The right to record police anonymously
The 5th Circuit Court of Appeals has joined other Courts of Appeals in finding that the First Amendment protects the right to make audio and video recording of police activities in public places, including recording police officers and vehicles outside a police station from a public sidewalk.
The Court also found that Texas Penal Code § 38.02, interpreted in light of the decision of the US Supreme Court in Hiibel v. Nevada, does not and could not Constitutionally authorize an arrest solely for refusal to identify oneself, in the absence of some predicate basis for legitimate suspicion of violation of some other law.
In the 5th Circuit, it is now clearly established law that you can record the police anonymously in public places, without fear of arrest unless there is probable cause to believe that you have violated some other law.
The ruling in Turner v. Driver et al. is the the second decision this month by different three-judge panels of the 5th Circuit interpreting the Constitutional limits on Texas ID law, as applied to people engaged in activities protected by the First Amendment in public places. An earlier decision upheld the right to anonymity for a protester standing along a highway (where the sidewalk would have been, if there had been a sidewalk) adjacent to the parking lot of a strip of businesses.