We have been following a dangerous trend in both the United States and abroad where citizens are arrested for taking pictures of police. Now, the Maryland State Police are accusing an Air National Guardsman named Anthony Graber of violating state surveillance laws after he captured this video of an officer pulling his weapon during a routine traffic stop.
Graber was wearing a video camera on his helmet when he was pulled over and his helmet camera captured the officer pulling out his weapon. Now, Maryland prosecutors are accusing him of violating Maryland’s two-party consent law. If you recall, this is the same law cited against the filmmaker in the Acorn scandal.
Graber was no angel in the incident to be sure. He was cited for driving at more than 100 mph on his bike and popping wheelies. The video shows him driving like an idiot.
However, police then showed up to his house more than a month later when he posted the video online.
Maryland law states in part:
” (3) It is lawful under this subtitle for a person to intercept a wire, oral, or electronic communication where the person is a party to the communication and where all of the parties to the communication have given prior consent to the interception unless the communication is intercepted for the purpose of committing any criminal or tortious act in violation of the Constitution or laws of the United States or of this State.”
Part of the problem in this case is that Graber was filming things in public. Strong public policies implications are raised by the police arguing that they cannot be filmed in public under these laws, which were written to prevent surveillance of private communications. This is precisely the controversy in Boston (here) and the effort to prosecute should be condemned by responsible officials.
There appears to have been no charges against the officer.
Here is the entire video:
For the full story, click here.
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Wow, these police officers are reallly taking powertrip to the highest level! Can’t wait to see them in court and see hoe arrogant they can be. They are gods when they have their guns with them, let’s see them behind bars and we’ll know how toguh they could get with the real goons in prison.
First off, it’s absolutely scary and extremely unsafe to stop when a unmarked car cuts in front of you, pulls you over and pulls a gun on you and claims to be a police officer. Secondly you can get a fake police badge anywhere for display. How many of you can tell if a police badge is real or fake? For all you know someone on a unmarked car can pull you over and arrest and kidnap anyone acting as a police officer.
This is extremely unsafe and police should pull over people only on their cars. This behavior becomes so much easier for kidnapping!! I would think twice before pulling over, if it’s not a marked police car!
Thirdly , this Idiotic police officer has no idea how unsafe it is to cut in front of a motorcycle that going 70 or 80 mph, without any warning! With a good lawyer, this case is easy peasy to sue the police department !
It’s been a while for these Police Misconduct posts. Here’s an interesting article on how the Seattle Police “can’t find” videos of themselves misbehaving:
http://www.seattlepi.com/local/418746_video.html
Note to police: if you illegally arrest a computer security expert, don’t then LIE to him about whether or not you’ve destroyed evidence of your misconduct!
Will the PG County police press charges against the building owner whose TV surveillance cameras caught them beating up University of Maryland students?
Cops are the new criminal class in America. It used to be, when I was growing up in the 60s and 70s that leftists and libs didn’t trust the cops. Now they don’t seem to care about the abuse and without that resistance all heck is breaking loose.
The only solution I know is for citizens to start reducing the size of their police forces and don’t let the cops start in trying to frighten people about criminals. It’s criminal cops who frighten us most because we cannot shoot them.
Government workers (cops and fire fighters) are also plundering the tax payer with lavish retirement funds.
What a bunch of crooks. Not only do they have every desire to make criminals out of us to ensure their jobs, they will insist that we fund their comfy lives for the rest of our lives. Of course, this is bass-ackwards as the more they arrest us the less money we can earn to support their luxurious retirements.
http://www.pacificresearch.org/press/the-2-trillion-hole
http://www.amazon.com/Plunder-Employee-Treasuries-Controlling-Bankrupting/dp/0984275207/ref=cm_cr_pr_product_top
get a money hungry lawyer and sue for millions. Its the only thing they understand…
Well if we want this stopped, right after posting a reply, we then need to call our Reps and let them know!
