The Chicago Sun-Times published a piece about Chicago Police Superintendent Garry McCarthy's recent statement of support for a bill which would permit the audio recording of police officers engaged in their public duties in a public place. Recording police activity can result in felony charges under the Illinois Eavesdropping law, which the ACLU of Illinois is seeking to challenge in the case of ACLU v. Alvarez. Supt. McCarthy says that being able to record police activity would actually protect police officers against charges of brutality.
“I actually am a person who endorses video and audio recording,” he said. “There’s no arguments when you can look at a videotape and see what happened.”
McCarthy was joined on the dais by an attorney for the ACLU — which is challenging the law’s constitutionality in federal court — and by Lucy Dalglish, executive director of the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press.
