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FlexGunship
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There was an article in a magazine I read pointing out the trend (alarming or not) of police officers confiscating cameras, or prosecuting individuals who video tape police interactions with private citizens.
I believe this is a problematic trend and shows a desire for police to not be held accountable for their actions. Does anyone have other stories or a differing opinion?
- In one case this year, a motorcyclist with a helmet video camera recorded a police officer drawing a gun on him during a traffic stop had his computers and cameras taken by police from his home for felony wiretapping for recording the incident.
If you look at the video, the trooper steps out of an unmarked car, you can't see his badge and it is give seconds before he identifies himself as state police. But it's not the trooper who is in trouble; it's Graber.
"He had been recording this trooper audibly without his consent," stated said one official.
That kind of recording is against the law in Maryland. as a matter of fact, audibly recording somebody without their consent is a felony.
"Police show up at my house today. They come in and they take four computers, two laptops and my camera and they were going to arrest me," shared Graber.(Source: ABC News affiliate http://www.wjla.com/news/stories/0410/725740.html ) - In another case a man with home surveillance video was arrested and charged with felony wiretapping when he showed the video to police of a detective forcing his way into his private residence.
A city man is charged with violating state wiretap laws by recording a detective on his home security camera, while the detective was investigating the man’s sons.
Michael Gannon, 49, of 26 Morgan St., was arrested Tuesday night, after he brought a video to the police station to try to file a complaint against Detective Andrew Karlis, according to Gannon’s wife, Janet Gannon, and police reports filed in Nashua District Court.
“He was just very smart-mouthed. He put his foot in the door, and my husband said, ‘Excuse me, I did not invite you in, please leave,’ and he wouldn’t,” Janet Gannon said. “We did not invite him in, we asked him to leave, and he wouldn’t.”(Source: The Nashua Telegraph: http://fnhp.com/thelist/Nashua-Gannon_Karlis.html ) - In another New Hampshire incident, a man was charged with felony wiretapping for videotaping the police response to an underage drinking party.
A New Castle man arrested at a July 4 house party is charged with a count of wiretapping, alleging he used his cell phone to film the police response.(Source: Seacoast Online: http://www.seacoastonline.com/articles/20100706-NEWS-100709886) - In Maryland, a women was arrested and her cell phone taken for trying to record an instance of abuse of power by police.
[Officer] Handy seized the cell phone, reviewed its camcorder content and "could hear my voice and the voices of the other subjects I was talking to," the officer wrote in the charging papers, and he questioned Shaw.
"She did admit to recording our encounter on her cell phone," the corporal wrote, "for the purpose of trying to show the police are harassing people."
Shaw said Tuesday that she recorded the incident to show the conduct of the law officers.
"I honestly did not know that I was not able to do that," Shaw said. "He just snatched my phone from me and locked me up."(Source: Southern Maryland Newspapers: http://www.somdnews.com/stories/06162010/entetop162348_32195.shtml ) - There's a case in Boston of a man being charged with felony wiretapping for recording police at an anti-war rally.
Jeffrey Manzelli, 46, a Cambridge sound engineer, was convicted of illegal wiretapping and disorderly conduct for recording MBTA police at an antiwar rally on Boston Common in 2002.(Source: Boston.com Local News http://www.boston.com/news/local/ma.../12/police_fight_cellphone_recordings/?page=3)
I believe this is a problematic trend and shows a desire for police to not be held accountable for their actions. Does anyone have other stories or a differing opinion?
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