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The weight of authority is shifting in the direction of a "YES" answer, but the dust hasn't finished settling. It's still risky.
A poster above said it's a "NO" in Illlinois - but a downstate judge ruled the other way not long ago - and just before the arrival of the NATO Summit this month, the matter was briefly litigated in federal court in Chicago, and the outcome was an announcement that the state statute prohibiting the recording of cops in public places would not be enforced during the Summit. The result was an ocean of cameras recording everything, and it seems to me that this had a profound effect on keeping both sides in line.
As another poster said, the US Justice Department now takes the official position that recording the cops doing their jobs in public places is now constitutionally protected. I think that this position will ultimately prevail. But it's not a sure thing yet. So there is some risk. The cops know it's up in the air, and that the smartest move for them is not to resist taping. There is risk to them too, of liability, they know it, and the smarter cops will act accordingly. This may prove to have a very profound affect on how justice gets administered in the US down the road. No longer the cop's word against a defendant, but objective proof of what was said. Another example of technology transforming the foundations of life and society. When you wear that mobile device, you are wearing the future.
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Extremism in the defense of Liberty is no vice. . . Restraint in the pursuit of Justice is no virtue.
Senator Barry Goldwater, 1964
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