7 ms·

CopBlock.org Founder Faces 21 Years in Prison for Reporting Police Brutality

253 points by wtvanhest 14y ago

knowtheory 14y ago
This certainly sounds egregious, and it may very well be, but all of the posts I can find on the subject appear to be written with approximately the same tone (one on prwire, which takes any press release folks want to post) and this one from iReport (which is crowdsourced). I would be interested in reading any sources folks know about about this that are external to the Free Ademo movement.
- wtvanhest 14y ago
  I couldn't find a good one so I posted the link to CNN, I am with you on needing a better source
FJim 14y ago
According to the one other source I found, it wasn't the video which led to the charges. He recorded a subsequent phone call with the police department without notifying them that the call was being recorded. According to Wikipedia, regarding the recording of telephone conversations, New Hampshire is an 'all parties consent' state, and seemingly by his own admission he broke this law. Thus the calls for jury nullification, to ignore a law which they find unjust.
- gst 14y ago
  So recording a phone call (without consent) is a reason for locking someone up for 21 years?
  - droithomme 14y ago
    Good question. Here is a complete transcript that I have typed up of the 24 second long phone call that is the controversial call in question. (source: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sEhFwI6IyMU http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sEhFwI6IyMU) Patrol Captain Office, can I help you? Ah yes, I was calling to see if there was a comment about a video that is surfacing on line of Detective Murphy slamming a 17 year old child on top of a table. Well, I haven't seen the video. Where is it? It's on a web site called CopBlock.org. OK, I'll take a look. (Click.)
powertower 14y ago
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.
- skizm 14y ago
  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.
  - powertower 14y ago
    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 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Telephone_recording_laws
  - _delirium 14y ago
    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.
gwern 14y ago
> The controversial felony wiretapping charges journalist and CopBlock.org founder Adam ‘Ademo’ Mueller is facing will go to trial, a situation that has stirred up a hornet’s nest of free speech advocates in New Hampshire. Not on the topic of the article, but this must be the worst-written sentence I've read in weeks; I had to read it three times before I finally figured out what it meant (a dude is going to trial).
- SoftwareMaven 14y ago
  I think the implication is that the felony wiretapping charges will be one of the things on trial, due to the efforts towards jury nullification. But, yes, that is a horrible sentence.
bilbo0s 14y ago
One observation and one question. First... this guy is gonna be a hero with a capital H if they send him to prison for recording the cops. Hero with the left and the libertarian right. Hero with the other prisoners... probably beyond that whole black-white gang thing. He will be untouchable. Anyway... I would also like to try to get an idea of the reasoning behind making it illegal to record the police, or indeed ANY public servant, in the execution of their duties. Suppose I make a phone call to, let's say, a public school. During this call I inquire about something erroneous that they may have been telling my child... as I understand this, it is illegal for me to record that call to use as documentary evidence of the challenges the child may face in that school. I am wondering why that is the case? There must be some 'bad' way that can be used, so they don't allow it. I just can't see what 'bad' thing it s the government is worried about. Any lawyers out there able to address that quickly?
- tptacek 14y ago
  All of the reasons are silly, but in order of most to least reasonable: * Recording officers creates a permanent record of their identity which causes problems for undercover operations. * Bystanders who record the police frequently interfere (directly, physically) with police actions and can put themselves or others in danger. * Recorded video is frequently edited to create misleading narratives and spurs nuisance claims against the police. * The police are themselves required to jump through all sorts of due process hoops to surveil people, so they should benefit from the same protections while on the job. (Incidentally: all these reasons are probably true; they're just wildly insufficient to restrict video recording).
