Attempting to Understand 1st Amendment and Audio Recording
Posted: Sat Mar 09, 2019 11:41 pm
I've recently watched some videos on YouTube put there by people who call themselves "1st Amendment Auditors" - which they say gives them all the rights of journalists and other news-people. They all claim to be out to educate people on their right to free speech and especially to let them know that anyone can video record the police in public and anyone in the lobbies of any government building.
From what I've seen, they're really just a bunch of people who want to catch the police or other government officials getting upset to say something stupid and/or hopefully getting them to tell them they can't be video recording them - so the "Auditor" can claim his 1st Amendment rights and continue to irritate whoever he wants. (most of them ask for donations from their viewers too)
The other day I was reading about the fact there are twelve "two party consent" law states, which includes Florida*. This made me wonder about the audio portion of some of these videos - at least one of which I saw recorded in Florida. I did some research and read that when you have no "Reasonable Expectation of Privacy" - as in someone out in public performing or preaching from a street corner - the two party consent law doesn't apply. I also read somewhere (I did a lot of Googling and didn't save sources) that it would be illegal to record two people having a personal conversation without their consent (in the 12 TPC states) even if they were in public, so to me, logically that would mean that in Florida if you were video recording someone one on one in public but not in a crowd and that person spoke quietly to you and said to quit recording, you wouldn't have two-party consent and therefore the audio portion wouldn't be legal.
Then I thought a little further and wondered about these YouTube videos being out there of random people being spoken to and not wanting to be recorded and then the video being posted on YouTube. That's where things get blurry to me (assuming I'm right up to this point).
So my questions are (in two party consent states):
Can you have reasonable expectation of privacy in the lobby of a public building with people around if you're only quietly addressing the offending video recording person and other people are, for example, 20 feet away from you both?
If you can't expect reasonable privacy in the above case, what if that public building or lobby is empty and you and the camera person are the only two people there?
If you're in a two-party consent state and you don't consent to being recorded but you are in a place where you have no reasonable expectation of privacy, does the person recording you have the right to post it for the world to see?
I'm pretty sure they can't make money from a video of you without your consent but shouldn't people have a reasonable expectation of not being put on the internet for others that weren't there to see AND hear? It seems that you should be able to have a reasonable expectation that the entire world won't hear you.
Below is a very mild example of a "Public Audit" so you can get the idea of the type of people I'm talking about. There are many examples of exceedingly irritating auditors that you can find if you look for them.
*California, Connecticut, Florida, Illinois, Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan, Montana, Nevada, New Hampshire, Pennsylvania, and Washington.
From what I've seen, they're really just a bunch of people who want to catch the police or other government officials getting upset to say something stupid and/or hopefully getting them to tell them they can't be video recording them - so the "Auditor" can claim his 1st Amendment rights and continue to irritate whoever he wants. (most of them ask for donations from their viewers too)
The other day I was reading about the fact there are twelve "two party consent" law states, which includes Florida*. This made me wonder about the audio portion of some of these videos - at least one of which I saw recorded in Florida. I did some research and read that when you have no "Reasonable Expectation of Privacy" - as in someone out in public performing or preaching from a street corner - the two party consent law doesn't apply. I also read somewhere (I did a lot of Googling and didn't save sources) that it would be illegal to record two people having a personal conversation without their consent (in the 12 TPC states) even if they were in public, so to me, logically that would mean that in Florida if you were video recording someone one on one in public but not in a crowd and that person spoke quietly to you and said to quit recording, you wouldn't have two-party consent and therefore the audio portion wouldn't be legal.
Then I thought a little further and wondered about these YouTube videos being out there of random people being spoken to and not wanting to be recorded and then the video being posted on YouTube. That's where things get blurry to me (assuming I'm right up to this point).
So my questions are (in two party consent states):
Can you have reasonable expectation of privacy in the lobby of a public building with people around if you're only quietly addressing the offending video recording person and other people are, for example, 20 feet away from you both?
If you can't expect reasonable privacy in the above case, what if that public building or lobby is empty and you and the camera person are the only two people there?
If you're in a two-party consent state and you don't consent to being recorded but you are in a place where you have no reasonable expectation of privacy, does the person recording you have the right to post it for the world to see?
I'm pretty sure they can't make money from a video of you without your consent but shouldn't people have a reasonable expectation of not being put on the internet for others that weren't there to see AND hear? It seems that you should be able to have a reasonable expectation that the entire world won't hear you.
Below is a very mild example of a "Public Audit" so you can get the idea of the type of people I'm talking about. There are many examples of exceedingly irritating auditors that you can find if you look for them.
*California, Connecticut, Florida, Illinois, Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan, Montana, Nevada, New Hampshire, Pennsylvania, and Washington.
