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Good ol' Eric Holder obtained the records for more than 20 telephone lines of [the AP's] offices and journalists, including their home phones and cellphones. It said the records were seized without notice sometime this year. And this issue is hardly new.

Yes, yes they do. And no, they do need a warrant. [citation] https://www.rcfp.org/warrantle...

http://www.rcfp.org/browse-med...
https://www.rcfp.org/browse-me...

I don't think being a journalist allows you to trespass. However, if there were to be such an exemption, I would expect that it would only be given if the journalist were truly just a neutral observe.

http://www.rcfp.org/browse-med...
https://www.rcfp.org/browse-me...

I don't think being a journalist allows you to trespass. However, if there were to be such an exemption, I would expect that it would only be given if the journalist were truly just a neutral observe.

It's a real shame they couldn't possibly have used legal means to protest something they disagree with, instead of illegal harassment!

That's the trick, just in Georgia recently, a journalist was brought up on charges for abusing public records requests, dismissed, but still, a problem that it was even attempted.

That sometimes the perceived need goes further, is unfortunate, but no less possible in its truth. It is far too easy for silence to overcome virtue.

I know this fires up all the anarchist types, but it's not really that big of a deal. It's not illegal to record people in public. When you enter a public area you need to assume that you lose most of your rights to personal privacy. This includes being recording, video taped, searched, and seized. Of course, like anything in the law there's a fair amount of grey area and reason needs to be applied in all cases. Law enforcement bugging a public bench as part of a criminal investigation is not a new or extraordinary circumstance though.

Given that this is explicitly illegal, and the statute provides for civil suits ( State by state laws), it sounds like there could be a rather large payday in the wings for the class of MTA riders.

I think you may be misunderstanding. I'm not trying to stop Google Voice from recording the call; quite the opposite: I'm trying to turn call recording on, but when I do, Google Voice plays a message (that the other person can hear) saying "this call is now being recorded" or similar. I want it to record the call, but not play that message since I'm under no obligation to notify the other party that I'm recording.

Slashdot ate my carefully-crafted response, but...

Google has no choice, because of the variability of audio-recording consent laws state to state (12 U.S. States require all parties to consent) and country to country (????), let alone if video is involved. Now, add to that the fact that, with things like VPNs, etc., any party can EASILY be in one place in meatspace, and APPEAR to be placing (or participating) in a recorded conversation from a completely different place.

No, Google just can't get in the middle of a legal battle like that.

Hence the Beep. If I were Google, I'd have it, too. And so would you.

The evidence is classified, so the trial can't be public.

Completely untrue. The evidence *is* classified, but the public trial can proceed with "substitute" evidence. See here, or read about the Classified Information Procedures Act.

The parody defense works when the derivative work has to make a comment on the first work or its author, not just the same song with different lyrics. (See Seuss v. Penguin .) This is why Mr. Yankovic licenses the songs from their original songwriters, because not all of his songs setting new lyrics to an existing tune are parodies in the strict legal sense. Perhaps the clearest cases under the parody defense can be made for "Perform This Way", "(This Song's Just) Six Words Long", and "Achy Breaky Song". But what comment does "Word Crimes" make on "Blurred Lines" or its composers Marvin Gaye and Pharrell Williams?

It is a little more grey than you think:
"If you are recording someone without their knowledge in a public or semi-public place like a street or restaurant, the person whom you're recording may or may not have "an objectively reasonable expectation that no one is listening in or overhearing the conversation," and the reasonableness of the expectation would depend on the particular factual circumstances. Therefore, you cannot necessarily assume that you are in the clear simply because you are in a public place. "

Methinks an officer would object on principle... he does not want to be recorded.

http://www.dmlp.org/legal-guid...

and this is very interesting read too:

http://www.videomaker.com/arti...

and this:
http://www.rcfp.org/reporters-...

Although a credentialed reporter is going to get more leeway than an average citizen.

First, there is an expectation of privacy inside one's office, and secondly Kentucky is a one party notify state when it comes to recording, so one party to the discussions taking place in the office needed to know that they were being recorded. Public records searches don't apply here.

