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<\/picture> <\/div>\nYes, you are well within your First Amendment rights to livestream video of police officers in action. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the 4th Circuit confirmed that in a ruling released this week.<\/p>\n
It really shouldn’t have been a question. Courts have, on a number of occasions, upheld the right to photograph or take video of police officers.<\/p>\n
But police officers in Winterville, North Carolina, insisted that livestreaming that video on social media is different<\/a>. During a 2018 traffic stop\u2014which car passenger Dijon Sharpe started sharing on Facebook Live\u2014an officer tried to take away Sharpe’s phone, calling it an “officer safety issue.” Another officer told Sharpe, “In the future, if you’re on Facebook Live, your phone is gonna be taken from you\u2026and if you don’t want to give up your phone, you’ll go to jail.”<\/p>\n Sharpe sued. And a U.S. district court sided against him, writing “that an individual’s right under the First Amendment to record a traffic stop” and to “real-time broadcast a traffic stop from within the stopped car” was not “clearly established.” That meant the officers involved were entitled to qualified immunity.<\/p>\n Sharpe then took the case to a federal appeals court, with a horde of civil liberties groups \u2014including the American Civil Liberties Union, the Institute for Justice, the Cato Institute, and the National Police Accountability Project\u2014backing his position.<\/p>\n This time, the court sided with Sharpe in part.<\/p>\n Winterville “failed to establish that the alleged <\/span>livestreaming policy is sufficiently grounded in, and tailored to, strong governmental <\/span>interests to survive First Amendment scrutiny,”<\/span><\/span> the court held in a Tuesday decision<\/a>, penned by Judge Julius N. Richardson. “So we vacate the district court’s order <\/span>declaring the policy constitutional and remand for further proceedings.”<\/span> “Creating and disseminating information is protected speech under the First Amendment,” noted Richardson:<\/p>\n And other courts have routinely recognized these principles extend the First Amendment to cover recording\u2014particularly when the information involves matters of public interest like police encounters\u2026.<\/p>\n We agree. Recording police encounters creates information that contributes to discussion about governmental affairs. So too does livestreaming disseminate that information, often creating its own record. We thus hold that livestreaming a police traffic stop is speech protected by the First Amendment.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/blockquote>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n Nonetheless, the Winterville police officers are still entitled to qualified immunity, the court held. Under the doctrine of qualified immunity, police officers are only open to individual liability if they violate a clearly established<\/em> right that is protected by the Constitution. But the legality of livestreaming traffic stops was not clearly established, the judges said.<\/p>\n “The State of Our Union Sucks.”<\/strong> In yesterday’s Roundup<\/em>, we covered President Joe Biden’s 2023 State of the Union address and his weird quest to micromanage the minutiae of American travel. Since then, Reason<\/em> has published a half-dozen posts tackling various other facets of Biden’s comments and proposals.<\/p>\n “The state of our union sucks,” writes<\/a> Reason<\/em> Editor at Large Matt Welch, taking a big-picture view of Biden’s speech. “The bipartisan (if shouty!) embrace of big-government nationalism ensures our populist moment won’t end any time soon.”<\/p>\n Other Reason<\/em> writers have tackled Biden’s comments on immigration, schooling, policing, and more. Check them out:<\/p>\n \u2022 Biden’s Foreign Policy Is Adrift<\/a><\/p>\n \u2022 The Cops Who Killed Tyre Nichols Could Be Convicted of Murder and Still<\/em> Get Qualified Immunity<\/a><\/p>\n \u2022 Biden’s Claims About Universal Pre-K Are Malarkey<\/a><\/p>\n \u2022 Biden’s Proposed Assault Weapon Ban Is Unconstitutional, Unlikely, and Ineffectual<\/a><\/p>\n \u2022 Biden’s Anti-Vaping Policies Undermine Cancer Moonshot<\/a><\/p>\n \u2022 Calls To ‘Close the Border’ in Response to Fentanyl Deaths Are Misguided<\/a><\/p>\n Bonus: Joe Lancaster takes a look at the GOP rebuttal<\/a> to Biden’s speech, which was “light on policy and heavy on grievances.”<\/p>\n On vanity license plates, selective censorship, and Tennesseans’ fondness for DEEZNTS:<\/strong><\/p>\n Do vanity plates communicate secret messages from Tennessee’s government? Listen to today’s argument to find out: https:\/\/t.co\/Q9G61IVHPJ<\/a>. https:\/\/t.co\/5q2Cv9q7s2<\/a> pic.twitter.com\/YPrdnbehcs<\/a><\/p>\n \u2014 Daniel A. Horwitz (@danielahorwitz) February 8, 2023<\/a><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n
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