Arizona Readies Bill to Outlaw Citizens Recording Cops on Private Property
Citizens will have to ask permission to record police
by Kurt Nimmo, Infowars:
The Arizona Senate is poised to pass a bill that will outlaw citizens from taking videos of police, even on their own private property.
“It is unlawful for a person to knowingly make a video recording of law enforcement activity,” SB 1054 reads, “if the person making the video recording does not have the permission of a law enforcement officer and is within twenty feet of where the law enforcement activity is occurring.”
The bill also states that an individual may not record police on their private property or in their homes unless they are twenty feet away from police or “from an adjacent room.” If a police officer determines the individual is “interfering in the law enforcement activity or that it is not safe to be in the area,” the officer may order “the person to step recording or to leave the area.”
Police routinely oppose citizens recording their activity and the proposed legislation will provide them with a legal loophole to shut down all video recording as interference in law enforcement activity.
The Arizona law is a response to numerous videos that have shown police abuse. In a few instances, individual police officers have faced prosecution for violating the rights of citizens as a result of video recordings. The government has a keen interest in preventing this sort of evidence and maintaining its exclusive monopoly of violence without challenge from citizens.
