Can you film cops?

This week a Seattle Officer was caught on tape punching a girl in the face during an arrest for jaywalking. Which begs the question: Is it legal to film on-duty officers?

In the states of Illinois, Massachusetts, and Maryland it is illegal to film an on-duty cop. This is enforced through the state’s wiretapping law, or two-party consent law, which says that all parties must consent to being recorded.

Illinois the only state where it is illegal to record any audio for any public officials, including cops, regardless of the expectation of privacy. In Maryland and Massachusetts, if there is not an expectation of privacy than one may videotape the encounter.

A total of twelve states have enacted the “two-party consent law” and you can get a state by state guild to whether or not you can tape an encounter here: Reporter’s Committee for Freedom of the Press.

More reading: Wiretapping wars: Filming police should be no crime

Free speech regulation masquerading as ‘transparency’

Sen. Charles Schumer, D-NY, and Rep. Chris Van Hollen, D-MD, have introduced legislation to gut the Supreme Court’s Citizens United decision protecting the free speech rights of citizens when organized into groups such as labor unions, corporations and trade associations.

Beyond the reporting of group expenditures, the Schumer and Van Hollen bills, if enacted, would require the speech-chilling disclosure of individual contributors.

On May 10, the Wisconsin Government Accountability Board ruled that tribes, corporations and other groups must report spending on political advertising. In so doing, the board staff lamented that current Wisconsin law is insufficient to force the likewise speech-chilling public disclosure of the identities of those who simply exercise their free speech rights by contributing lawfully to legitimate organizations.

The Washington Post recently published an article citing “transparency” as justification for effectively regulating Twitter content. The article, “Undercover persuasion by tech industry lobbyists,” fingers lobbyists who “tweet” under their names (gasp!) without a legal disclaimer or link to their most recent lobby disclosure forms.

Every effort to erode liberty and free speech always is disturbing. What is truly alarming about these recent examples is how new and proposed violations of individual rights are lathered in transparency rhetoric. As an advocate of real transparency, I’m concerned that such a masquerade impedes both free speech and transparency.

Transparency is not a duty of private citizens to one another, nor is it a regulatory standard that must be met before free speech is deemed permissible. And, transparency is not a set of hurdles to be cleared before a citizen is allowed admission into the public square.

Transparency is the affirmative duty of government to disclose information to citizens. Transparency guarantees access to information that empowers every citizen to hold government officials accountable for the conduct of the public’s business and the spending of taxpayers’ money. Official accountability to citizens is the great positive—the cornerstone of self-government and liberty.

Without transparency, government cannot be held accountable. And, without accountability, there is no self-government. Without accountability, government of the people is government over the people.

The opportunities for government transparency have never been greater. The Internet allows direct, low cost access to virtually unlimited quantities of documents and data, while an array of telecommunications devices can instantly transmit information to millions of citizens simultaneously.

But for all the power of these technologies, government cannot be fully transparent—and thus held accountable—unless disclosure is de rigueur.

Unfortunately, it seems the impulse to regulate has likewise never been greater. Proposals that further expand regulation and censorship are dangerous to both government transparency and free speech.
John Wonderlich of the Sunlight Foundation, a group we at Sunshine Review admire, was quoted in the Post article as saying that the network of social media is something of a “Wild West.” Frankly, that’s a good thing. It means that a vibrant and prolific public dialogue is occurring—a necessity for a healthy republic. The more people express ideas, the better.
If there is an issue with anonymous blogs or tweets, the problem is self-correcting. Free debate is far superior to government regulation in exposing bad actors.

Since 2008, Sunshine Review has analyzed more than 5,000 state and local government websites assessing their transparency on a 10-point scale. In March, Sunshine Review recognized each website scoring a 9 or 10. We were only able to identify 39 winners, including Wisconsin, from the more than 5,000 websites.

Clearly, government at every level has a long way to go to meet its transparency obligations to citizens. The body politic would benefit greatly if government would focus on meeting its disclosure obligations to citizens instead of looking for new ways to regulate individual speech.

Michael Barnhart is president of Sunshine Review (www.sunshinereview.org).

Read more at the Washington Examiner: http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/opinion/columns/OpEd-Contributor/Michael-Barnhart-Free-speech-regulation-masquerading-as-transparency-94463734.html#ixzz0obkXVI00

Citizens United, transparency, and privacy

In the supreme court ruling of Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission, the Supreme Court ruled that it was unconstitutional to limit corporations’ independent spending during campaigns for the Presidency and Congress. This is in effect a blocking of a key part of campaign finance law, which has been criticized as a hinderance on the First Amendment.

Under the law, corporations would still be required to be open and transparent. Justice Kennedy wrote in the majority opinion that he hopes the internet and prompt disclosure will “provide […] citizens with the information needed to hold … elected officials accountability for their positions and supporters.”

We should hold elected officials accountable. But why “supporters?”

Our friends at the Sunlight Foundation notes that privacy for donors stems from attempts by the KKK to get membership lists of NAACP contributors in order to harass them and threaten violence. Sunshine Review sees the court’s decision as a win for free speech and confidentiality. Private citizens have the right to express themselves through donations and feel safe that their political speech will remain private.

After all, the Citizen’s United case started when a group of citizens wanted to air a documentary against then-presidential candidate Hillary Clinton. Supporters of Clinton may be sympathetic to attempts to remove the shield of privacy for these citizens. But would they feel the same if the documentary were about another presidential candidate? Or a policy issue they support?

The same law that protects corporate donors would protect civil right leaders. This was a win for free speech.