His office? The location was a regional campaign headquarters with noone sitting at the reception desk (after an alleged press conference) and Sen. Mitch McConnell was having an all-hands meeting in a conference room with a window opened into the hallway.

Granted, that Senator may still have had an expectation of privacy, but the Kentucky statute for eavesdropping is certainly not on his side for this one.

A conversation which is loud enough to be heard through the wall or through the heating system without the use of any device is not protected by the statute, since a person who desires privacy can take the steps necessary to ensure that his conversation cannot be overheard by the ordinary ear. Ky. Rev. Stat. Ann. 526.020.

Nor is the other statute for hidden cameras any help to the Senator either, since it explicitly narrows itself to "unattended hidden cameras" (see pdf), not hidden cameras on one's person.

So not only it was the right idea for the blogger activist to use a handheld flip-cam to record the words from the politician (at least for Kentucky), but that entire recording may be the only thing that ends up saving him since its obvious flaws in audio are evidence that the recorder was of cheap quality and wasn't ever stationary -- nor left unattended, and the video part is the only reliable proof that he wasn't trespassing and that the conference room window was open.

Had he had not this video recording of himself doing this, he would probably be in jail right now for trespassing, for wiretapping, and probably for a hundred different false crimes thought up by the Senator's team.

That is a good place to start, thanks! I find myself in the states LA and TX most of the time.

Looks like you're good to go with no need for waivers as long as you yourself consent to recording the video (they're both single-party consent states). I should caution you, however, that what you do with that data could get you into huge trouble. For instance uploading it somewhere for all the world to see without permission or consent (the last column in that PDF I linked) could result in trouble in both states. Here's what Louisiana law says:

(6) A person or entity providing electronic communication services to the public shall not intentionally divulge the contents of any communication while in transmission of that service to any person or entity other than an addressee or intended recipient of such communication or an agent of such addressee or intended recipient except: (a) As otherwise authorized by federal or state law. (b) To a person employed or authorized, or whose facilities are used, to forward such communication to its destination. (c) Any electronic communication inadvertently obtained by the service provider and which appears to pertain to the commission of a crime, if such divulgence is made to a law enforcement agency.

After thinking about this last night, it occurred to me that my raspberry pi can connect to a passport hard drive (a small 500 GB drive that will run about a $100). The Pi is about to get a cheap CCD camera. You may be able to build a pendant out of the CCD and clip a small mic to it then run the wires along the pendant's chain to your backpack or purse where the Pi and passport reside. Powering the Pi is easy although powering the passport to be mobile might be much more problematic. I have 64 GB SD cards that work with my Pi but I'm not sure if the more expensive 128 GBs work nor do I know if that is enough for that particular CCD camera to take one day's worth of footage.

Again, good luck!

Except we're not talking about simply being "caught", we're talking about being observed, possibly even recorded for later watching.

Nice try, but I already addressed that. You have no right to be free from unwanted or undetected observation when you are in someone else's house. A hidden camera is really no different than a spouse hiding in the closet. The spouse has every right to observe what happens in their bedroom.

And you have no right to privacy in someone else's bedroom unless (a) they know you're there and (b) they know you're doing something that requires privacy and (c) they've consented to your being there and doing that. Otherwise, you have absolutely no right to complain if you're walked in on, or detected by setting up surveillance in the room, whether that's a spouse physically hiding in the closet or a hidden camera they've set up.

And yet she has the right to put up video cameras without her husband's consent?

Sure, why not? He has the "right" to use his bedroom if he wants, but he doesn't have the right to block her access to the bedroom any more than she has the right to block him access to the bedroom. He has the right to use it, and she has the right to be aware of what he uses it for. If he suspects that she's putting up cameras in his bedroom without his knowledge and consent, perhaps he should put up some cameras to catch her in the act of putting up cameras. :P

The difference between this and simply hiding in the closet is only the fact that a recording was made. Which can be pretty significant from a legal standpoint, but if you were gathering evidence against a cheating spouse, it would usually be within your legal right. Realize that adultery is illegal in many states*, not necessarily because it is ever prosecuted (criminally, at least), but because it's legally more justifiable to collect evidence if you're investigating something that's illegal, not simply spying on two people having sex. (I say, not criminally punished: if you can prove that a spouse was committing adultery, they'll generally be "punished" through the settlement they receive in divorce court.)

