Man faces 75 years in jail for recording conversations with public officials.

[Belmont31R]

Before we start this is not about LEO's but more of these insane laws, prosecutors, and legislatures that wrote these laws.




Anyways this guy thought he was being hassled, and so he started recording conversations he had with various public officials. He planned to file a civil rights lawsuit. Instead once they found out about the recordings he is now being charged with 5 counts of illegal wiretapping.



I think its INSANE and just goes to show how far we are down the shitter when recording a conversation with a public official can land you what amounts to a life sentence. This is on par with anything the British ever did, and reeks of the tyranny which has come over this country. No more accountability for the government, they feel they can hide behind that .gov title, and are above the laws the rest of us peons are forced to live with.


Just to show how stupid these laws are what happens when a business owner has CCTV going, the camera is pointed to the parking lot with a road in the background, and records a public official doing something? Lock em up for 15 years?


They might as well start handing out immunity cards to these shit stains which just puts it in writing they are a special class and the law doesn't apply to them, and they'll bend/twist the existing laws to suit their needs.


I don't even want my kids to grow up in this type of environment. All we're doing now is popping out more slaves who will live their entire lives under the government boot. With this guy not only are they telling him what he can and can't do with HIS property but when he decided to fight back they got him good with the wiretapping charges.

Crawford County State’s Attorney Tom Wiseman is currently bringing five felony charges against Michael Allison, a 41-year-old construction worker who recorded police officers and other public officials he thought were harassing him. (I'm writing a feature about Allison's case for a forthcoming issue of Reason). Allison was fighting a zoning ordinance forbidding the storage of unregistered or inoperable vehicles on private property. Allison thought he was being unjustly targeted by local authorities and was planning a civil rights lawsuit, so he began recording his conversations with local law enforcement. He faces up to 75 years in prison for the recordings.

http://reason.org/news/show/police-o...s-civil-rights

[bp7178]

That article you linked really doesn't give much information about the particulars of the case at all.

Before playing Johnny law, it would have been prudent for him to research what he was doing to make sure it was legal, or to consult an attorney. The latter making the most sense.

What people outside of the system don't realize is that maximum sentences are almost NEVER carried out. These things are largely dependent on prior criminal records of the offender, violence of the offense, and any mitigating or aggravating circumstances.

I get your point about citizens needing a blanket of protection from corruption, but there is simply not enough information here to form an unbiased opinion about the incident.

[Belmont31R]

That article you linked really doesn't give much information about the particulars of the case at all.

Before playing Johnny law, it would have been prudent for him to research what he was doing to make sure it was legal, or to consult an attorney. The latter making the most sense.

What people outside of the system don't realize is that maximum sentences are almost NEVER carried out. These things are largely dependent on prior criminal records of the offender, violence of the offense, and any mitigating or aggravating circumstances.

I get your point about citizens needing a blanket of protection from corruption, but there is simply not enough information here to form an unbiased opinion about the incident.

He wasn't playing johny law. It was a guy trying to defend his property rights.


Saying before we do anything we should consult a lawyer is symptom of the problem. They have laid out a minefield for us waiting for someone to slip up, and then get hammered. Thats now how things should be. Im sure everyone has hundreds of dollars laying around waiting to hand over to a lawyer to get an opinion about how to not step on a mine.... I mean we don't have enough lawyers as it is...right? And then if you do step on one we have tens of thousands for a legal defense while the government has a limitless amount of money and resources.


Grand system we got goin on here.

[SteyrAUG]

He wasn't playing johny law. It was a guy trying to defend his property rights.


Saying before we do anything we should consult a lawyer is symptom of the problem. They have laid out a minefield for us waiting for someone to slip up, and then get hammered. Thats now how things should be. Im sure everyone has hundreds of dollars laying around waiting to hand over to a lawyer to get an opinion about how to not step on a mine.... I mean we don't have enough lawyers as it is...right? And then if you do step on one we have tens of thousands for a legal defense while the government has a limitless amount of money and resources.


Grand system we got goin on here.

Yeah, pretty much. And those who need lawyers the most are usually those who can least afford one. Which is why somebody is usually trying to screw them out of something in the first place.

