Lawyer in key case: Regulating recording is ‘losing battle’

The Allston attorney whose seminal case helped define the law governing publicly filming police said cops are fighting a “losing battle” if they want to regulate how and from what distance people can record them — largely because the “real issue” is how cops approach their jobs.

“The real issue is not cameras. If police are trying to combat cameras, it’s a losing battle because the cameras are just going to get smaller (and) less visible,” said Simon Glik, who a federal appeals court ruled in 2011 had his rights violated by Hub police when they charged him with felony wiretapping for filming the arrest of a man on Boston Common.

“I did not start that trend. That trend was going to happen regardless,” Glik said by phone yesterday. “I think that the attitude for police has reached a critical mass. Most people have developed their view on police force and don’t need to see any additional videos, especially people in the community where police are overrepresented.”

Glik, who won a $170,000 settlement from the city following his arrest, said any legislation that would dictate how far a video-taker can stand from police — a proposal Boston police Commissioner William B. Evans said he’d back — would be “unenforceable.”

Glik’s case paved the way for a federal appeals court decision determining that public filming of police is legal and that citizen videographers cannot be charged under the state’s wiretapping law.

Harvey Silverglate, a criminal defense lawyer and civil liberties litigator, called the Glik case “ground zero” on a hot-button issue that’s turned a spotlight on police and citizen interactions throughout the country.

“What Glik did do was offer a very specific layer of protection for ordinary citizens and, for that matter, news photographers to take pictures of policemen in action on public streets,” Silverglate said.

“We have the electronic wherewithal to be able to record public scenes, and I don’t see any way of limiting the right without infringing on civil liberties.”