Oregon Appeals Court Strikes Down Secret Recording Ban

Different states have different rules about what you can and cannot record. It is a bit of a mess to keep track of.

The most popular rules are one party permission and all party permission. Those mean exactly what you think they mean. For one party states you only need the permission of one party; for all party states you need everyone’s permission.

For many of the video conferencing apps, they provide an audio alert when recording is turned on or if you join and recording is already on, it tells you that. That means if you don’t want to be recorded, you must leave. Since they give you notice, the recording is not secret.

Oregon had a ban on secretly recording conversations except those involving life-threatening crimes or police participants, but a federal appeals court ruled that unconstitutional this week.

But California, for example, has a different law that only applies to confidential non-public recordings and doesn’t exempt any topics of discussion. California has a different law against secretly recording someone within 100 feet of an abortion clinic, which may be at risk based on this decision.

The Oregon law was challenged by Project Veritas, a nonprofit group whose members have posed as liberals to expose alleged left-wing bias in the media and elsewhere like abortion clinics.

On the other side, police in many cities have “discouraged” people recording them as they perform their official duties in public, often by threatening to arrest people who record them. A number of court cases have ruled this unconstitutional, but it still happens.

The appeals court said the law was an invalid “content-based restriction on speech”.

The distinction about Oregon’s law is that it bans secret recordings in public places, which generally lack an expectation of privacy.

The opposing side is concerned that people’s words could be broadcast beyond their intended audience, manipulated, broadcast on the Internet and shared without context. All of which are true and likely to happen.

The issue with the Oregon law is the exemptions for police and life-threatening situations. The legislature could pass a new law without exemptions, if it wants.

I have heard people say that the only way to ensure that you are having a private conversation these days is to stand in the middle of an empty field, naked, with nothing for miles around.

Just assume that you may be being recorded. Of course, this discourages free expression.

Credit: San Francisco Chronicle

by