
No police scrutiny: Drop the camera and back away
Take care, New Hampshire, that you don't let the police catch you using your cell phone or video camera to record their interactions with the public. You could be arrested and charged with a felony.
That's what happened to 20-year-old Adam H. Whitman of New Castle on July 4. Portsmouth police were called to a party after midnight and wound up filing charges against 20 people, many for underage drinking. Whitman, whom police say was intoxicated, was charged with disorderly conduct for allegedly encouraging partiers to resist the police, the Portsmouth Herald reported.
Then police explored the contents of a confiscated cell phone. It was Whitman's. Apparently, he had recorded some of what happened after police arrived. Law enforcement does not approve of that. Whitman found himself charged with wiretapping, a Class B felony in New Hampshire.
Wiretapping? Yes. Under New Hampshire law, using a device that "is affixed to, or otherwise transmits a signal through, a wire, cable, or other like connection used in telecommunication" to record an oral conversation without the permission of all participants is considered wiretapping.
Like the Driver Privacy Act, which was intended to protect citizens from criminals, the state's wiretapping statute has been used by law enforcement to protect itself from public scrutiny. Police who find their actions being recorded can, and do, charge citizens with wiretapping.
In Nashua in 2006, police charged Michael Gannon with wiretapping after he brought surveillance video from his home security cameras to the police station to show police brass how poorly he said officers treated his son while they investigated a robbery charge. The wiretapping charge was later dropped, but police kept the evidence -- the security video recordings.
It shouldn't be a crime to record public officials doing their jobs or to record public disturbances or other crimes. Doing so can be a public service. (Had someone taped the incident involving Christopher Micklovich and four off-duty Manchester police officers outside the Strange Brew Tavern earlier this year, that saga would not be dragging on and on.) But in New Hampshire it's not only a crime, it's a felony. This needs to change.
Better use that 35x zoom and get a tripod/Image stabilization! This is ridiculous and is really scary what is going on in MD in regards to recording the police.