The Florida legislature is considering a bill (Senate Bill 186) that would ban the publication of photos, video and audio records of mass shootings. The bill passed the Senate yesterday on a 40-0 vote. The ostensible reasons for the bill are to avoid further traumatizing survivors and relatives of the victims, avoiding encouragement of any aspiring shooters who might crave publicity, and preventing anyone from profiting from recordings of carnage.
You can read the full bill here. The bill would ban the distribution of images or recordings of victims being shot or their bodies after a shooting.
Given the criminally inept response by Broward County law enforcement officials, such a law could also have the effect of tamping down public outrage over similarly botched responses should they occur in the future. But we’re sure that never occurred to the bill’s sponsors.
Here’s the AP’s full story . . .
TALLAHASSEE, Fla. (AP) — Florida’s government agencies would be prohibited from releasing photos, video or audio that record the killing of a person in an act of mass violence, under a bill approved by the state Senate on Wednesday.
Inspired by last year’s school shooting in Parkland that left 17 people dead, the bill says victims’ relatives could be traumatized by the images, and that recordings and photos of mass killings could inspire others to kill.
“The Legislature is concerned that, if these photographs and video and audio recordings are released, terrorists will use them to attract followers, bring attention to their causes, and inspire others to kill. The Legislature also finds that dissemination of these photographs and video and audio recordings may also educe (sic) violent acts by persons who have a mental illness or who are morally corrupt,” the bill reads.
The bill says the Legislature also recognized that these types of images can be widely disseminated on the internet in an era when most people have access to computers and smartphones. That would subject victims’ families to continuous injury.
In addition to the massacre at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School, the bill states that lawmakers are “gravely concerned” about the 2016 mass-shooting at the Pulse nightclub in Orlando, in which a gunman killed 49 people, and the 2017 shooting at a Fort Lauderdale airport that left five dead.
The bill defines an act of mass violence as an attack that leaves at least three people dead, not including the perpetrator. It bans the release of depictions of the actual killing or victims’ bodies after an attack. Copies of those images and recordings could be released to victims’ immediate families, and victim’s relatives wouldn’t be prohibited from releasing copies to the media or others. It doesn’t ban the release of other images during an attack, such as a killer approaching a school or business or police responding to the scene, as long as bodies or killings aren’t depicted.
Republican bill sponsor Sen. Tom Lee told reporters after the vote that he understands media plays a role in holding authorities accountable after an attack, and said news organizations can petition a judge for the release of recordings and photos.
He commended the South Florida Sun Sentinel for its coverage of the Parkland shootings and acknowledged the newspaper was helped by having access to video and recordings after the attack.
“If you read the Sun Sentinel, we would have been unlikely to get to the bottom of what happened in Parkland without access to that footage. If there’s a compelling public interest, I’m hopeful the media will still be able to get to it,” Lee said.
But he also acknowledged that suing for access to recordings is expensive.
“There will still be that ability to go to court, and I frankly regret that they have to go to the extraordinary measures they do because going to court costs money — a lot of money,” Lee said. “But we looked at eleven ways to Sunday on how to write this to make it easier on the media to get access and this was the best we could do.”
A House version of the bill was approved by two committees and can now be considered by the full chamber.
That’s a lot of words to spell “unconstitutional”.
And to think TAG was just bashing New Zealand, turns out the US is no better. That was a unanimous vote, no republican vs democrat B.S.
The US is WAY better.In the US city and state legislative bodies pass lots of unconstitutional measures. The difference is they tend to get struck down because our Bill of Rights is more explicit, more protective of the citizenry against nonsense by the government.
The us citizenry has a lot more equivalent rights on the First, Second, Fourth and Fifth amendments.
By the way there is no evidence at all that either the disgusting video feed would incite others. What there is excellent evidence for, from the peer reviewed science in fact, is that general media saturation coverage of mass shootings and the shooters, abetted by gun control groups pushing to keep them in the news to a a maximum extent possible — does encourage future killers of this type.
The mainstream media’s general standard coverage of these vents, and the gun control lobby, are who are giving these killers what they want and encouraging prospective future killers
The US is WAY better.In the US city and state legislative bodies pass lots of unconstitutional measures.
