Following the filing of an ACLU of Massachusetts lawsuit defending the right to record the police, The Boston Globe issued an editorial calling on the state legislature to fix the law itself.
"If the unnamed individual who filmed the horrifying shooting of a man in Baton Rouge, La., on Tuesday had done the exact same thing in Massachusetts, he or she might conceivably be in trouble today for breaking the state’s antiquated wiretap law. ...
"Whether or not the law is widely used, as long as authorities retain the power to prosecute residents for secretly recording police, it will deter citizens from providing what has now clearly become a vital check on government power. ...
"A court ruling can take years, and the best solution would be for the Legislature to fix the law itself by explicitly allowing all taping of on-duty police in public. It takes no courage to condemn shootings in faraway states or tweet support for Black Lives Matter. But lawmakers can make clear that in Massachusetts, it’s legal to use video and audio to document police misconduct in public. Indeed, it may be the only tool that some residents have."
Read the full article here.
