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Posted on 09/28/2009 5:47:28 PM PDT by GVnana
Of course not. But those activities would not come under “whistleblower” statutes.
What is the link to their legal defense fund?
They have the same rights as other criminals...
Acorn: Association for Community Reform Now, claims to be a community-based organization and an integral part of the community.
O’Keefe and Giles are part of the [American] community.
But even further, this has the disturbing implication that you have no moral obligation to act against evil, but that you are also required by law to keep from interfering/investigating/involvement.
This is the moral equivalent of a citizen seeing an armed robbery in a federal building, drawing his firearm and putting down the people perpetrating the [real] crime and then being charged with the indiscretion of bringing a firearm into a federal building.
Pretty soon the generally law-abiding citizen will be fed up with all the restriction and criminalizations of EVERYTHING that he will disregard and disrespect that very law.
No it does not. Maryland law makes it illegal to intercept communications. Recording your own conversation is not and illegal interception. This covers ease dropping and bugging and wire tapping.
Now let's see if the prosecuting attorneys do want to go after the ACORN THUGS and take them down....
Then, if you are free to record your own conversations, what “standing” do these people have for a civil-suit?
Remember this is NOT a criminal case. The plaintiffs, ACORN and the two workers, are suing in civil court.
The issue is whether or not the conversation was “private” as it was in office with the door open and people in the hallway. Furthermore the defendants were taking notes in full view of the ACORNs. How are the ACORNs supposed to expect privacy under those conditions? Well they can't. Case over.
“They have the same rights as other criminals...”
So, you view their sting operation against ACORN as a crime?
FReep mail me if you want on/off the list.
Yes, I know, but I was answering the Constitutional aspect of the whole sordid scenario. As for a civil suit, ACORN will win in the state of MD unless the lawyers are dogmatic in their approach. Criminal charges “MUST” be made against these PEOPLE.
Most of all, where is the IRS in all of this? This is the question and the Republicans can be blamed for this, also - “ACORN does not have 501(c)(3) tax exempt status”. Now where is the IRS? They were giving advice on how to NOT pay taxes, make money illegally, and under the table (so to speak). Where is the IRS?
They should have had the conversation via a cell phone. Then an elderly couple on their way to the mall who just happened to have a cell phone scanner in their car, could have realized the historical importance of what they were hearing and recorded the conversation. Then they could take the tape to their congressman who would, in turn, deliver it to the New York Times.
No liberal would ever object to something like this happening.
Senate Finance Committee Study ACORN comprises a mind-boggling 94 different affiliates, that amounts to "a big shell game," a biting Senate Finance Committee study shows. The study, by the staff of Iowa Republican Charles Grassley, reveals four ACORN charity groups give more than half their revenue to taxable entities that engage in "impermissible lobbying and political activity." ACORN and it’s subsidiaries for decades have moved taxpayer money into their own pockets and into the left-wing Marxist machine. These tax-exempt N/P scams need to be shut down pronto.
Sen Charles Grassley's documents show leaders of ACORN community groups transferred several million dollars in charitable and government money-----meant for the poor---- to parts of the group that have political (and sometimes profit-making) missions. Sen Grassley's documents indicate that ACORN's tax-exempt groups----along with its tangled web of allied organizations---- used more than half their charitable and public money in 2006 to pay other ACORN affiliates.
REFERENCE The IRS has pinpointed tax-exempt N/Ps as the locus classicus for tax evasion and money laundering. The BIGGEST N/P fraud --- a N/P writing checks to another N/P. That's how the "altruistic" siphon off money for other uses, tax-free. Bad enough they launder their own money----in ACORN'S case, this was OUR money.
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Linda Tripp was not convicted. The law was misapplied. There are more issues around this law that haven't been decided. On the federal level identical language has been decided that simply recording a conversation is not illegal since it is not an interception.
It is not really settled law in Maryland how to apply this law. But it has been decided on a federal level that recording a conversation your are part of is not an illegal interception.
The state is investigating.
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