OK really, look up the Gun-Free School Zones Act of 1990. Actually decelerated unconstitutional under the commerce clause, and basically Congress said F.U.to the court as passed it again, except that they put into the law (this is the only change) that the commerce clause does apply.
There has been so much speech restricted DESPITE the 1st over the years that it is not funny. Only in the recent past have we seen that change and I don’t think it will take much to see it go back the other way. Remember that stupid flag burning amendment they wanted to push.
I would think that banning the release of recordings would not be consistent with the 1st Amendment.
“The ostensible reasons for the bill are to avoid further traumatizing survivors and relatives of the victims, avoiding encouragement of any aspiring shooters who might crave publicity, and preventing anyone from profiting from recordings of carnage.” Yeah, we could use this to cover up stuff like Waco, Ruby Ridge, Ocoee Massacre, Battle of Blair Mountain, Trail of Tears…
The government and the corporations will be able to write history in real time.
Imagine if we didn’t have the entire video of that MAGA church kids incident. They would have been able to start race riots using that kid’s smirk. Look what Jussie Smollett tried to do and got away with because of corrupt government.
Other countries don’t censor their reports like America does. America used to show violent Vietnam footage until they realized people don’t want to go to war after seeing it for what it is. They used to show the caskets of dead soldiers coming back from Afghanistan and Iraq until they realized it made people anti war on terror.
More info the better. No editing, no censoring. Allow people to see it if they want to.
This is a restriction on Government Agencies from releasing video or pictures that the Government has. It’s not a ban on publishing, it’s a restriction on how govenment agencies can release media.
Therefore, the 1st amendment would not seem to apply.
As long as it only applies to the government and not citizens, it may be Constitutional (but the legislation is not described as being applicable to government only). What happens when citizens obtain the video via the FOIA?
It’s more like a government cover-up act.
Uh, isn’t some arm of “government” going to instantly confiscate all copies of any video of mass shootings? The result is still unconstitutional censorship.
Never go full new Zealand.
+100
A new euphemism has been born.
I agree! It would be awful for the public to see the inept and incompetent police response!
Sounds like a good idea. Worked really good for the Nazi’s.
Remember how they staged attacks against themselves to blame the Polish so they could start the world war? Imagine there was cellphones back then.
“Given the criminally inept response by Broward County law enforcement officials, such a law could also have the effect of tamping down public outrage over similar botched responses should they occur in the future.”
Release of the video gives potent fuel to the grabbers, and possible inspiration to future shooters…
Imagine they require all violent content (like police shootings) to be censored from the public for being obscene and violent. For the family’s sake of course. Nothing to do with hiding the truth and being able to manipulate the mind without resistance. It’s not like they learned how well that works from the large tech companies that do such things on the internet.
Before there was only one book and they would read it to you. Now we have the internet where you can read all the books you want. This is too much power to allow the slaves to have.
The Christchurch shooting evidence shows how many different gun control laws don’t work. You wouldn’t be able to prove this without actual evidence of an actual event. Same applies to the Parkland shooting videos.
They can take their bill and stick it where the sun don’t shine. The 1st amendment is an absolute protection to the free distribution of information.
Not a first amendment issue, IMHO. This is whether or not a recording from a Taxpayer Funded Government Deployed video camera (deployed to a public location, of course, eg, a Public School) can be restricted from public release.
I could see where the public has the right to request the data, via a Freedom of Information Act request, which could have a temporary stay if, for instance, it was evidence submitted for a trial.
Now, if the bill made it illegal for a person or business to record something using their own equipment, and prohibited them from choosing to make that public ala cell phone coverage of the NZ shooting (even if the video is being posted by the shooter) – absolutely a 1st Amendment issue.
Any government censorship or information control is a 1st amendment issue. Government records are public for a reason.
Reason #1 — the public PAID for it!
“The 1st amendment is an absolute protection to the free distribution of information.” The only absolute protection are people willing to exercise the 2nd Amendment.
RE: “Any government censorship or information control is a 1st amendment issue. Government records are public for a reason.”
