After reading the Guzzardi article, I was dumbfounded that something like that could happen. The charge of (and law regarding) peddling without a license seemed reasonable to me, as there should be some regulation on who can be on the sidewalk or in another public place selling things to passerbys. What really didn't make any reasonable sense to me was the charge and relevant laws regarding eavesdropping for this arrest. The arrest happened in a public place, all the conversations had were public. There was no trying to be hush hush about it all, since Chris Drew was arrested on the corner of a sidewalk. Therefore, in my opinion, there was no eavesdropping, as you can't eavesdrop on a conversation that was never trying to be kept secret in the first place. The way that law is written, in that you cannot film police even in public, is so completely lopsided since the police are continually filming the public without our knowledge, via dashcam and blue light cameras, and are constantly seeking to improve how they watch us.
In addition to this was the Sledge article about the woman arrested in her front yard. She was not bothering the police at all, only filming what was going on, which she was well within her right to do. There's no law in New York about filming police in public, and the side of the road is absolutely a public place. Yet because the police felt she was "in their way" and "threatening their safety". I still cannot figure out how simply filming the traffic stop from afar compromised their safety in any way. The police claimed that they were dealing with three dangerous gang members (which in reality was one man). If they were indeed dealing with a dangerous gang, wouldn't having somebody else film the interaction only increase your safety,especially if that person was standing apart and out of harms way?
3 comments:
I completely agree with you. The irony that plays out in these scenarios are completely disturbing. in Guzzardi's article, the original charges concerning the peddling dropped, but the outlandish eavesdropping charge held its ground, even though they were in a public space. Similarly bizarre, in the Sledge article the police claimed, during the later investigation of Good's arrest, that they were dealing with three dangerous gang members, instead of one alleged gang member. And if that was the case, why did they let him walk away without as much of as ticket while finding it reasonable to arrest a woman standing on her own lawn in pajamas for recording their supposedly standard traffic stop. This double-standard of the issues of surveillance is pretty sickening.
Mandy, I really like what you said about eavesdropping in your discussion. I also wrote about the Guzzardi article, and I didn't even think about the fact that he wasn't recording candid information that was meant for someone else...he was recording his own arrest, which was happening in public. I read an article that was published yesterday (http://wtnh.com/2015/04/23/police-welcome-being-videotaped-if-rules-are-followed/) and I felt that it did help me to understand why some states might have those types of laws....however I don't feel that this specific case applies!
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