Posted on 09/26/2009 4:54:09 AM PDT by fabrizio
NEW ORLEANS, Louisiana, September 25, 2009 (LifeSiteNews.com) - The liberal community-based organization ACORN, which was recently disgraced by a series of undercover videos showing illegal activity by the group's employees, is now suing the young pro-life duo who shot the videos.
Defendant James O'Keefe, 25, who is being sued together with 20-year-old investigative partner Hannah Giles, is known among the pro-life community for conducting sting operations against Planned Parenthood in conjunction with Live Action Films. In one such investigation, O'Keefe caught a Planned Parenthood employee accepting a donation earmarked for the abortion of a black child.
Earlier this month the pair published videos of their visits to ACORN offices in five different jurisdictions, dressed as a pimp and his underage girlfriend-prostitute seeking a loan. Employees in the videos coached the flamboyantly-dressed pair in their endeavor to open a secret brothel complete with El Salvadorean child prostitutes, and to launder the ill-gotten funds for the pimp's future congressional campaign.
Both Republican and conservative Democratic legislators immediately condemned the contents of the videos and called for the de-funding, once and for all, of the controversial ACORN. The liberal activist group has been dogged in recent years by accusations of wide scale voter fraud, and, more recently, has been accused of covering up nearly $1 million in embezzled funds by ACORN founder Wade Rathke's brother.
"It is evident that ACORN is incapable of using federal funds in a manner that is consistent with the law," said House Minority Leader John Boehner in response to the videos. "Simply put, ACORN should not receive another penny of American taxpayers' money." Boehner's office estimates ACORN has received more than $53 million directly from the federal government since 1994, and likely more indirectly through federal block grants.
Although ACORN first responded to the scandal by firing several of its employees, the group has turned to the offensive by suing O'Keefe and Giles as well as Breitbart.com LLC for publishing the videos.
The lawsuit alleges that the pair violated Maryland's recording law, which requires consent from both parties, while videotaping employees at ACORN's Baltimore office. The suit also complains that the videos caused "extreme emotional distress" to the ACORN employees in the footage.
ACORN seeks $1,000,000 for itself, $500,000 for each individual plaintiff, as well as $1,000,000 in punitive damages against each defendant, and an injunction against further dissemination of the videos.
While O'Keefe and Giles left little room to suppose that both parties might have consented to the recordings, legal expert Ben Sheffner noted on his blog "Copyrights and Campaigns" that the suit is nonetheless likely to fail: Maryland precedent calls for the statute's enforcement only when plaintiffs have a "reasonable expectation of privacy" (REP).
"While the law in Maryland itself is scant, and the question is not entirely free of doubt, I think it unlikely that a Maryland court would find that ACORN and its employees had a REP in the circumstances here," wrote Sheffner.
Despite the group's attempts to save face in the wake of the footage, ACORN's once-tight relationship with the federal government continues to slip.
The Internal Revenue Service has become the latest agency to cut ties with ACORN, announcing it would expel the group from its volunteer tax assistance program. In addition, amendments stripping ACORN of its federal funding have passed in separate measures in both House and Senate. Almost immediately after the videos were published, the Census Bureau broke off its cooperation with the group.
ACORN was not the only group to respond aggressively to the videos: columnist Joel Mowbray notes that each of the "Big Three" news publications - the Washington Post, the New York Times, and the Associated Press - were forced to issue retractions after publishing misleading and defamatory information about O'Keefe.
"One wonders if the MSM reporters with egg on their faces realize the irony: the 25-year-old, self-described 'skinny nerd' with scarce resources has outclassed deep pocketed media titans," wrote Mowbray. "Public trust in the mainstream is at an all-time low. Its reaction to the ACORN revelations and ham-handed attacks on O'Keefe will only accelerate the downward spiral."
See O'Keefe and Giles' ACORN Exposé Videos and Transcripts here.
See related LifeSiteNews.com coverage:
Pro-Life "Live Action" Investigator behind ACORN Sex-Racketeering Exposé http://www.lifesitenews.com/ldn/2009/sep/09091613.html
Planned Parenthood - Racist Donations Welcome We Abort Black Babies Undercover investigator calls for congressional examination of PP http://www.lifesitenews.com/ldn/2008/apr/08040303.html
It might be time for Breitbart to drop another video.
Those so-called “eavesdropping” laws are misguided as hell. If it’s your conversation, recording it in any form isn’t eavesdropping. Absent a confidentiality agreement, you have a right to “rebroadcast” any conversation to which you are privy. These laws just take away a means of memorializing an otherwise voluntary conversation. I’d like to see these laws struck down.
Nasty. The kids will be fine though. Watch decent Christians pay whatever (if any) costs they have, and bring more great publicity to how ugly obamacorn are.
Be good to get some out before any court injunction. Or transfer rights to the videos to someone who is not within the jurisdiction of the court.
I’m more interested in who the lawyers are representing ACORN are and how they are compensated(if it’s the normal split, or a flat fee)
Hope it’s a split, and that they lose big. If it’s a flat fee, that is taxpayer dollars going toward the costs.
Waiting to see how this is any different from the “To Catch a Predator” shows, or the undercover exposes done on the ten o’ clock news about dirty dining locations, the illegal sex trafficing and prostitution, and other investigative undercover journalism.
Sick to death of these folks thinking they can hide from honest questions and their candid answers. Discovery ought to be a hoot!
I suspect it won’t be long. He’s just waiting for the right time.
ACORN and Planned Parenthood, two vile organizations pushing abortion. These kids are brave.
Hopefully the Catholic Catholic Council of Bishops will step forward and fund their defense. After all the Bishops say they really are against abortion. I am sure that after the Millions the Bishops have given ACORN over the years, the Bishops will do the right thing.
Trial for the two will be held in Kenya. Hee,hee
The actual laws makes it unlawful to intercept electronic communications, how everyone is interpreting that as recording your own conversations is beyond me. This is a law to cover third-party wiretapping or communications over the internet.
The law itself says interception of electronic communications, so it makes no sense they are applying it to this case. That law makes sense, since you don't want people wiretapping or intercepting your computer communications. But twisting it to make this illegal makes no sense. The way they are twisting it makes all electronic surveillance illegal.
The New York Times missed the story because they were all out looking for a Republican jaywalking. The Washinton Post missed the story because they were too busy sucking up to advertisers...
I would love to see these issues entered into a permanent record in court transcripts, but the “media” will just ignore it anyway...
Oh, and the discovery process will be fun, fun, fun for the defendants' lawyers. I think the lawyers should request every document they can imagine from ACORN; not to mention depose every employee, from the janitor to the administrative personnel, and all the officers of ACORN's national team.
I think ACORN will rue the day they filed against these patriots.
The recording took place in a public building in a public setting. Other ACORN employees are seen walking around - people come in and out of the “organization”... ACORN is a criminal organization - but O’Keefe’s NOT a lawman - and can’t be held to that standard.
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