State's Attorney Considers Prosecuting ACORN Video Posters

[Bill219]

http://wbal.com/apps/news/templates/story.aspx?articleid=35357&zoneid=2


The Baltimore city state's attorney is considering prosecuting those responsible for taping the ACORN employees on charges that they violated Maryland's wiretap laws.

STATEMENT OF STATE’S ATTORNEYS OFFICE FOR BALTIMORE CITY RELATIVE TO THE ALLEGED BALTIMORE ACORN INCIDENT



Baltimore, MD – September 11, 2009 – We have received inquiries from citizens and the media asking whether the Baltimore City State’s Attorneys Office would initiate a criminal investigation for acts allegedly committed at ACORN offices located in Baltimore. The only information received in reference to this alleged criminal behavior was a YouTube video. Upon review by this office, the video appears to be incomplete. In addition, the audio portion could possibly have been obtained in violation of Maryland Law, Annotated Code of Maryland Courts and Judicial Proceedings Article §10-402, which requires two party consent.



If it is determined that the audio portion now being heard on YouTube was illegally obtained, it is also illegal under Maryland Law to willfully use or willfully disclose the content of said audio. The penalty for the unlawful interception, disclosure or use of it is a felony punishable up to 5 years.


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[The Magistrate]

1. An Interesting Development, Sir

Always nice to see the biter bit....

[paulsby]

2. i've always been opposed to two party consent rules

they hurt all sorts of real victims.

being sexually harassed at work? well, in a two party state, you cannot tape record the incidents, so it's "he said/she said".

tape recording allows the finder of fact to get stronger evidence.

it harms the guilty and helps the innocent.

citizens can tape record cops on traffic stops. and cops can tape record citizens. the former can help stamp out corruption or just plain incivility. the latter can help protect against false complaints, and be used as evidence.

my state has two party, but it's only prohibited to record a "private conversation" w/o 2 party consent. thus, many conversations in a business transaction, and stuff like that, would not be prohibited.

2 party consent laws HURT victims and HELP criminals. they benefit those who would make false complaints or bear false witness.

[The Magistrate]

6. Still, Sir, It Seems Only One Party May Have Violated Any Law Here

The story makes no mention, anyway, of criminal investigation of the people in the office.

Regarding our previous exchange, Sir, since you have hunted me up for a reply after my indicating a disinclination to further conversation.

You are not known to me, and the medium is anonymous by its nature. People tell outlandish stories, and go to incredible lengths at times to 'sell' them. It is sometimes taken to the point of altering image files and setting up web-pages; there have been instances of people maintaining several identities vouching for one another. It is therefore my policy never to argue from purely personal experience, since people addressed would have every justification for not crediting it, and never to argue where it cannot be done without directly engaging and commenting on a person's claims of personal experience, since that cannot be done without treating them as believed, when they may not be. Your last post in that thread moved the discussion to the latter ground, and accordingly, it came to an end on my part.

[paulsby]

7. i have little doubt that is true

there may be some obscure federal law that the ACORN employees violated, but at least under my state's penal code, they didn't do anything ILLEGAL, that i can see from what i have seen of the tapes

just profoundly scummy.

lots of profoundly immoral scummy shit can be perfectly legal

you are walking down the sidewalk and a guy is bleeding to death. he begs you to call 911 . you have a cell phone on you. you say "sorry" and just stand there and watch him die.

crime?

not in my jurisdiction

immoral and evil?

yes

or look at the lori drew case. despite the absurd prosecution (which is in the process of being overturned) she did not commit a crime (spare me the contract violation kludge).

but what she did was evil, and she is scum

people here of course wanted her arrested for "inciting suicide". i loved that.

i wasn't aware i "hunted you up"

i just don't end a thread because somebody says "i'm done".

if that's what you are referring to.

frankly, i'm not sure what you are referring to.

why would somebody who wasn't a cop come to DU of all places (where a fair # of posts call cops "pigs" and there is TONS of cop hate), and claim to be a cop?

it makes no sense.

i am fiercely proud of my career. i also suggest if you search my posts, you will find the kind of practical legal knowledge that only a cop knows. or maybe that means only a cop can recognize it, if that's true.

i'll give you some background:
cop
firefighter
competitive strength athlete (currently injured :( )
pro choice
pro vouchers (doesn't get me a lot of love here, but whatever)
pro gay marriage
anti racial preferences (but pro affirmative action)
worked deep undercover for a # of years
have LOTS of repub friends
enjoy surfing
and i'm very chahming.

well, at least the last one should be self evident. the other things you are just going to accept or not.

