NEWARK, NJ (SBN) – One year after George Floyd was murdered by a police officer in Minneapolis, the New Jersey Institute for Social Justice and the ACLU-NJ (the “Groups”) today released To Record and Protect, a policy brief arguing for Attorney General Grewal to establish a First Amendment Policing Policy to reaffirm the rights of community members who record police encounters.
“George Floyd. Eric Garner. Walter Scott. Freddie Gray. Alton Sterling. We know these names because concerned bystanders bravely recorded tragic acts of police violence. How many more names do we not know and how many stories will we not hear, simply because no one was there to record?” ask the Groups in the brief.
With camera phones ubiquitous, many New Jerseyans have the ability to record at a moment’s notice. Videos and recordings of police encounters can be critical tools in documenting abuse and holding law enforcement accountable.
ACLU-NJ Staff Attorney Tess Borden spoke with SBN News Director Steve Lubetkin about the policy brief and the ACLU’s advice for citizens who want to record police activity.
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About Tess Borden
Tess Borden is a Staff Attorney at the ACLU-NJ, where she conducts litigation and advocacy on a range of civil rights issues, including prisoners’ rights, criminal justice reform, voting rights, reproductive rights, LGBTQ rights and non-discrimination, students’ rights, and free speech. She was appointed by the Governor to serve on the Inter-Agency Working Group on Body Worn Cameras, which concluded its work in March 2021, and is honored to serve currently as one of the Governor’s appointees to the Advisory Board to the Office of the Corrections Ombudsperson, in which role she has committed to being accountable to directly impacted community members.
Prior to joining the ACLU-NJ in 2017, Tess was the Aryeh Neier Fellow at the National ACLU and Human Rights Watch, where she authored the 196-page report “Every 25 Seconds: The Human Toll of Criminalizing Drug Use in the United States” and litigated issues of criminal law reform. Tess has also worked for the United Nations Special Rapporteur on extrajudicial, summary or arbitrary executions, the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia in The Hague, Netherlands, and HRW’s West Africa Division in Dakar, Senegal, as well as spending time before law school as an immigration paralegal.
Tess received her bachelor’s degree from Yale College, where she majored in French, and her law degree from Harvard Law School, where she was a member of the International Human Rights Clinic and an editor of the Harvard Human Rights Journal. She clerked for the Honorable George A. O’Toole, Jr. of the United States District Court for the District of Massachusetts.
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Steve Lubetkin is the news director for StateBroadcastNews.com. Steve’s journalism background includes print and broadcast reporting for NJ news organizations. He refocused on multimedia journalism and podcast production after a long career in corporate branded journalism and public relations.
He has won numerous awards for his audio and video news reporting from the Garden State Journalists Association, and he has also been recognized for video by the New Jersey Chapter of the Society of Professional Journalists. He has produced a wide range of audio and video podcasts in his other role as managing partner of State Broadcast News’s parent, The Lubetkin Media Companies.
Steve is co-author, with Toronto-based podcasting pioneer Donna Papacosta, of the book, The Business of Podcasting: How to Take Your Podcasting Passion from the Personal to the Professional.
In March 2021, he was elected to the board of directors of the New Jersey Chapter of the Society of Professional Journalists, and in July 2021 he was named secretary of the chapter. In August 2021, he was honored by SPJ with one of the organization’s 2021 Howard S. Dubin Outstanding Pro Member Awards, given to regular members of an SPJ chapter who go above and beyond in serving their chapter.
Steve has been the computer columnist for the Jewish Community Voice of Southern New Jersey, since 1996.
Steve also has reported on-camera and produces virtual conferences for NJSpotlightNews.org, a public policy news coverage website focused on New Jersey government and industry; and for clients of StateBroadcastNews.com, a division of The Lubetkin Media Companies LLC.
From May-November 2019, he produced and reported a weekly podcast, The CRE News Hour, a news and features program focusing on the commercial real estate industry.
From 2014 to 2019 he was New Jersey and Philadelphia editor for GlobeSt.com and filled in covering Chicago/Midwest and Atlanta.
Steve has also served (from August 2017 to March 2018) as national broadcast news correspondent for CEOReport.com, a news website focused on practical advice for senior executives in small- and medium-sized companies.
Earlier in his career, Steve reported on rock music at the Jersey Shore for the Asbury Park Press, and was a broadcast news anchor and production engineer for WJLK-AM & FM, then owned by the Press. He also worked as a general assignment reporter for the Red Bank Register, Shrewsbury, NJ.
You can email Steve at steve@statebroadcastnews.com.
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