Absolute bullshit. The government censors all kinds of military and law enforcement info. for reasons of national & local security. Example: details regarding military aircraft, weapons, capabilities, classified info. obtained about other countries, criminals, etc. And rightfully so; why would we want our enemies or criminals to know all that we know about them or how we obtained it. I certainly don’t want our enemies to know all our capabilities or all that we know about theirs. National security trumps both our enemies AND our perceived need to know all such information and no sane person would disagree.
“Now, if the bill made it illegal for a person or business to record something using their own equipment, and prohibited them from choosing to make that public ala cell phone coverage of the NZ shooting (even if the video is being posted by the shooter) – absolutely a 1st Amendment issue.”
Actually, the video being posted by the shooter may not fall under the 1st. After all the footage was made by and for the sole purpose of committing a crime, so it’s legal status may be interesting. Just like you can’t brake into someones research facility and publish what you find.
I agree, pwrserge.
I say go for it. Let the anti gunners smear that on their rear ends. They are so hot to trot to violate our 2nd A protections, let’s see how they like having their 1st A protections potentially violated.
Let them choke on it a while.
I… I don’t think they care about this in the way you seem to think they care about this.
Blocking the release of video that shows the failures of the state suits them just fine. That way they can keep pretending mass murder is a hardware issue, not a software one.
I suggest they name it the “Scott Peterson, Scott Israel protection bill”
After all, if you can’t see the pathetic response you can’t point to the police failures that Florida is lousy with. First the horrendous police response at the Jacksonville gay nightclub, then the unbelievable cowardice in Broward County.
Here comes the New Zealand wave… No free speech and no semi autos.
From forty to zero just like that!
Well how “Convenient” ( sarc )!
This way, The FBI and other government organizations, which are alleged to be behind many of these STAGED events, can now avoid the seminal question after all of these alleged Attacks: “Where are the HD, time stamped, start to finish videos of these alleged “Shootings”!
Also, if this legislation passes, we are going to simply have to go along with the FBI and other law enforcements version of these events, as they Try and use the abolition of the First Amendment, to Try and take away our God Given Second Amendment Rights!
The families had to sue the LVMPD to get access to some evidence. They and Trump’s FBI did not want to give a damn thing to anyone. They still got gun control out of it though.
Might as well call this the Alex Jones Empowerment Act. 🙂 Conspiracy theorists rejoice!
I wonder if I should bother renewing my FL nonresident permit.
Move to Idaho and get an enhanced resident permit.
Don’t trust a government that want’s to disarm you.
Don’t trust a government that wants to keep information from you.
Don’t trust government
You are not being “censored” here for moronic Alex Jones ravings, just put in yuour place as a rube.
Alex Jones and those who repeat his idiocy are harming Second Amendment rights.
The majority of gun owners know the lie is not what happened, Sandy Hook DID as in the official report. The lie is the claim the rights restricting measures promoted by the gun grabbers, the media, and the Connecticut legislature would have had an effect and does more harm than good in terms of liberty. By throwing in his nonsense ravings, repeated by too many morons, Alex Jones is distracting from the the latter points and the argument made by nuts such as Jones, which the media is happy to spotlight since it is raving idiocy, dominate the conversation about that event.
This “Stinks to High Heavens”!
Let me understand this, the American people can witness the Assassination in broad daylight of a sitting President, but can’t handle viewing the videos of these alleged “Shootings”?
This is censorship pure and simple, to provide the establishment a built-in excuse, to avoid having to show videos BECAUSE THE VIDEOS WILL CLEARLY SHOW THESE ALLEGED “SHOOTINGS” ARE A STAGED HOAX, to Try and take away our God Given Second Amendment Rights!
This is the way to go if you want to hide malfeasance and cowardice like Broward County Sheriff’s and School District showed at Parkland.
WACO
Hehttps://www.blacklistednews.com/The_FBI_Appears_To_Be_Involved_In_Staging_Or_Covering_Up_Active_Shooter_And_Terror_Hoax_Events_Every_Six_Weeks/31624/0/5/5/Y/M.htmly
Moderators: Why are you censoring my post, about the FBI staging “Terror Hoax events every six weeks”? Are you “Controlled opposition”?
