- Log in to post comments
A federal judge in the Southern District of Indiana has blocked the controversial Indiana law that would create a 25-foot radius around certain police activities, wherein people could be arrested for refusing to obey arbitrary orders to move.
The judge found the law to be too vague because, for instance, it did not establish how people should behave to avoid being ordered to move and potentially be arrested. One principle of due process is that the bounds of acceptable behavior should be knowable in advance and not be subject to the whims of individual officers.
Other states, such as Arizona, have tried to pass laws to prohibit video recording of police within a defined radius. Arizona's law was struck down, in part, because it would restrict the freedom of the press despite the lack of any demonstrable interference with the officer's duties.
Indiana's law is an attempt to get around that issue by preventing anyone at all from existing within an officer's bubble without permission. It is not specific to video recording and is thus even more vague and ambiguous.