Phone conversations with law enforcement can be recorded without their consent

&gt; The same day as the court’s ruling, DeSantis signed into law two bills affecting law enforcement in Florida. Two judges on the panel that issued the ruling Friday were DeSantis appointees.<p>&gt; One new law makes it illegal after a person has been warned to approach first responders or remain within 25 feet while they are performing a legal duty if the intent is to interfere, threaten or harass them. The new law doesn’t prevent people from recording law enforcement but can require them to move 25 feet back, which can make it more difficult.<p>&gt; The other requires that citizen review boards in Florida – intended to provide independent oversight of law enforcement actions – be re-established so that members are appointed by a sheriff or police chief and that at least one member be a retired law enforcement officer.<p>I wonder if the first will stand up to Constitutional review. I imagine there are many First Amendment protected purposes for recording that may require the recorder to be within 25 feet of the officer. For example, if they&#x27;re recording during windy conditions and need to hear what the officer says. I also wonder how the &quot;intent&quot; will be interpreted by courts. Probably in a way that is most favorable to LEOs.<p>The second law is just a straightforward neutering of citizen review boards.

Apparently all that&#x27;s required to make recording a phone call legal is to play a 3 second recorded message saying &quot;This call may be recorded for quality and training purposes&quot; because that&#x27;s what every corporation does. They don&#x27;t ask, or verify consent. Why can&#x27;t I do that on my phone? I will happily have my phone say &quot;This call may be recorded&quot; before every call I pick up, so that every call can be recorded.

I think this is an interesting decision for a two party consent state. Typically in a two party consent state all private conversations cannot be recorded unless both parties agree to have it recorded. This means it is illegal to secretly record a private conversation. However, the judge ruled that “conversations concerned matters of public business, occurred while the deputies were on duty, and involved phones utilized for work purposes.” have no expectation of privacy.<p>As someone living in a two party consent state that is not Florida I am curious if this precedent will carry weight in my home state.

&gt; Waite was separately convicted of battery on a law enforcement officer and resisting arrest with violence after he was accused of striking a deputy with his elbow when they arrived to arrest him on the wiretapping charges.<p>&gt; Waite surrendered after a detective shocked him with an electrical device.<p>&gt; “Waite did not demonstrate a lack of good faith and should have complied without resorting to violence,” the judges said.<p>Love this double standard. Armed men can show up at your door, shackle your wrists behind your back, and haul you off to a cage, all in bad faith, but if <i>you</i> resort to meeting violence with violence, you&#x27;re the one who gets sentenced.

&gt;law enforcement officers performing their official duties can be secretly recorded because they have no expectation of privacy.<p>Sounds about right.<p>I was worried that this referred to personal conversations and was about to say &quot;dang have we gone too far?&quot; but yeah this makes sense.<p>Probably goes without saying but — we don&#x27;t want to condemn&#x2F;bastardize&#x2F;immiserate the entire institution...

So what&#x27;s the penalty for not moving back 25 feet? Death? Seems like officers in the USA have carte blanche to just shoot the crap out of anyone not complying with their &#x27;lawful&#x27; orders - whatever the hell lawful means these days.

I think this is a good thing. The government could record you without your consent, the citizen should be allowed to as well. I understand police need warrants, but what is the citizen to do? Especially when so many courts, judges, and juries take the word of police over the citizen.<p>Seems very fair to me.

He emailed the evidence to the police:<p>“Waite emailed his recording of the call to the sheriff&#x27;s office records department and requested an internal investigation. A month later, Waite was accused of five counts of illegal wiretapping for recording the conversation with the sergeant and four other calls with sheriff’s employees.“

A classic Florida move of one step forwards and two back. Sure you can record law enforcement now but the review boards will be stocked with people hand picked by the sheriff when you go to complain about their abuses.

In Sweden it&#x27;s legal to record any conversation you are part of, secretly recording as a third party is not.<p>Just common sense really.<p>Just sayin&#x27;

Readers please note: recording consent laws vary state to state. Do not read the headline and assume it applies to yours.<p>Some states are single party consent, some two, some might be more subtle.

&gt; “As soon as I grabbed his arms to put him under arrest, to put them behind his back, that’s when I catch an elbow to my face, to my lower right jaw,” said Glaze, the deputy who arrested Waite.<p>I would love to know how the deputy is grabbing arms. I mean try this at home, get a friend to face away from you and once you touch their arms they can try to elbow you in the face. Like the guys 63 and somehow he can extend half his arm length (it&#x27;s elbows) to hit you in the face?

One-party consent as a law never made sense to me. Our whole system of governance relies on consent of all parties involved, or at least a majority of. Even the definition itself of consent requires this - in other words 1 party consent = 1 party non-consenting..

It makes me sad that this positive ruling is in a case of a SovCit. It’ll just empower them to believe even harder that their magic incantations are valid.<p><a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.splcenter.org&#x2F;fighting-hate&#x2F;extremist-files&#x2F;ideology&#x2F;sovereign-citizens-movement" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.splcenter.org&#x2F;fighting-hate&#x2F;extremist-files&#x2F;ideo...</a><p><a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;en.m.wikipedia.org&#x2F;wiki&#x2F;Sovereign_citizen_movement" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;en.m.wikipedia.org&#x2F;wiki&#x2F;Sovereign_citizen_movement</a>

Please, add a [USA] or [Florida] tag to the title, thanks!

FYI this only applies to Florida. Laws regarding consent for recording vary from one state to the next.

Because there’s no expectation of privacy when a public servant is performing their duties.

&gt; Sorry, you have been blocked You are unable to access orlandoweekly.com<p>Just why?

I can’t access the content because the security service blocks me.

FL resident here.<p>Really disappointed in DeSantis. Not that I&#x27;m even remotely shocked - he&#x27;s an outright fascist and this sort of ruling and law is right out of 1984. Let&#x27;s hope that the Supreme Court strikes down both laws.<p>Can&#x27;t wait to vote his ass out of office.