ArnoldRimmer said:
Come on, you know that's not true. People are upset about this particular and questionable incident, and for a reason. You are right that the report is a bit one-sided, telling only half the story etc. It's easier to understand that law if one knows the history and motivation behind that law that you pointed out for example. But while it's possible to understand the general motivation behind that law, it's complitely obvious that in this particular case the man shall not be punished for actual wiretapping, but instead it's effectively a punishment for putting the police in a bad light. A law with a reasonable intention is being abused for something completely different, to punish a man for taking evidence of questionable police behaviour. Nobody likes to see embarrassing videos of himself on YouTube. In that respect policemen are no different from anyone else. The difference is that policemen have certain ways to put pressure on people that normal citizens don't. In my country btw, the police found another stupid explanation for trying to avoid such kind of evidence against them: Due to police violence at demonstrations that hardly ever resulted in policemen actually being punished, people demanded that policemen at demonstrations should wear a visible dispatchable identification number, so that when they are being filmed acting irresponsible they could afterwards be identified by the police because of the number. The police rejects this, claiming that wearing a visible identification number poses a huuuge threat to the policemen, which I think is just ridiculous. |
In Illnois, it's illegal to wiretap ANYONE without their permission.
If you tape me the same way the police were taped, I could have you thrown in jail.
The difference is, if there is reasonable suspison the police were going to do something illegal to you, you can tape it. Well that and a judge through out this case anyway.
Even if you had reasonable suspison I was going to do something illegal to you in Illnois, you could NOT audiotape it.
Also, you don't think having a number that tells you whoa cop is, is a huge threat to the police?
I mean, I'd just look at cases like the OWS pepper spraying incident where peoples home addresses we found out and people were threatened along with their families.
Fact is, people are bitching because the police have the same rights as everyone else, not less. (Though not even that now.)
