Illinois General Assembly Passes Bill Restricting Citizens From Recording Police Officers

Illinois General Assembly Passes Bill Restricting Citizens From Recording Police Officers. With all the recent developments regarding allegations of police brutality you’d think this collection of morons would shelve this.

This post was last modified on January 31, 2021

Illinois General AssemblyRecording the Police
CO2Insanity: Tired of the CO2 BS and all the other BS in the US and the world.

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  • Brimfield Police Department
    Yesterday at 4:56am ·
    Chief’s Babble….on body cameras.
    There has been lots of talk about body cameras lately. Good. I am in favor of every officer wearing one. I believe it will benefit policing far more than anyone could imagine. Let’s look at this, from a few perspectives.
    First, These cameras will help me and other police leaders solve the problem of retaliatory complaints. These occur when someone refuses to be accountable for his or her own actions and lodge complaints in order to minimize behavior that resulted in an arrest. We get them here, a few times per year. We have dash cameras and video and sound in our booking area, so we are very fortunate to have an “instant replay.” It has helped me investigate these claims numerous times since I have been the chief. One example of a complaint came from a domestic incident. The arrested person and a relative lodged a complaint of assault and “verbal abuse.” I reviewed every minute of video. I then called the person and his relative in and had them watch. After a couple minutes, both requested that I turn the video off. It involved the arrestee being highly intoxicated, very verbal and very non-complaint with basic requests. It also involved NO misconduct by officers. I advised them that accusing an officer of misconduct and filing a report of that nature was a crime. They left with an understanding. So, for the record, I love body cameras, dash cameras and any other video. They help me do a better job.
    Now, for the bad part for citizens. Body cameras are an intrusion into your privacy, believe it or not. Local law enforcement will now become one more spoke in the big wheel of government, taping our interaction with all of YOU. When you call us to your home, we will arrive and hit “record.” The barking dog, neighbor dispute, burglary, identity theft, custody disputes and more will be recorded. When we come to your house for a domestic or a custody/divorce issue, what we record is all public record. Your neighbors, ex-spouses and even enemies can request a copy…and we must provide it. Shortly after that, it will arrive on You Tube. A couple of companies will form on the inter-web, consisting of nothing but body cam footage. It will be a constant, 24 hours per day, seven days per week episode of “Cops”…starring the ordinary American citizen. We get dozens of requests per year for written reports, usually in divorce or neighbor dispute cases. Those could now come with video. Yikes.
    The above paragraph is not written to intimidate or scare anyone. It is my opinion of the likely course of this body camera push. In the past, some sensitive issues and locations (the American home) have not been fair game for video. Now, with these cameras in place, defense and civil attorneys will shred the police in court if we chose to not tape some segment of an interaction with the public. It will become a "standard." We will tell them it is because of a victim, child or sensitive situation…and they will accuse us of turning the camera off and abusing authority. This will result in us taping everything, regardless of potential damage and embarrassment to the citizens we are sworn to protect.
    All of this is over something that is not as prevalent as some would lead you to believe. Less than two-tenths of one percent of arrests result in the use of deadly force. Those are the facts and those facts are not in dispute.
    Welcome to the future. Make sure you are presentable for TV……Chief Oliver.

    • Welcome to Big Brother, all courtesy of Al Sharpton, Jesse Jackson, and all their "poor, put upon, innocent, citizens" that "never do anything wrong to deserve being shot by the police"!

      • I'm all for body cameras. Hey, the police unions are against them, and the only reason they can come up with is absolute nonsense. Something about cords being used to strangle an officer. He's already got a radio cord right there if someone is crazy enough to try that. Cameras don't even need a cord, they're fully self contained.

        Personally, whether it's the officer caught doing something wrong, or the perp, it SHOULD be public record. Everyone should think before they act.

    • I read his stuff all the time, I love how he refers to criminals as "Mopes", and they complain about that.....He is right on the money, everything will be recorded and the people who act stupidly will now be out there for everyone to see. Soon defense lawyers will be shrieking about their clients right to a fair trial is impaired by the recordings...And maybe people will begin to see just how F*cking stupid people act when they get arrested, the shit they say and the threats they make....Once it is on the internet it is forever......

  • Hmm. Culture shock again, or somewhat misleading writing?

    "Earlier this year, the Illinois Supreme Court struck down a state eavesdropping law that made it a crime for citizens to record conversations with police +or anyone else+ without the other person’s permission."

    So it's not just a cop thing. As for the law itself - as far as I know, Mass. has long had a similar law prohibiting the recording of telephone conversations without explicit permission from the other party. Of course, this does not mean routing police wiretapping. I had my first bit of culture shock many years ago when I was first working in Rhode Island, and the sales dept. routinely recorded sales calls for training purposes -- made within RI. We didn't need to tell the people on the other end at all. I don't remember now if I had any knowledge of either state's law before that, but it sure gave me the creeps knowing that any call I made in RI could be tapped and taped by anyone! I have ZERO problem with a law protecting phone calls.

    Now recording video in a public place -- that's a different thing entirely and I'm not sure what to think of it. Further, a visible camera is one thing, a hidden camera another. Presumably, if a camera is visible, then "notice" can be assumed and one being filmed can have little or no objection -- just walk away, or behind it, if you don't consent to it. Filming with a hidden camera in public -- now that gets back to Creepyland. Unless maybe you're doing it for a Candid Camera kind of show, in which case you are getting consent after to show it.

    • Hmm, not disagreeing (exactly) PDad, but you did make me start a new notepad page titled Taping. Know that makes no sense but it's how I think things through; you gave me about 7 bullet points right off the bat to look into. 1- why can't I tape anything on the phone line/# I pay for? Especially if you call me? 2- where does your theory leave all these surveillance and street cameras? I see a long process coming looking into this.

  • And the lemmings will support this because they think that it will stop their ex-boyfriends from posting their sexts that they shared.

    Nice try at controlling our 1A rights....

    Hopefully SCOI will send it back with a note "We weren't kidding"...

  • As usual, Mike Madigan and company failed to look at the myriad precedents which make this bill not only obsolete, but illegal. F***ing unbelievable!

  • To summarize: We lousy civilians can't record a cop, but the gummint is going to put a camera on every cop ... to record the cop, to make sure he isn't violating our rights. Oooookay. Got it.

  • If they get away with this there will be a companion bill introduced to outlaw criticism of politicians who are not conservative.

  • I believe either the Supreme Court or a federal appeals court ruled that you can record Police Officers, and they can record you in areas accessible to the public or where there is no expectation of privacy such as in the open, or in a police car. This will not last, and is just another example of legislating through your ass. Maybe they thought since their hero, Obutthead can not follow the law, they can also not follow the law.

  • I'm pretty sure this, like the constantly failing gun laws in Chicago, is unconstitutional as hell. Their state is completely bankrupt—why don't they do something about that instead of passing a law they'll have to spend tens of millions of dollars unsuccessfully defending in court?

      • They'll just keep rewriting it until they hit pay dirt, or Obama will write it for them, being the Constitutional scholar that he is.

      • They think that by making the wording so vague nobody can understand it, it'll pass the Supreme test this time. Guess what, Illinois? That's another way to get struck down.

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