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 ...
And people wonder why our economy continues to slip.
Exactly so.
Um... So what? Other businesses have a presence on the street don’t they? Was he blocking the right of way? If so, why wasn’t he ticketed for that instead?
Exactly what I was alluding to. Thanks for the link...
Just correcting your post.
I like it when they have presents on the street. Free pie too.
Exactly, note well where these laws are in effect, and are prosecuted. Blue states mostly, these laws are a statist's wet dream...
the infowarrior
Liberal New York Times alert.
That wasn’t a correction. That was picking a nonexistent nit.
>>Tiawanda Moore, 20, a former stripper, <<
And no comments?
No audio. Video is OK. Store security cams, nanny cams but no audio without consent.
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.
If you and I are talking and you threaten me, (which is a crime), isn't it comforting to know that if I am secretly recording the conversation, that it would be inadmissible in court?
>>Tiawanda Moore, 20, a former stripper, <<
And no comments?
Here’s the Colorado law concerning the matter:
http://www.ehow.com/facts_7574687_colorado-law-illegal-surveillance.html
Colorado law makes it illegal for anyone to listen into a conversation in which she is not taking part. This includes overhearing, reading, copying, recording of telephone calls and recording of any other electronic communications. Although obtaining information for the purpose of a crime is part of the statute, simply listening in purposely is enough to violate the law.
Read more: Colorado Law on Illegal Surveillance | eHow.com http://www.ehow.com/facts_7574687_colorado-law-illegal-surveillance.html#ixzz1BymFe74B
You doubt? Just ask Harry Reid.
California's wiretapping law is a "two-party consent" law. California makes it a crime to record or eavesdrop on any confidential communication, including a private conversation or telephone call, without the consent of all parties to the conversation. See Cal. Penal Code § 632. The statute applies to "confidential communications" -- i.e., conversations in which one of the parties has an objectively reasonable expectation that no one is listening in or overhearing the conversation.
http://www.citmedialaw.org/legal-guide/california-recording-law
Art? These dudes are T-shirt vendors.
Precisely. That is why it needs to be allowed.
Sorry about that... ...Arthritis in eight of my fingers, you know...
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