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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."
Link to source?
Illinois is one of theose twelve states. I refer to it as the "liar's law". There is no other reason I can't record a conversation in a public place except that the politicians don't want their lies revealed.
Well, maybe there are other secrets they want kept that aren't lies -- like their extramarital affairs. These 12 states, including mine, must have some incredibly immoral and hypocritical legislators.
However, I'll bet that the wiretapping charge doesn't stick. These days the cops make all sorts of spurious charges and the DA plea bargains the charges down. I'll bet he pays a few huundred bucks fine for a misdemeanor.
Oh wait, strike that -- gambling is iolegal here, too.
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http://www.metrowestdailynews.com/news/x1467270710/Police-say-irate-car-dealership-customer-recorded-altercation
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Does that mean there are no video surveillance cameras in Massachusetts? Or is the owner of every single surveillance camera breaking the law?
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From http://www.articlesbase.com/national,-state,-local-articles/audio-recording-laws-in-the-us-431017.html: "The 12 states which definitely require all parties to a conversation to consent before it can be recorded are: California, Connecticut, Delaware, Florida, Illinois, Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan, Montana, New Hampshire, Pennsylvania and Washington"
Possibly the weirdest mix of red, blue, coastal, and fly-over states.
Doesn't Wiretapping require you to use the recording device to record data traveling through wires?
If I carry an old Casette Deck around with me and Record everything on a bus ride - is that considered Wire Tapping?
They need to at least rename the law because I would have thought recording a conversation albeit discreetly would not be considered wire-tapping.
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.
I could tell you, but you'd have to stop recording this conversation.
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Does anyone have a good reason for such a law, other than to protect important people
Yes. The sword cuts both ways.
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.
Lol, self-pwned - meant to type "exactly 24%". Nit-picking claims another victim.
The solution to this, your eminence, is to make fewer things that everyone does illegal, not to ban writing.
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As far as I know it's a common practise among police, perhaps worldwide, to try to find out who is a hothead and who isn't. 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. Those who answer the questions calmly and act in a restrained manner are usually given the benefit of the doubt in terms of who started or heightened the altercation. Those who respond to a cops questions antagonistically, and/or don't calm down, are usually seen as hotheads and tend to get the shitty end of the stick. 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.
Street sense isn't just how not to get robbed and beaten in the wrong part of town, it's also how to deal with cops when things are going bad. Street sense in today's world is as necessary to basic existence as a high school diploma, although I wouldn't suggest going onto any "higher" centres of learning.
ideopath @ play
12/50 = 24/100
Doesn't sound like exactly 20% to me. Closer to exactly 24% (or ~25%)
Am I missing something?
Canada? Western Europe? Iraq?
It doesn't hurt to be nice.
And she was still indicted. By the democrats, even.
-Clio
Karma: Bad (mostly from not giving a fuck)
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Here is a state by state guide.
http://www.rcfp.org/taping/states.html
There was a case before the Mass Supreme Judicial Court about 10 years ago where a motorist was stopped by the police. The motorist felt he was being singled-out unfairly so he secretly audio recorded the encounters. A few days later he went to the police station to file a formal complaint against the officers and submitted his recording as evidence. He wound up being arrested, charged and found responsible for violating the wiretap statute. The defendant appealed the decision up to the SJC and lost there.
I've always been torn up a little about the wiretap statute. I think it's not totally unreasonable to have some measure of protection in citizen-to-citizen interactions, especially in this age of Youtube. However I've always felt there should be an exception to this rule for recording municipal and state employees (including police) acting in their official capacity.
FWIW, there was an attempt to change the law to make an exception for recording police officers but (as one might expect) opposition from police unions killed it.
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Except you too don't seem to understand what that quote really meant.
Richelieu needed those 6 lines written by the hand of a person, so he could forge evidence of some crime in the handwriting of some person.
To that end, it doesn't matter at all how many laws there actually are, and how many things are illegal. As long as there's at least one single thing that's illegal, say, murder (I think we can agree that there's no reason to make murder legal) Richelieu could still forge a letter in your writing when you say you're the one who committed some recent murder. Then you'd get tortured until you confess, and hang for it.
It's not about too many or too few laws. It's about abuse of power, really.
Yes, even he couldn't come out and say out loud "I'll forge a pact with the devil in his handwriting", hence the "I will find something" euphemism. But the process of "finding something" actually ended up being more like "hey, looky, the handwriting is exactly like this pact with the devil we just for... err.. had delivered to us by a repenting sinner who stole it from Satan's own desk drawer."
And if you think the above is just hyperbole, think again. Historically, Father Grandier (an opponent and critic of Richelieu) was waterboarded and exected for a pact with the devil, in his handwriting and signed by him in blood, which someone supposedly stole from none other than the Devil himself. Literally.
That was the kind of "finding something that will hang him" that Richelieu actually did.
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Would it be legal to use a machine to lip-read and store said conversation from video only? The software exists today, and works quit well. No need to store the audio if you can lip-read it from the video.
It looks like the mandatory car analogy was used up front in the summary!
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Yeah, and according to population estimates here http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_U.S._states_and_territories_by_population those 12 states contain just under 40% of the U.S. population.