[The Magistrate]

8. As Far As The People Involved, Sir

We know the kids with the camera were class-A jerks, out to make trouble. It never bothers me when people who set out to make trouble for others wind up in some themselves.

Regarding the people in the office, we really do not yet know. They could well have been stringing along to see how far the kids were going to press the joke, or the performance art project, or whatever they took it for. They only did something you could describe as 'profoundly scummy' if they believed what they were being told was true. That they did believe it is not clear. Since the tale told, in the place and manner that it was, strikes me as utterly unbelievable, it seems possible to me they may not have believed what they were told was true. That they did not, in fact, contact the authorities, seems to me to support the view they did not believe what they were told. This is hardly a confessional, after all; they would have no requirement or privilege of confidentiality..

[paulsby]

9. i don;'t think investigating corruption

is setting out to make trouble, except in the best sense.

i give them huge props for what they did

like i said, i've always thought 2 party consent rules were designed to help the guilty and hinder the innocent, and thus i oppose them. they run contrary to the search for truth, and for justice.

all of your speculation appears to me to just be more spin. the tape speaks for itself.

i would be more than happy to see an interview with one of the ACORN employees and see her try to explain away her actions.

have you gone to the source for the tape. there is a LOT more than what is shown on teevee, much of it boring.

*if* they didnt believe it was true, then they were possibly the best method actors known to man.

there is simply no way that they were just playing along.

watch the tape. it's clear

but this is exactly what i was talking aobut in those other posts. the fact that you can sit here and try to explain this away is proof positive of the illogic we see amongst extremists of the left and right.

if the people exposed were associated with repub causes, and the intrepid investigative reporters were dem operatives, you would not be jumping through porcelain hoops to try to rationalize this behavior.

[The Magistrate]

10. They Were Not 'Investigating Corruption', Sir, They Were Playing Political Prankster

And doing so on behalf of seriously corrupt money interests. Indictment and trial would do them a power of good.

Watching the whole of the tapes at their site was indeed wearying, and the full range of fantasist preening was on display by the kids. It is hard to imagine anyone with street level experience crediting the performance as the presence of genuine criminals sufficiently well-connected as to be able to procure internationally, let alone maintain themselves as independent criminal entrepreneurs on the scale they claimed for themselves in a large city.

Regarding your close, Sir, you have no idea what my reactions would be were the cast of characters reversed, and all else more or less unchanged: the soundest policy is to be fair as possible to everyone.

[JudyInTheHeartland]

11. Reminded me of a Michael Moore / guerilla-style video set-up

I have to give them credit for using unconventional tactics to make a political point, so on that level, they earn some grudging respect from me.

I hate to see ACORN removed from the Census, because I think they would have done a lot of positive outreach to underserved / undercounted areas.

But as was mentioned on another thread, they had no choice.

A pattern of assisting criminals to avoid the law was apparently established, and the credibility of ACORN was fatally undermined.

It's a shame, but I won't lose too much sleep over it.

(And what's with the "Sir" in every post? Olbermann impression?)

[The Magistrate]

13. A.C.O.R.N. Is Not Much To Me, Either, Ma'am

My comments here on the matter have been aimed an odd mixture of hectoring and hysteria and chest-thumpings the incident has drawn forth, which strike me as surpassingly silly. Particularly so since, at present, we have only the enemy's side of the matter available.

[paulsby]

16. lol. what utter absurdity

the tape isn't the ENEMY's side of the matter any more than the rodney king tape was.

would you be offering the same defense of the cops and attack on the video taker as you are doing in this case?

sorry, the fact that the tape was taken by a rightwinger(s) doesn't mean you can just pretend it's THEIR side of the matter.

the scummy ACORN employees are pieces of filth and your partisanship is turning you into an apologist for people who would facilitate/help a child prostitution pimp.

that you cannot see the absurdity of this speaks much to the (oh so present) blind partisanship that so many religious fervored partisans employ.

[The Magistrate]

23. In That Incident, Sir, As You Will Doubtless Recall

Many people, including the police department and defense attorneys, pressed claims that the tape provided an incomplete picture of the incident, which reflected falsely on the actions of both the officers and Mr. King. If recollection serves, such arguments prevailed at trial in state court. So the line of argument you seem to find so distressing here is hardly a novel one, and is one that can prove successful when well argued.

