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Comment by simonbarker87 | Hacker News Reader

I assume you’ve missunderstood the ramifications of this. Traffic stops are all within 8 feet, this means that no traffic stop can be filmed in Arizona, many people get assaulted or killed by police in traffic stops. If the police are within 8 feet of you then they are able to assault you and claim you attacked them and any recording you have won’t legally count even if it shows the policeman is lying. This law helps on group of people, police. Specifically, dirty police. A good police officer would say “I see you’re filming and I’m happy for you to keep filming even if we have to come within 8 feet”

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The law doesn't say that. If you're involved with the police, you can film from whatever distance. Unrelated parties need to be at least 8 feet away.

This sounds super-reasonable to me. 8 feet is close enough to capture what's going on, but far enough to not interfere or escalate in a situation.

In a tense situation, it's not always easy to tell who might or might not be a danger to the police officer. This seems to set a reasonable bound which avoids accidents or incidents. Arrests are tense situations.

Imagine you're a police officer arresting a dangerous criminal, and their friend comes within 3 feet. They're filming you. You don't know if they're an accomplice or not. What do you do?

Now, it's easy. 8 feet away is okay.

Your analogy doesn’t adhere to the bounds proscribed by this new law: if the officer has a legitimate reason to believe the other person is an accomplice in the crime, then they’re involved in the “law enforcement operation” and the recording law doesn’t apply to them.

This is bad law: it takes a set of restrictions that already exist, and adds additional language to them in order to chill civic participation. The police already have a cornucopia of powers available to them; they don’t need a completely arbitrary carve-out for just the act of recording their actions.

I think, in the situation I gave, there isn't legitimate reason to believe either way. All you know is you're holding down a suspect who has a knife, and their brother is walking up awfully close up to you. You don't know if they're:

1. About to smack you in the head to save their brother

2. Trying to make a nice video recording

Adrenaline is flowing, and you have 1.5 seconds to decide. Which way do you guess?

The law seems reasonable in concept. Lots of flaws in the language, as is being pointed out in this discussion (although sometimes incorrectly). What bugs me most is: "C. this section does not establish a right or authorize any person to make a video recording of law enforcement activity."

In a tense situation, it’s also not always easy to judge distance. Do you think a cop who doesn’t want to be filmed is going to whip out a tape measure or just start smacking around the videographer and say they were 7’ 11” away?

It's not easy because now you can be arrested for filming the police encounter and who's gonna say you were more than 8ft away from the interaction? You, of course.

But then it's your word against the police officer's word, and (1) police are willing to lie, and (2) the words of a police officer almost always carry more weight in a court proceeding.

This doesn't actually change anything because if you're intending to interfere with a police interaction, you're going to interfere with a police interaction. That's already illegal. Nothing changes.

If you're only intending to record the interaction, you now have this stupid law to worry about. More of our rights being restricted, with people applauding it under the guise of police safety.

Also, keep in mind that police in the US already have vast protections like qualified immunity, safety and weapons training, they're armed, and they have a legal right to violence. I don't understand what sorts of protections they're desperately in need of.

One would hope if you're being arrested for being closer than 8 feet, when you're not, you'll have video evidence to the contrary (kinda by definition). It might not be precise enough to tell 7'11" from 8'1", but otherwise, you have actual forensic evidence to tell who was wrong and who was right.

That sounds great but now you're in court and having to prove that you were further than 8 feet. So you were harassed by police, arrested, charged with this crime, and sent to court. This is just another tool for police to harass citizens that is completely unnecessary for the safety of the public.

Most likely, things don't go that far. Prosecutors don't want to take losing cases. There are no high-stakes consequences, as there ought to be, but it also doesn't look good for anyone involved.

Your bigger picture, though, is smack-on. By the time you hit the legal system -- criminal or civil -- you've already lost. A typical case will bankrupt most people in the US. Thing is, one can always come up with an excuse to sue / prosecute someone. There's a deeper problem there which this law doesn't change.

I'd rather address root causes.

Even if it doesn't go to court, just being threatened with this crime might be enough to get someone to stop recording a police interaction. So again the law is to the detriment of the public. There is no upside to this law aside from it being a useful tool for police intimidation.

If you are sitting in a car next to someone being arrested it's very easy to be within 8 feet. If a person is within 3 ft without filming is everything fine? Who knows, but the act of filming doesn't seem like a reasonable differentiator between the two.

now what happens when a cop walks towards someone to get them to stop filming?

same thing that happens when you push a cop away for yelling at you 2 inches from your face: now you’re on the ground

So hypothetically, if one is being illegally beaten by a person who happens to be an on-duty police officer, all the victim has to do to achieve justice is turn on their camera to record the incident to gather evidence. Bystanders can feel good that they’re ignoring the incident and carrying on with their days, as they know that it’s the victim’s responsibility to record their own beating.

... or record from 10 feet away.

10 feet away from what, exactly? A ‘law enforcement activity’? Is that area defined in a meaningful way?

What if a bystander records 10 feet away, but a second person stands in between and records 5 feet away? Has the area of law enforcement activity expanded to include the first bystander because of the second bystander is breaking a law?

I guess bystanders who didn’t bring their tape measure can just run the risk of recording and let the courts shake it out, right?

I believe that there's a specific exception to this law if the police are addressing the person filming i.e. you can film your own interaction with police within 8 feet but not someone else's. I can imagine that it would cause issues with traffic stops if the passenger starts to film the interaction.

Yes but what if I'm a passenger who wants to film a stop of the driver and am ordered to stay in the car along with the driver? My 1A rights are then restricted?

I guess you could argue that if the officer orders you to stay in the vehicle, then they are interacting directly with you, but I don't know how that would play out in court.

Passengers in involved cars are also allowed to film explicitly by the law.

The law specifically calls out the case of passengers in the car being allowed to film a traffic stop.

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