Someone will always say "there is no reasonable expectation of privacy in public", for whatever reason. So someone always has to respond to that, for the benefit of anyone who doesn't know that not everyone agrees with that dismissive assertion.
And FWIW, citizens have a right to get the footage the government records. You can get any camera footage from any government building, and even personal cellphones of government emplpoyees if they happen to film something with their personal cellphone while on the job.
It isn't "for whatever reason", it is part of the first amendment. Just because you don't like it doesn't mean it hasn't been the law for a very long time.
- There is no reasonable expectation of privacy in public. Any individual with a camera can record you at any time. (Otherwise the entire genre of street photography basically wouldn't exist, and journalists could get arrested for documenting stories in the public interest.)
- We shouldn't have automated cameras recording all the time and feeding that information into a massive database where people's movements can be correlated and tracked across the country.
Video (and audio) recording isn't even the best way to track someone, everyone has a cellphone these days, and turning them off doesn't always stop the tracking.
It's not recording in public that is the problem - that is a right - the separate problem is mining that data and making connections where there aren't any.
Some people say "both parties are the same", but I disagree. With the current administration, they are all-in on mass surveillance, they love Anduril and Palantir, and any attempt to protest their overreach will be met with force, and they are using these technologies to track protesters. The Democrats on the other hand will respond to protests, and we can push them in the right direction. I guess I'm trying to say, be careful who you vote for.
For example, you can't legally photograph people in certain ways in public in some US jurisdictions. (Because "no expectation of privacy" perverts
There are also restrictions on secret audio recording without consent under circumstances that some people would try to claim are public.
For another example, there are restrictions on how you use that "no expectation of privacy", US-wide (e.g., commercial use of photographs, or cyberbullying).
And that's before we get into common decency, or arguable conflicting laws or principles.
But of course, every single time there is an opportunity for some new person to dismiss a good point with "no reasonable expectation of privacy!" such a new person materialize. And so someone else has to spend their time responding.
But yes, recording in public is generally very much allowed, and for good reason. I'm happy that we can film our govenment and dissemenate those recordings when they do something wrong. And that is the same first amendment right that gives government the ability to record too. And there are very few restrictions on recording, so yes, there is no REASONABLE expectation of privacy in public - the situations you outlined are all unreasonable. There are limits to free speech, but that doesn't mean recording in public isn't generally allowed.
Besides, the first amendment does not give the government the right to record or to benefit from those recordings. Rather, it prevents the government from restricting speech acts of private citizens. Therefore there should be no conflict with the 1st if a hypothetical law prevents the government from recording or accessing private recordings, even if private recordings are considered protected speech.