[Anima Mundi]

Well at least they have shifted the debate to the rightness or wrongness or rather legality or illegality of what Hannah and James did and AWAY from what the Acorn employees and Acorn itself was doing. Now we are talking about this. Could they counter-sue or something? Is there any offense position rather than being constantly on defense once again?

[BuckeyeTexan]

ACORN didn't entice/invite O'Keefe and Giles into the ACORN offices, so I don't think O'Keefe and Giles would have a case for a civil suit against ACORN. (Although if found not guilty and the court/jury finds ACORN's lawsuit to be frivilous, O'Keefe and Giles could be awarded reimbursement of their legal expenses.)

O'Keefe's and Giles' only offense is to put ACORN on trial in the court of public opinion. They've done that and the public outrage has forced government authorities to investigate ACORN, which will probably lead to criminal prosecution.

Since O'Keefe and Giles are the defendants in this case, they don't have to prove their innocence. ACORN has the burden to prove that their Baltimore employees had a legal right to private communication with O'Keefe and Giles and that by publicly disclosing the details of the allegedly private conversations, O'Keefe and Giles broke the law. It is not clear that the ACORN employees had such a right. (At least, that's my understanding of OldDeckHand's summary in post #36 of why the tapes may not be illegal.)