{"id":1081,"date":"2011-11-25T09:09:41","date_gmt":"2011-11-25T14:09:41","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www3.law.harvard.edu\/journals\/hlpr\/?p=1081"},"modified":"2015-10-02T15:25:45","modified_gmt":"2015-10-02T15:25:45","slug":"enough-is-enough-end-the-arrests-of-journalists-documenting-police-activity-in-public-places","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/journals.law.harvard.edu\/lpr\/2011\/11\/25\/enough-is-enough-end-the-arrests-of-journalists-documenting-police-activity-in-public-places\/","title":{"rendered":"Enough is enough: End the arrests of journalists documenting police activity in public places"},"content":{"rendered":"

Jonathan Peters<\/span><\/em><\/p>\n

An AP reporter, an AP photographer, a\u00a0Daily News<\/em>reporter, a\u00a0Vanity Fair<\/em>\u00a0correspondent, a\u00a0New York Times<\/em>blogger\u2014all\u00a0arrested or detained<\/a>\u00a0while covering\u00a0Occupy Wall Street (OWS) protests.<\/p>\n

And that\u2019s just a sample.<\/p>\n

Josh Stearns, associate program director at Free Press, for two months has\u00a0tracked journalist arrests<\/a>\u00a0at OWS protests, and as of this writing the total is 26. \u00a0That\u2019s 26 people arrested in public places for newsgathering (or as the police call it: trespassing, obstruction, etc.).\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

In New York, where the police arrested 10 journalists on November 15, in and around Zuccotti Park,\u00a0Mayor Bloomberg said<\/a>\u00a0the officers just wanted to protect the press.<\/p>\n

Bullshit.<\/p>\n

I don\u2019t envy Bloomberg\u2014or any other mayor\u2014who has the difficult job of protecting public parks and at the same time preserving the right peaceably to assemble. \u00a0But this, arresting journalists, is part of a larger problem, a pattern of harassing people for documenting police activity in public view.<\/p>\n

In June, a police officer in Rochester\u00a0arrested a woman<\/a>\u00a0who videotaped\u2014from her own front yard\u2014a simple traffic stop. \u00a0She was charged with obstruction of governmental administration. \u00a0Prosecutors dropped the charge days later.<\/p>\n

In March, a police officer in Las Vegas\u00a0arrested a man<\/a>\u00a0who videotaped\u2014from his own driveway\u2014a burglary call at his neighbor\u2019s house. \u00a0After the officer punched and kicked the man, the man was charged with battery and obstruction of justice. \u00a0Prosecutors dropped the charges days later.<\/p>\n

In January, police officers in Boston\u00a0arrested a lawyer<\/a>\u00a0who videotaped\u2014from a public sidewalk\u2014the officers\u2019 struggle to \u201cextract a plastic bag from a teenager\u2019s mouth.\u201d \u00a0The lawyer was charged with illegal electronic surveillance. \u00a0Prosecutors refused to drop the charge.<\/p>\n

For those and the OWS arrests, the charges vary quite a bit, from trespassing to obstruction to illegal surveillance. \u00a0But the underlying problem is a constant, and it doesn\u2019t matter that the charges often disappear. The message has been sent: Videotape and photograph at your peril.<\/p>\n

As I wrote last summer in a related column for the\u00a0IRE Journal<\/a><\/em>, with Charles Davis, an associate professor at the Missouri School of Journalism, it\u2019s time to push back.<\/p>\n

Enough with the arrests of American citizens videotaping police activity in public view, on public streets, in front of God and country. \u2026\u00a0<\/em>These abuses are happening despite a long tradition in American law of protecting photography and videography in public places. \u2026\u00a0<\/em>Police officers have tough jobs. We commiserate with the life-and-death struggles they all too often face, for low pay and few (if any) perks. \u00a0It\u2019s a calling, police work \u2026.\u00a0<\/em>But the trend toward enshrining in our laws the secret police tactics that Americans have long condemned\u2014it\u2019s shameful. \u00a0This is the stuff of banana republics.\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n

I\u2019d write the same thing today about OWS. \u00a0After all, I\u2019m not supposed to read in the United States about the police arresting dozens of journalists, the police roughing journalists up, the police restricting journalists to out-of-sight-out-of-mind pens.<\/p>\n

Enough is enough.<\/p>\n

Jonathan Peters is a lawyer and the Frank Martin Fellow at the Missouri School of Journalism, where he\u2019s working on his Ph.D. and specializing in the First Amendment. He\u2019s written on legal issues for a variety of news media, most recently PBS and Wired. Follow him\u00a0@jonathanwpeters<\/a>\u00a0on Twitter. \u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Jonathan Peters An AP reporter, an AP photographer, a\u00a0Daily Newsreporter, a\u00a0Vanity Fair\u00a0correspondent, a\u00a0New York Timesblogger\u2014all\u00a0arrested or detained\u00a0while covering\u00a0Occupy Wall Street […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"site-sidebar-layout":"default","site-content-layout":"","ast-site-content-layout":"default","site-content-style":"default","site-sidebar-style":"default","ast-global-header-display":"","ast-banner-title-visibility":"","ast-main-header-display":"","ast-hfb-above-header-display":"","ast-hfb-below-header-display":"","ast-hfb-mobile-header-display":"","site-post-title":"","ast-breadcrumbs-content":"","ast-featured-img":"","footer-sml-layout":"","ast-disable-related-posts":"","theme-transparent-header-meta":"","adv-header-id-meta":"","stick-header-meta":"","header-above-stick-meta":"","header-main-stick-meta":"","header-below-stick-meta":"","astra-migrate-meta-layouts":"default","ast-page-background-enabled":"default","ast-page-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"ast-content-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-4)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-4)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-4)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1081","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-blog"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/peZQka-hr","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/journals.law.harvard.edu\/lpr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1081","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/journals.law.harvard.edu\/lpr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/journals.law.harvard.edu\/lpr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/journals.law.harvard.edu\/lpr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/journals.law.harvard.edu\/lpr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1081"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/journals.law.harvard.edu\/lpr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1081\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/journals.law.harvard.edu\/lpr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1081"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/journals.law.harvard.edu\/lpr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1081"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/journals.law.harvard.edu\/lpr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1081"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}