  - user602341 14y ago
    1) Umm, facebook? 2) Frequently is a nice general word. I would argue, that it's not nearly enough times to cause an impact on enforcing the law while recording the police has resulted in many outings of abuse of power. 3) If anyone honestly thinks that's a problem, then they shouldn't ever set foot in a court room. Court is all about editing and sculpting the evidence as much as you possibly can to support your case. And again, the benefits of recording the cops hugely outweigh the (theoretical) negatives. 4) It's impossible for a civilian to get a warrant to spy on a police officer. I don't see your point.
mfkp 14y ago
For the curious, I believe these are the videos in question: http://www.copblock.org/8754/manchh/ http://www.copblock.org/8754/manchh/ (Second video is the phone calls, third video is the high school recording)
lcusack 14y ago
I wish this article was written by an actual journalist. Seems to be very one-sided.
DigitalSea 14y ago
Wow, to put this into perspective if you kill someone in Australia you're looking at a sentence of about 15 years in comparison to recording someone without their permission and getting 21 years... This is seriously a joke and given the outrage being generated by almost everyone you know he'll walk free. The fact CNN is writing about this and by the language used in the article they agree he shouldn't be jailed it'll be interesting to see what comes of all of this.
- waiwai933 14y ago
  Not CNN. CNN iReport, which is citizen journalism; no editorial oversight or factchecking by CNN, just random Internet people posting stories.
- marvin 14y ago
  Also to put things in perspective, Anders Behring Breivik, the Norwegian terrorist who killed 69 teenagers last summer, will get a maximum of 21 years in prison. This is the highest sentence possible under Norwegian law.
  - jontas 14y ago
    That isn't quite right. The 21 year sentence can be extended to keep him in prison for life [0]. He is not going to be walking out of jail free 21 years from now. [0] http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-17724535 http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-17724535
    - marvin 14y ago
      Yes, but the point was the "punishment" part is 21 years maximum. Any additional time will be only to protect the lives of other citizens.
      - spand 14y ago
        Not sure if its fair to call you out on this but what would any additional "punishment" bring anyone ? 21 years is a long long time. Extending the prison term seems like the right way to go and keep the issues of punishment and safekeeping separate.
aqtyu 14y ago
Welcome to the police state. None are more hopelessly enslaved than those who falsely believe they are free.
kevinalexbrown 14y ago
While "crowdsourced" reporting is kind of cool, this report strikes me as an example of that idea gone awry. It took some googling to find a reasonable account, from the Reporters Committee For Freedom of the Press[0]. This would, if anything, be biased toward Mr. Mueller, but it put the above article in an entirely different light. 1) As others have pointed out, he's on trial for allegedly recording three telephone calls to the police, a school principal, and a school secretary, without the consent of all parties, then made them publicly available. This is a felony under NH law. The iReport article implies, via quotations from multiple sources, that Mr. Mueller is on trial for filming police brutality. In fact, it appears that he called these parties for comment, so this doesn't even seem to be an issue of the right to record your arrest, or interested interactions with the state. 2) CopBlock.org and other "citizen watch" type sites might be a great idea, but performances like Mr. Mueller's, who apparently insists on the court calling him "Ademo Freeman", says things like "Bring on the Circus", and represents himself in a criminal case just paint these movements in a bad light. Police brutality, over-reaching state authority, etc. might be big problems; this kind of misguided moral crusade does not help. 3) I can understand the frustration supporters might find with inconsistent applications of wiretapping laws: I am not sure the state would care if a random citizen made three phone calls public, if no one pressed charges or there weren't some other