US Circuit Court Protects People’s Right to Record Police in Public

The United States Second Circuit has held for the first time that the First Amendment of the Constitution protects a person’s right to record law enforcement activity in public.

In Massimino v. Benoit, No. 25-1104 (2d Cir. Aug. 17, 2026), Keith Massimino alleges that two police officers, Matthew Benoit and Frank Laone, violated his rights under the First and Fourth Amendments by detaining him while he recording the exterior of a police department building all the way back in 2018.

While this particular court case relates to recording the exterior of a law enforcement building from a public area, in this case a sidewalk, the implications of the case for photographers are plentiful, as the National Press Photographers Association (NPPA) explains.

Speaking to PetaPixel, the NPPA notes that the court ruling does not specifically rely on Massimino’s press status. While he told the arresting officers that he was a journalist, he is actually a self-described “First Amendment auditing hobbyist.” In its ruling, the court recognized a First Amendment right that belongs to everyone, not just journalists, whether self-described or accredited.

While the court ruled for the officers because Massimino’s right to record was not clearly recognized when he was arrested in 2018, the court held for future cases that creating a recording, like a photo or video, is itself part of the First Amendment-protected speech process.

“We also note that, in more than one sense, the very act of recording a video may sometimes itself be an act of expression,” the Court writes in its opinion.

“First, for some, that act may be intended to communicate their views about the subject of the recording or the constitutional protections afforded to their conduct. Second, when a person uses their phone to livestream a video, rather than record a video for later distribution, they are both recording and disseminating that video at the same time. In other words, often there is not even a ‘speech process.'”

The ruling also determined that recording a police station from a public area is not sufficient grounds to create the reasonable suspicion typically required to detain a person.

The Second Circuit’s ruling applies only to the states of Vermont, Connecticut, and New York, although the latter is especially important.

“For years, NPPA has argued that people in the Second Circuit should have the same clearly established right to record police that courts across the country have already acknowledged. It is especially significant that this ruling comes from a circuit that includes New York, the media capital of the world. The court also made clear that this is not a special privilege reserved for credentialed journalists. The First Amendment protects the public’s ability to document the conduct of law-enforcement officers,” Mickey H Osterreicher, General Counsel for the NPPA, tells PetaPixel.

“Visual journalists perform an essential public service by documenting how law-enforcement officers exercise their authority. This decision provides long-overdue clarity for photographers and other members of the public throughout New York, Connecticut, and Vermont. People should not have to risk arrest simply because they use a camera to document police activity in a public place,” adds Alex Garcia, NPPA’s President.

Image creditsHeader photo licensed via Depositphotos.com.