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Comment by powertower | Hacker News Reader

He is not being charged for posting the (mentioned) publicly recorded video of the cop slamming the kids face into the table.

What he is being charged for is calling police officials and others on the phone after this, and recording the conversations without getting the other parties permission to record the phone call... Then posting those recordings online.

This is how 95% of these stories are. Facts are hidden, what happened is misrepresented; stories to fit narratives are made up.

Don't get me wrong, if you call an on-duty police official at the police station maybe they shouldn't be given/expect privacy, but this story makes it seem that this guy is being charged for posting the mentioned video. Clearly he is not.

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>What he is being charged for is calling police officials and others on the phone after this, and recording the conversations without getting the other parties permission to record the phone call... Then posting those recordings online. >This is how 95% of these stories are. Facts are hidden, what happened is misrepresented; stories to fit narratives are made up.

Even so, the idea that someone can be given 21 years for recording a phone conversation with a public official is insane.

For comparison --

  The penalty for negligent homicide is 7 years.
  Aggravated felonious sexual assault 10 years minimum.
  Abuse of office is a misdemeanor.

Here is the post that this is all about:

http://www.copblock.org/8754/manchh/

The first video has a recording of him interviewing police in public, standing out on the street.

The second video shows him calling the police department and asking them for commentary about the police-slamming-kids-head slamming video. The call is about 15 seconds long, the police have no comment and hang up. He then has a 2 minute call there with the school principal.

The third video is the slamming the head video. Basically an officer assaults a student and another student recorded it.

We'd have to look at the actual court documents to see the details of which phone recodrings are being used to charge him. Aside from the posted police and school offical call, there could also be other non-published calls.

The "State of NH" vs Adam Mueller

http://www.scribd.com/collections/3735171/The-State-of-NH-vs...

> Basically an officer assaults a student and another student recorded it.

I've watched the video, and it looks to me like the kid tries to resist the officer in some way, it escalates, and when he gets turned around his chest goes down on the table. I wouldn't call this a clear-cut example of an assult.

I watched the video too and didn't see that. It looked to me like he jerked the kid up, was shaking him around and talking to him, then slams him down (apparently after the kid says something back). Either way, agree it's not clear cut as the cell phone camera work made it tough to see clearly.

It's interesting that there's some girl berating and trying to stop the videographer from shooting. The part where it gets really shaky she might be physically trying to stop him. It sounds like she's a student. She says "You're recording this and you're not supposed to be recording it" and then calls "teacher!". Is it against the law to shoot video in American schools, now?

I don't think it's against the law. But, in an interview the student w/ the cell phone camera says there is a "no electronics" policy at the school, which I imagine means he's not supposed to have his cell phone with him. There's probably also a policy about video taping in schools.

> the kid tries to resist the officer in some way, it escalates, and when he gets turned around his chest goes down on the table.

The _kid_ tries to resist the _fully grown man_ in _some way_...

What way? If your observation is acute enough to see through the opaque man to tell that it's "his chest [that] goes down on the table", then surely it's good enough to tell us in what way the child tries to resist.

What disturbs me is how ready people are to dismiss this as acceptable. Whether force is warranted or not, whether the minor did something or not, whether he resisted or not, the force is still clearly excessive. A submission hold would be sufficient. And I would expect that the policeman would know how to execute a submission hold. So I can only think that he chose not to, and instead decided to, how do you American's put it, 'open a can of whoop-ass' on the boy.

These days, American schools more resemble prisons than places of learning.

This makes much more sense. Still... I should be able to record my own phone calls, right? I think by picking up a phone you should be ready to be recorded especially as a police officer/prominent public figure.

It varies by state law if you need to inform the other party of the recording being made, and what you can do with it afterwards...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Telephone_recording_laws

It's something of a relic of early-20th-c debates on wiretapping. Some states came to the conclusion that it's "wiretapping" unless both sides of a conversation agree, which has a certain privacy-law type feel to it. In other states, it's only wiretapping if you're doing it unbeknownst to both participants, which is closer to the normal definition of wiretapping, looking more at the "sneaking onto a phone line you don't belong on" aspect rather than privacy concerns.

It can produce some oddities in companies as well. It's now assumed that a corporation can read employees' email, for example, or record their internet or IM traffic. But in a two-party-consent state, it would be illegal for your employer to record telephone calls made from your office phone, unless they get the consent of each person you talk to.

> But in a two-party-consent state, it would be illegal for your employer to record telephone calls made from your office phone, unless they get the consent of each person you talk to.

My understanding is that the most restrictive state applies, so you don't even have to be in a two-party state, you just need to be calling one.

In any case, this is why every call center you talk to says "this call may be recorded" when you first connect. It's not just a courtesy!

I've been told the opposite. If your call is interstate, then federal rules (one party consent) apply.

According to this page, it's not 100% clear or consistent, but the more restrictive state's laws applying is definitely a possibility: http://www.rcfp.org/can-we-tape/interstate-phone-calls

There's should and there's the law. More relevant here, is 21 years for recording a phone call a just sentence?

He hasn't been sentenced, nor is there any real chance that he faces a year in prison, let alone 21.

How would you know what his chances are? You don't. No one does. It's a crap shoot (and a rediculous charge).

I'm going to go ahead and answer your first question with the obvious question: "what is the longest anyone has ever been imprisoned for recording a police officer?"

> I should be able to record my own phone calls, right?

In most states, only one person needs to be aware that the conversation is being recorded. His conduct would have been completely legal in the majority of the US. [1]

It seems like 21 years is a very harsh sentence for conduct that isn't physically dangerous and isn't even illegal in the majority of the US.

I seem to remember reading or hearing somewhere that police departments actually like the rule used by most states, "recording is legal as long as at least one participant in the conversation knows about it." This makes gathering evidence in investigations a lot easier because you can record everything without a warrant. If we suppose the world consists of "criminals," "informants," and "police," and police and informants always know about their own recording devices, then criminal-to-criminal calls are the only case that needs a warrant in a state with one-party notification. Informant-to-criminal and police-to-criminal can legally be recorded without a warrant, probable cause, reasonable suspicion, or any basis whatsoever in such states.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Telephone_recording_laws#Unite...

"What he is being charged for is calling police officials and others on the phone after this, and recording the conversations without getting the other parties permission to record the phone call..."

According to Article 22 of the New Hampshire constitution, "free speech ... [is] to be inviolably preserved". It is difficult to reconcile this "wiretapping" law with the constitution.

> According to Article 22 of the New Hampshire constitution, "free speech ... [is] to be inviolably preserved". It is difficult to reconcile this "wiretapping" law with the constitution.

Why do you think that free speech implies a right to record what someone else says without their permission?

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