reason. This article in no way communicates any of these issues and instead implements a tirade of misdirection and indignation. Finally, I'd like to say something in defense of professional journalists. I know they often get a bad rap as being either extensions of the state vying for "influence" or sensationalists chasing controversy in every corner, but reports like this make me appreciate journalists who: - call for comment - search for credible sources, preferably ones with opposing viewpoints - read or link to actual court documents EDIT: You can find the video where he publishes the recordings here: http://youtu.be/sEhFwI6IyMU http://youtu.be/sEhFwI6IyMU . Both the principal and the police officer made it reasonably clear they did not wish to discuss the matter. While the principal did respond to Mueller's questions, it seems unlikely she implied any consent to record. [0]http://www.rcfp.org/browse-media-law-resources/news/nh-blogger-charged-felony-wiretapping-could-receive-21-year-prison-s http://www.rcfp.org/browse-media-law-resources/news/nh-blogg...
- revelation 14y ago
  I'm with you on the disgust for these Assange-personas, but what he did should not be illegal. He was talking to public servants over a line owned by the state. He was specifically contacting them because of their respective roles in public departments. He was contacting them to talk about things that fall squarely into their responsibilities as public servants. Public servants have no expectation of privacy in fulfilling their duties, why should it be different when you talk to them over the phone about said duties? So yes, these wiretapping laws need to go.
63452tmpaccount 14y ago
nullify! Whether reporting on police brutality or recording conversations. It doesn't matter. He's not guilty of theft, fraud or unprovoked violence. There is no crime here, regardless of whatever "laws" are broken.
smsm42 14y ago
21 years for wiretapping? This surely sounds extreme, to the point of being incredible - can somebody with some expertise in legal system evaluate how probably is to get such sentence? Given no priors, no history of violence, no harm to property or any person and no criminal intent - even if he violated the law I don't see how it can even warrant one year in jail, let alone 21. Is US judicial system really that screwed up or is it just imagination of article writers?
- droithomme 14y ago
  It's very simple to understand. The person charged is a human rights and justice blogger who runs a site called CopBlock where for years he has posted videos of police brutality, lawlessness and thuggery. He is a thorn in the side of the police and they are highly aware of him and watch him closely looking for slip-ups. In November 2011 he recorded a 24 second long call devoid of content where the person on the other end was a desk officer in a two-party consent state. This act of recording gave them probable cause for arrest, and he is in fact guilty of the "crime". This is a popular tactic for dealing with social justice advocates in authoritarian regimes: watch them closely and surely they will be guilty of something eventually. As Cardinal Richelieu said, "Qu'on me donne six lignes écrites de la main du plus honnête homme, j'y trouverai de quoi le faire pendre." (If one would give me six lines written by the hand of the most honest man, I would find something in them to have him hanged.) In the US there are so many laws on the books, that all of us are violating some of them almost daily. This is discussed in Harvey Silverglate's book "Three Felonies a Day: How the Feds Target the Innocent", Gene Healy's "Go Directly to Jail: The Criminalization of Almost Everything", and Paul Rosenzweig's "One Nation Under Arrest: How Crazy Laws, Rogue Prosecutors, and Activist Judges Threaten Your Liberty". Much more shocking than this incident are the people who benefit from living in a free and just society, but who are supporting and defending the charges and proposed prison sentence in this travesty, this abomination, this violation of humanity and of human rights. 21 years in prison for a human rights activist, where he will be subjected to the endemic prison rape and violence that the inmates of the american justice system enjoy? All because of recording a 24 second call with police? To see members of the public supporting this in any way whatsoever is utterly nauseating and those people supporting even any sentence at all are vile monsters, devoid of any decency or reason.

