While police can enforce a perimeter in the course of police work, specifically outlawing recording will be/should be struck down as unconstitutional.
That is not the point of the law. The point is to stay out of the immediate proximity to the action.
It doesn't care what "the point of the law" is. It cares what's written.
It's already illegal to interfere. Now there's a magic line in which you can't get too close regardless of if you interfere or not.
What if my 14 YO son wanders off, and is now being questioned? I have to choose between engaging with the police officer ("my son is a minor, and you don't have permission to question him") and recording the interaction.
What if my friend and I are stopped, and they are getting questioned? I now have to turn away, and potentially escalate the situation by looking like I'm running, to record the interaction.
What if the police officer unexpectedly pulls a gun on my husband, and the officer is right beneath my unenclosed porch? I have to leave my house to reposition myself so I can record, potentially missing the critical 30 seconds.
> Photographing or more commonly videotaping police activity is one of the most contentious areas of photographer/videographer rights. When it comes to filming police activity, the federal courts are not in agreement as to whether there is even a right to do it. In a case about prisoner punishment, the U.S. Supreme Court said, “For a constitutional right to be clearly established, its contours must be sufficiently clear that a reasonable official would understand that what he is doing violates that right … in the light of pre-existing law the unlawfulness must be apparent.” Hope v. Pelzer (2002)
> Two U.S. Circuit courts, the 1st and the 11th, say that there is a right to photograph/videotape police activity. The 9th Circuit provides some protection if police activity is considered a “matter of public interest.” Courts in the 3rd, 4th and 5th Circuits have said that the right to videotape the police has not conclusively been established. Courts in the remaining circuits have not ruled directly on the issue.
AZ is in the 9th circuit:
> In its 1995 opinion in Fordyce v. City of Seattle, the 9th Circuit stated that there is a First Amendment right to “film matters of public interest.” ...
> The question of whether a person has the right to photograph or videotape police activities in the 9th Circuit has not been directly addressed and, thus, has not been fully answered.
I always thought that reporting on the government was the entire literal point of the first amendment covering journalism and reporting
It sounds to me like police have carte-blanche to do whatever they want with zero regard for actual laws
Quoting https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Qualified_immunity:
> qualified immunity is a legal principle that grants government officials performing discretionary (optional) functions immunity from civil suits unless the plaintiff shows that the official violated "clearly established statutory or constitutional rights of which a reasonable person would have known".
From the link I gave, "The question of whether a person has the right to photograph or videotape police activities in the 9th Circuit has not been directly addressed and, thus, has not been fully answered. ... Courts in the 3rd, 4th and 5th Circuits have said that the right to videotape the police has not conclusively been established."
Since these are not "clearly established statutory or constitutional rights", the police officer has qualified immunity.
That all said, you've nailed it on the head. 'Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor has noted a "disturbing trend" of siding with police officers using excessive force with qualified immunity,[45] describing it as "sanctioning a 'shoot first, think later' approach to policing".' , quoting https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Qualified_immunity#Police_brut...