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Comment by darth_avocado | Hacker News Reader

There are legitimate reasons for having one party consent legal. My experience with employer harassment has been that it’s extremely hard to prove discriminatory behavior without being able to record without consent.

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In California you can record without consent if you have reasons to suspect a crime is going to be committed. It's not the most straightforward thing to get away with and you should work with a lawyer before you do it to be sure it will be accepted as evidence, but you can totally do it.

Laws that make something legal or not conditional on a hypothetical that hasn't happened yet are kind of lowsy. It's like the stand your ground one's where you can just say you believed your life was in danger.

Are you implying you should be able to shoot at someone just because they are at your house or something?

I'm not implying anything, just criticizing laws where guilt or innocence rests on claim of a hypothetical situation. Shooting someone when you believe your life may be in danger. One party consent recording allowed when you believe a crime may happen.

before you do it*

*before you REVEAL that you did it

There's always the risk of being caught while doing it, or to be exposed that you've done it before the time that you intend to "reveal" it.

So it's better to talk with a laywer and get informed of your options and the risks, and how to go about it, before you do it, not merely before you reveal you did it.

No, before. Don’t give cops freebies.

Don't talk to a cop without your lawyer present.

Don't keep the recordings on your phone.

And this kind of thing, trouble with a boss/landlord/etc, is a lot more likely to personally impact the average person than any sort of PV-related scenario. Single party consent is a clear net positive for most people.

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