Supreme Court Refuses To Protect Your Right To Record Cops

The Supreme Court chose not to take on a pivotal case to protect your right to record police, leaving six states with fewer constitutional rights.

The Supreme Court had an opportunity this week to protect your right to record the misbehavior of rogue police officers. Instead, the court looked the other way while cops who sought to seize such a recording are shielded from accountability. So much for First Amendment protections.

By declining to hear a case from a federal appellate court, the Supreme Court let stand a dangerous ruling granting qualified immunity to Denver police officers accused of snatching a computer tablet from a man who had used it to record them punching a suspect in the face and grabbing his pregnant girlfriend, causing her to fall to the ground.

In recent years, such recordings have been vital to a national movement against racial injustice and excessive police force. In a few cases, the recordings have been a key to holding police accountable for a person’s brutal death.

Take, for example, the brave bystanders who recorded Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin kneeling on George Floyd’s neck for more than nine minutes while Floyd begged for his life. Without their videos, Chauvin might never have been tried and convicted of Floyd’s murder. Nor would there have been nationwide protests that helped launch police reform efforts across the country.