But in this case, the camera wasn't hidden and its presence was known to both occupants, though the occupant who expected privacy didn't realize that the camera could be triggered remotely. Hell, if Ravi enabled Remote Desktop on his laptop, he wouldn't even have needed to set anything special on his iChat settings for accepting conversations without local confirmation - he could just log into his desktop remotely, open iChat, and accept the chat invitation.

But as far as I am aware, that is no reason to say that the wife's recording my fucking of her husband in their bedroom is not a punishable offense.

The case is pretty strong that recording you is not, as long as the state has single-party consent laws (which New Jersey does have). They'd simply need to argue that they were a party to the conversation, in the sense that they had every right to be in their own bedroom, even if the spouse wasn't aware of their presence.

Now, after making a recording, they should be very careful what they do with the recording because that could easily fall afoul of anti-harassment laws.

* Eighteen of them, from what I can find: North Carolina, Rhode Island, Kansas, Massachusetts, Colorado, Florida, South Carolina, Tennessee, Virginia, Utah, Missouri, Mississippi, Georgia, Indiana, Maryland, Arizona, Michigan, Illinois; New Jersey is not one of them, but adultery is grounds for a divorce and considered a factor in awarding alimony.

http://www.rcfp.org/can-we-tape

So with wire tapping laws, some states require all parties involved to give concent to the recording. These are 2 party states. All other states are 1 party states, which means only one person involved in the recording has to give concent.

Now if they are recording incoming information within a 2 party state, the sender of the SMS message has to give concent that the message can be recorded. This is reguardless of the contract of the owner of the phone has. Ultimately, anyone who has ever sent a message to one of these phones in a 2 party state could possible sue.

It depends entirely on your state. For example, here in Kalifornia, "[S]peech and petitioning, reasonably exercised, in shopping centers even when the centers are privately owned" ... which frankly, is only fair. If you want the public in your space, now, it's a public space. I can't find the recent court decision supporting your right to take photographs in malls though. I wonder why the media would like to bury that?

Don't think he was.

Under the statute, consent is not required for the taping of a non-electronic communication uttered by a person who does not have a reasonable expectation of privacy in that communication. See definition of “oral communication,” Fla. Stat. ch. 934.02. See also Stevenson v. State, 667 So.2d 410 (Fla. Dist. Ct. App. 1996); Paredes v. State, 760 So.2d 167 (Fla. Dist. Ct. App. 2000).

"Non-electronic", and on a public way.

From http://www.rcfp.org/taping/states/florida.html.

Here is a summary of NH law. It does seem pretty severe. According to this article only two states don't allow recording without consent when there is no reasonable expectation of privacy. From link one, it looks like NH may be one of them.

When is recording a personal conversation illegal?

In the following states, recording of a telephone conversation (personal or not) require the consent of all parties: California, Connecticut, Florida, Illinois, Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan, Montana, Nevada, New Hampshire, Pennsylvania and Washington.

This is why for all customer service lines you hear the message "Please note that this call may be recorded for training purposes." The company need to cover their asses in case someone from one of those states called.

It's not so cut and dried as that. As far as I can tell, there's a whole lot of ambiguity regarding calls between one-party and two-party states. No one really knows how a challenge would shake out. http://www.rcfp.org/taping/interstate.html

You're sure there are abuses? well so am I. In fact I have no doubt personally that the abuses far outweigh any possible good that can come of the classification system. Time after time throughout history the US government has classified information for the sole reason that it's embarrassing to those currently in power. Until we require a judge to review every classification for legality (and I mean every one from presidential orgies to black ops) the abuses will continue. The government's record on this is absolutely unacceptable.

