What possible legitimate objection could any cop have to being video/audio recorded while performing his “duties”? As the saying goes, if you’ve got nothing to hide… .
But of course, there is much to hide – such as the recent choke-holding death of cigarette scofflaw Eric Garner. Take away the inconvenient video and the official story becomes: Large, threatening black man resists arrest and is unfortunately killed during a scuffle. The video shows what really happened – and of course, that’s the problem.
Roaches scurry away from bright lights.
There are lots of roaches in Illinois.
About a month ago, lawmakers in the Land of Lincoln (fitting) furtively resurrected the state’s previously struck down “eavesdropping” law – which made it a felony to record cops performing their duties, including your own arrest. An amendment was tacked on to SB 1342 (which was originally about the state’s minimum wage law) and passed by the Illinois House and Senate. Republicans and Democrats – the right and left wings of the same bird of prey – “came together” to make it so.
Presto! It is once again a serious bust – carrying a sentence of 2-4 years in prison – to “unlawfully” record a conversation with a cop (or state official) without their explicit prior consent. In which case, it becomes … ta da!…”eavesdropping.” Here is the actual wording of the new law:
(a) Eavesdropping, for a first offense, is a Class 4 felony (from Ch. 38, par. 14-4) and, for a second or subsequent offense, is a Class 3 felony.
(b) The eavesdropping of an oral conversation or an electronic communication of any law enforcement officer, State’s Attorney, Assistant State’s Attorney, the Attorney General, Assistant Attorney General, or a judge, while in the performance of his or her official duties, if not authorized by this Article or proper court order, is a Class 3 felony, and for a second or subsequent offenses, is a Class 2 felony.
Now, here’s where it gets interesting.
The law’s advocates claim it only applies to “private” conversations, implying that “public” conversations may be lawfully recorded.
But what constitutes “private,” as defined by the law? From the horse’s mouth:
“For the purposes of this Article, “private conversation” means any oral communication between 2 or more persons, whether in person or transmitted between the parties by wire or other means, when one or more of the parties intended the communication to be of a private nature under circumstances reasonably justifying that expectation.”
Italics added.
Please define “reasonably justifying.” I assume it denotes the same “reasonableness” as randomly stopping motorists and subjecting them (absent any individualized reason for suspicion) to a police investigation under duress, to compel them to prove they’re not drunk drivers.
Humpty Dumpty would approve: “When I use a word, it means just what choose it to mean, neither more nor less.”
If a cop decides he has a “reasonable” expectation that his interaction with you will not be recorded, then you are looking at prison time if you disagree with his idea of “reasonable.” And keep in mind that line about “while in the performance of his or her official duties.” Which would include, one assumes, manning probable cause-free/random checkpoints, issuing traffic tickets and – of course – using “appropriate force” to deal with a subject who “resists,” Eric Garner style.
Whom do you suppose the courts will back? Meanwhile, you’ll be subjected to felony processing. Full strip and cavity search, all perfectly legal. Then put in a cage with … felons.
Clearly, the intent of SB 1342 is not to prevent “eavesdropping” – which is when you tap someone’s phone or squat hidden in the bushes by your neighbor’s bedroom window so you can listen in on their pillow talk. It is to put serious fear into us when dealing with any government official but most especially cops. To make our guts turn to water when we’re forced to interact with them in public.
How many people are going to risk a felony arrest to record an Eric Garner-style beatdown? Whether the charges are subsequently dismissed doesn’t change the fact that in Illinois at least, you’re legally subject to being “proned” – forcibly body-slammed onto the hood of a car or onto the pavement – your shoulders perhaps dislocated as your arms are wrenched behind your back – then subjected to a humiliating strip search. Bend over, spread ’em. Lift your sack.
And for the women… .
This is what you can expect when government defines something patently unreasonable as “reasonable” – and patently public interactions with citizens as “private” conversations. The whole thing would be risible were it not so deadly serious.
Remember your Humpty Dumpty. Specifically, what the insolent egghead said after that doublethinkian business about a word meaning whatever he chooses it to mean, neither more nor less:
“The question is which is to be master – that’s all.”
That’s what at stake here.
Neither more nor less.
