Leftist protesters calling themselves “legal observers” have no unique First Amendment rights when interacting with law enforcement, legal experts told the Daily Caller News Foundation.
Politicians blasted Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) in statements describing an agent’s fatal shooting of “legal observer” Renee Good on Jan. 7 in Minnesota, invoking a term activists have used for decades to describe those who monitor police activity during protests. Such titles carry no constitutional significance and do not remove consequences for impeding law enforcement, as Good is accused of doing, civil rights lawyers told the DCNF.
“These observers have the same rights as any other citizen to observe and record law enforcement conduct in public,” said Timothy Snowball, a senior attorney for the conservative Legal Insurrection Foundation. “However, the legal line is between observation and obstruction. There is a wide gulf between observation and purposefully trying to prevent law enforcement from doing their duty.”
“There are no special or unique protections. ‘Legal observers’ can (and should be able to) observe and record, but they can’t interfere with law enforcement activities — that’s a crime,” Manhattan Institute constitutional scholar and attorney Ilya Shapiro told the DCNF.
Footage from the Minneapolis shooting showed ICE agents surrounding Good’s car as it blocked part of the road. She refused to step out when they asked her to and suddenly drove towards one agent before he fired multiple shots. The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) alleges that the car injured the agent’s torso from impact. A female companion was seen filming the agents on her phone and telling Good, “drive, baby, drive” just before Good accelerated her car.
There are multiple ways these supposed observers can run afoul of the law, such as ignoring an order to disperse or keep proper distance from officers, Snowball told the DCNF. “However, the prohibitions on interference also go in the other direction if law enforcement attempts to use its authority or force to stop the public from lawful observation or recording when there is no obstruction taking place,” he said. “But in the most recent incidents, the former appears to be the case, rather than the latter.”
Minnesota ICE Watch, a group consisting of Good and other ICE-tracking activists, shared a Sunday video on Instagram of a raid at a gas station where a protester clashed with a federal agent while seemingly filming him. “The G3STAPO TERRORIST Hit a man and then jumped him for LEGALLY OBSERVING,” the Instagram post said — despite the video showing that the man pushed the agent’s arm when told to step back, apparently prompting the agent to arrest.
The ICE Watch Instagram account also shared a clip from the past week showing the aftermath of a car crash between ICE and a “legal observer,” blaming authorities for the wreck without context. Agents were seen restraining the driver on the ground.
“Activists and protesters can weaponize a made-up special legal observer status by crossing the line I mentioned and specifically interfering with law enforcement, or provoking law enforcement,” Snowball said. “There is also, as in many cases, a general ignorance of the law and Constitution at issue when it comes to many of these ‘legal observers.’”
The left-wing National Lawyers Guild popularized and trademarked the legal observer phrase after taking inspiration from the Black Panther Party’s tactics of monitoring police in the 1960s. Many self-described legal observers have been arrested at left-wing demonstrations in the U.S. in recent decades while claiming to follow the law, but with hardly any prosecutions, according to news reports and activist groups. Federal appeals judges in Oregon ruled in 2020 that legal observers are free to remain at Black Lives Matter protests if they are not committing crimes, granting them the same permissions as journalists.
“Many appear to be entirely unaware or misled as to the legal issues in question, and may genuinely believe they have legal rights they do not actually possess,” Snowball told the DCNF. “But as we learned in the first year of law school: ‘ignorance of the law is no excuse.’”
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