A police union is asking a judge to require the Las Vegas Review-Journal to take down a video posted with a story about Henderson jail overtime and corrections officer failures, raising concerns about constitutional press freedom. …
Here’s the video.
The newspaper reported that taxpayers have paid millions of dollars to run the city’s understaffed detention center and that corrections officers sometimes made mistakes and violated policy, records show. The exclusive jail surveillance footage and photos were posted with the story.
The Nevada Association of Public Safety Officers union, on behalf of Henderson officers, filed the complaint Wednesday, claiming that the Review-Journal broke a state law that says images of officers in possession of a law enforcement agency are confidential.
The lawsuit comes days after the union sent the Review-Journal and city officials a letter demanding the newspaper remove the pictures and videos of officers attached to the story. The letter, written by executive director Andrew Regenbaum, also demanded the city open a criminal investigation into the source of the video. …
I did read it.
The union lawsuit claims that the newspaper is legally required to remove or blur the images. But the newspaper responded that the union misunderstands the law and has no case:
If the law puts no restrictions on the public (just like most confidentiality laws), then it is likely to be constitutional.
It’s not much different in that regard from HIPAA, which prevents health care providers from sharing health information to the public but does not prevent newspapers or the general public from publishing health information that is leaked to them.
Review-Journal broke a state law that says “images of officers in possession of a law enforcement agency are confidential”.
Read that language again.
Yes. An image in possession of a law enforcement officer is confidential. That means the law enforcement officer cannot share it.
Once the image is leaked, it is in possession of the newspaper. A newspaper can do whatever it wants with its images. Even if they are “confidential”.
By this language, any image, even one not obtained by law enforcement, but later procured by them would be “in their possession “.
Get it now?
We get it dude, you’re the one having issues with it.
Ok, dude.
If I have a photo of a police officer in my hands, it is in my possession. Even if they originally took the photo, and I made a copy. The police do not possess things in my hands.
Once it is in my possession, I can do what I want with my copy. Including making more copies, and distributing them. The above law does not apply to my copy, even if they still have their own copy of the photo in their possession.
This is literally how every confidentiality law works. Once a copy is leaked to the public, the recipient can do what they want with their copy.
In fact, this sometimes leads to strange situations in which government employees are still required to protect “their” copy of documents that were already leaked to the public and widely distributed.
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Let’s say I take picture of a crime.
Then, in some way a police officer gets a copy of that photo” in his possession”.
By the letter of this law, because the officer has “in his possession” a copy of my photo it is now unlawful for me to use the image that I took.
Because, “images of officers in possession of a law enforcement agency are confidential”.
The language.
Lol tell me you don’t understand the law without telling me you don’t understand the law
Explain how the language makes sense.
LOL.
No, you’re misreading this law. Your copy is not “in their possession” only their copy is.
Just because they’re the same image doesn’t mean your copy became illegal.
He’s not misreading the law because he didn’t read the law. He just blasted off an uninformed hot take now his ego won’t let him back down.
I’m not sure why you think possessing a document is equivalent to possessing every copy of the document. That’s not how the law works.
When you buy a copy of a book, you own your copy. You can lock up your copy in a vault or you can leave it on park bench. But whatever you choose does not affect every other copy of the book. If you lock up your copy, I can still freely share my copy.
The same is true of images of police. If the police have a copy, they are required to keep their copy locked up. The copy in their possession is confidential. That’s all that the law says.
But the law doesn’t affect what I am allowed to do with my own copy. My copy is not confidential. I can do what I want with it. The police have no control over my copy.
The law, as written, makes no such distinction.
It does. Possession is well defined. It means what you have in your hands. It does not extend to copies in other hands.
The law applies to images in police possession, it says nothing about copies of those images that are not in their possession.
It’s just saying the law enforcement officer can’t release or give away the photo (that they received from you), as it is confidential. It is a law against leaking images, not a law against receiving them. That’s why they want to know the source (because the source, and only the source, broke the law).
As an example, let’s say you have a picture taken of you nude that is being used in a criminal investigation. When you give that photo to a police officer, the police officer (and the agency) is required to keep that photo confidential. You, on the other hand, could post it to your OnlyFans account if you want, but even then, the copy you gave the police would be considered confidential by them.