75 Years in Prison For Videotaping Police

Judge Rejects Eavesdropping Charges for Recording Police
Jacob Sullum, September 20, 2011
LINK

Michael Allison, an Illinois man who faced a potential sentence of 75 years in prison for recording police officers and attempting to tape his own trial, caught a break last week when a state judge declared the charges unconstitutional. "A statute intended to prevent unwarranted intrusions into a citizen’s privacy cannot be used as a shield for public officials who cannot assert a comparable right of privacy in their public duties," wrote Circuit Court Judge David Frankland. "Such action impedes the free flow of information concerning public officials and violates the First Amendment right to gather such information."

Allison, who figures prominently in Radley Balko's January cover story about "The War on Cameras," recorded his interactions with police officers during a long-running dispute over cars he was working on at his home in Bridgeport and his mother's home in Robinson. When he was cited for violating Robinson's "eyesore" ordinance, he brought a tape recorder to his trial because he had been informed that there would be no official transcript of the proceedings. The judge accused Allison of violating her privacy, thereby committing a felony punishable by up to 15 years in prison under the state's eavesdropping law; she threw in four more charges after discovering that he had recorded his police encounters as well.

Judge Frankland ruled that Allison had a First Amendment right to record the police officers and court employees. And while a ban on recording devices in the courtroom might be justified, he said, the eavesdropping charge was inappropriate. As applied in this case, Frankland said, the eavesdropping law "includes conduct that is unrelated to the statute's purpose and is not rationally related to the evil the legislation sought to prohibit. For example, a defendant recording his case in a courtroom has nothing to do with an intrusion into a citizen's privacy but with distraction."

A few days before Frankland's ruling, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 7th Circuit heard a First Amendment challenge to the eavesdropping statute, one of the country's strictest. Last month a Chicago jury acquitted a woman who was charged with eavesdropping after she recorded a conversation with internal affairs officers to document that they were encouraging her to drop a sexual harassment complaint. Also last month, in a case involving a Boston man charged with eavesdropping for capturing an arrest on his cell phone, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 1st Circuit said such recording is a "basic and well-established liberty safeguarded by the First Amendment." Yesterday I noted a California case where exercising that right led to a California man's acquittal.

The 1st Circuit's decision is here (PDF). Reason.tv covered camera-shy cops (without triggering any felony charges) in May:

Strict eavesdropping law ruled unconstitutional in Illinois case
Kirsten Berg, September 16, 2011
LINK

An Illinois judge ruled the state’s eavesdropping law unconstitutional as applied to a man who faced up to to 75 years in prison for secretly recording his encounters with police officers and a judge.
“A statute intended to prevent unwarranted intrusions into a citizen’s privacy cannot be used as a shield for public officials who cannot assert a comparable right of privacy in their public duties,” the judge wrote in his decision dismissing the five counts of eavesdropping charges against defendant Michael Allison.
“Such action impedes the free flow of information concerning public officials and violates the First Amendment right to gather such information,” he wrote.
The ruling is the most recent development raising questions about Illinois’ strict eavesdropping statute, which makes it a felony to use a device to audio record or overhear a conversation without the consent of all parties involved, regardless of the circumstances of the interaction.
Allison’s legal troubles began when he recorded his conversations with local police officers who he claimed were harassing him. The officers were seizing old cars he was fixing on his front lawn in violation of a city ordinance, which then forced him to pay a fee to have them returned.
When Allison was brought into court for violating the ordinance, he requested a court reporter so that he could have a record of his trial. The court declined his request and Allison announced that he would record the trial himself.
When he showed up to the courtroom for his trial, the judge immediately asked Allison if he had a recording device and if it was on. He answered yes and the judge had him arrested on the spot for violating her privacy.
When police confiscated Allison's digital device, they found the other recordings. Allison was then charged with five felony counts of eavesdropping, each of which can carry a maximum 15-year prison sentence.
In Thursday’s ruling, Circuit Court Judge David Frankland said that Allison had a First Amendment right to record the police officers and court employees.
The judge also ruled that while it was reasonable to prohibit the defendant from recording in the courtroom, making what Allison did a felony offense was overreaching and irrational.
“The statute [as it is currently written] includes conduct that is unrelated to the statute’s purpose and is not rationally related to the evil the legislation sought to prohibit,” the judge wrote in his opinion. “For example, a defendant recording his case in a courtroom has nothing to do with an intrusion into a citizen’s privacy but with distraction.”
Although some civil rights activists call the decision a small victory, the Illinois eavesdropping law is still in effect.
Earlier this week, a panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals in Chicago (7th Cir.) heard another case challenging the Illinois eavesdropping law in which the American Civil Liberties Union argued that the statute should be changed to allow for the recording of public officials in public places.
One of the judges on the panel hearing the case, however, was quoted by the Chicago Sun-Times questioning the ACLU's arguments.
“If you permit the audio recordings, they’ll (sic) be a lot more eavesdropping. … There’s going to be a lot of this snooping around by reporters and bloggers,” Circuit Judge Richard Posner said. “Yes, it’s a bad thing. There is such a thing as privacy.”
The appeals court is expected to issue a formal ruling on the case in the upcoming months, according to the Sun-Times.
In another case last month, a jury acquitted a Chicago woman who used her cell phone to secretly record a conversation with police investigators about a sexual harassment complaint she was filing against the department. The recording was especially controversial because the investigators allegedly discouraged her from filing the report, saying on the recording “I think it’s something we can handle without having to go through this process…”
The right to film police in the performance of their public duties has also been the subject of debate across the U.S. as arrests for such activities have been on the rise.
In August, the U.S. Court of Appeals in Boston (1st Cir.) ruled that this kind of filming is a “basic and well-established liberty safeguarded by the First Amendment,” in a case involving a complaint filed by a Boston man who filmed the scene of an October 2007 arrest on his cell phone, only to be arrested himself and charged with a violation of Massachusetts wiretapping laws. The most recent ruling in Illinois cited this decision as a “persuasive authority” for ruling on similar cases.

