If Accountability Offends You, You ARE the Problem | End Qualified Immunity | Support SB2145

The Libertarian Party of Hawaii has one message for police departments fighting SB2145: If real accountability offends you, you are the problem.

This bill is about ending the legal shield that allows government agents violate your First Amendment rights with zero consequences. It is exactly why Hawaii’s police departments are scared. 

Here’s why we Support SB2145:

• It explicitly codifies your existing First Amendment right to record law enforcement officers when they are performing their duties in plain view.

• It includes clear protections: recording is only allowed if it does not physically obstruct, interfere with, or impede an officer’s duties.

• Most critically, it creates a private right of action: If an officer violates this right (by arresting you, seizing your phone, deleting footage, or threatening you for recording), you can sue them personally in civil court. You can seek actual damages, punitive damages, injunctive relief to stop future violations, and your attorney fees and expert witness costs if you win. 

This last part is the dagger: by making the right clearly established in statutes, the bill effectively strips away qualified immunity in these cases. Officers can no longer hide behind excuses. They face real financial and personal liability for clear constitutional violations. That’s the provision they’re truly terrified of. Everything else in their testimony is noise to distract from it. You can read our overview of the bill here.

On January 28, 2026, the Senate Public Safety and Military Affairs Committee heard testimony on SB2145, a straightforward bill that simply puts into statute what the First Amendment and federal courts have already made clear: the public has the right to record law enforcement officers performing their duties in plain view.

Chairman Austin Martin stated:

“That needs to be established. It’s often misunderstood and leads to serious rights violations. It needs to be distinguished as a right and as a First Amendment activity. It should already be protected.”

The Deep-state’s Dishonest Scare Tactic

While LPHI members spoke plainly about transparency and rights, the Honolulu Police Department submitted written testimony that could be seen as nothing other than deliberate misrepresentation:

“In addition, this bill does not protect private property owner’s rights to privacy. If this bill is passed, people would be allowed onto private property that is not open to the public, such as someone’s home, for the purpose of filming law enforcement activity.”

This is false. And HPD knows it. SB2145 does not grant anyone the right to trespass. It does not override criminal trespass statutes. It does not let citizens barge into homes or private yards. Law enforcement agencies have litigated these exact issues for over a decade. They know the case law. They know the bill changes nothing about trespass, entry, or private-property rights. Yet they chose to frame a simple transparency measure as an attack on homeowners’ privacy.

The bill’s language is narrow and explicit: it protects recording of law enforcement activities that are in plain view. The exact same situations are already protected by the First Amendment and Ninth Circuit precedent. 

The measure even includes the standard safeguard that recording must not physically obstruct or interfere with officers. This is not a good-faith concern. It is a calculated attempt to kill a bill by scaring us with a bogus “home invasion” narrative. When the very agencies tasked with upholding the law resort to misleading the Legislature to shield themselves from accountability, it proves exactly why this bill is needed.

MPD's Real Fear: A Camera They Can't Turn Off

Maui Police Department's opposition testimony to SB2145 concedes that citizens already have the right to record officers "in plain and open view," yet they complain that the bill "unfairly suggests law enforcement as lacking accountability or acting outside the law." This is their gripe: the mere act of codifying a long-established First Amendment right feels like an accusation to them.

Instead of welcoming clearer rules that would reduce confusion and frivolous arrests for recording, they frame the bill as an unnecessary insult to their integrity. They lean heavily on body-worn cameras as proof that "extensive documentation and accountability" already exist. Simply file UIPA requests or subpoenas. But this misses the point entirely. We’re not stupid. Body cams are controlled by the department. Officers decide when to activate them, footage is often redacted or withheld, and internal reviews often protect the institution over the public.

Citizen recordings provide an independent, unfiltered perspective that body cams cannot replace. Dismissing the need for statutory clarity because "we already have cameras" is like saying we don't need independent journalism because government press releases exist. It's a self-serving deflection that prioritizes departmental convenience over genuine transparency.

Worse, they warn that private recordings "can be selectively edited, altered, or released without context, creating misleading narratives that undermine public trust." This paternalistic argument implies the public can't be trusted, while conveniently ignoring that police departments themselves have been caught editing or delaying release of body-cam video to shape narratives. The key takeaway is that MPD is the real victim here. 

If MPD truly cared about trust, they'd support measures that make accountability easier and more direct, not oppose them out of fear that sunlight might reveal uncomfortable truths. Their testimony doesn't defend public safety; it defends the status quo where oversight remains firmly in their own hands.

The Real Reason Police Oppose SB2145: They Don’t Want to Lose Qualified Immunity

Here’s the part the Honolulu and Maui police departments conveniently left out of their testimony: SB2145 doesn’t just clarify a right. It creates a powerful private right of action. If passed, any person whose right to record is violated can sue the offending officer (and the department) directly in civil court for damages, punitive damages, injunctive relief, attorney fees and expert witness fees.

That single provision is a game-changer. Right now, officers who illegally arrest recorders, seize phones, smash cameras, or threaten people for filming almost always walk away under qualified immunity. The doctrine shields them unless a court has already ruled the exact same behavior unconstitutional in nearly identical circumstances. By putting the right into statute and spelling out exactly what constitutes unlawful interference, SB2145 makes the right clearly established by law. Qualified immunity evaporates in these cases. Officers suddenly face real financial consequences for violating the Constitution. This is why the agencies are fighting so hard. Their public objections:

“it’s already the law,” 

“body cams are enough,” 

“think of the homeowners” 

These are sand in our eyes. The real fear is losing the legal shield that lets them trample First Amendment rights with impunity. When police lobby against a bill that would finally make them personally liable for clear constitutional violations, they’re protecting their own ability to act above the law without regard to public safety. This is the very reason this bill is so desperately needed.

Transparency is non-negotiable. Citizen video is responsible and independent oversight. Rights are not privileges granted at the convenience of the state. When government officials deliberately distort a bill’s plain text to protect their own power, liberty demands we call it out. When public servants are too afraid to show their faces to the very people thet serve, we need to be screaming for transparency. Governor Josh Green has already said “eyes on the scene are good.” We agree. And those eyes should never be threatened.

Help Us Support SB2145:

This bill represents a major step forward for liberty, transparency, and justice in Hawaii. We call on the full Senate and House to pass SB 2145 without weakening amendments.Take action by following these two steps:

1. Click on the hyperlink to familiarize yourself with the bill text: Support SB2145

2. Testify. Our simple instructions make the process easy!

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