It should be legal on a national level to film any and all public service workers (while on the job)
Why
Great question! If it’s illegal to film a public servant then it is illegal to verify they are actually serving the public’s best interest. In particular if you catch a public servant performing amoral or otherwise corrupt behaviour there is no way to publicaly verify that. Further without explicit legal protections for things then it is easier for that action to be banned or otherwise made illegal. No protection is no protection. A corrupt public servant has a vested interest in misinterpreting law in order to prevent you from exposing them. Which is why Oklahoma’s ban on filming police is still bad even though it is framed under the guise of protecting police from harassment
I don’t think broad brushstrokes are helpful here - regular people can be real assholes, and we need to balance a public servant’s individual right to privacy with the public’s right to transparency.
Some jobs such as Police Officers, I have no qualms with filming while they’re in uniform or otherwise on-the-job. But I can also see how a blanket approval could backfire, e.g. some aggrieved person decides to stalk some poor guy who’s only job is to center divs on some government website, just because they find out he’s a government worker.
If one wants privacy, then maybe they should be a bouncer at a strip club, not a public servant
So then do you recommend that qualified, genuinely decent people, avoid public servant jobs if they expect a reasonable level of privacy?
I’m not debating what is reasonable, just if we should turn people away from jobs for expecting privacy of any kind.
Absolutely. You either get privacy or you become a public official or a public figure, which makes you public, out in the open.
Some cop was trying to use his position as a cop to get 5 free loaves of bread, and the bakery guy was like: “Hey person’s name get the camera, and post it titled ‘the police stealing from citizens’” and the cop was like : “yeah, uhh… escapes with his partner”.
