do you remember this case the video that I posted a few months back about whether or not there's a constitutional right for people to live stream their encounters with police officers where there's a huge update in that actual case that you're not going to want to miss or rather misunderstand a pool behind the case thing two young black people driving that's what it was on the spotlight on the street nowhere I stopped it all three stop signs I'm recording every time we're good so far but so what kind of stock like they don't know that no it came to me so much man look we got Facebook live cuz yo yeah man get off my phone man look at your boy look at your boy [Music] Facebook live yeah we're not gonna have okay because that lets everybody y'all follow on Facebook that we're out here they might be just one of me next time okay let everybody know where y'all are at We're not gonna have that if you want to record that is just fine we record too so in the future if you want a Facebook live your phone's gonna be taken from you how is that a lot and if you don't want to give up your phone you'll go to jail is that a law as I explained in the prior video live stream video removes the ability of dishonest cops to destroy evidence and conceal their misconduct that's a good thing for us but not surprisingly they don't like that so they attempted to find a way around it what is it of course officer safety then you had this traffic stop involving Dijon sharp in Winterville North Carolina which then turned into a federal civil rights lawsuit and as I discussed in the first video that case was lost actually at the trial court level and it just appeared to have backfired against the plaintiff and in favor of the government well fortunately now that has changed last week the U.S 4th Circuit Court of Appeals overturned the trial Court's ruling and confirmed that we indeed have a First Amendment right to live stream police officers including being an occupant of a vehicle that's subject to a traffic stop but is government likes to remind us no rights are absolute right the government could still infringe on those rights under certain facts here are the two most important paragraphs in the opinion that I'm going to discuss which I'll post in full at the blog at the civil rights lawyer.com with the link posted in the description by the way if you support the ongoing fight for our constitutional rights Please Subscribe and follow along but before we get to those two most important paragraphs let's review some of the footage first and then we'll discuss that opinion and what I think it means k-e-s-t-a s-t-a-t-o-n you got your ID on you yeah okay s-t-a-t-o-n what's good y'all man we just gonna I'm recording every time again over there we're good so far but so what kind of stock lady no it came to me so much man look we got Facebook live cuz yo yeah man get off my phone man look at your boy look at your boy oh I'm saying why are you grabbing on them though man you got his phone are you kind of grabbing on him though look at me we got three citations you can wear your seatbelt okay there you go you stop signing okay okay that's cool all three of those citations you can go online right I will I know exactly how it worked thank you man no I'm good so as promised here it is in black and white from the court creating and disseminating information is protected speech under the First Amendment a major purpose of the first amendment was to protect the free discussion of governmental Affairs in other courts have routinely recognized these principles extend the First Amendment to cover recording particularly when the information involves matters of public interest like police encounters the act of recording videos is entitled to first amendment protection because it's an important stage of the speech process that ends with a dissemination of information about a public controversy we agree this is the court speaking recording police encounters creates information that contributes to discussion about governmental Affairs so too does live streaming disseminate that information often creating its own record we thus hold it live streaming a police traffic stop is speech protected by the First Amendment so this is just fantastic language that can be used over and over again in the future back to the court here the town purports to justify the policy based on officer safety according to defendants live streaming a traffic stop endangers officers because viewers can locate the officers and intervene in the encounter they support this claim by arguing with help from the Amici that violence against police officers has been increasing including planned violence that uses new technologies on defendant's view Banning live streaming prevents attacks or related disruptions that threaten officer safety but despite the government's claims the court found that the government had not established sufficient sufficient specific officer safety issues due to traffic stop occupants engaging in this constitutionally protected activity however the court left over left open the possibility that the government could do so and that's great because then the government can't just say well traffic stops are dangerous therefore we need to be able to do whatever we want at traffic stops now generally they they can do that however if this is a First Amendment constitutionally protected Act activity in order to do that they have to jump through certain hoops and they're going to have to back up their claims that all of this stuff that's allegedly happening about live streaming creating officer safety issues they're going to have to prove it in court and they didn't do that they didn't do that here but unfortunately in this case the opinion granted qualified immunity to the individual police officers who were defendants in the lawsuit finding that since this was basically the first opinion confirming this specific constitutional right that the right therefore was not clearly established at the time that the conduct occurred and that therefore the officers were entitled to qualified immunity the important part however is that from this point on police officers are on notice and especially in the fourth circuit States West Virginia Virginia South Carolina North Carolina Maryland this is a constitutionally protected activity under the First Amendment so in the end the case actually did not backfire it worked the process worked and although these individual officers will not be held accountable this case in that case this opinion will form the basis for others being held accountable in the future now with qualified immunity out there we have to be happy with each and every win that we get no matter how little but I think this is a big one remember that when the government attempts to use officer safety to steal our freedoms what's the proper response that's right freedom is scary they need to deal with it or just get another job [Music]