Just because some random guy on YouTube calls it this and just because auditors will be affected doesn’t mean that it’s the intent. I’d like to see a reputable source discussing First Amendment auditors being the specific motivation behind the bill, but I haven’t seen anything yet to back up your claim.
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Again, it’s not about “doing awful things.” Either the right exists and can be exercised, or it does not and cannot. You cannot have a right that exists only so long as you do not use it. I have seen those guys recording in public areas and causing folks to overreact. The question is, do they cease to have this right because they exercise it in a way to someone else disapproves of? We certainly do not treat other rights like that. No one gets in invalidate your constitutional rights because they hurt your feelings. Cops don’t want to get recorded? Tough shit It is part of the job. They don’t have to be doing awful things, it is just part of the job. Librarians, civil servants, what have you, I will let lawyers comment on that. But unless there is a very good reason to abrogate a right, and it better be a damn good reason, the right exists.
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parabolic mics?
Might make an interesting youtube video. Can someone document an instance of police violence from 25 ft away? Test various cell phones, under various lighting conditions, with a bunch of actors.
I don’t have the equipment (nor the videography skills) to test this. My guess is that the resulting video would not hold up in court, which is, probably the point. SCOTUS says you should assume legislators have “good faith”, but fuck 'em.
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Frankly, I don’t care if they’re the targets or not. If a self described 1st amendment auditor is harassing someone, arrest them and charge them with harassment. If they’re not, but they’re just generally being an asshole, well, sometimes allowing people to be assholes is the price of limiting government overreach.
ETA:
Let’s not forget that police violence isn’t the only thing that recording police combats. And I’m very sure that a 25 foot buffer is enough to create reasonable doubt that a cop planted evidence.
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I remember NYCPD said that people had to be 15 feet away a decade or so ago. That was back when cell phones didn’t have zooms. Now that they have moderate zooms, 25 feet. Once we get 10x zooms commonly available and better directional vocal isolation technology, it’ll have to be 50 feet. The disgusting goal remains to make sure videos don’t betray police misconduct.
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I’m trying to find where I said that anybody should be forbidden from recording the cops… Oh wait, that’s right, I didn’t. Abso-fucking-lutely record them. I have.
All I said was that some folks abuse this, and actually physically interfere with the cops, and that’s not a good road to go down.
But that’s what this law is about.
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And if they do interfere, they get arrested. The point being made is that the offense is not the recording, and this is true if anything in public (that I know of. There are probably exceptions) and the insistence that the “First Amendment Auditors” are inherently doing something wrong, by exercising their first amendment rights. Either these rights are or are not viable. If they are, then they can be exercised. If they are not, or if they are at the whim of some official who does not wish to be recorded, then they are not actually rights. And we are at “You have exactly the rights we permit you to have and no more, and this is subject to change at our whim.” I do not want my constitutional rights to exist at the whim of some dude on a power trip. That is all.
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Ha! That’s great, no notes.
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I hate to tell you this, but there’s someone impersonating you earlier in the thread!
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“You have the right to support the police.”
“HOW MUCH can I support the police?”
“You can support the police A LOT!!”
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How are the police going to measure 25 feet? They’ll need to be able to prove in court that someone was standing 24 feet and 11 inches away after they told them to step back.
The LA legislature are going in reverse with the gas to the floor.
Today we got both the new law banning filming cops and the introduction of PragerU videos in public schools.
5 months of Landry as governor and he’s already undone so many years of progress
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Sure, buddy, you try pointing a zoom lens and parabolic mic at a cop from 25 feet away and see if you don’t get tackled or shot by said cop who later claims they thought you were pointing a weapon at them.
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Unless you’re saying that making things harder for these “frauditors” is potentially worth weakening the accountability of the police even more and making it even easier for them to commit murder with impunity, I fail to see how you can “see both sides”. The frauditors sound like an annoyance, whereas the police can and will kill people and get away with it if they’re not being watched and recorded. This is not a balanced trade-off.
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If you did nothing wrong, you had nothing to worry about, silly.
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