Photography Is Not a Crime, Despite States' Best Efforts to Make it One

This is an issue that's been around for a while, but only in the last year has it really started to pick up incredible steam. A Gizmodo post from earlier this summer, titled "Are Cameras the new guns", has made the rounds, bringing a little more attention to the issue.

In response to a flood of Facebook and YouTube videos that depict police abuse, a new trend in law enforcement is gaining popularity. In at least three states, it is now illegal to record any on-duty police officer.

The post refers to Illinois, Maryland and Massachusetts, where people have been convicted for recording police officers on duty. These were not arrests for surreptitiously recording cops either, we're talking video cameras in hand, recording their own arrest, or their loved ones'. The very idea that it could be a crime to record cops acting out in the open, where there is no "expectation of privacy" (the relevant legal term), while they are speaking at a volume that is naturally audible, is so absurd it defies words.