From my cold, dead fingers
If there’s anyplace that defines exceptional in this big, ol’ beacon of freedom called America, it’s Texas.
They are SO American in Texas, they can even take exception to the First Amendment and puff out their chests with pride about it.
Molly Ivins, I think, used to call the Texas state legislature “the Austin Funhouse,” noting once that state legislators there are the lowest paid in the country and Texas gets what it pays for. As Digby reported yesterday at Salon, Republican state legislators are “extremely bothered by the idea that a citizen might film the police in the course of their duties.” Ergo:
The House Bill 2918 introduced by Texas Representative Jason Villalba (R-Dallas) would make private citizens photographing or recording the police within 25 feet of them a class B misdemeanor, and those who are armed would not be able to stand recording within 100 feet of an officer.
As defined in the bill, only a radio or television [station] that holds a license issued by the Federal Communications Commission, a newspaper that is qualified under section 2051.044 or a magazine that appears at a regular interval would be allowed to record police.
Isn’t that exceptional? It takes exception to the United States Court of Appeals For the First Circuit in Glik v. Cuniffee (2011) and to the United States Court of Appeals For the Seventh Circuit in ACLU v. Alvarez (2012), both of which uphold the right of citizens to film police.
Villalba’s bill, if it passes, will likely face challenge, however reasonable the state argues its restrictions are on private citizens filming police. But even among those Digby describes with “traditional values” who believe in “deference to authority and a bedrock belief in the integrity of those who don a uniform,” this might be a bill too far. Even Breitbart Texas is concerned. The idea that to be considered “the press” under the First Amendment you have to be licensed is absurd. Is that how gun owners think the Second Amendment works? One in-your-face tee shirt insists, the Second Amendment “is my gun permit.” And that raises a question.
Why should Second Amendment activists be the only ones to act like jerks about how their rights under the constitution “shall not be infringed”? It is, after all, the second amendment. Who gave them sole rights to what is “explicitly American“? Imagine a movement where citizen journalists demand their First Amendment right to concealed and open carry of cameras and recording devices just as belligerently as gun rights activists. Any where. Any time. Free-DOM!
We would loudly decry anything less tyranny, a slippery slope leading inevitably to “abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press,” to jack-booted, government thugs kicking in our doors and confiscating our phones and digital cameras.
We would go to phone-and-camera shows where we could buy accessories and gear without background checks, trade vintage Nikons and Nagras, and buy flash memory in bulk. We would train on weekends and whisper threateningly of “First Amendment remedies.”
We would have Bundy Ranch-style standoffs with federal agents. We could form an American Recording Association (ARA) backed by manufacturers to lobby Congress on behalf of owners of digital cameras and cell phones, and primary any politician who stands in our way. And they would listen to us.
Do you think Fox News could get behind that? Maybe cover our rallies? What if we wore costumes?
And thumb-in-your-eye tee shirts, it goes without saying:
YOU CAN HAVE MY PHONE
WHEN YOU PRY IT FROM
MY COLD, DEAD FINGERS