Rochester Police Arrest Woman in Her Front Lawn For Filming Traffic

December 3, 2011
America Lurches Toward Full-Blown Tryanny
By Stephen Lendman
LINK

Post-9/11, America's moved steadily toward eroding democracy entirely. Justification given is war on terror hokum. Incrementally, international, constitutional and statute laws have been trashed.

Measures in FY 2012 National Defense act promise tryanny.

Post-9/11, America's moved steadily toward eroding democracy entirely. Justification given is war on terror hokum. Incrementally, international, constitutional and statute laws have been trashed.

Equity, justice and other democratic values long ago were abandoned to advance America's imperium. On May 26, the House voted to abolish freedom entirely - HR 1540, 322 - 96.

On December 1, the Senate did likewise - S. 1867, 93 to 7. Both versions assure no one anywhere is now safe, including law-abiding US citizens.

Senate no votes were cast by Thomas Harkin (D. IA), Rand Paul (R. KY), Thomas Coburn (R. OK), Jeff Merkley (D. OR), Ron Wyden (D. OR), Mike Lee (R. UT), and Bernie Sanders (I. VT).

Of the Senate's 51 Democrats, only one voted no.

At issue are Sections 1031 and 1032 of the FY 2012 National Defense Authorization Act - NDAA (S. 1867).

Section 1031 authorizes indefinitely detaining US citizens without charge or trial. It exceeds previous police state laws. The provision refers to US citizens or lawful resident aliens even though the Constitution protects them. No longer.

Enactment means anyone anywhere, including US citizens, may be indefinitely held without charge or trial, based solely on suspicions, baseless allegations or none at all.

No reasonable proof is required, just suspicions that those detained pose threats. Under subsection (b)(1), indefinite detentions can follow mere membership (past or present) or support for suspect organizations.

Presidents would have unchecked authority to arrest, interrogate and indefinitely detain law-abiding citizens if accused of potentially posing a threat.

Constitutional, statute and international laws won't apply. Martial law will replace them.

Like the companion House bill (HR 1540), detention would be authorized based on alleged prior associations with suspect groups.

US military personnel anywhere in the world would be authorized to seize US citizens and others.

Section 1032 requires suspects held in military custody, outside constitutionally mandated civil protections, including habeas rights, due process, and other judicial procedures.

Presidents could order anyone arrested and imprisoned for life without charge or trial.

Abuse of power would replace rule of law protections.

Even someone erroneously arrested and cleared of wrongdoing could be held indefinitely without charge, given non-civil trials, none at all, or sent abroad to torture prison hellholes.

On November 29, the Senate voted 60 - 38 against Mark Udall's (D. CO) amendment. If adopted, it would have prohibited the military from arresting and imprisoning anyone anywhere without charge or trial, including US citizens.

An orderly review of presidential and congressional detention power would have been authorized. Before adjourning, House and Senate conferees will resolve the issue one way or other. Removing harmful provisions is doubtful.

If not, Obama promised a veto. So far, he's broken EVERY major promise made. Given enough congressional votes to override him, it hardly matters what he does.

December 8 is the House's targeted adjournment date. The Senate date is yet to be announced. Key legislation must be completed before leaving, including resolving language in FY 2012 NDAA.

