Slashdot Mirror
Facing 16 Years In Prison For Videotaping Police
krou sends this snip from the Maine Civil Liberties Union: "The ACLU of Maryland is defending Anthony Graber, who faces as much as sixteen years in prison if found guilty of violating state wiretap laws because he recorded video of an officer drawing a gun during a traffic stop. ... Once [the Maryland State Police] learned of the video on YouTube, Graber's parents' house was raided, searched, and four of his computers were confiscated. Graber was arrested, booked, and jailed. Their actions are a calculated method of intimidation. Another person has since been similarly charged under the same statute. The wiretap law being used to charge Anthony Graber is intended to protect private communication between two parties. According to David Rocah, the ACLU attorney handling Mr. Graber's case, 'To charge Graber with violating the law, you would have to conclude that a police officer on a public road, wearing a badge and a uniform, performing his official duty, pulling someone over, somehow has a right to privacy when it comes to the conversation he has with the motorist.'" Here are a factsheet (PDF) on the case from the ACLU of Maryland, and the video at issue.
I can't speak for MD in particular (although I do live here) but beyond the pernicious "the public can't watch us do the public's work" aspect of this is those dashboard cameras we all love on America's Funniest Car Chases and whatever. I've certainly seen clips that include audio from the citizen as well as the police officer--are we to take it that these too are felonious wiretaps?
This next song is very sad. Please clap along. -- Robin Zander
You could kill someone and get less than that... (as long as the person you kill isn't a cop)
First step would be to learn about the laws involved. This is not a US wide law, this is state by state and the majority of states are not like this. If your state is affected, then set about trying to change it. You might discover that your state representatives don't even know. This shit was drafted up a long time ago in most cases. You make them aware they are a two party state and the consequences, maybe they work to fix it. If not, you continue the quest along other avenues.
However bitching about the USA being a "Police State" on a message board does no good.
And before you shoot back at me, I live in a one party state, so this particular issue is not one I concern myself with. My legislature has already made the correct choice, and we can record if we like.
What Graber filmed was called a Terry Stop and the cop is able to search you without a warrant within your "wingspan" to check for weapons that may threaten him or other people. There are a lot of laws that cops often break on Terry Stops. My car was searched on my own property under the guise of a Terry Stop, which of course is wildly illegal, but I digress.
What Graber is "facing" is a maximum..he will never serve it unless he decides to roll the dice with a jury, blows trial and the judge sentences him to the maximum. Since the ACLU is involved, you can bet that will never happen.
But States and more often, the Feds will indict you for offenses that carry insane sentences in order to convince you to plead out, as the vast majority of people do. I did. I was facing five life sentences plus 105 years for an offense no one had ever been jailed a day on before. If I went to trial and lost on one single count, I would have done fifteen years, mandatory. (No parole in feds, BTW...you do 87.5%) I signed for five years, did 52 months.
Now, would you have fought? Really? Many people say they would, but it's a lot different when you are considering giving your life to 12 people too stupid to get out of jury duty. When you realize that the whole system is set up to plead out 95+% of cases and do anything possible to convince you to not go in front of a jury, the average person has almost no chance in the system as it is set up. You didn't do it? That doesn't matter. It's what you can PROVE to a jury. And most of the time, the Government has much better lawyers and resources, so Graban is actually lucky...he won't serve a day, IMVHO.
CSI, Law and Order are worse than misinformation..they are propaganda, brainwashing us into thinking the system is fair and equal. It isn't. Graber is lucky that his case has publicity value. He may be "facing" sixteen years, but he'll never serve any.
But we aren't all lucky. We are indeed one Terry stop away from ruin. Be careful.
"The pie shall be cut in half and each man shall receive.....death. I'll eat the pie."
Support House Concurrent Resolution 298, "Expressing the sense of Congress that the videotaping or photographing of police engaged in potentially abusive activity in a public place should not be prosecuted in State or Federal courts." US citizens, click here to write your congressional representative.
Anything you say, can and will be used against you - it's that simple. Spend an hour on this video:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6wXkI4t7nuc
Just imagine if LAPD pulled that on the person who filmed the Rodney King incident.
The police would have got away with it and those same police would be beating citizens to this day.
Rodney King is the reason police hate anyone to film them. The only films they want are ones that can 'get lost' in their evidence room if they turn out to be inconvenient.
There is a reason they are called 'filth'.
I've looked into it, not that the 60+% taxes really make it appealing.......but when you're unemployed, you look at all options.
60% taxes, where? I would say, that the most taxing countries (France for instance), get at most 50%. But look at it in another way, yes, you pay 50% taxes, but that comes with UNIVERSAL health care, real rights to the ones that get unemployed, children support, practically FREE education all the way until the end of college (ok, in some countries you have to pay like €1000 per year when you are in the University, but in some other, they actually pay you to go to University, although it's just something like €300 per month).
And beside, what really kills me, is how you Americans just care about the money. Man, quality of life is much more than the money. It's support when you need it. It's knowing that you are protected in case something goes wrong and it's not entirely your fault, it's good climate (well, this only applies to Souther Europe), it's culture for free, it's really good food (once again ... only in southern Europe :D), it's living in a city where you don't have to drive every morning to work cause the public mass transport system is really effective or because the centre of the city is also occupied by it's citizens ... well, it's a very big bunch of many other things.
I might not be rich ... but then again, I have everything I need to be happy, so what's the problem?
YUIW:
Anthony Graber was riding his motorcycle on Interstate 95, and was
confronted by a plainclothes Maryland State Police trooper as he came to a stop at an
exit. Graber had a video camera prominently mounted on his helmet to record his ride,
and the camera recorded the officer's actions and statements at the outset of the
encounter
However it shouldn't make any difference. Just because someone is guilty of X doesn't make him guilty of Y - each case should be decided on its own merits. This is why many jurisdictions don't reveal a defendants previous offenses to the jury.
Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
I've been following this case closely since it started since I live in MD.
The key issue here is MD's law on recording audio without all parties' consent. The state is arguing that all parties of the private conversation (i.e. the trooper) did not consent, hence the violation.
A key provision of the law is the idea of "reasonable expectation of privacy". This is what allows news crews to record street scenes audio/video without everyone's consent. In a public area, no one reasonably has an expectation privacy. The defense will argue this point and Graber will be found innocent.
Next step is to work on getting this law overturned. MD is one of a handful of states with the unanimous consent provision where most other states are so-called "one consent".
The undercover trooper threatened the rider twice "get off the bike", "get off the bike" and only identified himself (without showing any identification) as State Police when he'd got up to the bike.
Surely in all the time they were following the bike, he'd be able to put his badge on somewhere visible, like on a lanyard around his neck, or clipped to his jacket.
The first words out of the state troopers mouth when he exited the vehicle should have been "State Police, get off the bike".
Identification first - to show jurisdiction - and then the orders.
A sensible cop would have taken him down to the station, got a copy of the video footage and then used that to prosecute the guy.
The police in the UK have used YouTube video as evidence before now on charging people for dangerous driving - the biker had a distinctive jacket which they traced. As it is, this idiot is likely to get off the charges due to incompetency by the cops.
Sounds like you are rich, it's just that 20-30% of your money doesn't appear on your budget since you're enjoying it through all these public services.
No, that's the part most of the Americans constantly fail to understand. I'm not rich in here, and I wouldn't still be rich if I hadn't to pay those extra 20%-30% more to get these benefits. In fact I doubt that 30% over the wage I get (around €1000 per month) would actually allowed my to buy all that stuff. More, I'm completely certain that it would not allow the people that earn the minimum wage (which in here is around €500 and that's very little even with these benefits), would allow them to have this.
But his is the great part about it. The 20%-30% that a very rich people also has to pay, it's enough to give the benefits to that rich one, and there is plenty of money left to get those same benefits to a bunch the ones that earn much less than them.
A small example. The tax over fuel in here it's huge. It's really one of the highest in EU, but on the other side, public transportation works well and it's quite cheap (€18 per month to travel as many time as you want in the metro, or €25 to travel all you want in metro and BUS). And I'm happy, it's this way. The city works much better than if everyone takes their cars around, it's less polluted, and it's better for the environment.
It's not Socialism, it's Social Democracy and when done really correctly it works beautifully, like you have to admit it works in Northern Europe ... not so good in the South, but it's still ok in here. And well, although, Northern Europe is better in this social aspect and has all those nice blondes, but bah, it's too cold for me and the food kind of stinks ... and all that contributes to your quality of life :)
Whoa... hold on there.
"Point a gun in his face" and "wave a gun" is a long way from "draw a gun and keep it pointed at the ground". You are exaggerating.
People should also focus on how unnecessarily dangerous that traffic stop was.
Why did off-duty officer feel it was necessary to endanger his own life, the motorcyclist and the life of the motorists in the nearby vehicles?
The "victim" was driving 127mph on a public road with other traffic around. Who was placing whom in danger again?
(and he wasn't driving a Toyota, either)
Cops and public officials are given greater lenience in violations of laws when they are performing their jobs. It's even worse with cops because you can't vote them out of office. Even you elected officials do not have the authority to directly fire them.
A few links:
Blagojevich judge, attorney clash; jury sent home
Judge accused of fixing ticket steps down
Brunton resigns as Macoupin County associate judge
Chicago alderman pleads guilty in corruption case
State trooper who caused deadly wreck resigns
Assistant state's attorney resigns after mishandling case
Our Opinion: Boone must resign as coroner
Galesburg police officer facing felony charges
Grandview leader plans to fire police chief
Free Martian Whores!
I have indeed done my research on this since I have had to consider hiring foreigners.
And as I wrote in reply to your sibling, you are by no means required to spend all your money, you can save it up, earn interest, invest them - at no point do you have to pay anything more.
And please, please, please don't tell someone they are incompetent when you can't even work out what 17.5% VAT is in terms of total taxes. By the way (for both you and sibling) in the UK you don't pay VAT on everything, unless you only buy goods.
Let me give you a nice example from Denmark where we in fact pay VAT "on every goddamn thing" at 25% - Lets say I earn 100.000 kr, I pay 40% taxes, that leaves me with 60.000 kr.
At 25% VAT, it means 20% of everything I buy is tax, so lets say I spend all 60.000, that means 15.000 of that is an additional tax, which is 15% of the original, that means I pay 55% taxes total.
I'm very much aware of how much I pay in taxes, and I do my share of gibbering about it every month when I get my paycheck, but then I remember, this pays for my medical bills, for the roads, my education, for safety on the streets (milage may vary here, I'll give you that) etc .
FTA
According to David Rocah, the ACLU attorney handling Mr. Graber's case, 'To charge Graber with violating the law, you would have to conclude that a police officer on a public road, wearing a badge and a uniform, performing his official duty, pulling someone over, somehow has a right to privacy when it comes to the conversation he has with the motorist.'" (emphasis mine)
If this David Rocah had even bothered to view the video in question, he'd know the officer was not wearing a uniform.
I did both. I'm referring to the one behind the motorcycle, which you clearly saw when you did what you're assuming I didn't do. Honest mistake to make, no apology necessary. :)
If YOU watched the video (RTFA) you would notice there is a marked police car behind him.