[514] in Privacy_Forum
[ PRIVACY Forum ] Conservative "Video Stings" of ACORN May Have Been
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (privacy@vortex.com)
Sat Sep 19 03:52:12 2009
X-Barracuda-Envelope-From: privacy-bounces+privacy-forum=mit.edu@vortex.com
Date: Sat, 19 Sep 2009 00:31:14 -0700
To: privacy-list@vortex.com
Message-ID: <20090919073114.GB7137@vortex.com>
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Disposition: inline
From: privacy@vortex.com
Reply-To: PRIVACY Forum Digest mailing list <privacy@vortex.com>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1"
Errors-To: privacy-bounces+privacy-forum=mit.edu@vortex.com
Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit
Conservative "Video Stings" of ACORN May Have Been Illegal
http://lauren.vortex.com/archive/000613.html
Greetings. Over the last few days, I've seen endless rather
breathless coverage of the conservative 20-somethings "hit squad" that
conducted video stings of ACORN offices, for the express purpose of
recording ACORN staffers making fictitious and/or embarrassing
statements (statements that were clearly misguided, but probably not
in and of themselves illegal).
But then I started to wonder, were those hidden video/audio recordings
themselves legal?
Sure enough, I'm not the only one pondering this question, and it
appears quite possible that the recordings were illegal under various
involved states' laws ( http://bit.ly/yzEIG ).
This fact has not been widely reported in the media up to now, but
already appears to be a topic of considerable civil litigation
"interest" and also possible upcoming criminal investigations.
Under U.S. laws at least, and especially in matters of privacy
violations, the end doesn't automatically justify the means -- not
even for right-wing activists.
--Lauren--
Lauren Weinstein
lauren@vortex.com
Tel: +1 (818) 225-2800
http://www.pfir.org/lauren
Co-Founder, PFIR
- People For Internet Responsibility - http://www.pfir.org
Co-Founder, NNSquad
- Network Neutrality Squad - http://www.nnsquad.org
Founder, GCTIP - Global Coalition
for Transparent Internet Performance - http://www.gctip.org
Founder, PRIVACY Forum - http://www.vortex.com
Member, ACM Committee on Computers and Public Policy
Lauren's Blog: http://lauren.vortex.com
Twitter: https://twitter.com/laurenweinstein
_______________________________________________
privacy mailing list
http://lists.vortex.com/mailman/listinfo/privacy
