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"Wiretapping" Charges May Be Oddest Ever Recorded
netbuzz writes "Guy kicks up a fuss at a Massachusetts car-repair shop, employees call the police, guy allegedly gives them a hard time, too, and they charge the fellow with a variety of expectable charges: disorderly conduct, resisting arrest ... and 'unlawful wiretapping and possessing a device for wiretapping.' The device? A digital voice recorder. Massachusetts is one of only 12 states that prohibit the recording of a conversation unless all parties to it are aware it's being recorded."
Why can't the legal system use common sense. Simply recording something is not the same as a wiretap. A wiretap implies access to conversations through some sort of technological loophole or exploit and is usually long term. If this is to be illegal then the law should refer to unlawful recording without consent.
IMHO, it doesn't make sense that it can be illegal to record a conversation that you are part of since you have been explicitly granted access to the information (the guy is F@#$ing talking to you).
Having such a recorder might be potentially important for memory impaired people on details and for the strong oral promises of con artists later denied.
If you give me six lines written by the hand of the most honest of men, I will find something in them which will hang him.
The solution to this, your eminence, is to make fewer things that everyone does illegal, not to ban writing.
I am TheRaven on Soylent News
Most of us don't care about private people recording people in public. I see people with video cameras and such all the time.
What we don't appreciate is someone with armed forces and the "Law" at their disposal doing the same thing.
This is true, however, this is also the reason you don't piss off cops. Don't let them violate your rights, sure, but don't be a jerk. They will instantly acquire an almost da Vinci-like creativity for inventing reasons you've broken the law.
They don't need to "invent" anything. Why do you think all jurisdictions have those "catch-all" laws on the books, like "disorderly conduct" or "creating a disturbance" or "being a public nuisance." These laws are deliberately vague so that if you act like a dick when the cop stops you, he's got plenty of leeway to charge you with something.
"Every great cause begins as a movement, becomes a business, and eventually degenerates into a racket." -- Eric Hoffer
Moreover, it's illegal to cover your face for the purpose of disguising or hiding your identity in many places.
When a cop is called to a dispute or fight, not always but often, s/he will ask each participant a few pointed, even brusque questions. [...] If you're stupid enough to react to a cop aggressively rather than addressing any wrongs later through the courts or a police complaints board then you're likely gonna get charges laid against you that otherwise might be let go.
Yes, but this is the point - you will always be less credible than a cop before a court, if word stands against word. So if they prohibit your recording of all the insults the cop hurled at you (just because he can), you have no realistic chance of redress later through the courts (whether you became aggressive or not).
Maybe it's time to make the state pay for your defense when you're aquitted?
Great idea, one that I'd like to see, but the law of unintended consequences will rear it's ugly head. If the state, i.e. taxpayers, have to pay for state mistakes, Judges and Juries will be even less likely to acquit. Would you rather have a few more innocent people go to jail, so that some people will be compensated for being wrongly accused?
All ideas^H^H^H^H^Hprocesses in this post are Patent Pending. (as well as the process of patenting all postings)
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Yeah, you should never plea guilty to something you didn't commit.
I think your missing the point. The real officer wouldn't have cited him in the first place. The electronic cop makes him go to court to contest a witness that he can't even confront, and your answer is to gather enough money up to sue the city for harassment from an electronics policeman who you still can not confront.
Yea, he has options, more so if he was rich. Right and wrong are often obvious yet they do not apply evenly to everyone. This unevenness gets more skewed the further apart the income scale goes.