“ Of course the anti-wiretapping statute that the Maryland state police cite is designed to protect private persons from having their phone conversations monitored without their consent (you know, the sort of thing that the folks at Fort Meade now do routinely). The idea that it would protect a public official in the course of the performance of his duties in a public place would probably come as a shock to the legislators who authored this measure. The way the prosecutors have construed the statute, shooting ordinary news footage is turned into a criminal act.
— Scott Horton, Tales from Stasiland: The policeman’s right not to be on YouTube.
It’s hard for a liberty-loving and law-abiding citizen to determine how to regard so-called law-enforcement officers in a place that allows this kind of thing (it’s happened in Portland, too). On the one hand, there is respect for the uniform and the office, and on the other, there is a fierce desire to be treated with that same respect with regard to one’s rights.
It’s hard for a liberty-loving and law-abiding citizen to determine how to regard so-called law-enforcement officers in a place that allows this kind of thing (it’s happened in Portland, too). On the one hand, there is respect for the uniform and the office, and on the other, there is a fierce desire to be treated with that same respect with regard to one’s rights.