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Illinois is full blown communism with the elite class getting their subsidies and tax breaks and the poor given their token benefits with the in-between crushed out of existence. Any normal person would have to be a moron to move here, And oh yeah. its cold. Yay. The fact a fat fuck like Pritzker could get elected is all you need to know.
Hi Mark,
Most of the planks of the Communist Manifesto are already the law of this land, including the income and property tax – it’s just a question of degree now. One state will have more – or a bit less – of these things. But no state is free of these things. Americans haven’t been free in any meaningful since at least the imposition of the income tax in 1913; everything since has been an incremental mopping up operation.
If fatso gets his progressive income tax it will probably be time for me to stop working. After a couple of years they’ll raise the rates and there won’t be much point for me to work. I am already close to that threshold so not much to push it over the top.
Morning, Brent!
Ditto that. I have already scaled back to the bare minimum. I’m so damned tired of constantly having to pay for “services” I don’t use and didn’t ask for… of having to backseat my own needs for the sake of the limitless needs of people I don’t even know, who have limitless access to whatever I earn and work for. I know this makes me sound “selfish” in modern gaslighting collectivist lingo. But I all I want to do is take care of myself… and have no desire to force anyone else to “help” take care of me.
How very selfish of me…
Nothing I read in that law would say I can’t record a cop when he’s stopped me. How would you have a reasonable expectation of privacy if I’m clearly recording you during our interactions? Seems these lawmakers,are a bit lazy in their attempts to steal rights and empower cops to do as they please from the citizens of Illinois.
Hi Tomas,
The vague language is deliberate. It enables a cop to threaten arrest (and actually arrest), even though the charge will probably be dismissed later. The cop “reasonably” believed the law forbade a citizen to record…
The object of the exercise is to intimidate and stifle. Most people – understandably – fear being arrested and put in a cage, even if it’s only for a few hours.
And that’s precisely the purpose of this law.
Yep. Exactly.
Eventually the accused will beat the rap but the enforcers always make certain that their victims will not enjoy the ride.
This sort of “customer service” would be unheard of if law enforcement had to compete in the free market.
Recently, our “supreme court” (I use that term loosely) threw police another “bone” by stating that “ignorance of the law” by cops, incident to arrest, was OK. Us mundanes are always being reminded that “ignorance of the law is no excuse”. Once again, our “employees” (cops) “get a pass”.
This ties in with an earlier post –
http://ericpetersautos.com/2015/01/05/ignorance-law-now-excuse-cops/
The US ‘Just Us’ system USED to apply the principle of ‘mens rea’ a Latin phrase translating to “the intending mind.” It meant that, without the intent to commit a crime, there was no crime. A person who caused damage might be guilty of a ‘tort’ but NOT of a crime.
Those days are gone, sad to say.
looks like molestation to me-Kevin
Intent can’t be ascertained or communicated by use of a 6th sense. It must be made known by clear oral or physical communication. Intent must be proven by action and can’t be assumed simply due to a silent “reasonable justification” in the mind of another which is not clearly expressed.
There has been a big push in Idaho for the cops to have body cameras. It sounds good before thinking about it. When you think about it longer than 2 seconds, you have to ask, “who will pay for it”? The people if course. Then, they will claim that “it needs to be illegal to record them because of the dangers associated with it, besides the cops have a body recorder”, and on and on with the excuses. The makers of the body cameras will profit at everyone’s expense. Many will be deceived into believing that freedom had a small victory and so on.
This will go on while they fuck me(and you)gradually, harder and harder. All while we believe we gained something. The only way we will gain any victory, no matter the size, is when we eliminate and abolish something. Outside of that, there are no victories within the state that have any shelf life to speak of.
While I see your point, I still would support body cameras if I thought that they would actually reduce police misconduct. They don’t. In areas where the police do have body cameras, the cameras have a way of getting turned off or covered with a handkerchief or whatever if the officer is engaging in misconduct.
The good news – such as it is – is that the technology is now so widespread that cops will be recorded whether they like it or not.
The problem, ultimately, is cops themselves. And the laws they exist to enforce. If we had peace keepers – and laws premised on the NAP – then (for the most part) people would no longer have to worry about “police abuse,” or recording it.
“The good news – such as it is – is that the technology is now so widespread that cops will be recorded whether they like it or not.”
