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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.
... you've nothing to be afraid of. So, I wonder what it is they're afraid of?
Its unfortunate that he will most likely win (atleast, we all hope) and will probably end up getting some money out of the state for his trouble. But the thing is, the people that made those decisions won't be punished, its the tax payers that will be punished because now the defecit due to the lawsuit has to be made up for.
When is anyone anywhere going to learn about the Streissand Effect? This would only even be slightly more idiotic or ironic if in they video, they're pulling over Barbara Streissand herself. Now millions of people and probably CNN if it's a slow news day will pick up this story and know what a bunch of assholes these morons are and there will be resignations and law suits and blah blah blah just because of a few arrogant jackasses trying to use scare tactics. Well, at least the good news is they're all going to get what they deserve.
Btw, since they're probably not above suing over comments about this story also, SUBPEONA THIS! *flips off the screen*
Lol, just try and take me to court to make me prove you're all jackasses as stated (and make it a jury trial.)
Google's Super Secret Search Algorithm: SELECT @search_results FROM internet WHERE @search_results = 'good'
We're all one traffic stop away from total financial ruin and potentially jail. If it's not for something illegal today, it'll be for something illegal tomorrow, or simply something the police think might be possibly illegal.
Whether he's found guilty or not, his life is basically over.
If he's lucky, the ordeal will cost him thousands (maybe tens of thousands) when it's all said and done, and he wont get any of his stuff back. He'll have an impossible time getting a job, a loan, a security clearance, etc. with an arrest in his background. Many (most?) employers now ask if you've merely been arrested, regardless of whether you were charged or found guilty, so he'll be making minimum wage at best.
If he's unlucky, he'll have a bunch of jack-booted "law and order" Americans on his jury who side with the police by default and just want to see more people put in jail.
I love how video+audio = "wiretapping", which is by definition, tapping into the wires of a phone or communications system to record the conversation. So have the politicians been jailed for taking video of their child at school and happened to video someone else? Have people been arrested for using a digital recorder at the local college lectures? What about the new crew?
We were all warned a long time ago that MS products sucked, remember the Magic 8 Ball said, "Outlook not so good"
Fuck yeah I am glad I don't live there. Would you like to import some of our (backward) European freedoms?
I like to know when I'm being recorded, thank you very much. The problem here is the ridiculous idea that a police officer in a public place has the same right to privacy as two people involved in a private telephone conversation.
On a side note I can't figure out who is the biggest asshole involved in this: the motorcyclist himself for doing 127mph on a public road while weaving between cars and doing wheelies, the cop for briefly pulling a gun and immediately putting it back into the holster, or the Maryland State Police for going after the guy. I vote for the Maryland State Police, with the motorcyclist himself in close second and the cop in third place.
Negative moral value of force outweighs the positive value of good intentions.
Definately, not you.
Just imagine if LAPD pulled that on the person who filmed the Rodney King incident.
-Fiend-
I have an honest question for you: Why the fuck do you still live in that country?
Honestly, a place where cops are practically untouchable, the justice system amounts to "plea guilty and do a few years, or else...." and guilt is determined by your average group of mouthbreathers with an extremely mis-placed sense of justice on a power-trip. Why the hell would anyone want to live there?
People, what a bunch of bastards
Oh, bullshit. I'm sure it's exhilarating to push the +1 Insightful moderation, but I live in an actual police state. If I went to city hall with a group of people waving signs, we'd have the People's Armed Police up in our grill faster than you can say "Jiminy Cricket". I just cringe when Americans make idiot statements like yours.
Shutting down free speech with violence isn't fighting fascism. It IS fascism!
Yep. You're crazy.
You've forgotten about the law of unintended consequences. Do you really think it aught to be legal for anybody you've invited into your home to plant bugs or cameras? They're there lawfully, and you're proposing giving them the right to record without being party to the conversation. What about bed/bath rooms? What about corporate espionage? Messy divorces? Foreign agents?
One party consent seems to be a sane minimum without a warrant. I understand the desire/need for two party consent laws, but they too have unintended consequences, and needs to be fine tuned (as this incident shows).
I won't join Slashcott. OTOH, If Beta goes live, I just won't be back until it's fixed. Sorry Dice.
"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."
Concurrent Resolutions have no force of law.
Even if this one did, limiting it to "potentially abusive activity" still gives the cops plenty of wiggle room to justifiably arrest you and let a judge sort it out later... exactly the king of chilling effect we should strive to avoid.
[Fuck Beta]
o0t!