In general you don’t know the least bit about what you’re talking about.

But if only selected portions are shown with the intention of embarrassing someone, it seems like a either libel or harassment (IANAL, so I don't know for sure).

It’s not libel by definition; libel is deliberately spreading false information. It may or may not be harassing; that would depend on the intent of the person who taped it, edited it, and distributed it.

In general I believe that you can't record audio, because there is an expectation of privacy there.

In general, wrong. It varies state-by-state; only 11 of the 50 states require all parties to know and consent to being taped. In general, if you can hear it, you can tape it as long as you’re not using the tape to commit a crime (e.g. blackmail).

Apple has absolutely no grounds when dealing with any legitimate reporting, even the leaks. The only reason why companies retract anything is because when it comes to nasty sobs, Bill Gates looks like a girlscout when compared to him.

All of the equipment will be returned and the prosecution will not press charges. Even if Gawker sues, the lack of charges will cause the case to be thrown out. Check Absence of Malice

Steve Jobs and Apple will spend millions of dollars to make it impossible for Gawker to continue to exist and probably send his goons to stalk their spouses and children.

Don't get me wrong, Apple makes the best products of any company in the world, but remember Dictators always seem to be able to keep everything all nice and quiet until the die or are killed.

However, there are real journalists who have done jail time for refusing to reveal names of sources to the government.

And add to that that nobody asked them to out the engineers name. They just did it for shits and giggles. Real journalists would protect their sources against threats from the government. Gizmodo outs their sources just for the fun of it. As several others have pointed out, no doubt Apple didn't need to ask Gizmodo who the phone belonged to.

Dick move Gizmodo, dick move.

And that really is the crux of the matter. Blogs and websites like to claim that they are as legitimate as broadcast and, dare I say it, print journalism. However, there are real journalists who have done jail time for refusing to reveal names of sources to the government. You have to keep names off the record unless you are given consent by the party concerned. This guy was stupid for letting that device out of his hand, even for a second, but this may have unintended consequences for Gizmodo and its affiliates.

I'm not worried about needing it.

http://www.rcfp.org/taping/

But many other states have similar injunctions, and allow for civil action against the recording individual. And, there is a caveat that all audio portion of the recording can or does fall under the wiretapping laws of the state.

Yea, whatever happened to it.

Because Fox News isn't broadcasting anywhere anymore. It's obvious that their rights aren't protected, and they were shut down.

Wait, What???? Oh sorry, here's Fox News on my TV right here!

I guess their rights to say whatever shit they want are indeed being defended. My bad.

So, are you saying that there is nothing between complete freedom and total shutdown?

So, is it OK to invite every major news network to an event except FoxNews? Is it OK to give "scoops" to every network but FoxNews? Sure, not every network can attend, so I understand if the Shelbyville Gazette doesn't get invited, but Fox has the ratings to be considered on the short list of invitees. Even the other networks are getting uncomfortable with it:

Despite the administration’s pledge to play nice earlier this week, the White House tried to exclude Fox News – alone among the five White House "pool" networks – from interviewing executive-pay czar Kenneth R. Feinberg on Thursday.

After CNN, ABC, CBS and NBC balked at the plan Tuesday, ABC News’ Jake Tapper asked White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs about the appropriateness of the administration's saying that Fox News, which he called "one of our sister organizations," is "not a news organization."

(From The Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press... but what would they know, right?)

The identity of the journalist may possibly be considered protected if the journalist is anonymous, but I highly doubt it.

With regards to defamation, courts generally hold that anonymous people remain anonymous until the plaintiff can prove that defamation occurred, ie the identity of the messenger has nothing to do with the truth or falsehood of the message (for a randomly selected example see this which itself cites other cases on page 8 (lol scanned pdf)).

In the general case, anonymity has existed since before Publius, who the Supreme Court is generally fond of referencing when upholding anonymity.

The information requested in the subpoena is the same data listed in the statute listed.