That is true and I think the lawmakers know that as well. With the proliferation of security cameras and dash cams, it is simply unavoidable that the police are going to be recorded more often. And sometimes the police will be recorded engaging in misconduct. I think the real purpose of this legislation is to give the government a club to use against the mundane who makes public a recording that the government doesn’t want the public to see. For example: Say a home owner’s security camera records the police senselessly beating a 12 year old in front of his home. Does the home owner then release the video to the media so that maybe the 12 year old can get some justice? Or does the home owner keep quiet so that he does not get a few year stint in the gray bar hotel?
The problem with the body cameras is that they will use those as an excuse to demonize other recording. That’s exactly what the police want. Control over the who, what, and when of recording.
Like Eric points out, the cops and the laws themselves are the problem. More laws and the excuse of cops wearing body cameras is not a good deal in the end.
Somehow this just seems appropriate for the Land of Lincoln and barry
The global exemption for recording traffic stops audio and video via dash/cam is still intact.
(720 ILCS 5/14-3)
Sec. 14-3. Exemptions. The following activities shall be exempt from the provisions of this Article:
(…)
(h) Recordings made simultaneously with the use of an in-car video camera recording of an oral conversation between a uniformed peace officer, who has identified his or her office, and a person in the presence of the peace officer whenever (i) an officer assigned a patrol vehicle is conducting an enforcement stop; or (ii) patrol vehicle emergency lights are activated or would otherwise be activated if not for the need to conceal the presence of law enforcement.
For the purposes of this subsection (h), “enforcement stop” means an action by a law enforcement officer in relation to enforcement and investigation duties, including but not limited to, traffic stops, pedestrian stops, abandoned vehicle contacts, motorist assists, commercial motor vehicle stops, roadside safety checks, requests for identification, or responses to requests for emergency assistance;
Typical behavior of “lawmakers” in the peoples republic of illinois. The few times their unlawful “laws” get struck down by the courts (taking years and millions of dollars), they just create another “law” not much different.
They make the people that had to take time out of their lives to knock down the first unlawful “law” to have to start from square one all over again.
Its not like they can address the previous court and say, didn’t we just strike this t*rd down? They are in violation once again! No, they have to start the slow and expensive court process all over again. From the low court all the way to the top.
We get this over and over again, the court revisiting the same basic issues over and over.
In the meantime, the second law is enforced, probably for several years. And yes, some people will be jailed.
It will likely be five years before this new second law is over turned by the courts.
The situation is the same in Chicago with its gun bans as well.
The supreme court overturned the DC gun ban. Chicago’s “law” isn’t all that much different. Does the city then repeal it to save tax dollars from the court fight they are in with their “law”? Of course not. They continue the fight, even they know they will lose. A year or so later, Chicago’s gun ban is also overturned. It took over 35 years for this illegal “law” to be overturned.
Does that mean I can now carry a gun in Chicago?
Nope.
And also, why didn’t the DC ruling not overturn the Chicago ban as well? Why can’t that do that, just to save time and money.
But even two court victories for the second amendment isn’t really a victory for constitutionalists.
The courts gave both DC and Chicago time to rewrite their gun laws. Instead of just vacating their illegal “laws” and allowing people to excise their constitutional rights. If anything they should be PROHIBITED from making gun laws.
Both cities have come up with new laws not much different from the old ones.
So they will have to be sued AGAIN.
Will it take another 30 years to overturn the seconds tries by the “lawmakers”?
Note that both DC and Chicago have high crime rates.
1 The only light the real roaches fear is the light in your mind when you start having your own thoughts and not picking from only the narratives they give you.
The roaches that enforce their laws aren’t “their” roaches. They’re just hired help. The roaches on the roads and breaking down your doors aren’t even good enough to serve as their bodyguards, limo drivers, or stable cleaners. They’re kept miles away from them and theirs.
2 Why bother fighting their proxy roaches. They print the money, they can hire anyone in the world to throw at you if need be. You’re better off learning to know your roaches. To figure out on your own, just what it is that has happened and is still happening. For instance, you’ve been taught there was a War Between The States by your North Korean style educational system.
If that is so, look at this list and tell me which battle it was the South won, or fought to a draw even.
http://www.nps.gov/abpp/battles/bystate.htm
Tell me which battle even took place in a Northern State, or overseas, or in a Jet Set Enclave where the real wagers of this war still reside.
