Supreme Court: Citizens Recording their Contacts With Police Officers is Constitutionally Protected Activity
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| Cook County State's Attorney Anita Alvarez's efforts to protect tyranny were defeated in the US Supreme Court. |
Washington, DC—The State of Illinois had a so-called
Anti-Eavesdropping Law. It barred the recording of any conversations
without the consent of all parties. A
violation of this law was a serious felony that could put violators in prison
for up to 15 years. Today, tyranny was defeated because that law is dead. Perhaps now, The Truth Will Set
You Free!
The intent of the law was in itself disingenuous or
downright nefarious. As we all know, the
truth can be very dangerous. Illinois
politicians made sure that that the truth could never be used against
them. This was their response to the
burgeoning use of tape recorders in the 1950s.
Politicians bribery and extortion activities were being exposed by the
devices and the law would bar the use of the recordings as evidence against
them. They more properly could have
called their creation, The Public Official Bribery Protection Act.
The law could not be limited to protect public officials and
covered all conversations. This law also
prevented news organizations from running hidden camera stings where voices
were also recorded. The law did nothing
to protect privacy but went a long way to protect criminals.
People who were ignorant of the law were the ones usually
arrested for this notorious crime. Often
they were people that were simply trying to document crimes being committed
against them. There were also people
arrested that were simply trying to authenticate conversations where promises
or representations in case the people later tried to lie about what was said.
The ACLU sought to prevent and or document the abuse of
citizens by police. In some cases the
ACLU actually provided people with cheap video cameras to record their
encounters with police. The ACLU asked
the U.S. District court to invalidate the law.
That matter has now been fully litigated and it is the law of the land
throughout America. Citizens can record
their encounters with police without fear of arrest.
For my visitors that are cops remember that allows you to take a hidden recording device into internal affairs or situations where they are investigating you.
For my visitors that are cops remember that allows you to take a hidden recording device into internal affairs or situations where they are investigating you.
Here is the decision that the Supreme Court has let stand:
Comments
Does that mean that the next time a police officer fails to take down my sexual assault complaint in writing against a teacher working at the same College
that I can record that African American police officer mis - informing me that my complaint against White teacher sexually assaulting me was too old to report!
- which of course later the police officer denied ever hearing my verbal complaint - which then led to my being beaten up in a California Courtroom by white Sheriffs Deputies.
Talk about victimization and revictimization!