Avid news readers, as well as those who had the misfortune of hearing RTÉ’s morning report featuring a frankly bizarre stream of verbal diarrhoea from ‘astronaut’, Katy Perry about how she feels “surrounded by love”, will by now be aware that Garda Sergeants are calling for legal protections and clear direction on how to handle ‘citizen journalists’ filming officers in the line of duty.
Concerns have been raised about ‘citizen journalists’ going to, what Inspector Amanda Flood of Store Street Garda Station, called “highly pressurised emotionally charged and potentially volatile situations” where they “antagonise members” wanting to “elicit” a response to catch on video.
Interestingly, interfering with a member of An Garda Síochána in the line of duty is already an offence under Section 5(16) of the Criminal Justice Act 2006. This states that a person who “obstructs a member of the Garda Síochána in the exercise of his or her powers” or “fails to comply with a direction under this section” is guilty of an offence and liable to a fine or imprisonment.
Given the often liberal application of the Public Order Act to move on protestors for example, it seems that Gardaí are already in a position to pursue members of the public who they feel are interfering with them in the line of duty.
Fear for family members.
A report from the Policing Authority focusing on public order policing says that many officers felt reluctant to use force in riots with the report saying, “Members expressed concern for their family members in particular, where information regarding their name, address and family details are then published online in the comments accompanying the clip,”.
While this concern is very understandable, this risk exists for anyone whose image happens to be shared online, particularly when he or she has engaged in activities that have – for whatever reason – drawn the ire of certain sections of the internet. As mentioned above, Section 5(16) of the Criminal Justice Act 2006, would seem to place Gardaí in a much better position to prevent this from happening than your average Joe.
You can’t make being an arsehole illegal.
While it’s not difficult to feel sympathetic to concerns about people sticking their phones in your face, there appears to be no practical way to carry out the calls for action against ‘citizen journalists’ in this regard without causing undue infringement on civil liberties.
In the line of my own work, I have witnessed people who are best described as arseholes holding their phones at very close proximity to the faces of members of AGS, recording or live streaming, while verbally berating the officers in the most uncivil terms.
At the risk of sounding like a broken record, Section 5(16) of the Criminal Justice Act 2006 sounds like a good fit here too. Being slapped with a fine of €3,000 or imprisonment for a term not exceeding 6 months or both sounds like a good elixir for reasonable behaviour.
I’ve also personally had a woman film me while loudly heckling as I attempted to interview someone outside the Dáil and am aware of exactly how annoying it is, however I don’t think it should be an offence.
Gardaí can film YOU so why can’t you do the same? Public trust.
Members of AGS have recently begun wearing body cams which were introduced to streamline the process of gathering and presenting evidence. Evidence from body cam footage was used in court for the very first time in Ireland to convict activist and self-styled citizen journalist, Philip Dwyer, for failing to comply with the direction of a member of AGS.
The reputation of AGS would appear to have been substantially tarnished in the eyes of a not insignificant section of the public due to their actions with regard to anti-asylum centre protests, particularly those in Coolock and Newtownmountkennedy.
While the argument that individual members of the force have little choice but to obey orders is a fair one, the public has the right to feel unhappy with how the government is using that force.
Videos made by members of the public from Coolock adjacent to the Crown Paints facility showed Garda Riot Squad members pepper spraying an elderly woman who was sitting at a bus stop, as well as an elderly man.
Gript readers will doubtless be aware that this writer was also targeted with pepper spray while in my own line of duty in Newtownmountkennedy, an incident which was captured on film.
Given the current climate in Ireland, it’s difficult to see how the national police force actively seeking to prevent people from filming them while on public duty could be seen as anything but an attempt to censor awareness of events of public interest, or an attempt to cover up potential or alleged wrongdoing.
When it comes to events of a sensitive nature, isn’t more footage better than less?
You would think that the availability of more footage, and from a broader range of angles, would be of benefit when it comes to the establishment of facts.
People are entitled to make complaints to GSOC if they feel that their rights have been infringed upon by a member of AGS.
The importance of independently shot footage would seem to be particularly true in circumstances where a Gript investigation revealed that members of the Public Order Riot squad engaged in active duty while not wearing any identification numbers at a number of protests where there were clashes between police and protestors. Unidentifiable can mean unaccountable.
In conclusion: There seems to be a pre-existing legal framework for dealing with this in circumstances where Gardaí are having phones stuck in their faces, however if it’s the case that they just don’t want to be filmed at all, there’s no way to make that work and they can’t have it both ways.