Posted on 08/31/2011 11:18:30 AM PDT by markomalley
It's a court case that could affect anyone who uses a cell phone or any other recording device.
It involves a local man, Michael Allison, who faces prison time for recording law enforcement in public.
The state of Illinois considers it so serious, that an assistant from the Attorney General's Office appeared at Thursday's court hearing in Robinson.
(NB: The video report at the link has a lot more information and is well worth watching)
(Excerpt) Read more at mywabashvalley.com ...
There were two previous reports on this from back in June. Both of the text articles have the broadcasted news stories at the links, below, which should be watched.
Michael Allison faces 75 years in prison for recording law enforcement officials without their consent in Robinson, Illinois.
Illinois is one of the states applying old eavesdropping and wiretapping statutes to new technologies like cell phones or anything else that records audio.
Those laws technically make it illegal to record on-duty law enforcement officials without their consent. The penalty for that crime here in Illinois, is a class 1 felony.
We have a follow-up to our investigation of a local man facing prison time for an obscure law.
Michael Allison had a pre-trial hearing Thursday in Crawford County, Illinois. His case is being delayed until next month after a judge granted the prosecution's request for more time to prepare.
Allison faces five felony eavesdropping charges, each count carries up to 15 years in prison if convicted.
He publicly recorded audio of law enforcement officials without their consent. That's perfectly legal in most states. But it's actually a crime in Illinois, based on an old eavesdropping statute.
I’m sure a lot of you here will blame the cops for this situation that has ultimately little to do with the police.
Its just some more of that CHANGE we were promised.
Fascism, the double standard of government.
Now, when they enforce this law fully, every policeman who does not have wire tapping paperwork from the judge will do hard time for all their dash cameras.... Right?
Or is this selective enforcement of the law to punish the citizenship. You know, what we had a problem with the old kings of england for a long time ago.
If it’s illegal to record the police in action.....how soon will it be illegal to watch the police in action?
The Declaration of Independence needs to be dusted off and re-applied now!
A taste of things to come.
Do you support not being allowed to film public officials in performance of their duties (undercover operations, of course, excluded)?
If so, could you please provide a rationale for that?
Jury nullification is the key here. Use it.
I blame the cops and the prosecutors.
Who filed the report?
Who arrested this man?
THE POLICE.
Fully complicit, fully willing.
Why is the source not allowed on FR?
has more to do with the politicians trying to protect their laws and precedent so that no citizen records them in conversations with their mafia bag men
Particularly since the federal First Circuit just ruled that taping police is constitutionally protected under the First Amendment in another case in New Jersey.
First, because the source is not reliable.
Second...if, hypothetically, you were to try to post something from that source, you would get the following response:
| Source is Blocked, article not posted |
|
xxxxx.com material not wanted on FR. |
Can you provide an argument supporting the notion that this case has nothing to do with the police? You think that the cops had no choice but to arrest him —that they REGRETTED arresting him, maybe?
My brother is a police officer and there are many great ones. But this is a bad, bad law. What is even the rationale for keeping such a law on the books? Why hide truth?
And by extension a very bad cop. So just where is “the factor?” I guess he’s back over at DU, just like his worthless alter ego, Bill O’Gasbag!
And yet FR allows posts from NYT, CBS News, CNN, etc.
Interesting.
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