We just caught this video on BoingBoing:
As noted on this site here and here, videotaping the police is an unambiguous First Amendment right. We support the actions of Michael Allison and wish him success in battling to protect all of our rights.
If you agree, please share this story!!
Yesterday we posted on the un-Constitutional actions of one police officer in Suffolk County, NJ. Today we discovered a new daily read at CrimeFileNews along with an interesting perspective further supporting the rights of individuals to videotape the police.
On the street where you are enforcing codes, making arrests or aiding people in distress capturing video and audio is absolutely constitutionally protected activity. That is as long as you’re not being somehow hindered from your duty.
The editor of CrimeFileNews is a “licensed Private Detective-Former Chicago policeman-Investigative journalist, actor and proud member of SAG/AFTRA.”
We just caught this video via BoingBoing (from Gizmodo) that according to the creator “was the end of a police chase and the Sgt. doesn’t want video coverage from a credentialed member of the press. The photog asks how far to move back but the sgt. says no you can’t shoot it at all. Notice the road is open to traffic, there are people without a camera that are standing there and even some kids walk straight through the scene. The photog moves a block away and shoots from the next street over and that’s when he’s arrested and charged with Obstruction of Governmental Administration….how can you obstruct from a block away.”
As noted on BoingBoing, videotaping members of the police department is fully protected under the First Amendment. With everyone so focused on protecting the Constitution, it is essential to remember how this right to share information protects our freedoms!
Oathkeepers.orgWhile we live by the Groucho Marx wisdom of “I don’t care to belong to a club that accepts people like me as members. ” we do however support the mission of Oathkeepers.org. They are “a non-partisan association of currently serving military, veterans, peace officers, and firefighters who will fulfill the oath we swore to support and defend the Constitution against all enemies, foreign and domestic, so help us God.” The Oathkeeper’s Declaration Of Orders We WIll Not Obey is a legitimate stance against a series of orders that are hopefully never issued in the USA.
Declaration Of Orders We Will Not Obey from Oathkeepers.org:
1. We will NOT obey any order to disarm the American people.
2. We will NOT obey any order to conduct warrantless searches of the American people, their homes, vehicles, papers, or effects — such as warrantless house-to house searches for weapons or persons.
3. We will NOT obey any order to detain American citizens as “unlawful enemy combatants” or to subject them to trial by military tribunal.
4. We will NOT obey orders to impose martial law or a “state of emergency” on a state, or to enter with force into a state, without the express consent and invitation of that state’s legislature and governor.
5. We will NOT obey orders to invade and subjugate any state that asserts its sovereignty and declares the national government to be in violation of the compact by which that state entered the Union.
6. We will NOT obey any order to blockade American cities, thus turning them into giant concentration camps.
7. We will NOT obey any order to force American citizens into any form of detention camps under any pretext.
8. We will NOT obey orders to assist or support the use of any foreign troops on U.S. soil against the American people to “keep the peace” or to “maintain control” during any emergency, or under any other pretext. We will consider such use of foreign troops against our people to be an invasion and an act of war.
9. We will NOT obey any orders to confiscate the property of the American people, including food and other essential supplies, under any emergency pretext whatsoever.
10. We will NOT obey any orders which infringe on the right of the people to free speech, to peaceably assemble, and to petition their government for a redress of grievances.
Pocket ConstitutionThe text is from one produced by the U.S. Bicentennial Commission and was proofed word for word against the original Constitution housed in the Archives in Washington, D.C. — identical in spelling, capitalization and punctuation. This special edition is sized in accordance with one produced by President Thomas Jefferson and includes remarkable quotes from our nation’s Founders. This compact printing is perfect for your Bug-Out-Bag and a must for your bookshelf.
