ABSTRACT
Fearlessly telling the truth about rich, famous, or powerful individuals who’d rather keep unethical behaviour under wraps, is vital to a healthy democracy and filmmakers can do this better than any other medium because secret filming shows – rather than simply talks about – these negative activities. Correctly used, secret filming is a hugely powerful tool. Incorrectly used, covert techniques can backfire and leave the filmmakers, their, facing accusations of unethical behaviour, invasion of privacy or, worse still, it can lead to serious physical harm to the filmmakers and their contributors. In America, state laws govern the possession and use of weapons – and these vary widely from state to state. So filmmakers would have to check the legal position of the state in which they are planning to film undercover – as well as consider the ethical dimension of carrying an item for self-defence that could be considered a weapon.
