Radley Balko at Reason has written a lot of great pieces (here and here and many other times) on the issue of legally videotaping police officers at they discharge their official duties. Unfortunately, as Balko has chronicled, the police aren’t always so keen about citizens recording them and have on many occasions arrested people for doing so. I’m with civil libertarians on this one – the right to video police should be a way to improve rather than hinder respectful and effective law enforcement since it reduces the potential for abuse of powers while hardly interfering with the ability of cops to do their very necessary job. And the idea that public officials have a competing right to privacy while actually engaged in an official encounter with a citizen is laughable.

Given the hostile reaction by some government officials and lawmen to “video vs. the cops,” it is nice to see when the police get what the civil libertarians are talking about. Thus it is worth highlighting what the spokesman for the Sheriff’s Office of Taylor County, Texas recently told the Abilene Reporter-News:

John Cummins, spokesman for the Taylor County Sheriff’s Office, said his agency does not provide direct training on how to handle video recording at scenes.

“If you are a party to the encounter, then you can record the encounter,” Cummins said. “Simply put, a citizen has the right to record an encounter with the police they are involved in.”

Cummins gave an example of a resident being able to record a field sobriety test, but noted that the resident must obey all other laws while recording.

Hopefully Cummins would also support the right of third parties to record such an encounter. Let’s keep guarding the guardians!