Free Talk Live

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

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.

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.

The 2nd Circuit US Court of Appeals has ruled that recording an in-person conversation without the knowledge of all parties is only a violation of federal wiretapping law if the person making the recording intends to use the recording for illegal purposes. At least in the states that do not have explicit laws against recording cops, this should nullify the abuses of wiretapping laws against people recording in public.

A longtime northeastern Pennsylvania judge was ordered to spend nearly three decades in prison for his role in a massive juvenile justice bribery scandal that prompted the state's high court to toss thousands of convictions. Former Luzerne County Judge Mark Ciavarella Jr. was sentenced Thursday to 28 years in federal prison for taking $1 million in bribes from the builder of a pair of juvenile detention centers in a case that became known as "kids for cash."

"[Curtis] Mitchell died in February 2010 while waiting 30 hours at his... home for an ambulance during a blizzard, but Chief U.S. District Judge Gary L. Lancaster dismissed his family's lawsuit against city and county emergency services."

The judge says that regardless of whether the facts are as alleged, it's irrelevant since the Emergency Services personnel are not constitutionally obligated to actually provide emergency services.

Illinois man faces five felony charges and 75 years in prison for recording on duty police officers.

According to The National Law Journal, D.C. Superior Court Judge Judith Bartnoff signed a temporary restraining order barring it from publishing the material the reporter had found out, specifically saying that The National Law Journal could not name the government agency that was involved in a regulatory inquiry into one of the participants in the lawsuit. When the NLJ reporter pointed to the First Amendment, the judge allegedly replied that she did not care:

The settlement follows a landmark ruling last August by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the First Circuit, declaring that the First Amendment protects the right to record police carrying out their duties in a public place...

"The law had been clear for years that openly recording a video is not a crime..."

The court's opinion made clear that people cannot be arrested simply for documenting the actions of police officers in public...

"The First Amendment includes the freedom to observe and document the conduct of government officials, which is crucial to a democracy and a free society."