We were in an open-air light rail station in Miami, a television crew and me. A guy who lived nearby and led us there took several small cameras into the station to make a point about his rights.
He made it with a bang. As soon as he lifted one of his cameras to take pictures of a security guard, the guard and her partner went after him.
They told him to stop taking their photo. He didn’t. They told him to leave. He wouldn’t. They told him to surrender his cameras. He refused.
They took a swipe at the cameras, knocking one to the ground, then another swipe at him. He fought back.
Was this guy a pain in the neck? Yes. Was he rude, intrusive, provocative, even offensive? Absolutely. But here’s the key question: Was he breaking the law?
No.
This matters because a bill being drafted by Colorado state Rep. Joe Salazar, D-Thornton, would “clarify” the rules around what law enforcement officials can and cannot do when confronted with someone using a camera.
It shouldn’t require clarification, but maybe it does, because cameras nowadays are a ubiquitous and sometimes unavoidable part of our daily lives. And it’s hard for some people to believe that you and I have the right to all but stick a camera in their face.
But we do. You see, unless we’re talking about a handful of explicable exceptions — like interfering with a crime scene, or prejudicing a trial, or a breach of our national security (but trust me, there was none at this light rail station) — this guy in Miami had every right to take the guard’s picture. She could have turned away, she could have put up her hand to block the view, but what she couldn’t do, not legally, was order the guy to stop.
Why not? Because the light rail station is a public place. Just like any park, any sidewalk, the airport, even city hall. These are public places where, as courts have put it, you and I have “no reasonable expectation of privacy.” And this applies to the police as much as anyone else.
Think of the implications if it were otherwise. If a policeman could claim that cameras are intrusive as he performs his job and thus prohibit their use, so could a politician, so could any public official.
Then, anyone who regrets having his appalling behavior captured by a camera could try in court to prohibit its public release.
Now let’s carry it a step further. Think about people who meet in sidewalk restaurants or on park benches to discuss pending divorces, or contracts, or anything else that seems sensitive. They probably would argue that they have the right to a private conversation. But they don’t, not there. If they want to ensure their privacy, they should remove themselves from the public place.
Does this apply indiscriminately? No. A grocery store, a restaurant, a department store are different. Absent blatant bias, private property owners have the right to set the rules about who can take pictures on their property and when. And, rest assured, no one has the right to take pictures of you while inside your home.
But even there, there’s a caveat: if you’re standing in your window in your underwear, beware the camera held by a citizen out on the street, because you are fair game.
Of course, the proposed legislation isn’t just meant to clarify the use of cameras for those being recorded. Until all of us with those cameras understand how far we can go, and where we have to stop, it’s clarification for us, too.
But the burden must be on the police, the politicians and others to justify keeping something out of the public view. For the rest of us, short of never going out, the best way to preserve our privacy is just to tell someone with a camera to quit being so nosy and leave us alone.
Greg Dobbs of Evergreen was a correspondent for ABC News for 23 years, then for HDNet television’s “World Report.”
To send a letter to the editor about this article, submit or check out our for how to submit by e-mail or mail.