Going back to my other post, if the law said that you can subpoena for my unicorns, would you look any less stupid if you went to court to demand my unicorns? Absent mod_psychicpowers, unicorns are as likely as SSNs and bank account numbers to be in the webserver logs.

Please explain what part of the First Amendment is being violated.

The other half of the right to speak without government interference: the right to listen without government interference. Upheld multiple times.

Please explain how the gag order is unconstitutional, including the relevant sections of the Constitution and other law.

Generally speaking, issuing a gag order directly against a journalist is not permissible. This is why gag orders are generally restricted to parties involved, to keep them from talking to the press. Other cases cited at the EFF link above.

The subscriber, commenter, etc. has no standing under the Fourth Amendment because the property of the subscriber, commenter, etc. is not being searched.

Well, good thing IndyMedia was the one objecting to the search, making this line of argument pointless.

I can happily arrange an experiment, one in which you illegally perform a wiretap on me, and one in which I alert the authorities of your behavior. Would you like to participate?

Sure, and then I'll laugh at you for your silly antics and your ignorance of the actual laws governing recording of private conversations in my state. If I'm a party to the conversation, I can record it (this is, in fact, true of most states).

In all but 12 US states it's legal to tape your own conversations without the other person's consent or knowledge. I don't believe there are any laws about taking pictures in public in America, except for "Private Places" like locker rooms etc (see here).
So in summary, it would seem to be legal in most parts of America to record his day like he says.

Here is a state by state guide.
http://www.rcfp.org/taping/states.html

Also, the legality of undisclosed taping for Delaware is specified here:

In Delaware, there is some conflict with regards to whether a party to a conversation can record the communication without the other party's consent. Delaware's wiretapping and surveillance law specifically allows an individual to "intercept" any wire, oral or electronic communication to which the individual is a party, or a communication in which at least one of the parties has given prior consent, so long as the communication is not intercepted with a criminal or tortious intent.

However, a Delaware privacy law makes it illegal to intercept "without the consent of all parties thereto a message by telephone, telegraph, letter or other means of communicating privately, including private conversation."

The wiretapping law is much more recent, and at least one federal court has held that, even under the privacy law, an individual can record his own conversations.

Delaware has both a law that says you can and another law that says you can't. However, a federal court has upheld the right to record as long as one of the parties knows about it.

http://www.rcfp.org/taping/states/delaware.html

It's possible. In that case, by keeping the deals they make to different developers secret, they will have better negotiating power.

But this could also be more about Apple wanting control of what the media journalists, bloggers, and commenters on internet forums can say about Apple, their policies, and decisions. (E.g. the secrecy requirements may be "defensive" in nature, standard language they could use for all developer tools, possibly)

For example, if Google revealed certain information, it could result in the media publishing critical things about Apple.

Apple is very sensitive and aggressive in controlling their public image, and they are well known for their secrecy.

They are also well known for sending armies of lawyers at web sites or people revealing information they don't want puiblished, or that are excessively critical of them. Their tools include cease and decist letters, DMCA notices, threats to sue, and actual lawsuits....

Examples in recent years:

• Apple Computer ordered to pay more than $750k in attorney fees and court costs in a case that pitted the electronics giant against a group of online journalists who posted information about an unreleased Apple product on the Web.
• Apple Broke the law by lying about Steve Jobs' health
• Apple product failure results in gagging order
• Apple Lawyers set sights on new prey (after sending cease-and-decist letters to "Podcasting" websites over alleged dilution of the "iPod" mark)
• Apple Lawyers bully bloggers over iPhone skins
• Apple Lawyers Tried To Cover-Up Exploding iPod Stories,
• Microsoft Cows To Apple Lawyers, Changes 'Laptop Hunters' Ad
• Apple's lawyers shut down rumor site, 2 (Think Secret)
• Apple lawyers nix box pix
• Apple's lawyers attack everyone over iPhone icons - "Apple's lawyers also sent letters to journalists who simply reported on the fact that the skins were available."
• Apple's lawyers threaten fake Steve jobs (Parody site)
• Apple sued for threatening fan wiki - 2
• Apple sues Victoria School - over the use of a logo that is shaped like an Apple. [...] students are now afraid to give their teachers apples now because of the fruitâ(TM)s striking resemblance to the company logo.
• Apple Lawyers shutting down Iowa Bar's iPod Mondays
• Apple Cease-and-Decists Stupidity Leak
• A

Well, in civilized countries, you have to ask people for permission, before recording anything of them. Audio, video, pictures, etc. Which is usually not a problem. You nicely ask, and they're OK with it. The point is that you have to ask.