Until the tape has been examined by independent persons with expertise, and matched with testimony of other witnesses, it is not known to what degree it is a true recording of incident. It is not known whether it was edited, whether the camera and sound were off at intervals. It is not known what transpired after the tape was made, among the persons in the office. In this condition, it is certainly not only possible but proper to say that what we have seen to date represents the view of one side only.

You may continue, if you like, to try and press this as a personal matter, and accuse me of whatever foul thing or other strikes you as useful, but you will not achieve anything by it.

"What other people think of me is none of my business."

[paulsby]

17. exactly

they get a LOT of respect from me, because this is EXACTLY the kind of citizen activism that i wish there was more of.

change the actors

the undercover investigators were investigating operation rescue and uncovered evidence of scummy activity by OR members.

the same "magistrate" that is trying to attack the investigators and defend the scummy prostitution enablers would be LAUDING the OR investigators.

what is clear is that for some people, truth takes a backseat to the political leanings of the players. partisanship overrides a search for justice and truth. sad

but not uncommon

[The Magistrate]

25. Show Me Such A Tape, Sir, And You May See What My Reaction To It Would Be

Until then, you are just making noise, and making it in a vacuum perfectly void of knowledge.

[paulsby]

15. you are playing the myopic partisan

they WERE investigating corruption

and they DID uncover it.

the tape speaks for itself.

you do what the partisan does when attacked with ugly evidence against one of your own (ACORN - fwiw, i am in favor of much of what ACORN does, but not facilitating child pimps, sorry!) . you attack their MOTIVES.

i don't fucking care HOW rightwing or whatever the investigators were.

they revealed an UGLY truth that you don't want to deal with.

so you attack THEM, and try to turn the scum into the victims.

it is so obvious. and so sad. there are plenty on the right too who would defend bush etc. no matter how obvious the evidence.

you are no different than those people.

[The Magistrate]

18. Oddly, Sir, Myopia Improves With Age, So That My Vision At Distance Is Appreciably Sharper Now

These people were not, by any stretch of the imagination, investigating corruption. They were attempting to manufacture a political sensation, and manufacture it to assist a political movement and party dedicated to looting the Treasury, and pressing penury down further and harder upon people in this country with little or no property. It is not possible to rightly judge an action in isolation from its motives. The motives of the persons you are upholding as paragons are known, and are foul.

There is no point to further repetition, since you have yourself adduced nothing new, save a renewed stridence in tone. You have no idea whether or not the persons on the tape took the proposition seriously, and the tape does not provide evidence beyond a reasonable doubt that they did. If it were a fact that the organization made a practice of enabling real criminal behavior over time, it is likely this would have surfaced long before, in the form of arrests of criminals so enabled, throwing their co-conspirators into the dock in hopes of some leniency. This organization has been in the cross-hairs of powerful opponents for years

Accusations of partisanship do not trouble me in the slightest; one chooses a side in a fight, and sticks with it, fighting. It can be a useful tactic to claim to be operating on a higher moral ground than one's opposition, but if one is genuinely fighting, any claim to moral basis for actions taken in the fight is always suspect, and generally spurious, since success in fighting is achieved by taking and creating unfair advantage, and pressing it home till the foe is forced to act in a manner other than it would prefer, but which you desire.

"They say war is an art, but it's not. It mostly consists in out-witting people, stealing from widows and orphans, and inflicting suffering on the helpless for one's own ends, and that's not art: that's business."

[paulsby]

19. evasion noted

sorry, but investigating the facilitation of child prostitution, immigration violations, etc. IS an investigation of corruption in a publically funded agency like this

sorry, epic fail.

you can be an apologist for scum all you want. and try to attack people for exposing truth because you don't like their political motivations.

but it just proves my point

so sad.

you could be a creationist for all your evasions and ignoring of evidence, when it goes against your religion. your religion is "ACORN good, rightwingers BAD."

the corollary being, any evidence presented that ACORN, or its employees did a bad thing, if presented by the evil other is discountable no matter what

sad

[The Magistrate]

24. This Is Getting Pretty Amateur, Sir

You are going to have to hold up your end a great deal better than this if you want to compete successfully with the variety of options open to me for entertainment this afternoon.