Which battle destroyed a single piece of their chattel property. Which campaign so much as raised a red welt on any of their persons or personal household servants.
3 If you think on the battle of Southern Plunder and Reorganization, you start to have a great many epiphanies and revelations about the whole thing.
4 I am not a great organizer of thoughts. Nor a visionary top level explainer about the overall narrative and what is really going on.
But I have enough light in my mind to at least see the what it is the roaches are doing, before they put us back into darkness. And keep us in the deepest dark with only their faux cockroach lanterns to light their false paths.
5 What happened in 1861 was a great massacre of Northern Conscripted men, which is either collateral damage to them. Or more likely, all part of their plans.
What happened in 1861 is independent Feudal Plantation owners were wiped out in one fell swoop. The emerging Europe of America was burned to the ground and handed over to militarized mechanized machine men toy soldier playthings of the Powers That Still Be.
6 There’s still some echoes of humanity in the Southrons, which makes it hard to tell them anything, even when its for their own good. Because whatever we say is in a Tin Soldier mechanized voice of the North and the Midwest.
7 You were efficiently killed every bit in the same way the Jews, Gypsies, Communists, Gays, and others were killed in the Concentration Camps and Wars of the German Reich.
8 You were never in a war. Or even a battle. They didn’t even bother putting you on trains or shipping you to camps, my Dixie descendants.
9 From 1861 to 1865 they found you wherever you stood, if you stood in any kind of opposition at all. Or if you were even nearby anyone in opposition.
10 They killed you with all the ruthless quickness and efficiency that they killed all the Original Inhabitants of their Yankee Lands.
11 Ever since 1861, they’ve followed the same policy. When they want an objective accomplished, they’ll kill as many humans there as needed. Kill them all, until all that’s left is Toy Soldiers just like they are.
12 That’s how they blockaded and killed all the so-called communist people in communist lands. Stalin and Mao weren’t the real evil doers. They were secondary echoes of the great evil of the 1861 Murdering Machine.
13 A last ditch desperate stand against the heartless Toy Soldiers and Unending Ordinance of the Mechanized Inhuman Killing Machines of the Yankees.
14 It’s hard to really see what’s happened, but it is the Yankees who are your enemy. The Yankees that rarely even get their hands dirty in all their wars.
15 Yankees who are covertly backed by the Maritime Marauders of the United Kingdom. The ones who have fought wars in nearly every nation on Earth. Yet never get a bit of blowback, save by a few missiles from Wehrner Von Braun and his fellow German Scientists
16 You can’t prevail against these Yankees. At best, you can find a few acres somewhere and get on with your survivors in a TeePee in some reservation somewhere.
17 But at least you can shed some small amount of light on these World Dominating Cockroaches. At least you can start to see their furtive movements before they blind you and make you think night is day.
Stalag 1861. American prisoner-of-war camps for the prisoner of the eternal war of the Yankees Uber Alles.
Amid all the ongoing $trillions of criminal ponzi schemes. Private filming is of course made problematic de jure. All the better sell the mandatory police and officially bought and worn body cameras. That will cost more $trillions. That will metasticize into being mandatory in your own jobs in a few years. If America still isn’t stopped, most jobs worldwide will require total surveillance costing $trillions courtesy of the Cockroach Hive of American Holocaust workers.
Continually racking up unpayable debts. Importing goods from China, Japan and elsewhere and leaving the exporting nations high and dry with nothing but paper IOUs. Leaving their means of production behind in the Muslim Savage lands where they extract oil they never could on their own.
Providing murdering tools to every tinpot psychopath on credit. Being a killer and pestilence to everyone everywhere. When will the bug bombs finally hit NYC and DC? Who will quash these two legged fiends. Can nothing kill these American Bug Pestilences That Be?
Where is Sky Marshal Omar Anoke? A human way of life is what we’re fighting for. It’s a good day to die. When you know the bugs are the reasons why we suffer. To stop the federation, I would give my life.
Cockroach Overseers keeping watch over a Nation of Cockroaches. Under international law, the American people are seen to be justly held in confinement as punishments for their crimes against each other they have committed and for their many crimes against humanity.
