Note

Prior Restraint and the Police

The First Amendment Right to Disseminate Recordings of Police Behavior

Freedom of speech under the First Amendment once again is in jeopardy—this time, in the form of unconstitutional prior restraints on personal video recordings. In the age of smartphones and media-sharing services like YouTube and Facebook, video recording and uploading or distributing has become a natural—and even expected—form of communication. It is commonplace that people record trivial, everyday moments, and, it remains routine for people to record noteworthy events or occurrences. In a certain sense, countless media users and sharers around the country have become the functional equivalents of journalists reporting and commenting on all aspects of life and society. Thus, in the wake of a growing public disillusionment regarding law enforcement and the criminal justice system, people have begun video recording police behavior as the officers are acting in the public discharge. Such videography has not existed without pushback from law enforcement. In response to these civilian-made video recordings, many police officers confiscate the video recording devices and/or destroy the files containing the recordings. This type of police interference has brought with it a storm of controversy. The debate centers on whether personal video recording of police conduct is “speech” that qualifies for First Amendment protection, and if so, whether confiscating and/or destroying the videos before their dissemination amounts to an unconstitutional prior restraint on speech—the most serious incursion of one’s First Amendment speech freedom. This Note ultimately argues that destroying an individual’s video recording before the individual has the chance to disseminate it does indeed impose an unconstitutional prior restraint on speech. In arriving at this conclusion, this Note analyzes: (1) whether video recordings of police constitute speech, (2) whether the state can offer independent justifications for the restraint on speech, and (3) whether any exceptions articulated in prior restraint jurisprudence justify the destruction of the recordings. In addition to its recommendation that police officers’ confiscation and/or destruction of civilian-made videos be formally declared a prior restraint, this Note offers two suggestions to prevent the restraint from occurring: (1) require police to obtain warrants before seizing or destroying civilian-made video recordings, and (2) install a supervisory level of review to help curtail this form of prior restraint on speech.

The full text of this Note is available to download as a PDF.