nklr: helmet camera legality revisited
Posted: Tue Sep 28, 2010 5:06 am
A little while back I posted a story of a motorcyclist in MD who was pulled over by MD State Police. His helmet camera was running and he managed to record part of the stop. In addition to the traffic violation charges filed against him, he was also charged with violating the state's wiretapping law for recording the encounter.
I'm happy to hear that the judge sitting this case, Judge Emory A. Plitt Jr. (incorrectly noted as "Pitt" in most articles covering this story), has dropped the wiretapping charge.
The full article from the Washington Post is here:http://blog.washingtonpost.com/story-lab/2010/09/wiretapping_charges_dropped_ag.html
Justice Plitt's reasoning is best summed by his quote from the article:
[i] [/i] So, those who were planning to avoid MD because of this, you breathe a small sigh of relief.I say small, because as the article points out, this is just a circuit court ruling and so is not legally binding.However, if appealed, then it would set a very bad precedent. I can't see the state DA pushing this matter further toward appeals, but to be honest, I don't think think it should have gotten a far as it did. Note: I'm not a lawyer, but maybe someone else on the list is. Will this send a message to the MD law enforcement and the DA or will they attempt to test this again in the near future? Josh.[i]"Those of us who are public officials and are entrusted with the power of the state are ultimately accountable to the public. When we exercise that power in public fora, we should not expect our actions to be shielded from public observation. 'Sed quis custodiet ipsos cutodes' ("Who watches the watchmen? )."[/i][i] [/i]