Will they ever be brought to a trial. Will Industrial American settle up at last with Feudal Europe and Maritime United Kingdom. We’re already doing the time, why not at last define the crime. There are ever fewer and fewer Americans who even know how to produce something for someone that isn’t forced to buy it.
It all started with Lincoln’s Holocaust of 1861
In 1861, the most powerful men of the world initiated a holocaust. Lincoln was the puppet face of their mass murder. They had grown tired of the trickle of tributes coming from the Southern North American Colonies, and decided to force a liquidation of everyone’s agricultural enterprises.
Regular commerce was made nearly impossible, and a great killing machine was assembled and then machine operators were bribed and conscripted into existence out of the 22 million men of the Northern Yankee States.
The 5.5 million planters of the most productive feudal system ever to have existed
were easily exterminated and the survivors scattered to Crom’s Four Winds. The evildoers who built the Killing Machine of 1861 are still in power. The Yankee usurpers are right in everybody’s face. Daring you to see them as they truly are.
In a world held captive to this great Killing Machine:
I don’t care about the owners of capital. Until they agree to make a distinction between the capital of plunder and the capital of desired goods and services. Until they refuse to grant credit and freely supply the machine.
I don’t care about the providers of labor. Until they agree to make a distinction between the labor of tyranny, death, and despotism. And the labor that produces desired goods and services. Until they refuse to labor for the Killing Machine.
I care only about the Makers. The producers. The ones who broke free mentally in the novels We The Living & Anthem. The ones who produced ethically in the Fountainhead, Atlas Shrugged, and the Moon is a Harsh Mistress. The one’s with no reality based counterpart as of yet, but who might still emerge.
The one’s who resisted the call to be Cockroaches and Human Pestilence.
The ones with the fortitude to exhibit Courage Honor Duty, but only to themselves and not to the whims and schemes of others. Especially not to the Capitalist Fascist Socialist Killing Machine of 1861. Especially not to the Insectual men who delight in a Kafkaesque world of webs, hives, termite mounds, and buzzing about the corpses of the fallen nearly extinct, real human beings.
Even the press are not immune to being “arrested” for filming police while reporting. http://www.kvue.com/story/news/2015/01/12/news-photographer-refuses-to-turn-over-camera-gets-arrested/21633489/
News photographer refuses to turn over camera, gets arrested
Erik Larsen, Asbury Park Press 10:41 a.m. CST January 12, 2015
635566596074968813-B9315819739Z.1-20150110224322-000-G059L0PL4.1-0
(Photo: Getty Images / Stockphoto)
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LACEY, N.J. – A freelance journalist for an online news site was arrested Thursday while covering a motor vehicle crash, after he refused to turn over his camera to a detective from the Ocean County Prosecutor’s Office.
Andrew P. Flinchbaugh, 23, of Lacey, working for The Lacey Reporter, was charged with obstructing administration of law, which is a disorderly persons offense. He was taken into custody after he was repeatedly ordered by a detective to turn over the camera so whatever pictures or video Flinchbaugh had captured could be reviewed as potential evidence in the crash investigation.
Detective David Margentino had responded to the scene on Dover Road just before 11 a.m., in a remote section of the township, where a fellow detective in the Prosecutor’s Office had been seriously injured in a one-car accident – the vehicle had crashed into the woods. The injured investigator, who has not been identified, was airlifted to Jersey Shore University Medical Center in Neptune.
Apparently unbeknownst to the detective, Flinchbaugh recorded his entire conversation with Margentino using the video application on his smartphone. The lens of the camera on the phone was generally pointed at the ground during their exchange. That video, which is 10 minutes and 37 seconds in length, has since gone viral.
“I had been documenting an emergency response to an MVA on Dover Road for over a half hour,” Flinchbaugh wrote in a title card introducing his video on YouTube. “I was making my way back to my car when I was stopped by Detective Margentino of the Ocean County Prosecutor’s Office. The detective requested another officer get a property receipt and asked me to walk over to the front of a police vehicle. This is what transpired.”
Ocean County Prosecutor Joseph D. Coronato said Saturday night that he has dropped the charge against Flinchbaugh.
“We could have handled this better,” Coronato said.
According to the video Flinchbaugh posted on YouTube, he attempted to argue his rights as a member of the media.