Free speech (taking a picture and publishing it) trumps your right to privacy in public places (none). And no, you don't have to ask under US law (civilized country) to record somebody, even without their consent, unless it's a conversation with an expectation of privacy and the state's law prohibits it. Details here.

It's an extension of the basic right to have control over your own body.

I completely agree. But how does taking a picture of you in public interfere with that, exactly? You own your own body, I understand, but you don't own my interpretation or representation of your body taken in a public place.

In the United States, due to the antiquated eavesdropping/wiretapping laws, you cannot record anybody's conversation without their knowledge and consent.

That is definitely not true. It's a state by state thing.

He knows the law and he's correct and you're not. Here's a summary of Illinois: http://www.rcfp.org/taping/states/illinois.html

In California, where several episodes of To Catch a Predator were filmed, there is potentially a civil claim to be made if it is the case that the film crew divulged private facts about the predator. Additionally, there is also a potential harm in that the show may present the predator in a false light, i.e. they are implying that the predator's intent is different than his actual intent.

The other two torts regarding privacy aren't applicable, since the guy agreed to enter the house of someone else where the crew presumably got the permission of the owners to film. So, it seems that they do not specifically need permission from the people being filmed to air their faces if they're confident that the guy actually did it. Since they work with the cops, it's safe to assume they only show the guilty ones, so those found innocent aren't being misrepresented. This is completely ignoring the entrapment claim that could be made in the criminal courts, since the question asked was do they need express permission.

Relevant laws and cites include an RCFP advisory, and both Cal. Civ. Code  990, 3344 and Cal. Civ. Code  1708.8

And IANAL, nor do I claim any special knowledge of the law, but I'm taking my LSAT on Saturday, for whatever that matters.

Airplane parts I can understand since I think an airplane of some kind struck the building. But the weird thing is that I've never seen any evidence of passenger's bodies at the Pentagon

I have never seen Neil Armstrong, neither have I seen Pluto. Doubting that Pluto exists and that Armstrong walked the moon is somewhat retarded though. The cool thing about living in the US is that things like trial evidence is public.

Try this for wreckage, and this for something a lot more gruesome. Please beware, these pictures are not for the faint of heart.

I know there is a level of respect which fire fighters show for the dead, but it still seems curious that we should have heard nothing at all.

Hearing requires listening. Given the enormous amount of noise in our current information society, it also means filtering. Your problem is that your filters are failing and you are listening to what is just random bullshit noise and you think it is communication.

Now, to be fair, I've not spent as much time focusing on the question of bodies as perhaps you have

I haven't been "focused" on this at all. The case as such doesn't interest me all that much. It took me all of 1 minute to find the Moussaui images last night however.

Oh, and you might think that I am posting a lot for someone who doesn't find 9/11 all that interesting, but please note that I am not posting about 9/11, I am posting about the fact that the general retardedness in the population is now at a level where we can elect G. W. Bush for president twice and people would rather believe harebrained conspiracy theories than good scientific evidence. That worries me a hell of a lot more than some insane towelheaded morons in a cave in Afghanistan.

Not to mention that they not only found seats, but found bodies still strapped into the seats. The Moussaoui trial archive has pictures of the bodies and wreckage, which were used as evidence at the trial.

http://www.krages.com/ThePhotographersRight.pdf
http://www.rcfp.org/photoguide/
http://www.kantor.com/blog/Legal-Rights-of-Photographers.pdf

These links have probably been posted elsewhere in this thread, but just in case...