253 points by wtvanhest 14y ago

This certainly sounds egregious, and it may very well be, but all of the posts I can find on the subject appear to be written with approximately the same tone (one on prwire, which takes any press release folks want to post) and this one from iReport (which is crowdsourced). I would be interested in reading any sources folks know about about this that are external to the Free Ademo movement.

wtvanhest 14y ago
I couldn't find a good one so I posted the link to CNN, I am with you on needing a better source

FJim 14y ago

According to the one other source I found, it wasn't the video which led to the charges. He recorded a subsequent phone call with the police department without notifying them that the call was being recorded. According to Wikipedia, regarding the recording of telephone conversations, New Hampshire is an 'all parties consent' state, and seemingly by his own admission he broke this law. Thus the calls for jury nullification, to ignore a law which they find unjust.

gst 14y ago
So recording a phone call (without consent) is a reason for locking someone up for 21 years?
- droithomme 14y ago
  Good question. Here is a complete transcript that I have typed up of the 24 second long phone call that is the controversial call in question. (source: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sEhFwI6IyMU http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sEhFwI6IyMU) Patrol Captain Office, can I help you? Ah yes, I was calling to see if there was a comment about a video that is surfacing on line of Detective Murphy slamming a 17 year old child on top of a table. Well, I haven't seen the video. Where is it? It's on a web site called CopBlock.org. OK, I'll take a look. (Click.)

powertower 14y ago

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.

skizm 14y ago
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.
- powertower 14y ago
  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 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Telephone_recording_laws
- _delirium 14y ago
  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.

gwern 14y ago

> The controversial felony wiretapping charges journalist and CopBlock.org founder Adam ‘Ademo’ Mueller is facing will go to trial, a situation that has stirred up a hornet’s nest of free speech advocates in New Hampshire. Not on the topic of the article, but this must be the worst-written sentence I've read in weeks; I had to read it three times before I finally figured out what it meant (a dude is going to trial).

SoftwareMaven 14y ago
I think the implication is that the felony wiretapping charges will be one of the things on trial, due to the efforts towards jury nullification. But, yes, that is a horrible sentence.

bilbo0s 14y ago

One observation and one question. First... this guy is gonna be a hero with a capital H if they send him to prison for recording the cops. Hero with the left and the libertarian right. Hero with the other prisoners... probably beyond that whole black-white gang thing. He will be untouchable. Anyway... I would also like to try to get an idea of the reasoning behind making it illegal to record the police, or indeed ANY public servant, in the execution of their duties. Suppose I make a phone call to, let's say, a public school. During this call I inquire about something erroneous that they may have been telling my child... as I understand this, it is illegal for me to record that call to use as documentary evidence of the challenges the child may face in that school. I am wondering why that is the case? There must be some 'bad' way that can be used, so they don't allow it. I just can't see what 'bad' thing it s the government is worried about. Any lawyers out there able to address that quickly?

tptacek 14y ago
All of the reasons are silly, but in order of most to least reasonable: * Recording officers creates a permanent record of their identity which causes problems for undercover operations. * Bystanders who record the police frequently interfere (directly, physically) with police actions and can put themselves or others in danger. * Recorded video is frequently edited to create misleading narratives and spurs nuisance claims against the police. * The police are themselves required to jump through all sorts of due process hoops to surveil people, so they should benefit from the same protections while on the job. (Incidentally: all these reasons are probably true; they're just wildly insufficient to restrict video recording).
- user602341 14y ago
  1) Umm, facebook? 2) Frequently is a nice general word. I would argue, that it's not nearly enough times to cause an impact on enforcing the law while recording the police has resulted in many outings of abuse of power. 3) If anyone honestly thinks that's a problem, then they shouldn't ever set foot in a court room. Court is all about editing and sculpting the evidence as much as you possibly can to support your case. And again, the benefits of recording the cops hugely outweigh the (theoretical) negatives. 4) It's impossible for a civilian to get a warrant to spy on a police officer. I don't see your point.

mfkp 14y ago

For the curious, I believe these are the videos in question: http://www.copblock.org/8754/manchh/ http://www.copblock.org/8754/manchh/ (Second video is the phone calls, third video is the high school recording)

lcusack 14y ago

I wish this article was written by an actual journalist. Seems to be very one-sided.

DigitalSea 14y ago

Wow, to put this into perspective if you kill someone in Australia you're looking at a sentence of about 15 years in comparison to recording someone without their permission and getting 21 years... This is seriously a joke and given the outrage being generated by almost everyone you know he'll walk free. The fact CNN is writing about this and by the language used in the article they agree he shouldn't be jailed it'll be interesting to see what comes of all of this.

