"Whether or not prosecutors charge any ACORN officials in Baltimore, the filmmaker himself could be in hot water.
A Maryland state statute requires consent from all parties whenever a conversation is taped, according to the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press. Violations of the law are punishable by a maximum of five years in jail and a fine up to $10,000.
But that statute does not apply to videotape recordings — only to phone calls or other electronic 'communications,' Napolitano argued — meaning the filmmaker is likely in the clear."
I've never been comfortable with this law in Maryland - that one can be prosecuted for taping a conversation without the consent of all parties.
I believe that if one is on the up-and-up. then he will always act the same way. So if he's acting illegally in public, he'll do so in private; the latter just makes him easier to catch. As they say, it's what's in the heart that counts.
So when 2 student interns walk into an office open to the public, an office operated with federal public tax dollars (ACORN offices in Baltimore), it seems to me that that anything done there is done especially in public and should be subject to any form of recording. The expectation of privacy should be very low, making it legal to record anything that happens there, video, audio or otherwise.
Journalists should be free to record whatever they like in public. It's the expectation of privacy that's the issue. Only a fool has that expectation on a phone or anywhere outside his home.
Especially in light of the collapse of law enforcement in Baltimore, we need more people willing to do what these young filmmakers have done.
There's a special irony here: ACORN's core has as part of its "mission" to enhance communities. How does prostitution, especially child prostitution, and tax evasion do that? Is it an entrepreneurial opportunity for the unemployed? In the end, they'll argue that it's somehow Bush's fault.
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