When you can adduce existing, well-founded suspicion A.C.O.R.N. has engaged in facilitating prostitution of minors prior to this, then you can press the claim these people were looking into such practices by that organization. Not even the testimony of the lead provocateur himself makes that claim; he says he concocted a story of the most outrageous quality he could conceive to see what the reaction would be to it.

[Hansel]

27. Ignore is your friend. nt

[paulsby]

28. so is rationality and impartially looking at evidence nt

[notesdev]

3. So it's "shoot the messenger"

How about prosecuting those people who got caught on tape knowingly facilitating international sex trafficking of minors? Tax fraud? Money laundering? Mortgage fraud?

It takes a really fucked up mindset to say none of those things matter, but recording someone engaged in criminal activity without their knowledge and consent does.

How about some principles besides political expediency, people?

[emilyg]

4. Thank you.

[tammywammy]

21. Agreed n/t

[armyowalgreens]

5. I'm against entrapment. But I think what ACORN employees did was pretty vile.

This is a dilemma.

[paulsby]

20. it;s not entrapment

entrapment is a LEGAL DEFENSE (it is not a crime in and of itself) when AGENTS OF THE STATE (usually law enforcement, but agents of law enforcement even if not directly employed by same can trigger an entrapmenf not t defense) entrap a person

points

1) even if the investigators WERE law enforcement (which they aren't) it doesn't meet the necessary elements of entrapment.
2) entrapment is not a crime
3) entrapment is a legal defense to CRIMINAL activity. it is not even clear that the ACORN employees committed a crime

i suggest you research entrapment. i worked undercover. bought drugs and weapons. i had to know the law of entrapment. most people don't. they assume all sorts of erroneous stuff about what does and doesn't constitute entrapment. my favorite, a gun dealer told me "if you ask an undercover cop if he is a cop, and he says no, it's entrapment"

lol.

[Robb]

12. Ah, a two-party consent state. Interesting.

I've always been on the fence on the issue. I would like to know if I'm being recorded, of course, but if I'm trying to catch a bad guy being bad I'd just as soon not tell them I'm up to it.

Maryland will have to reap what it's sowed with this one. Take your pick, one or two party consent, but you have to stick to it. Should be an interesting case.

[Hutzpa]

14. This is what happens when you employ

douchebags who are naive, deadly combination.

They are doing everything under the sun to bring down ACORN which is
an organization to help poor people.

What is it with these republicans and ethnic minority? what is it??

Yet you want the votes of blacks and hispanic.....sure.

[Joanne98]

22. GOOD! GROW SOME BALLS AND DO IT!

[Hansel]

26. I was wondering about this.

In Minnesota it is illegal to tape record a conversion without the other party's knowledge. I was wondering if it would be the same in that state.

Also, if the tape is edited to change the meaning of the conversation and then used to smear a private citizen and get her fired from her job, she might have civil recourse.

It also may be illegal to purposely pursue someone with expressed intent of destroying their livelihood. This is exactly what Glenn Beck has been engaging in. The likes of Glenn Beck and his ilk are treading on some very thin ice.

[Swamp Rat]

29. k&r

:)

[ThoughtCriminal]

30. Linda Tripp got away with it due to an odd technicalty

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Linda_Tripp#Indictment_by_the_State_of_Maryland

[karnac]

31. Freedom of the press often overides privacy issues

And are supplemented with First amendment "Reporter Shield" laws.

As much as you hate these two, they are ostensibly journalists and reporters/investigators. Just not reporting on what YOU want them to.

My understanding is a prosecution has been attempted at least 5 times in Maryland with no success. Stossel and Tripp to name a couple.


Now, if you want to prosecute them for just to make their lives difficult, think again.

When you get the law involved, everybody hurts but not everybody can recover.

O'Keefe and the "ho"? forget it. The reichwing will pay their legal fees, they will become martyrs, and make a million bucks on a book deal.

The Two stupid employees at Acorn/Maryland? Right now they are conveniently lost/fired as far as I know. If they are located, their past will definitely get dredged up(who knows what's there). IF they get prosecuted federally/state for conspiracy(where you have to prove little), then WHO knows what they might say(true/false) to save their asses about Acorn! And it might not just be local.

Acorn, will have to testify, submit records and if they lie or obstruct at ANY point, they are screwed.

Acorn might be destroyed just for the long shot of getting even.

Wanna to roll the roulette wheel? Might be interesting