/08/garcia-complaint.pdf
http://images.politico.com/global/2013/03/08/garcia-motion-to-dismiss.pdf
http://images.politico.com/global/2013/03/08/garcia_doj_soi_03-04-13.pdf

Earlier case: http://www.justice.gov/crt/about/spl/documents/Sharp_ltr_5-14-12.pdf

- Sai