Simon Glik, a lawyer, was walking down Tremont Street in Boston when he saw three police officers struggling to extract a plastic bag from a teenager’s mouth. Thinking their force seemed excessive for a drug arrest, Glik pulled out his cellphone and began recording.
Within minutes, Glik said, he was in handcuffs.
“One of the officers asked me whether my phone had audio recording capabilities,’’ Glik, 33, said recently of the incident, which took place in October 2007. Glik acknowledged that it did, and then, he said, “my phone was seized, and I was arrested.’’
The charge? Illegal electronic surveillance.
[…]
In 1968, Massachusetts became a “two-party’’ consent state, one of 12 currently in the country. Two-party consent means that all parties to a conversation must agree to be recorded on a telephone or other audio device; otherwise, the recording of conversation is illegal. The law, intended to protect the privacy rights of individuals, appears to have been triggered by a series of high-profile cases involving private detectives who were recording people without their consent.In arresting people such as Glik and Surmacz, police are saying that they have not consented to being recorded, that their privacy rights have therefore been violated, and that the citizen action was criminal.
I didn’t realise that cops required privacy when making an arrest. Aren’t we told ‘if you are doing nothing wrong then you have nothing to hide’?
THIS is why such caution should be practiced when putting new laws into legislature. Cellphones recording video have been a boon to the resolution of many lawsuits and crimes. If this legal precedent works for the piggies it’s gonna work for the crooks too. If you’re in a public place, your privacy should be limited to the contents of your car, pockets, or bags.
We had a murder case of dramatic over reaching by the police and prosecutor here recently. Only the charge was murder, and DNA evidence demonstrably proved the suspect was not the perp. The reason they did it was a fund established for the police to investigate cold case files.
The evidence was so flimsy (the entire case was built on an alleged jail house confession) that the Judge didn’t let the state proceed to trial.
Really, the police in the USA are out of control. Something needs to be done about them.
http://toledoonthemove.com/news/news_story.aspx?id=369794
So cops in Boston don’t have cameras in their cars? My friend is a cop in a small rural town and he has a camera in his car and wears a mic when he pulls people over. Somehow I doubt that the Boston police department doesn’t have the same level of tech that my friends town does. Do as I say and not as I do…
So, amend the law to the effect that all government employees can be recorded while on duty or in furtherance thereof. Easy Peasy.
If 12 states have this idiot law, may I assume the other 38 don’t? Atleast the majority of States are pragmatic in establishing the hierarchy between truth and privacy.
Welcome to the Police States of Amerika, where the police make the laws to benefit them, and not WE THE PEOPLE.
These laws are why the “ACORN videos” disappeared off Fox News so quickly.
As for this guy, to be prosecuted the evidence must be presented, putting the cops’ actions in a courtroom. Do they really want to do that?
Not to mention the cops were in ‘public’, therefore o longer have any right to privacy. Same as the rest of us. This shit really pisses me off.
I guess all those CCTV cameras all over town will have to be shut down – illegal electronic surveillance.
Oh wait, they don’t have audio? Nice loophole.
I think the cops use the same loophole for the cameras in the police cars.
So, if you are recording some police on your phone, and they ask you if it has audio capabilities – answer “I don’t know”.
#9,
Easier still… Don’t ever talk to police
http://youtube.com/watch?v=jhbJd2USUDI
I’m sure if the situation was in reverse, and the police were hurt or attacked, they’d be very happy that there was a citizen there recording the incident.
and WHAT OF THE Public recording laws..
THIs would require ANY PUBLIC person in the background of a TV station video to have a consent form.
It would be nice to find out about THIS law.
AS a PUBLIC Place, isnt considered SACROSANCT.
Other wise MOVIE stars would FLOCK there to get peace and quiet..
ALSO, public servants are PUBLIC while on the job.
This was a wrongful arrest. The cops were in a public place and so have no protection. The law is clearly meant to protect private conversations and I doubt every tourist will be arrested because their cameras record audio. Hopefully the police will be in trouble for wrongful arrest since they should know the law.
government propaganda
do not believe them
Various Supreme Court cases have determined that there is no right to personal privacy in public.
The Ninth Amendment states that:
The enumeration in the Constitution, of certain rights, shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people.
Acts of the police, in fact most government functions, can not work in secret. Since these specific acts were readily viewable and could be heard by the public, the police have no expectation of privacy. The right to observe remains with the people.
Since the public observed the act, they may also retain that act mentally. They may later recount the memory verbally or by writing and desiminate it as they seem fit.
Electronic recording of an observable act by the police is no more intrusive than the mental imaging of an observer’s memory. Denying the electronic recording of a government function in public serves no government purpose. In this case, the police were not interfered with by the recording.
The Mass. law refers to electronic communications. There was no interception of an electronic communication. This was a real time, in person, in public, act.
Cops like this should be slapped down hard … but they wont be. It is almost enough to turn one into a vigilante.
When they start passing anti-sunshine laws you know who and what runs the place.
Well, that law needs to be updated.
I point my camera at the local police every time I see them. Public scrutiny keeps them honest.
Lawyer. It couldn’t have happened to a more appropriate category of individuals.
Whoever’s right about the law, it looks like the cops are playing a waiting game. That explains the 26 months of apparent dithering. If the case came to court, it might end quickly and then they’d have to release the phone = evidence (which is also the evidence against the cops in the drug case). Mr. Glik is just lighting a small fire under them.
When they eventually give Mr. Glik his phone back, it will also bring them no small pleasure that the phone itself will have grown obsolete = worthless in the interim.
I wonder if there’s an Edsel Ford in an evidence locker somewhere….
The article is incorrect — Massachusetts is NOT a “two party consent” state, and people should stop repeating this error.
The law here does NOT require CONSENT – instead, it only prohibits SECRET audio recording. No one’s CONSENT is required by the law.
Anyone can confirm this by reading the Massachusetts statute and the case law, which is specific on this distinction.
So if the person recording informs those being recorded that he is doing so, he cannot be said to be doing so secretly and is not violating the statute. The statute does not mention consent.
The courts have said that secret recording is still a violation if the recording is unintelligible – presumably because it is the SECRECY that is illegal, not the resulting recording.
I don’t know what practical means are adequate to make it obvious to those around you that you are recording, but the legal requirement is only that it not be SECRET.
Then “evidence” from police cameras can’t be admitted either ! Can’t have it both ways …
There was something on Youtube, recently, about Houston PD testing flying camera drones to spy on the populous. Probably just one of those Defense Contractor bonus business, civilian application spinoffs, that are always justifiable somehow.
http://tinyurl.com/yheg63t
They already got all the cameras they need, in town, where the drug traffickers roam. So why do they need camera drones for the Texas country side? To catch cattle rustlers? Should the state’s taxpayers be footing the bill for this? And why was the drone test held in secret?!
This reminds me of that movie “Blue Thunder”, and how they tried to justify using an armed military attack helicopter to surveil street violence. Just ignore the Gatling Gun option.