What are your rights when filming the police?

What are the ground rules for YouTubing the police?

I listened to the sound of a U.S. Marshal smashing the cell phone of Beatriz Paez as she was recording an arrest in her Los Angeles neighborhood last Sunday. The video was posted on YouTube. (WARNING: Video contains explicit language)

At the end of the video you can hear Paez say, “Did you record that?” Because not only was she recording the arrest, but she had asked neighbors to record her … recording the arrest.

She had a feeling something might happen.

She shared the video with Channel 4 in Los Angeles. In the portion of the video she recorded right before her phone was smashed, you can hear an officer telling Paez that it is not safe where she is standing and that she was in the way of their investigation.

“You are right in the line of the fire, go across the street and film all you want,” the officer said.

Paez didn’t move. The officers then block her view. And pretty soon she was telling them to back off.

“You need to stand back. I don’t’ feel safe,” Paez is heard saying on the video. “You need to start moving away from me. I have a right as a citizen to feel safe.”

And right after that, a U.S. Marshal suddenly walks up and it was goodbye phone. Paez told the press that the marshal smashed the phone, then stomped on it, and then kicked it.

On a website called photography-is-not-a-crime.com, which crusades for the rights of citizen-journalists to film in public places &#8212 Beatriz made it clear she will pursue her rights in court.

Generally, the law says that you have the right to record anything in a public place that is in plain view &#8212 including police officers arresting people &#8212 as long as you don’t interfere.

The catch is that it’s typically the officer who gets to decide whether you’ve interfered.

But if this gets to court, I’m guessing it won’t just be about the rights of citizen journalists. It’ll also be about whether a citizen journalist can give orders to a cop.