That's not entirely true. I know that in New York you are NOT allowed to take pictures of other people without their consent.

If that was true, then you couldn't set up any meaningful kind of CCTV security system.

That is NOT true at all, see Arrington v New York Times Co., 434 N.E.2d 1319 (N.Y. 1982). There isn't an expectation of privacy in public. Shopping malls and other private areas can have restrictions, but they can't restrict taking pictures of the building from a public area. You only need permission and a model release if the photograph is going to be used commercially, which excludes news and "fine art" usage. That means that you can even photograph children in public and sell the picture to a newspaper without anyones permission. If a cop stops you, they can't require that you either show them your pictures, or to delete pictures. Don't trust me, ask a lawyer.

I am not sure if this will help, but I have mentioned it to people in the past as to if it is 'legal' for them to record something.

http://www.callcorder.com/phone-recording-law-america.htm

This varies from state to state. The following is also helpful for noting particular oddities by state:

http://www.citmedialaw.org/legal-guide/state-law-recording
http://www.rcfp.org/taping/states.html

If anyone knows if this covers video recording as well and if it doesn't has a link, please let me know. I like keeping a list of such things.

Wait a sec... Was the picture taken from public property? I fail to see how anyone, as a citizen or representative of a public company, could get sued for taking pictures as long as you're not trespassing or violating any laws. If you drive down a (public) street and take a picture of a house and post it on your blog you can get sued? WTF?

Maybe the morons from the lawsuit should sue their mail man and paper boy. They've SEEN the house! Obviously anybody that gazes on their house is violating their privacy. I don't see how what Google's doing is not covered by the typical photographer's rights. Another good site for photographer's rights.

That would depend on the state in which the recording takes place. IANAL, and this is just an example, but I believe in California, you must have the authority of all parties involved, while in Alaska, you only need the consent of one of the parties. Of course this is more for personal recordings of your own conversations. See this guide for more info:
http://www.rcfp.org/taping/

Actually, the legal status of recording a conversation without the consent of the other side varies by state (if you're in the US) and it obviously varies across countries. In some states it's quite illegal, in others it's quite OK.

If you're considering it, check the interwebs first to make sure that your state allows it.

It doesn't matter if they could have specified the OS, unless they actually did specify it.

Ask the manager to show you the portion of the warranty that imposes this restriction, or the portion that gives him freedom to impose arbitrary restrictions after the sale.

Advice:

• Determine if your state requires "all-party" or "1-party" consent for audio recording. http://www.rcfp.org/taping/quick.html
• Prepare a document with your understanding of the situation, and the reasons your warranty claim is being denied.
• Take the laptop, the document and a witness (and potentially an audio recorder) with you to the store.
• Ask about the warranty claim again. Be sure you talk to the store manager. Show the manager the physical problem with the laptop. Explain that there is a physical problem with the laptop, and that the software is not involved.
• Offer to retain the disk drive and get a replacement that doesn't have a disk drive.
• Ask the manager to review your document, and tell you if you've got the details right. Correct the document as necessary so you can agree on the details.
• Tell the manager that you intend to pursue your warranty claim.
• Ask the manager to sign your document.
• If the manager refuses to sign the document, have your witness sign it instead, stating that he observed the manager's refusal to sign.
• Talk to a lawyer.
• ...
• Profit

Do you have to notify a caller that you are using caller ID? Do you have the right to make an anonymous phone call?

This guide for journalists may be helpful: "Can We Tape?" But I am not sure that any existing law is a good fit for this new tech.

"Filming police officer not invasion of privacy * The U.S. Court of Appeals ruled that the state of Washington's Privacy Act does not prohibit filming a police officer, allowing a civil rights lawsuit against the officer to advance." http://www.rcfp.org/news/2004/1105johnso.html --- End Paste --- Though it doesn't directly apply to PA. it sets a strong precedent which can be cited by someone arrested in other locations. The Police in the performance of their official duties have no expectation of privacy and therefore this law does not apply.