The Massachusetts wiretapping law makes it a felony to surreptitiously audio record anyone — even police officers and other government employees, and even when in a public place.
But a lawsuit filed Thursday by the American Civil Liberties Union of Massachusetts argues that the law is “unconstitutional as applied to the secret recording of police officers performing their duties in public.”
“Then a police officer on the righthand side—he starts bashing my window with a baton, trying to break in. That’s when I noticed they might kill me.”
“You’re going to see people drawing their guns, all pointing their guns into my car,” – Steven Cepeda’s description of his terrifying encounter with Massachusetts police after he was stopped in the lot of a pizza shop last april.
The South Carolina town of Greer has doubled down on their police department’s blatant constitutional violations, but not how you’d expect.
The City of Greer released a body cam video- which you can see below- where the first officer on the scene admits that the man they arrested wasn’t doing anything wrong when they rolled up and started asking for identification – without a state law enabling them to conduct a “stop and identify.”
The Ohio ACLU has filed a lawsuit on behalf of a diverse group of plaintiffs seeking free speech and some sense of normalcy for residents nearby the upcoming Republican National Convention next month, which you can read below.
Political speech is protected by the First Amendment, as is the right to free assembly, but Cleveland officials signaled that they’ll only issue 18 permits of 50 minute duration each to march on one single parade route near a national party’s convention.
Why do police need a dog to sniff electronic memory cards?
The “Porn sniffing” dog craze has hit conservative Utah as a police agency just announced their purchase of a dog who can purportedly sniff out SD cards on their local TV news.
Videotaping and photography are constitutionally protected free speech, but in South Carolina, a few police think free speech is a crime.
“What crime have I committed?” asked the citizen journalist recording video in the back of a municipal city center’s parking lot in Greer, South Carolina.
Quickly and thoroughly, the South Carolina cops were about to violate that citizen journalist’s 1st, 4th, 5th and 6th Amendment rights, all in one short video which you can see below.
“Now, predictive judgements are no longer fiction” – ACLU video comparing “no-fly” and “terror watch” lists to movie Minority Report (below)
Federal “terrorist watch lists” and “no-fly lists” have grown massive, without a way or to challenge the listing by American citizens swept up in error.
An Ohio Senator recently signaled a willingness to push a bi-partisan compromise to fix the due process problem, by giving the other side gun controls on those listed.
The Alabama police department that had a man arrested on a felony charge of jamming up their emergency lines – even though he did not make a single call – is now taking heat from the local ACLU as well as the local newspaper.
But the Wetumpka Police Department is still sticking to its guns, threatening to arrest anybody else who posts their non-emergency phone number of (334) 567-5321.
A Homeland Security police officer tried his best to escalate a confrontation with a PINAC correspondent who was conducting a First Amendment audit on a federal building in Houston Monday.
David Warden was standing outside the building with his camera while standing on public property, not saying a word, when two Federal Protective Services officers stepped into the gated parking lot.
“Take your camera off me, please,” the officer said. “You’re violating ….”
But then he must have thought better than to make up a law as they tend to do.
A Homeland Security police officer tried his best to escalate a confrontation with a PINAC correspondent who was conducting a First Amendment audit on a federal building in Houston Monday.
David Warden was standing outside the building with his camera while standing on public property, not saying a word, when two Federal Protective Services officers stepped into the gated parking lot.
“Take your camera off me, please,” the officer said. “You’re violating ….”
But then he must have thought better than to make up a law as they tend to do.