Tomorrow is the six week anniversary of the alleged Aurora, Illinois mass “Shooting” attack!
Saturday, is the six week Anniversary of the alleged Clinton, Mississippi mass “shooting” attack!
Fully expect the FBI to Try and stage an attack between now and this week end!
Maybe it’s because you’re a nutter.
The bill prohibits the distribution of official audio and video evidence held by government agencies. It appears not to prohibit the distribution of audio and video recordings made private individuals. The 1st Amendment does apply if this is truly the case.
… Does not apply …
Public record release falls under the aegis of the 1st amendment. All government records are public by default. Exceptions to this rule fall under strict scrutiny.
False, government does not fall under purview of the 1st Amendment. The 1st Amendment only applied to government restrictions on private speech. Do not confuse FOIA and public records laws with the 1st Amendment. The Constitution only requires a public record for Congress and expenditures.
False, the FOIA limits have been wrapped in with the 1st. Branzburg v. Hayes, United States Department of Justice v. Landano, and nited States Department of the Interior v. Klamath Water Users Protective Association for starts.
Government can confiscate footage and choose not to ever release it. That happened on 9/11 with the security cameras of the businesses across the street from the Pentagon.
Don’t be fooled to give up your rights or your power over the government.
False, there have been several Federal Court that said that the police cannot sieze private video. They can subpoena it under the 4th Amendment but you retain the rights to it. At worst you get it back after the case is resolved. In the digital age you just give them a copy.
I am not sure that you correct that there was private security footage of the impact. I know of nothing that would have had line of sight. There were government security cameras that captured the impact
Government takes cellphones for the footage and returns the phone without the video. The law is irrelevant. They do as they please and you have to go to court to fight it. Try to win a case against the government after they remove the existence of the footage.
In California they passed a law to require body cams. The intent was to provide the public with records of police activity. The police then declined to provide the footage because there was no law saying they need to provide it on request. Now they need to pass a law to require the police to release shooting footage to those that request it. So Californians can’t expect to know what happened because the police don’t have to give it to you and the media can control what they put out if the police give them access (conflict of interest right there).
The Pentagon footage was a few frames released instead of the entire video or any other videos available.
The first amendment includes the freedom of the press. The press can’t do their job when the government collects the evidence and refuses to release it unless some other government employee orders them to. It costs a lot of money to sue the government and there is no guarantee they will have to give the press anything. If the press wants evidence and can’t afford the lawsuits for every single incident, they will have to make a deal with the government on what they can show the public and what story they are going to write, just like the deals Hollywood makes with the government for access to the military and their equipment.
We would have almost no evidence of what happened inside the Mandalay Bay if a person within the investigation didn’t leak frames from the police video. The families had to spend a lot of money to get some footage and they still didn’t get the answers they wanted.
Do not argue for the side of government secrecy. You are arguing for eventual corruption and the imprisonment of whistle blowers.
You have a right to the evidence that your tax dollars produces. You have a right to know what your government is doing. You have a right to look over the evidence if that evidence is going to be used against you in the form of legislation. Do not forget that the Constitution doesn’t list every damn right you have, it only acknowledges the most important ones for daily life.
By the way, the police chief of Houston said there was no video footage recorded during the murders of two people during an illegal raid. He then had his office request the videos not be released to the public. Yeah, that’s right. During press conferences he said there wasn’t any video evidence yet at the same time his office was writing up a document requesting the courts not to allow the release of the videos. This chief said he is all about transparency, that his department will find the truth and make it available to the public because that’s why he was hired. The chief said he doesn’t want the FBI involved because his department has everything under control and you can trust them.
That’s the kind of thing you get when you can’t access the evidence to do your own investigation. You have to rely on the police, the courts, the FBI and the corporations that provide stories.
The police chief of Houston is a crook from CA.
Already called my senator to express my disgust and DeSantis to tell him to veto (State rep is a dem after the last one committed career suicide).
