Hhmmmm Police may have no right to privacy in carrying out official duties in public. But the civilians they interact with do. -- Judge Richard Allen Posner (1939-) American jurist, legal theorist and economist. Federal judge on the United States Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit in Chicago, Senior Lecturer at the University of Chicago Law School Source: U.S Court of Appeals for the 7th Circuit, ALCU of Illinois v. Anita Alvarez (2012) (Dissenting) May it not be asked of every intelligent friend to the liberties of his country, whether the power exercised in such an act as this ought not to produce great and universal alarm? Whether a rigid execution of such an act, in time past, would not have repressed that information and communication among the people which is indispensable to the just exercise of their electoral rights? And whether such an act, if made perpetual, and enforced with rigor, would not, in time to come, either destroy our free system of government, or prepare a convulsion that might prove equally fatal to it? -- James Madison (1751-1836), Father of the Constitution for the USA, 4th US President Source: Jan 1800, regarding the Sedition Act of 1798, Report on the Virginia Resolutions A statute intended to prevent unwarranted intrusions into a citizen’s privacy cannot be used as a shield for public officials who cannot assert a comparable right of privacy in their public duties. Such action impedes the free flow of information concerning public officials and violates the First Amendment right to gather such information. ... The [Illinois Eavesdropping Statute] includes conduct that is unrelated to the statute’s purpose and is not rationally related to the evil the legislation sought to prohibit. For example, a defendant recording his case in a courtroom has nothing to do with an intrusion into a citizen’s privacy but with distraction. ... The court finds the Illinois Eavesdropping Statute is unconstitutional on its face and as applied to the defendant as the statute is violative of substantive due process. -- Judge David Frankland Circuit Court Judge for Crawford County, Illinois Source: In a 12-page order entered September 15, 2011, in People v Michael D. Allison, No 2009-CF-50, Judge David K. Frankland of the circuit court of Crawford County held that the Illinois Eavesdropping Act is unconstitutional in that it violates substantive due process and the First Amendment of the United States Constitution. Michael Allison faced up to to 75 years in prison for recording his encounters with police officers and a judge.
Posted on: Mon, 24 Mar 2014 21:10:45 +0000
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