Posted on 02/15/2019 7:43:51 PM PST by Tolerance Sucks Rocks
A Salisbury University student has been charged with illegal wiretapping after prosecutors said he streamed a meeting with a congressional staffer for Maryland Rep. Andy Harris via Facebook Live without permission.
Jake Burdett, 20, was charged last week with two felony counts of making an illegal recording and distributing the video filmed during a Maryland Marijuana Justice rally at Harris’s Salisbury office in October, the state prosecutor’s office announced Thursday.
Marijuana legalization protesters have long tangled with Harris, who in 2014 worked to block full legalization of the drug in the District of Columbia. A protest outside the Republican’s Capitol Hill office last year led to the arrest of two demonstrators on charges of consumption of marijuana in a prohibited public space.
Burdett expects to plead plead guilty in Wicomico County on March 1 to one count of illegally taping and broadcasting, his attorney, Mark Goldstone, said Thursday.
State prosecutors allege Burdett and other advocates at the Salisbury rally agreed to meet with a congressional staffer in his office, which could only seat a few people. When another member of Harris’s staff noticed several people on their phones, the group was told they were not allowed to record because of an office policy, the state prosecutor’s office said in its news release.
Burdett confirmed in an email Thursday that he continued to stream the meeting on Facebook Live without the staffer’s consent but said he was not aware it was against the law and deleted the footage the following day after finding out it was illegal, he said.
“We need to ensure people are respecting boundaries set by Maryland’s wiretapping laws,” said State Prosecutor Emmet Davitt in the release.
(Excerpt) Read more at baltimoresun.com ...
Maryland “Freak State” PING!
I wonder how many social media livestreams would technically count as “wiretapping”—and are Facebook and YouTube liable?
It is not illegal to record a public employee in a public place. The government does not operate in secret.
Doubt this could withstand a vigorous 1st Amendment challenge.
The only purpose of a law making it illegal to record your own conversations is to prevent the collection of evidence against politicians and LEOs.
Nonsense! The government is proficient at making everyone a criminal when it suits their needs. Do we still have the Bill of Rights?
What an idiot. Only Hillary and the FBI are allowed to do that.
Burdett is about to find out about MD’s two-party consent to record law.
Linda Tripp can tell him all about it.
Office policy is not a law.
John and Alice Martin of Fort White, FL, recorded a telephone call that included Newt Gingrich, and handed the recording over to Congressman James McDermott, who immediately handed it over to various MSM outlets. This happened in 1997.
To the best of my knowledge, nothing happened to any of them.
It is an outrage that you can’t memorialize a conversation you are a party to. And, seriously, a felony? That is that magic word that deprives you of rights for life.
This is bull Hillary.
“Ignorance of the law is no excuse” but most people are unaware of the many felonies that are just an app away.
“...congressional staffer in his office...” Would someone’s private office qualify as as a public place?...even in Maryland?....Would you know the relevant MD law on this? Thanks.
Maybe Flori-Duh only has a one-party-consent wiretapping law.
I actually think there was a ruling out of a Maryland court that said inside a government is a public space, there can be no secrets. I might have the state wrong but someone just got acquitted over this same thing. I try and find the article. Take this as discussion and happy to have reply.
I'm in a one party consent state. Consequently at work I've become used to people trying to quietly record or sticking their phone in my face to record me trying to get a reaction when they can't get their way because we've chosen to follow the law and/or policy. I don't have time for their games and don't play with them.
So the NSA can record all our phone calls and emails 24/7/365 and that’s ok, but we can’t record a public “servant” in a publicly paid for space. OK, got it, off to the gulag with you!
Well then.
Probably the first time in forever.
But smoking joints in a Congressional office, the “confined space” has brought forth no charges.
Must have priorities.
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