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Two Activists Who Secretly Recorded Planned Parenthood Face 15 Felony Charges (npr.org)
mi writes: California prosecutors on Tuesday charged two activists who made undercover videos of themselves interacting with officials of a taxpayer-supported organization with 15 felonies, saying they invaded privacy by filming without consent. State Attorney General Xavier Becerra, a longtime Congressional Democrat who took over the investigation in January, said in a statement that the state "will not tolerate the criminal recording of conversations." Didn't we just determine that filming officials is not merely a right, but a First Amendment right? The "taxpayer-supported organization" is Planned Parenthood, and the charges were pressed against David Daleiden and Sandra Merritt. Daleiden has called the charges "bogus," claiming that Planned Parenthood "has violated the law by selling fetal tissue -- an allegation that has been investigated by more than a dozen states, none of which found evidence supporting Daleiden's claim," reports NPR. "Daleiden claimed the video showed evidence that Planned Parenthood was selling that tissue, which would be illegal. Planned Parenthood said the footage was misleadingly edited and that the organization donates tissue following legal guidelines and with permitted reimbursements for expenses, which investigations have corroborated."
CA is a two-party consent state so it has never been legal in CA to record surreptitiously where the other party expects the conversation to be private.
The exceptions may be federal employees on duty at the time of recording under federal jurisdiction but this doesn't apply here, PP is a private organization and the employees are private entities.
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Are you kidding me?
1. The animal abuse videos are usually not recorded in california where the state wiretapping laws apply.
2. The animal abuse videos are mostly visual images of people stomping on animal's heads and kicking them in the throat. They are not audio recordings of conversations.
3. Animals don't have conversations.
4. Wiretapping laws do not apply to animals.
5. States have tried to make recording undercover abuse videos illegal. They failed.
PS-- your PS doesn't make sense for the above reasons.
PPS-- you are confused about what the word "evidence" is referring to.
I can't tell if you're misinformed, stupid, or trolling, but just in case..
Planned Parenthood is not "directly funded out of the taxpayers pockets". There is no line item for Planned Parenthood in the budget. Planned Parenthood, like any other health care provider, is reimbursed by medicaid for services. Like any hospital or doctor. They are not reimbursed for abortions.
The complete sets of video is posted for all to see... You can go see for your self if PP is telling the truth if you have enough time to watch it all.
I've not see the videos, edited or not, so I don't know, but I've heard from many people I trust that the edited versions are not unfairly edited or pieced together to make PP look bad. Your mileage may vary, but I suggest anybody wishing to make authoritative claims like this not take either side's word for it but go watch the hours of video yourself.
"File to fit, pound to insert, paint to match" - Aircraft Maintenance 101
Do be careful... This varies by State.
In this case, the state of CA doesn't allow recordings (audio or video) without all parties knowing they are being recorded with very few exceptions.
"File to fit, pound to insert, paint to match" - Aircraft Maintenance 101
In this case, there is a specific California law.
https://oag.ca.gov/news/press-releases/attorney-general-xavier-becerra-announces-charges-filed-against-david-robert
https://oag.ca.gov/system/files/attachments/press_releases/Complaint%20Affidavit_SF.PDF?
Translation: I totally buy other people's analecdotal claims that I have no intention of verifying.
There's these people I totally trust who say you eat kittens. I won review their evidence, but it's okay if I go around saying you eat kittens, okay?
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You may have missed the "investigated by more than a dozen states, none of which found evidence" bit of the story. And most of the states were conservative states with investigators who really, really wanted to find evidence. Either every single Planned Parenthood clinic is staffed entirely by loyal criminal geniuses who make Lex Luthor seem an idiot, or they did nothing illegal or wrong. A few clinics donated fetal tissue to research, and received a pittance for it for their costs. And likely less than their cost, because if it were even one penny more than their cost, then at least one of those states would have announced it.
If there is an exception for being a journalist, then they are going to get off because they where acting like journalists doing an investigative report on PP, which they released to the public and it became news.
When you edit the recordings, changing the order of questions and answers so that it sounds like someone is breaking the law when they are not, then you are not a journalist.
In the past, a few (fortunately very few) journalists have completely skewed undercover operations like this. And whenever those people are caught, they usually lose their jobs and are never hired or respected again, and their employer takes a huge credibility hit, because they WERE NOT ACTING AS JOURNALISTS. This encourages other journalists to not do this, and news outlets to not let their employees do this. It's not a perfect system, but it usually works well enough. Just like this case, except for the many people who despite all of the evidence believe these criminals uncovered something.
The RC Church has formally opposed abortion since the 2nd Century AD.
Yes it has. OTOH, the Protestant church and conservative America never did until just a few decades ago.
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The four "Liberals" on Supreme Court — your part of it — did agree in the decision I linked to. If some school vouchers are taken to a religious school, they said, that makes the entire voucher program unconstitutional because tax money "supports religion".
The rest of the Court disagreed and "Liberalism" lost this time, but not in an earlier case like that.
Receiving even a modicum of public funds is a game-changer — as it should be. And then, of course, comes the general and common sense rule of thumb, that California's anti-recording laws are violating: "whatever can be legally seen, can be legally recorded".
I, once again, ask you to come up with an argument for recording police, that can not be used to support recording of PP officials.
In Soviet Washington the swamp drains you.