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Eavesdropping Laws Mean That Turning On an Audio Recorder Could Send You to Prison
New York Times ^ | January22, 2011 | Don Terry

Posted on 01/24/2011 6:55:47 AM PST by lbryce

Christopher Drew is a 60-year-old artist and teacher who wears a gray ponytail and lives on the North Side. Tiawanda Moore, 20, a former stripper, lives on the South Side and dreams of going back to school and starting a new life.

About the only thing these strangers have in common is the prospect that by spring, they could each be sent to prison for up to 15 years.

“That’s one step below attempted murder,” Mr. Drew said of their potential sentences.

The crime they are accused of is eavesdropping.

The authorities say that Mr. Drew and Ms. Moore audio-recorded their separate nonviolent encounters with Chicago police officers without the officers’ permission, a Class 1 felony in Illinois, which, along with Massachusetts and Oregon, has one of the country’s toughest, if rarely prosecuted, eavesdropping laws.

“Before they arrested me for it,” Ms. Moore said, “I didn’t even know there was a law about eavesdropping. I wasn’t trying to sue anybody. I just wanted somebody to know what had happened to me.”

Ms. Moore, whose trial is scheduled for Feb. 7 in Cook County Criminal Court, is accused of using her Blackberry to record two Internal Affairs investigators who spoke to her inside Police Headquarters while she filed a sexual harassment complaint last August against another police officer. Mr. Drew was charged with using a digital recorder to capture his Dec. 2, 2009, arrest for selling art without a permit on North State Street in the Loop. Mr. Drew said his trial date was April 4.

Both cases illustrate the increasingly busy and confusing intersection of technology and the law, public space and private.

(Excerpt) Read more at nytimes.com ...


TOPICS: Crime/Corruption; Extended News; Front Page News; Government; News/Current Events; US: Illinois; US: Massachusetts; US: Oregon
KEYWORDS: bigbrother; communism; copbashingtrolls; corruption; felony; illinois; massachusetts; oregon; policestate; rapeofliberty; tiawandamoore; tyranny
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To: Paladin2

OK I fully believe that Obama is a controlled hack, but instead of by average Americans it is by Wall Street. But on the other hand I think Bush was controlled by the US Chamber of Commerce and neocons.

I’m an older dude born in the 40s. I’ve served and I’ve seen the better years of the USA come and go and I’m not happy with where the USA is headed, regardless of political Party.

Both Parties play hundreds of millions of us against each other while their special supporters (and they all have $$$) get to rape and plunder us.

We’re losing our liberties, Bill of Rights and economy while a few cronies are getting mega rich, which is fine as long as it is not at USA expense. Forget political Parties and politics as they are there to make us believe we have some control.


101 posted on 01/24/2011 3:41:11 PM PST by apoliticalone
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To: apoliticalone

I agree, but as of yet, they don’t stop by to bug me on a daily basis. The only real contact I have is paying taxes and voting, aside from my neighbor trying to sic the city code enforcers on me.


102 posted on 01/24/2011 3:46:49 PM PST by Paladin2
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To: Graybeard58
Signed release is not required when there is a microphone stuck in your face and you're talking into it, consent is implied.

Public events are just that - public. The law speaks to private conversations where a reasonable amount of privacy is to be expected.

I was not talking abut the people getting interviewed - I was talking about people just a part of crowd protesting - they are getting recorded as well. And if being in public implies that there is an implied consent to being recorded, then that applies to officers as well...

The article is discussing conversations taking place as a part of the officer performing his public duty - often in public. If it is happening in public, such as getting cited or arrested at the side of the road, then there should be no expectation of privacy by the officer.

103 posted on 01/24/2011 4:07:00 PM PST by CA Conservative
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To: Graybeard58
Here's your state law:

I know what my state law is - I was commenting on the Illinois law. If it makes audio taping anyone without their consent a felony, as stated in the article, then a news crew taking film of a riot get signed releases from all of the participants or would have to run the film with no audio to avoid being guilty of a felony. The law as described in the article does not differentiate between private and public conversations.

104 posted on 01/24/2011 4:15:24 PM PST by CA Conservative
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To: CA Conservative
Taking PICTURES where folks have NO expectation of PRIVACY is still legal; ain't it?

Then why should AUDIO have any GREATER priveledges?

105 posted on 01/24/2011 4:18:42 PM PST by Elsie ( Heck is where people, who don't believe in Gosh, think they are not going...)
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To: Paladin2

“for one thing it reduces and limits the liberty of the cops.”

And that’s a bad thing how?


106 posted on 01/25/2011 7:11:09 AM PST by Tublecane
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To: The_Reader_David
The reason for that exclusion in my proposal is that often discussions in camera involve sensitive information about litigant or defendants. I’m not proposing that exception to protect judges, but those they deal with.

There are many cases where public officials deal with private information and may speak it allowed. It would clearly not be good to authorize the recording and distribution of such information by or to people who would not be authorized to hear it in the first place. What's unclear is whether there are cases where there would be a legitimate basis to restrict the distribution of recordings by people who were authorized to hear first-hand the speech recorded therein.

I could see a basis for requiring in some cases that someone recording a conversation must give notice to the other person and provide a confirmably-authentic copy of that recording (so as to provide the second person with an opportunity to rebut misrepresentations based upon part of a recording), but the blanket prohibition seems wrong.

107 posted on 01/28/2011 3:31:48 PM PST by supercat (Barry Soetoro == Bravo Sierra)
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To: lbryce

Update to the Tiawanda Moore case here:

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-chat/2768743/posts

She was acquitted.


108 posted on 08/25/2011 12:35:03 AM PDT by Immerito (Reading Through the Bible in 90 Days)
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To: apoliticalone
Where is the ACLU when you need them?

Representing Christopher Drew.

109 posted on 08/25/2011 12:46:17 AM PDT by ReignOfError
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