Buried on page 72 of Ohio’s new HB 315 is a provision that’ll make it harder to get bodycam footage out of the cops. As reported by News 5 Cleveland, the new bill would allow the cops to charge people making public records requests for bodycam footage. The charge? Up to $75 an hour and no more than $750 total.
That’s a lot of cash for a public records request.
Here’s the actual text of the relevant part of the bill:
“A state or local law enforcement agency may charge a requester the actual cost associated with preparing a video record for inspection or production, not to exceed seventy-five dollars per hour of video produced, nor seven hundred fifty dollars total. As used in this division, ‘actual cost,’ with respect to video records only, means all costs incurred by the state or local law enforcement agency in reviewing, blurring or otherwise obscuring, redacting, uploading, or producing the video records, including but not limited to the storage medium on which the record is produced, staff time, and any other relevant overhead necessary to comply with the request.”
The bill would also allow the cops to charge requestors before the cops have started to process the video. “A state or local law enforcement agency may include in its public records policy the requirement that a requester pay the estimated actual cost before beginning the process of preparing a video record for inspection of production,” it said.
The bill has seen a lot of pushback from local media and constituents. The Governor and the police have argued that cutting together video for public consumption takes them and valuable resources away from policing.
“No law enforcement agency should ever have to choose between diverting resources for officers on the street to move them to administrative tasks like lengthy video redaction reviews for which agencies receive no compensation—and this is especially so for when the requestor of the video is a private company seeking to make money off of these videos,” Ohio Governor Mike DeWine said in a statement to the press.
Marion, Ohio police Chief Jay McDonald told the Ohio Capital Journal that this was, in part, an effort to stop cops from cutting together clips for YouTubers. “They want domestic violence, they want drunk driving, they want bar fights,” MacDonald said. “Processing that body cam in those requests like that takes hours and hours and hours of work, and it really makes the job of the media, of lawyers, of citizens who are asking for requests, harder.”
It’s true that there’s a cottage industry of YouTubers and streamers that cut together body cam footage for views. It’s also true that a fee as high as $750 might stop them from doing business in Ohio. It might also hurt independent journalists and smaller newsrooms who rely on bodycam footage to hold police accountable.
It could also cut off vulnerable citizens who’ve had an interaction with police from seeing the footage of that interaction.
Last September, Wisconsin signed Act 253 into law. It’s similar to the Ohio law, but more narrowly targets people who would turn a profit from the bodycam footage. While this does affect YouTubers, it also hits journalists. Texas, Florida, and several other states charge fees to process bodycam footage.
The Ohio law is not a blanket demand of the state’s police departments, just a cap on what they can charge. Every department will have to decide for themselves what, if anything, to charge for giving out tape to the public. Cleveland, for its part, has said it’s holding off for now.
“We are currently reviewing at this time…we need to conduct our own research before enacting any sort of policy,” city spokesperson Tyler Sinclair told News 5 Cleveland.
Sinclair added that members of the press, at least, will get bodycam footage for free. “Freedom of the press is a cornerstone of democracy and we strongly believe in the crucial role the traditional media has in holding government accountable,” he said. “As such, we have no plans to charge fees to members of the traditional press as we highly value our television, radio, print, and digital media partners.”
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