A ban on consciously filming police officers within a distance of eight feet of them, and without their permission, was signed into law by Arizona Governor Doug Ducey (rhymes with douchey) on Thursday.
The law, HB 2319, was introduced earlier this year by state Representative John Kavanagh, a former New York Port Authority cop, was approved less than year after the U.S. Department of Justice launched an investigation into complaints about Phoenix police directing excessive, discriminatory, and sometimes deadly force towards the city's homeless populations, as well as retaliatory policing towards people whose activities are protected by the First Amendment activists. The department's history of racism was not specifically mentioned in the DOJ report, despite widespread evidence of police discrimination towards Black, Latino, and indigenous Arizonans.
Breaking the law, which goes into effect this September, would be a misdemeanor, with violators would most likely getting slapped with a fine. It makes no exceptions for media who may be covering a crime or emergency situation on public property, greatly reducing the ability of journalists to do their job, particularly as many activists and U.S. residents demand greater transparency of police departments as well as reliable reporting on police brutality.
A hotly debated ordinance in Tuscon, which would allow cops to cordon off an area and limit what they would self-judge as "interference," was repealed in 2020, amid heavy resistance from members of the public, backed by ACLU of Arizona.