Don’t ‘assume’ they will know what you want. THEN if they ignore you, at least you can say you have tried for change.
This cop should be fired from the force and any officer who cooperates with this charade of charges related to the video should also be fired. This country has no room for cops who are above the law.
I don’t think he was arrested. Something about medical issues. They took his computers and are probably putting cp on them as we speak.
Maybe somebody could ask the cops to get them some really good weed and then they can just smoke it together. Weed is better than beer anyway. I will not say it is better than butter because sometimes weed is good with butter, especially when its mixed in brownies. I tried cooking brownies with beer. Man they tasted awful. You just wanted to choke when you ate one. If you could get one down and have it stay down that was bad. it just kind of sat on the top of the rest of the stuff. But man let me tell you, when it came back up it was awful, took weeks to get the mess cleaned up. It was a bad smell for weeks. The carpet was not so easy to clean. But, I found out to never used TP to clean up a blue shag rug. Does anyone have a vacuum I could use? The walls are another story. I think they were white one time, they are now kinda chunky. Someone blew a pizza one time against the wall that is another story. You want to hear about it sometime?
Well then lets all look forward to all the rattled vets coming home from two ghastly ‘actions’ who will soon be on the police forces. I fully support the troops but know that the actions of their superiors have led to a wanton disregard for life in a great many of them as they have had to suffer through multiple tours. The New World Order is creating its police state slowly but surely.
Mike S.,
I know a couple of recently retired Chiefs of Police who are very concerned about all the points you have raised and agree with your assessment. They are of the opinion that there are very strong, yet subtle, political forces at work creating this culture within police departments … it is a subject much discussed at meetings of Police Chief Associations. They do mot believe that these “creeping” cultural changes are good for the men and women who serve under them or good for the public they, in turn, serve.
As has been documented here many times this is an alarming trend in American police work. Need we remind ourselves of how the LAPD was spinning the Rodney King tape and the hoops jumped through, change of venue to Simi Valley a place where many police live, to ensure the officer’s lack of punishment.
Of course the Police Departments country-wide see the videotaping of officers as a threat to the “blue wall of silence.” The police have been encouraged by those totalitarian elements of our society to see themselves as a para-military organization. The first rule of a para-military, or military organization, is to maintain and protect the team.
While it is easy to cast blame on individual officers for their transgressions I think that widely misses the heart of the problem. There is a strain in America, perhaps 25% of the people, who believe in authoritarian rule. Tea Party, Sara Palin anyone. They are so misguided that they couch their non Constitutional beliefs as pleas for freedom, while in truth that is not their desire. They want other people straight-jacketed and muzzled into conformance with their outlandish belief systems and never visualize themselves as ever falling prey to the forces they’ve set in motion.
While the Maryland videotaping law does seem to cover this, we all know that that was not its’ original purpose. Police behavior, as a matter of constitutional right, should be an area where the right to tape them in action should be as sacrosanct as freedom of the press. Of course we all know how that’s working out.
Um… Don’t a lot of police cars have “dashcams” that record both video and audio in exactly the same way as this guy’s helmet cam? Yeah, I know, the state law probably has a special exception for the police…
So a guy pulls up in front of you and cuts you off. The guy is wearing casual clothes and tennis shoes with no badge in sight. He gets out of the car, immediately draws a gun, and starts telling you to get off your motorcycle. Only belatedly does he show you a badge, long after he’s come at you with a drawn weapon.
No wonder opinions of the police are approaching the level of goon squads.
It will be interesting to see how the courts eventually rule on these matters. Cops seem to approve of catching but not of being “caught”.
This “month later” arrest must have been well considered by the department so perhaps they have decided to test their interpretation of the law through the courts.
More Chinatization of America … big Trotskyist brother is watching you, but you must avert your eyes when he passes by.
Lets see, party admission, I could see how they could use that against him. But could the converse be true if he posted his idiotic post on line. That he did not consent to the policia use or viewing? I know the policia like to have it both ways, but this should either be included on both or excluded on both.