Obama must then sign or veto it. Congress returns on January 5. Will he keep his promise or sign the bill to assure defense funding continuity? Electoral politics suggests the latter.

Moreover, S. 1867 sponsor Carl Levin said Obama officials were involved in drafting the bill. Both sides apparently agreed on final language.

Some Post-9/11 Background

On September 18, 2001, a joint House-Senate Authorization for Use of Military Force (AUMF) approved permanent war on humanity. Thereafter, America's lurched from one to another. Expect more ahead.

On November 13, 2001, George Bush issued Military Order Number 1. It was a watershed coup d'etat action.

It authorized presidents to capture, kidnap or otherwise arrest non-citizens (citizens were later included) anywhere in the world based on unproved allegations of involvement in international terrorism. Moreover, it approved holding them indefinitely without charge, evidence or due process rights.

It stipulated that trials, if held, will be in secret military commissions, not civil courts. Torture obtained evidence is allowed, and appeal rights are denied those convicted.

Capitalizing on a window of hysteria, numerous laws, Executive Orders, findings, memoranda, and memos, as well as National and Homeland Security Presidential Directives followed (NSPDs and HSPDs). Constitutional rights eroded. Unchecked police state powers hardened.

On October 26, 2001, 45 days post-9/11, Congress overwhelmingly passed the USA Patriot Act. Civil liberties were eroded, including Fifth and Fourteen Amendment due process rights by permitting indefinite detentions of undocumented immigrants that now apply to anyone anywhere.

First Amendment freedom of association was compromised. Now anyone may be prosecuted for their alleged association with "undesirable groups."

Fourth Amendment protections from unreasonable searches and seizures are gone, including personal privacy rights.

Unchecked government surveillance powers were authorized to access personal records, monitor financial transactions, as well as student, medical and other records.

Secret evidence may be obtained lawlessly and withheld from defense lawyers.

For the first time, "domestic terrorism" was criminalized. It applies to US citizens and aliens. It states criminal law violations are considered domestic terrorist acts if they aim to "influence (government policy) by intimidation, coercion (or) intimidate or coerce a civilian population."

In other words, anti-war, global justice, environmental and animal rights activism, as well as Occupy Wall Street activism may be designated "domestic terrorism." So may civil disobedience and dissent of any kind to prevent it entirely.

On October 1, 2002, USNORTHCOM's establishment was step one to militarizing America.

The November 25, 2002 Homeland Security Act (HSA) centralized unprecedented executive branch military and law enforcement powers.

The October 17, 2006 Military Commissions Act scrapped habeas protections for domestic and foreign enemies alike, citizens and non-citizens, stating:

"Any person is punishable... who....aids, abets, counsels, commands, or procures" and in so doing helps a foreign enemy, provides "material support" to alleged terrorist groups, engages in spying, or commits other offenses previously handled in civil courts.

It also authorized torture and empowered presidents to convene military commissions to try anyone called "unlawful enemy combatants." They now designated "unprivileged enemy belligerents."

On the same date, little know FY 2007 NDAA provisions (Sections 1076 and 333) amended the Insurrection Act of 1807 and Posse Comitatus Act of 1878.

They prohibit using federal and National Guard troops for law enforcement domestically except as constitutionally allowed or expressly authorized by Congress in times of a national emergency like an insurrection.

Presidents may now claim public emergency powers, effectively declare martial law, suspend the Constitution for "national security" reasons, and deploy federal and National Guard troops on America's streets to suppress whatever he calls disorder.

The key April 4, 2007 NSPD-51/HSPD-20 combined directive established "Continuity of Government (COG)" procedures under Catastrophic Emergency conditions, defined as:

"any incident (such as a terrorist attack), regardless of location, that results in extraordinary levels of mass casualties, damage, or disruption severely affecting the US population, infrastructure, environment, economy, or government functions."
COG is then defined as:

"a coordinated effort within the Federal Government's executive branch to ensure that National Essential Functions continue to be performed during a Catastrophic Emergency."
The combined directive gave the president and DHS unprecedented police state powers to declare martial law without congressional approval, and be able to rule extrajudicially, free from constitutional constrains. It also let the vice-president assume dictatorial powers. Clever wording marginalized Bush, saying:

NSPD 51 "shall be implemented in a manner that is consistent with, and facilitates effective implementation of, provisions of the Constitution concerning succession to the Presidency or the exercise of its powers, and the Presidential Succession Act of 1947 (3 U.S.C. 19), with consultation of the Vice President and, as appropriate, others involved."
"Heads of executive departments and agencies shall ensure that appropriate support is available to the Vice President and others involved as necessary to be prepared at all times to implement those provisions."