Alex Jones is a shill who sold his soul for money after Obama got elected. That dude is rich now, he spends a lot of money on machine guns. All he does now is lie and play a troll character on the internet for views/money. Not one person that worked with him before Obama got elected works with him or hangs out with him. His wife left him too. He hires people to put out content with all kinds of lies so he doesn’t have to say it himself, that way he can say in court that he never said those things someone else did.
Recently Infowars said New Zealand wasn’t real. They implied the video was CGI because of some video inconsistencies. This is provenly false and they know it, but their viewers don’t ask questions. Anyone with intelligence can see the video is real, it’s not some Hardcore Henry trailer.
Infowars also said the Mandalay Bay shooting was done by Muslims with machine guns in black helicopters or something like that. If you watch the dozens of videos streamed to the internet you can figure out where the gunfire is coming from and you can tell it’s being done by a rifle using a bump fire stock. It wasn’t some gun running setup with Muslims and M249s from the air.
And Alex Jones did say Sandy Hook was all fake. I heard it come out his mouth. Then he said he never said that. Now he is going to court for causing his followers to harass the parents of the children. He also caused one of his followers to “shoot up” a pizza place because it was said they were running a child sex trafficking ring in the basement or something like that.
The Sandy Hook families say the Second Amendment is a hoax.
They say it is a hoax, that you don’t have an individual right to Arms. They are just as bad as the people who they accused of saying the shooting of their children was a hoax. And they are just as dangerous because they want to take civil rights away from law-abiding citizens, like ME. And place the power in the hands of the government.
A government that ran away from protecting children at the Parkland school.
And Alex Jones is still and idiot
And I bet this includes videos and pictures of mass murder committed by the government and political operatives. (Remember, Socialism cannot exist without force of arms.) Scary times are certainly ahead of us.
Why are the Republicans giving the Democrats everything they want!? Is America a one party state?
For most practical purposes, yes.
One wing of the uniparty wants to go full-throttle to authoritarian socialism, and the other would rather just do the authoritarian part and let socialism creep in slowly.
Let’s ban publishing the killer’s face and name instead. Just call him “Some Asshole #00X”
As long as we’re monkeying with the First Amendment, we should go all the way and ban high-volume assault journalism.
This is not anti-semitism. American school children are shown pictures of Holocaust victims. The Holocaust did not happen in the United States. IT is a foreign event. And yet American school children are required buy curriculum standards in Florida and across the United States to be taught the Holocaust. Which includes using photographs of dead people. So now in America you will not show photographs of dead Americans who’ve been murdered in a horrendous Act of terrorism or a crime.
But foreigners who are murdered by their tyrannical government those photographs will be shown to American schoolchildren?
Photographs of the Cambodian Holocaust, people murdered by the Khmer Rouge, those photographs are shown to American schoolchildren. So it’s not just about the Jewish Holocaust. It’s about manipulating Americans by denying them the photographic evidence of crimes in American history. Being replaced by crimes that happened outside the United States.
While distasteful it does show kids what happens to a disarmed populace.
Then show distasteful pictures of black people hanging from trees. That is a population that has been disarmed in the United States historically. I have heard over the many years teacher’s and public speakers say they would prefer not to see those pictures shown to school children.
It seems only the pictures of dead white Jews seem to really count to these people. Not their fellow black American citizens.
We have already discussed on TTAG how the anti-civil rights Holocaust Museum does not even discuss the disarming of a population and how that led to the Holocaust.
But the JPFO does provide a list of countries that disarmed their citizens and then murdered them. And the Holocaust museum has refused to work with a JPFO on civil rights issues.
This doesn’t surprise me. First they excuse the Broward Cowards them blame gun owners far and wide. Now they need to conceal their actions.
In other words, they don’t want the public to see pictures of cops hiding.
Censorship pure and simple. Sorry to the folks who suffered a loss but the entire idea of a free press is to expose everything, not selective reporting
I have said this for a very long time, over ten years. Do not show videos or images, do not give the shooters name so they do not receive any fame in their demented mind. Just say a shooting occurred at such a place at such a time by a male/female and number of shooters if more than one and how many people were shot and injured/killed. This would stop alot of the copycats because their name is not in the press anywhere.
