Tech Dirt – by Tim CushingThe notion that certain rights are guaranteed to citizens is being proven false every day. For instance, you have the First Amendment right to film police officers and other public officials, but it often takes an official policy change (usually prompted by lawsuits) before these public servants will begrudgingly respect that right.
You also have certain rights guaranteed by the Fifth Amendment, but even these aren’t innate. You can’t simply remain silent while detained or arrested. You have to invoke these rights (often repeatedly) or risk having your silence (things you didn’t say) used against you.
In the case of photographing police officers, you’ll notice that activists and others who are recording will invoke their rights repeatedly. In some cases, this forces those being recorded to back off and reconsider their attempts to shut down recordings or seize cameras. It doesn’t always work but it works often enough to show that these police officers know you have this right but won’t respect it unless you invoke it.
Techdirt reader timlash sends in this video of two citizens filming a sally port (where prisoners are shuttled in and out of the courthouse) in Jacksonville, Florida. As is to be expected, police officers show up and try to shut down the recording of a public building from a public sidewalk. But the most amazing part of the video is the police officer’s statement in response to the cameraman invoking his rights.
“You must be doing something wrong if you invoke your rights.”
That’s the prevailing attitude. Invoke your Fourth Amendment rights to be free of unreasonable searches and seizures and the government assumes you have something to hide. Invoke your Fifth Amendment rights and the government assumes you’ve committed a crime. Invoke your First Amendment right to record police officers and you’re told that you’re “obstructing” an investigation or creating a public disturbance.
You have rights as an American citizen. They just won’t be respected by default. And when you invoke them, you’ll be treated as an activist (at best) or a criminal (at worst). The land of freedom has tipped the balance away from the citizens and towards the government — because whether we’re fighting terrorism, drugs or illegal immigration, the respect of citizens’ rights impedes the progress of the nation’s many “warriors.”
to the cop
if you are subjugating my rights, your in violation of your oath!
want to double down punk?
“You must be doing something wrong if you invoke your rights.”
You can see that this particular pig has been a good student of the anti-constitutional brainwashing supplied by the communists.
And he’d much rather satisfy his petty lust for power than adhere to the oath he swore to, and that lust for power is why cops are so easily turned against our constitution, and the American people. They’re only protecting and serving the Zionists now, but they’re happy about it because they get to beat the crap out of more people, and that’s what has drawn most of them into police work in the first place.
Bahahaha! Oh man, this cop is truly pathetic.
“That’s for the chief judge to debate. I just enforce the law”. WTF???
What does the chief judge have anything to do about it? The cop is just too much of a coward to debate it because he knows he’s in the wrong. He’s just there to play the “You will do what you are told and you will respect my authority!” routine.
Talk about a corporate cop. He wouldn’t know what his Rights were if it hit him in the face. Just another anti-Constitution, anti-Bill of Rights cop. A corporate pig with a badge.
Hang him for high treason! 😡
‘If You’re Invoking Your Rights, You Must Be Doing Something Wrong’
Unfrigginbelievable……….An he calls himself an American?
Oink On! FN Cops!