Free Talk Live

Last December, filmmaker Terrance Huff and his friend Jon Seaton were returning to Ohio from St. Louis. As they drove through a small town in Illinois, a police officer pulled Huff's over for an alleged unsafe lane change. Over the next hour, the police officer interrogated the two men, employing a variety of police tactics aimed at tricking them into giving up their Fourth Amendment rights. Fortunately, this was all recorded.

A three-judge panel found that even if the officer observed no illegal conduct, a traffic stop and interrogation is justified when a driver seems not to want to be around a patrol car.

Illinois charges you with a Class I felony for recording cops; it's punishable by 4 to 15 years in prison.

What did Sgt. Terrance Yeakey know? This short film will give you a glimpse into the mystery of the brutal torture-murder of Sgt. Terrance Yeakey and address several of the unanswered questions that exist surrounding the horrific circumstances of his passing on May 8, 1996. Sgt. Yeakey is remembered as a loving husband, father, brother and son and highly respected 7 year veteran of the Oklahoma City Police Department.

In Illinois, you need the permission of the state to record on the street. It is illegal make audio recordings of cops going about their duty arresting unlicensed street artists and other ne’er-do-wells.

Radley Balko and Carlos Miller interviewed on NPR's Talk of the Nation about recording the police.

From the website:
July 8, 2010 The Los Angeles police beating of Rodney King resonated, in part, because it was caught on video. Now, most modern cell phones have video cameras. Many police departments struggle to draw the line between citizens' and journalists' rights to film arrests, and their officers' rights to privacy.

The Creator of the "Send a Brick" campaign's wife has left him, for an "Illegal Immigrant"

A Maryland man now faces up to five years in prison after he recorded his traffic stop last month in Harford County. Graber was speeding with his motorcycle with a camera attached to his helmet recording his ride.

A District Court judge in Goffstown, New Hampshire has dismissed a criminal charge against a Weare man for recording his conversation with a police officer during a traffic stop. Judge Edward Tenney followed a recent First Circuit Court of Appeals decision in Boston in Glik v. Cunniffe in ruling that William Alleman was within his constitutional rights when making an audio recording of Weare Police Officer Brandon Montplaisir during the traffic stop on July 10, 2010.