You are part of the problem. Your solution is no different than ban all of the guns in private hands and violence will cease. Have you forgotten the internet? Two versions of any major event will be propagated; the false media narrative and wild conspiracy stories. Unfortunately, the truth will be lost and people will still emulate others.
Bury your own head in the sand and allow the sanitized, propaganda version of events to be the only story told to the mush heads. But, choose only for yourself. Stop trying to push unconstitutional laws based upon your own fears and opinions.
I see what you are saying about the copycats. But if Florida bans the release of videos of mass shootings, the potential copy cats will easily find the videos on the darkweb. If the full videos were not released and info was filtered the public wont have the full truth, but rather a partial truth. The left news media would further bend this info into fabricated lies to make folks like us think we need more government regulation, to better control us.
Tick-tock
The Hour of the Time
Exactly who or what might be “protected”, and from what, given the enactment of this proposal? Old saying runs, Sunlight is an excellent antiseptic.
Quote: “But we looked at eleven ways to Sunday on how to write this to make it easier on the media to get access and this was the best we could do.” Hmm how about just saying that the First Amendment takes precedence.
By the way, while it was a mass shooting, the Pulse Nightclub was more importantly a Muslim terrorist attack.
And a MASSIVE failure of Law Enforcement!
Looks an awful like the European unions Article 13…To prevent news infomation, internet fair use of media materials from smaller “alternative” news media outlets. Allowing only the “mainstream” news media access to such information. Of course allowing those that control the source material to manpulate it as much as they please, including the current state of the “mainstream” news media (Minstery of Information)…Starting to look a lot like a “1984 Orwellian Society….” Anybody starting to worry yet, or are you past that…
“Anybody starting to worry yet, or are you past that…”
I passed worrying a couple of decades ago. If enough people don’t wake up and do something coordinated, we’re all screwed.
Total bullshit and a gross violation of the 1A. No chance in federal court. Since when have legislators in Florida care about anybody’s feeling? If something happens it should be reported and and video is part of the reporting process.
Come to think of…Wasn’t this new Florida Governor supposed to be “Pro2@?” Pro”Free-State”? What happened…?
Though I am sure they caused a lot of pain to many survivors, good thing films of the holocaust, concentration camps, the ovens and showers, and mass graves were never banned as most would never believe it actually happened this many years later.
Not releasing them before a trial might be a good idea. Not releasing the name of the perps(so as not to have martyrs) until they get out of jail works for me. After the trial, full disclosure would be a great idea and would allow for some learning in some schools.
Absolutely not. That’s a terrible idea.
The best is stick to freedom of speech and freedom of information. It has the highest potential to keep everyone honest.
Yeah, cause giving that asswipe in NZ everything he wants and more is a great idea.
I swear, it’s almost like being a functional retard is a prereq for public office. I mean, did I miss a memo where we instituted a test for public officials where you have to score “sub-human moron” on an IQ test to run for office?
This country is turning into Ronald’s Play Place with a giant clown standing there with his finger out and a sign that says “You must be this stupid to enter”. And the funny part? People actually think that getting dumber is a smart thing to do.
I guess this shouldn’t surprise me though. Florida did announce a while back, and they’re hardly the first state to do this, that they would no longer teach cursive in public schools cause learning to write in two forms was “confusing”. Yeah, confusing like SAE and metric. Confusing if you’re one of those people who should be put in a carnival for the rest of us to marvel at because the true proof of God is the miracle that you don’t have to be told to breath in order to remember.
“But we looked at eleven ways to Sunday on how to write this to make it easier on the media to get access and this was the best we could do.”
Umm… NO. The best you cudda done is mind yer own friggin’ bidness and left the whole thing alone.
“Florida Could Ban Release of Recordings After Mass Shootings”
Only because they don’t want their ineptitude shown to the world…
Government loves censorship. That includes RINO republicans, which means almost all republicans, as well as democrats. Obviously, we don’t want publicity that encourages criminal behavior. But this will encourage covering up government misbehavior, such as what happened at Ruby Ridge, Mount Carmel, Parkland, and many other instances.
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