Can I record the police in Illinois?

(WTVO) — With most people in the country having smart phones, residents can take them out and have a camera at a second’s notice to take videos or pictures. However, a lot of people might be wondering if they can they do this when the thing they want to get a picture or video of is a police officer.

Illinois is a two-party consent state, which means that it is illegal to record conversations in some circumstances unless all parties’ consent. This used to include the police as well, but the ACLU challenged the law in court in 2012. A new eavesdropping law was passed two years later to record public conversations involving police without their consent.

Though audiovisual recording is protected under the First Amendment, police can still retaliate to being recorded, even though it would be unconstitutional. A Supreme Court decision states that residents must prove that they would not have been arrested if they were not recording the police.