[bp7178]

You don't have enough information to about the case. You don't know the circumstances of any of these recordings, how they were conducted, who they were between etc.

There are reasons laws were enacted about parking such vehicles. Just because you don't understand the reasons, or don't care to, doesn't give you some free pass to do whatever just because.

There are certian laws which cover offenses of moral turpitude. Things like robbery, rape, murder etc, which on a basic human level you know its wrong to do.

Then there are laws which can be considered statue offenses. It's illegal because there is a law saying it is. You have to understand somewhere, at some point, there was a vaild reason for someone putting it on paper. Someone who was elected by the people of the community, and signed off by someone again who was elected by the community. A lot of the time, especially with these types of matters, they are brought to the attention of those with the power of the pen by the community.

Like the rest of the community saying they don't want their town looking like a junk yard. Or maybe they have a high water table and don't want broken down cars leaking oil etc into their ground water.

If he was going to file a civil suit, which your slanted article says he was planning on, wouldn't doing legal research or consulting an attorney be the prudent thing to do? I'm not saying he had to shell out hundreds of dollars. In this day and age of information, this stuff isn't hard to come across.

Again, that article wasn't about his case in particular, there was maybe one paragraph on it.

Funny thing about police work. 20% is crime, 80% is probably civil related stuff. Neighbors feuding, people just being shitty to each other etc. I'm all for the plight of the working man, but don't assume you know anything about what probably has been an on-going problem for years from one paragraph on the internet. I'm not a fan of big goverment either. I just wouldn't back this guys horse on the info you have.

[FromMyColdDeadHand]

Before playing Johnny law, it would have been prudent for him to research what he was doing to make sure it was legal, or to consult an attorney. The latter making the most sense.

I wonder where we would be if John Adams, Ben Franklin, George Washington and Thomas Jefferson had consulted and followed the advice of their lawyers.

[bp7178]

I wonder where we would be if John Adams, Ben Franklin, George Washington and Thomas Jefferson had consulted and followed the advice of their lawyers.

That makes no sense. Do you think they park cars on their lawns too?

[Belmont31R]

Ive read several articles on this case not just one paragraph of one article.



4 of the counts came after his vehicles were seized, and he was recording his conversations with LEO's.


1 count was when he was being tried for a misdemeanor related to violating the vehicle ordinances, and he asked for a court recorder to transcribe the trial. The judge said misdemeanors do not warrant a recorder, and so he pulled out a personal audio recorder to record the trial. The judge had him jailed for violating her right to privacy, and his recorder was confiscated. On it they found the previous recordings he did while talking to the LEO's.


About the vehicle thing it doesn't really matter what the community wants if it violates someones rights. We don't live in a democracy where mob rule makes laws. All laws still have to conform to the Constitution of the US and the various states. Personal property rights are the backbone to this country, and its absolutely wrong to tell people what to do on their own property as long as they are not doing something that then infringes on someone elses rights. If leaking oil is a hazard then all cars should be banned because they all have the potential to leak oil.


A community shouldn't have the right, as a majority, to go around telling people what to do with their land. We aren't totally communist yet, and its HIS land not the community's.

[Belmont31R]

That makes no sense. Do you think they park cars on their lawns too?

Its his land not anyone elses.

[bp7178]

This is what I get for getting involved in an anti-goverment thread.

How are personal property rights the backbone of this country?

1 count was when he was being tried for a misdemeanor related to violating the vehicle ordinances, and he asked for a court recorder to transcribe the trial. The judge said misdemeanors do not warrant a recorder, and so he pulled out a personal audio recorder to record the trial. The judge had him jailed for violating her right to privacy, and his recorder was confiscated. On it they found the previous recordings he did while talking to the LEO's.

If that's actually what happened, I don't agree with what the judge did. Trials have zero expectation of privacy, its all public record.

The same laws keep the goverment from recording your conversations and communications w/o a warrant, grand jury supeona, court order etc. It takes a huge amount of evidence. Wire taps and pen registers are no joke to get.

Again, if your text I quoted above is accurate, I have issue with how those laws are being applied.