Recording Law Enforcement is a First Amendment Right

Across the country, people have faced severe consequences for exercising their First Amendment right to record immigration and law enforcement officers in their communities. In Memphis, people have been arrested, intimidated, and followed home by federal, state, and local agents operating as part of the Memphis Safe Task Force after filming traffic stops and other Task Force activity. In Minneapolis, federal agents tackled a photographer to the ground and sprayed him with pepper spray while he was documenting a protest against federal immigration enforcement. In Illinois, an agent threatened to shoot an observer who recorded the agent shoving a woman into a federal vehicle. In California, dozens of journalists suffered injuries while covering immigration raids and protests against National Guard presence.

In response to the mass deployment of ICE and other federal agents in their communities, people have banded together to document abuses and speak truth to power. Journalists and non-journalists alike have used their right to take photos and videos of law enforcement activity to create an independent record, bear witness to misconduct, and share what’s happening in their cities with the world. Despite the peaceful and protected nature of their recording, officers have responded with threats, violence, and even arrests.

Whether someone is a member of the press or simply a bystander, the First Amendment protects their right to take photos and videos of law enforcement officers performing their duties in public. This applies to police officers, ICE agents, the FBI, and other government officials carrying out their responsibilities in public view.

The courts have repeatedly recognized that the First Amendment encompasses the right to record law enforcement when officers are performing official actions in public. This right is protected as part of the gathering and dissemination of information about government officials, and as a medium of expression in and of itself. The right to record gives civilians the ability to hold law enforcement and other government officials accountable for their actions so their communities are informed and protected.

Every circuit court to consider the issue has held that the First Amendment protects the right to record law enforcement activity in public and people’s exercise of that right has proven critical to democratic accountability time and time again. From the footage of law enforcement brutalizing Rodney King in 1991 to that of the murder of George Floyd in 2020, recordings of officers in public document abuses and spark political discussion and advocacy.

Since the Supreme Court’s 1952 decision in Joseph Burstyn, Inc. v. Wilson, video has been understood as being protected by the First Amendment. In that case, the Supreme Court recognized that the First Amendment guarantees protection to films, videos, and movies because “it cannot be doubted that motion pictures are a significant medium for the communication of ideas,” and that they “may affect public attitudes and behaviors in a variety of ways, ranging from direct espousal of a political or social doctrine to the subtle shaping of thought which characterizes all artistic expression.”

Several later cases applied this reasoning to hold that the First Amendment also protects the process of creating video, including recording. In Animal Legal Defense Fund v. Wasden (2018), for example, the Ninth Circuit explained that the process of creating a video, much like writing a book, cannot be disentangled from the end result, and is therefore protected by the First Amendment. Otherwise, the government could effectively silence expression by stopping someone in the midst of recording (or writing, or painting).

Courts have also understood the First Amendment right to record law enforcement to be protected as a form of information gathering. Information gathering is a critical part of reporting the news, and journalists have the right to gather information for stories, including by taking videos in public spaces. But the courts have also extended this right to regular people recording law enforcement in their communities. According to the First Circuit Court of Appeals, “a citizen's audio recording of on-duty police officers’ treatment of civilians in public spaces while carrying out their official duties, even when conducted without an officer’s knowledge, can constitute newsgathering every bit as much as a credentialed reporter's after-the-fact efforts to ascertain what had transpired.” In other words, recording the police performing their duties in public is protected for journalists and bystanders alike.

Today, ACLU affiliates have multiple cases in the courts representing dozens of plaintiffs challenging immigration and law enforcement officers’ violation of their First Amendment rights to record their activities.

Most recently, we filed a lawsuit on behalf of four Memphis residents who have suffered retaliation for recording law enforcement activity in their city. Since September 2025, Memphians have been living under the "Memphis Safe Task Force,” a 31-agency task force comprised of local, state, and federal agencies that have aggressively taken over the city under Trump’s orders to supposedly make Memphis safer.

But nothing could be further from the truth: agents and officers working with the Memphis Safe Task Force are unleashing a campaign of terror on the city's communities, utilizing mass traffic stops to harass Memphians and carry out large-scale immigration arrests, creating a climate of fear throughout the city.

Ordinary Memphians have stepped up to defend their communities. By recording Task Force activity, they have created independent records of immigration and law enforcement actions and shared information with their communities to keep each other safe. But Task Force agents have violently arrested them, intimidated them, and tried to prevent them from taking photos and videos that they have a constitutional right to record.

We’ve stood up to this kind of abuse before in Los Angeles, Minneapolis, and Illinois, and we won’t stop until everyone’s First Amendment right to record is respected. The ACLU is committed to fighting to hold those in power accountable. Through our ongoing series “Press in Peril,” we highlight the challenges facing the press in a democracy under pressure.