Civil liberties were further eroded by institutionalized spying, other forms of surveillance, waging war on Islam, criminalizing dissent, creating a culture of secrecy, militarizing police, punishing whistleblowers, using courts as persecution instruments, and governing extrajudicially overall.

If FY 2012 NDAA includes Sections 1031 and 1032, America more than ever will be repressive and unfit live in.

How can it be if constitutional, statute and international law protections no longer apply.

Stephen Lendman lives in Chicago and can be reached at Email address removed.

Also visit his blog site at sjlendman.blogspot.com and listen to cutting-edge discussions with distinguished guests on the Progressive Radio News Hour on the Progressive Radio Network Thursdays at 10AM US Central time and Saturdays and Sundays at noon. All programs are archived for easy listening.

http://www.progressiveradionetwork.com/the-progressive-news-hour/ .

Submitters Bio:

I was born in 1934, am a retired, progressive small businessman concerned about all the major national and world issues, committed to speak out and write about them.

December 3, 2011

This Is What Conspiracy Really Looks Like
By lincoln stoller
LINK

Conspiracy usually start at the top, not in the caves of Afghanistan. Stop looking for villains and start looking more closely at controlling institutions, whose interests are being served and how.

Social System by Lincoln Stoller

Here's an interesting piece from Felix Salmon on what really went on in Hank Paulson's treasury in 2008, and it's taken 3 years to become public knowledge in spite of there being no institutionally orchestrated wall of silence to keep it from the public eye. This is what government conspiracy really is, and it's not "conspiracy" per se, it's collusion on various scales carried out in an ununified manner. Nevertheless, it looks the same and comes to the same end as a "real" conspiracy. Please read "Hank Paulson's inside jobs".

Here Salmon says:

"What on earth did Hank Paulson think his job was in the summer of 2008? As far as most of us were concerned, he was secretary of the US Treasury, answerable to the US people and to the president. But at the same time, in secret meetings, Paulson was hanging out with his old Goldman Sachs buddies, giving them invaluable information about what he was thinking in his new job.

"The first news of this behavior came in October 2009, when Andrew Ross Sorkin revealed that Paulson had met with the entire board of Goldman Sachs in a Moscow hotel suite for an hour at the end of June 2008. He told them his views of the US and global economies, he previewed a market-moving speech he was about to give, and he even talked about the possibility that Lehman Brothers might blow up. Maybe it's not so surprising that Goldman Sachs turned out to be so well positioned when Lehman did indeed do just that a few months later."

My point is that what outsiders view as conspiracy is, in most cases, simply profitable information being passed between collaborators for the purposes of private gain, tighter cooperation, and more monopolistic organization. These events don't need to be done with a master plan in mind, they simply leverage jointly valued opportunity that generates a narrower, more focused collusive network. This is how the network grows.

At some point in the future these networks might be taken over by a singular power with an over arching plan, but even without that kind of top-level heirarchy they still operate to the common advantage of the participants who share a de facto common goal. They don't need a "master plan for world domination" because the system in which they operate already offers them ever increasing power by operating within the existing "winner takes all" model of international corporatism and weakly regulated government collaboration

Orchestrating a coordinated operation that involves careful timing and invented stories, such as the World Trade Center attack, does involve a conspiracy of the more conventional sort, although in the context of certain institutions, such as rogue states, the Pentagon and the Executive Branch, close coordination of that sort is already in place.

What people need to understand is that for a collection of interests to develop unified operations outside of public view does not require any singular authority or master plan. These segregated networks develop organically and will conduct exclusive operations consistent with the internal organization on which they're built. Our system rewards them for doing so.

In this case traditional Wall Street collusion between a mega-brokerage and its politically connected inner-circle, which includes academics, industry organizations, corporations, think tanks, hedge funds, politicians and private clients, simply persisted after this confederacy infected itself or was admitted into higher levels of government. From this point the inclusion of other closely connected organizations -- like Rockerfeller, Rothchild, Bildeberg, the Chinese or whatever groups -- is a foregone conclusion. Once these other groups gain access to the levers of power through this "inner circle" mechanism, then each of these groups will struggle to dominate, working in public institutions but outside of the public view, for the purposes of furthering their own agendas.

This is the nature of our system which has private corporations buying influence in systems that are supposed to be democratic. This cannot be changed by singling out specific groups or erecting single-issue fire walls. This is not the result of a few rotten apples. It is the fungus of international corporate capitalism operating in the "fruit salad" of selectively democratic republics.

Chicago State's Attorney Lets Bad Cops Slide, Prosecutes Citizens Who Record Them

The Constitution Is Dead: The Gradual Transition towards an Orwellian Police State