In other words: it was already the law. This is an attempt to limit civic participation and oversight, and to disempower citizens.
8ft seems a reasonable compromise; close enough to capture what is going on, far enough away to not interfere in an ongoing struggle, for instance.
The police have no such right not to be recorded. They are afforded legal recourses against interference, but simply recording them does not constitute interference in any reasonable sense.
Edit: yes, I meant bystanders.
That’s one of many reasons why the law is absurd: the police already have (more than) adequate legal cover to deal with interference in their activities. They don’t need a law that specifically carves recording out for punishment, unless the real goal is to stifle civic participation.
> notwithstanding subsection A of this section, a person who is the subject of police contact may record the encounter if the person is not interfering with lawful police actions, including searching, handcuffing or administering a field sobriety test. The occupants of a vehicle that is the subject of a police stop may record the encounter if the occupants are not interfering with lawful police actions.
In other words this law targets bystanders, i.e. concerned fellow citizens. It probably does this to avoid the trivial standing that recording as a bystander offers, meaning that the limitation there is more of "we think we can get away with this" and less "we think this is the right stopping point."