Years of reading about situations that end up being decided on the basis of one party's word against another have made me curious about the legalities of audio and video taping. I'm not asking for a legal opinion, but I'd like to hear some thoughts on the following scenarios:
#1 - Someone walks up to me on the street and begins a conversation. I have a voice-activated tape recorder in my pocket. Do I have to inform the other person that he is being taped?
#2 - I'm involved in a traffic accident. As the other driver walks towards my car, I snap his picture with a small camera. Any problems?
#3 - I'm pulled over for a traffic stop. I switch on my pocket tape recorder. Now do I have to say anything?
#3a - Same as #3, but I inform the police officer that he's being taped and he tells me to turn it off and/or hand it over. Is he acting within the law?
#3b - Same as #3, but the device is a small video camera on the dashboard rather than a tape recorder.
My interest is prompted by a conversation I had with one of the engineers who works for my (my in the sense of "works there", not "owns" ) company. This fellow's job requires loading data communications hardware into a rental truck, driving out to a data center or comm site, and installing the hardware. Anyway, he starting telling me about some of his encounters with the police, and I was shocked. If his stories are credible, and I think they are, this fellow has gotten pulled over for such BS reasons as "weaving" and a "routine check". And then he's been subjected to questions and searches that sound like they weren't based upon any sort of probable cause. I suggested to him that he record one of these incidents to back up a complaint, and he said that one of his fellow engineers attempted to videotape a similar stop and was arrested for "disorderly conduct".
I don't want to spark another round of cop-bashing. I just think that it's unreasonable for law enforcement officers who aren't doing anything wrong to object to being taped (in an unobtrusive way, without lights or microphones in their faces) by someone who doesn't want to be the victim of a fishing expedition.
Your thoughts?
#1 - Someone walks up to me on the street and begins a conversation. I have a voice-activated tape recorder in my pocket. Do I have to inform the other person that he is being taped?
#2 - I'm involved in a traffic accident. As the other driver walks towards my car, I snap his picture with a small camera. Any problems?
#3 - I'm pulled over for a traffic stop. I switch on my pocket tape recorder. Now do I have to say anything?
#3a - Same as #3, but I inform the police officer that he's being taped and he tells me to turn it off and/or hand it over. Is he acting within the law?
#3b - Same as #3, but the device is a small video camera on the dashboard rather than a tape recorder.
My interest is prompted by a conversation I had with one of the engineers who works for my (my in the sense of "works there", not "owns" ) company. This fellow's job requires loading data communications hardware into a rental truck, driving out to a data center or comm site, and installing the hardware. Anyway, he starting telling me about some of his encounters with the police, and I was shocked. If his stories are credible, and I think they are, this fellow has gotten pulled over for such BS reasons as "weaving" and a "routine check". And then he's been subjected to questions and searches that sound like they weren't based upon any sort of probable cause. I suggested to him that he record one of these incidents to back up a complaint, and he said that one of his fellow engineers attempted to videotape a similar stop and was arrested for "disorderly conduct".
I don't want to spark another round of cop-bashing. I just think that it's unreasonable for law enforcement officers who aren't doing anything wrong to object to being taped (in an unobtrusive way, without lights or microphones in their faces) by someone who doesn't want to be the victim of a fishing expedition.
Your thoughts?