We, the undersigned residents of the State of New Jersey, respectfully petition this Legislature to draft and enact legislation that would prohibit the use of police case footage—such as body-worn camera videos, dash cam footage, interrogation recordings, and other law enforcement video materials—obtained through Open Public Records Act (OPRA) or Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests for the purposes of monetized content production or commercial gain.

The State of New Jersey provides valuable public access to government records under OPRA, including law enforcement footage, in the interest of transparency, accountability, and civic oversight.

However, in recent years, an increasing number of online content creators and third-party entities have begun exploiting this access for financial gain—editing sensitive police footage to create monetized content on platforms such as YouTube, TikTok, and Facebook. This includes:

• Publishing videos for clicks, views, and ad revenue.
• Dramatizing, sensationalizing, or selectively editing footage for entertainment or bias reinforcement.
• Re-traumatizing victims, families, and communities involved in the recorded incidents.
• Undermining the original purpose of public access laws by turning them into commercial content pipelines.

These practices raise significant concerns around privacy, consent, mental health, and the ethical use of government records—particularly when the individuals captured on video are minors, victims of violence, or not convicted of any crime.

Today,  the police can enter your home while pursuing an unrelated suspect, and every moment—from the contents of your bedroom to the photos on your walls—can be captured on body camera footage. That footage, even if you did nothing wrong, can then be requested under public records laws and uploaded to the internet by strangers, edited for entertainment, and monetized for profit—without your consent, and with no regard for your privacy or safety.
  
Request for Legislative Action

We call upon the New Jersey Legislature to:

• Draft and pass legislation that explicitly prohibits the use of police case footage obtained via OPRA/FOIA for the purpose of creating monetized online content.

Include provisions that:

• Make it unlawful to profit from, sell, or use such footage on ad-supported digital platforms.
• Penalize willful misuse with fines or civil liability.
• Protect journalistic, nonprofit, and educational uses that serve the public interest without financial exploitation.
• Clarify that victims, defendants, or their immediate families retain the right to access and share such footage for legal or personal purposes, without commercial restriction.

Purpose of the Petition

This measure is not intended to suppress public access, accountability journalism, or whistleblowing. Rather, it aims to close a loophole that allows private individuals to financially exploit state-recorded trauma, often at the expense of vulnerable citizens who never consented to public exposure.

We believe that monetizing police footage obtained through transparency laws degrades both the integrity of public records and the dignity of the individuals involved. New Jersey can, and should, lead in setting clear ethical boundaries that reflect the modern digital age.

The laws will never change, if we never speak up. Don't wait until your most traumatic moments are posted for your neighbors and the world to see.