Really? If you were completely innocent, but had been indicted on Federal charges that would most likely put you away for life if you blew trial, or you were offered a two year plea deal, you'd actually gamble your life on twelve people who hear a very colorized version of the truth?
The cold facts:
93.6% of Fed cases result in a guilty plea.
75.6% of Fed criminal defendants are convicted following trial.
97% of Fed criminal defendants are sentenced.
82.8% of Fed criminal defendants receive a prison term.
That's not guilty defendants: it's ALL defendants.
Many of the people I met in Fed prison had either done nothing, or something so minor as to certainly not merit hard time. (I was a bit of a jailhouse lawyer..not much else to do.) I saw guys serving 20 years for making a phone call. I am not kidding.
As I said, it doesn't matter at ALL whether you did it or not. It matters what you can prove. And trust me, it's YOU that needs to do the proving, innocent till proven guilty is BS.
So, maybe you didn't do it, but you almost certainly will lose at trial. Yes, you''l be "right" and will have the moral high ground,..and wear khakis the rest of your life.
"The pie shall be cut in half and each man shall receive.....death. I'll eat the pie."
I saw the video. The cop is in an unmarked car and plain clothes. He pulls up past the motorcycle while it's stopped at an exit, veers in front of it, stops, and gets out with a gun drawn, saying, "Get off the motorcycle. Get off the motorcycle! Get off the motorcycle. State police."
So what if this guy had been exercising the second amendment, and happened to be an overconfident quick-draw artist, and got "lucky" enough to shoot first?
Right up until he says "State police," it doesn't look like a traffic stop to me. It looks like a crime in progress. Even then, pretty much anyone can say "police". He could at least flash a badge. The video did cut off right there, but that was more than enough time for something bad to happen.
AFAIU it's not the motor cyclist who's facing 16 years. Or are you going to argue that videotaping is an act of wildly and dangerously breaking traffic law?
The Tao of math: The numbers you can count are not the real numbers.
Routinely, eh? Then surely you can provide a citation delving into what percentage of protests end in police intervention more than a simple arrest of a person or persons acting in a clearly illegal manner? How many times tear gas has been fired at protesters in, say, the last decade? How many times rubber bullets were fired?
There's an awful lot of paperwork involved with such things, so surely you must have this information since you're comfortable characterizing its frequency.
Or you're making something that happens rarely sound, ahem, "routine" in order to bolster a silly claim?
Eagerly waiting to find out which. So suspenseful!
Wait. What? Why is this a troll. Someone help me out here.
The law AFAIK is quite clear: Unidentified man, in unidentified car leaps out pointing a gun at you? YES, you are within your rights to SHOOT HIM IN THE FACE.
IANAL, but am I wrong here???
------ The best brain training is now totally free : )
Why your contempt for juries? It's the last line of civil defense against unjust laws
Because it turns out that they don't actually do that job. Judges regularly lie to juries that it isn't their job to stop unjust laws, and ill-educated juries swallow it whole.
FGD 135
The police dash-cam is explicitly exempted in MD's law.
In this case, the police are misusing the law to try to prevent the videotaping of police activity. This is one of the danger signs down the slippery slope to a police state.
Recently the police ganged up on and beat up a UMD student who it turned out did nothing wrong at all. The police lied and fabricated probable cause for arrest and said his beating was due to his resisting. Unfortunately for the police, their actions were caught on a cell phone video camera and used against them later.
The police's actions out in the open should be subject to public scrutiny. Unless someone can point out cases where a recording of police actions had some kind of effect detrimental to public safety I'll continue to hold this opinion.
While the ACLU document does mention that this police officer unholstered his weapon before identifying himself as a police officer, this is not the crux of their complaint. If I am stepping out in front of an unknown individual (his face obscured) on a heavy motorcycle, I too am going to want some form of quick defense. I am no expert on the rules of escalation of force for MD state troopers, but at worst the unholstering of the weapon is a training issue that needs to be corrected with this individual.
The ACLU is, instead, focusing on the use of the recording laws in Maryland as a form of suppressing speech; in my opinion, a much more important issue.
Most posters here just want to run a jack-boot-thug, social-feedback-loop rant. They are completely missing the point of both the ACLU and the slashdot submission.
most of the low speed limits are about makeing cash and not safety just like the red light cameras.
and if this is what happens routinely why did you have to reach back 40 years? Nobody is arguing that this kind of thing never happens, the point is that it's rare. By going to the Kent State shootings, you're supporting Dhalka's assertion, since otherwise you'd have a list of similar incidents from the past year or so.....
Some bring out the best in others, some the worst. Some bring out far more.