Margentino countered that Flinchbaugh had entered his crime scene. Flinchbaugh said he had been given access to the scene by fire police, who were standing watch at a road block set up after the crash. At the discretion of law enforcement officers present, credentialed media members are often granted closer access to police scenes than the general public. However, access is allowed so long as such a presence does not interfere with the police work, represent an additional safety issue or compromise the integrity of an ongoing investigation.
“I’m not going to negotiate with you, I’m explaining to you, this camera is going to be collected,” Margentino told him. “We will return it to you and I will give you a receipt … This is not a negotiation, do I sound like I’m negotiating with you? Do I make this sound like it’s an option?”
“Listen, you’re not getting this camera,” Flinchbaugh replied.
“Sir, I’m going to explain to you, I’m a law enforcement officer, you fail to obey my orders, I’m going to place you under arrest,” Margentino said.
“Is there anybody with any common sense here right now?” Flinchbaugh asked.
“Absolutely, my lieutenant is coming,” the detective answered. “I’m just telling you, there might be evidence on it.”
A lieutenant, who was not identified, walked over and questioned Flinchbaugh about which media outlet he worked for, and whether he was on staff or worked as a freelancer.
“I’m happy to cooperate in any way, but you’re not going to seize my camera,” Flinchbaugh insisted.
The lieutenant explained to Flinchbaugh that he may have captured something on video before the detectives arrived that would assist them with their investigation into the crash.
“I don’t understand what this is about, what are you suspicious of? … If you want a copy of the footage, I can get you a copy of the footage,” Flinchbaugh said.
The lieutenant and Flinchbaugh seemed to come to an amicable understanding. Flinchbaugh even stopped recording for a time.
In a title card about seven minutes and 20 seconds into the video, Flinchbaugh wrote: “From the Lt.’s demeanor I was expecting to get my ID back and leave, so I put my phone away. Then I decided I better keep it rolling. Shortly after, Detective Margentino came back over.”
Margentino said all of the officers on the scene had reached a consensus: The camera would be collected as evidence and Flinchbaugh could come along if he wanted. Either way, the camera would be returned to him after a few hours.
“Well then, you’re going to have a lawsuit on your hands,” Flinchbaugh said. “You’re not seizing my camera, it’s just that simple. … Listen, would you be doing this if this was a corporate media crew?”
“Andrew, let me explain to you what your options are…” Margentino began to explain.
“Listen, I know what my options are. I’m free to walk away any time I want,” Flinchbaugh said.
“Absolutely, you can leave right now. That’s fine with me,” the detective replied.
“With the camera,” Flinchbaugh said.
“No, you’re not taking the camera,” Margentino said.
Flinchbaugh offered to let the detective see his camera roll right there on the scene and Flinchbaugh offered to make a copy for the officer later, if he wanted. But Flinchbaugh said he and his camera were not voluntarily going anywhere with the detective – not to any police station nor the Prosecutor’s Office.
“This is totally unreasonable,” Flinchbaugh complained.
“Sir, give me the camera,” Margentino ordered.
“This is totally unreasonable. … You’re going to have to place me under arrest,” Flinchbaugh told him.
“Don’t push me like that,” the detective answered.
“I’m not pushing you, I’m not going to give you my camera,” Flinchbaugh said.
“Hands behind your back,” Margentino is heard saying, having the last word.
Some more grease to speed up the slide down the slippery slope to tyranny. Uncle Sam is free to record anything he pleases, but us peons have no such rights, although it is our taxes that pay the salaries of these “public servants”.
Unfortunately for the PtB, the abuses of illegitimate powers happening with much greater regularity (which we now perceive because of the heroic actions of recorders of the 2 legged roaches) have made their way into the general psyche. More and more, during the rapidly increasing collapse of the ‘Murikan empire, the thugs hired by the PtB are targeting people who have done nothing unethical and even the sheep are beginning to wake up. I expect a vicious circle of pork abuse of innocent sheep to be followed by violent reaction. Pass the popcorn….this show is about to get really interesting. BTW, the militarization of the police just seems more obvious now because of internet exposure, but this kind of shit has been happening as far back as when this government was founded. It’s just that the MSM never reported the stuff unless there was some political gain.