In The Hat

Police seize camera from student journalists, erase pictures

WTOP news in DC is reporting that Fairfax county police illegally seized a camera from a group of teenage student journalists, erased the photos that it contained, then returned the camera to them, claiming that the photos were "accidentally" deleted.

A second officer later returned it -- with the digital photos erased. That cop claims it was an accident, but editor Kyle Smeallie tells The Associated Press there are multiple steps involved to erase pictures.
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The police are now trying to restore the pictures, and plan to meet with the students tomorrow. The teens want an apology.

In contrast to the recent much-ado-about-nothing incident involving Justice Scalia, I find this incident quite disturbing and think that it should be getting much wider coverage. The public is by and large pretty uninformed about their rights when it comes to encounters with the police, and I think that the public needs to hear discourse on this story to know that the police simply cannot stop you from taking photos in a public place.

If nothing else, this story certainly highlights a major shortcoming of the exclusionary rule - it only protects the guilty, and leaves the innocent little recourse when their rights are violated.

Posted by jkhat at May 13, 2004 06:41 PM | TrackBack