Alabama has a similar law as NY, which allows the recording of public meetings.
The right to record council meetings was tested in Leeds, Alabama, last week. A resident who regularly livestreams city council meetings was told by a city official to stop, and was pointed to new signs on the doors banning audio or video recording without permission. She kept recording and said the notice conflicted with the state’s open meetings law. Alabama’s Open Meetings Act says a public meeting “may be openly recorded by any person in attendance” as long as the recording does not disrupt it. Mayor Eddie Moore later told AL.com the signs were posted in error and that the council would discuss a policy on recording by spectators instead. New York’s Open Meetings Law gives the public the same right: any open meeting may be photographed, broadcast or recorded, subject only to reasonable rules that do not interfere with the meeting.
Read the full story: Alabama city tried to ban recording at public meetings, but one woman wasn’t having it — AL.com, September 8, 2026.
Related: our summary of New York’s Open Meetings Law, and an earlier Note on Scriba’s rule on where you may film a public meeting.