waiwai933 14y ago
Not CNN. CNN iReport, which is citizen journalism; no editorial oversight or factchecking by CNN, just random Internet people posting stories.
marvin 14y ago
Also to put things in perspective, Anders Behring Breivik, the Norwegian terrorist who killed 69 teenagers last summer, will get a maximum of 21 years in prison. This is the highest sentence possible under Norwegian law.
- jontas 14y ago
  That isn't quite right. The 21 year sentence can be extended to keep him in prison for life [0]. He is not going to be walking out of jail free 21 years from now. [0] http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-17724535 http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-17724535
  - marvin 14y ago
    Yes, but the point was the "punishment" part is 21 years maximum. Any additional time will be only to protect the lives of other citizens.
    - spand 14y ago
      Not sure if its fair to call you out on this but what would any additional "punishment" bring anyone ? 21 years is a long long time. Extending the prison term seems like the right way to go and keep the issues of punishment and safekeeping separate.

aqtyu 14y ago

Welcome to the police state. None are more hopelessly enslaved than those who falsely believe they are free.

kevinalexbrown 14y ago

While "crowdsourced" reporting is kind of cool, this report strikes me as an example of that idea gone awry. It took some googling to find a reasonable account, from the Reporters Committee For Freedom of the Press[0]. This would, if anything, be biased toward Mr. Mueller, but it put the above article in an entirely different light. 1) As others have pointed out, he's on trial for allegedly recording three telephone calls to the police, a school principal, and a school secretary, without the consent of all parties, then made them publicly available. This is a felony under NH law. The iReport article implies, via quotations from multiple sources, that Mr. Mueller is on trial for filming police brutality. In fact, it appears that he called these parties for comment, so this doesn't even seem to be an issue of the right to record your arrest, or interested interactions with the state. 2) CopBlock.org and other "citizen watch" type sites might be a great idea, but performances like Mr. Mueller's, who apparently insists on the court calling him "Ademo Freeman", says things like "Bring on the Circus", and represents himself in a criminal case just paint these movements in a bad light. Police brutality, over-reaching state authority, etc. might be big problems; this kind of misguided moral crusade does not help. 3) I can understand the frustration supporters might find with inconsistent applications of wiretapping laws: I am not sure the state would care if a random citizen made three phone calls public, if no one pressed charges or there weren't some other reason. This article in no way communicates any of these issues and instead implements a tirade of misdirection and indignation. Finally, I'd like to say something in defense of professional journalists. I know they often get a bad rap as being either extensions of the state vying for "influence" or sensationalists chasing controversy in every corner, but reports like this make me appreciate journalists who: - call for comment - search for credible sources, preferably ones with opposing viewpoints - read or link to actual court documents EDIT: You can find the video where he publishes the recordings here: http://youtu.be/sEhFwI6IyMU http://youtu.be/sEhFwI6IyMU . Both the principal and the police officer made it reasonably clear they did not wish to discuss the matter. While the principal did respond to Mueller's questions, it seems unlikely she implied any consent to record. [0]http://www.rcfp.org/browse-media-law-resources/news/nh-blogger-charged-felony-wiretapping-could-receive-21-year-prison-s http://www.rcfp.org/browse-media-law-resources/news/nh-blogg...

revelation 14y ago
I'm with you on the disgust for these Assange-personas, but what he did should not be illegal. He was talking to public servants over a line owned by the state. He was specifically contacting them because of their respective roles in public departments. He was contacting them to talk about things that fall squarely into their responsibilities as public servants. Public servants have no expectation of privacy in fulfilling their duties, why should it be different when you talk to them over the phone about said duties? So yes, these wiretapping laws need to go.

63452tmpaccount 14y ago

nullify! Whether reporting on police brutality or recording conversations. It doesn't matter. He's not guilty of theft, fraud or unprovoked violence. There is no crime here, regardless of whatever "laws" are broken.

smsm42 14y ago

21 years for wiretapping? This surely sounds extreme, to the point of being incredible - can somebody with some expertise in legal system evaluate how probably is to get such sentence? Given no priors, no history of violence, no harm to property or any person and no criminal intent - even if he violated the law I don't see how it can even warrant one year in jail, let alone 21. Is US judicial system really that screwed up or is it just imagination of article writers?

droithomme 14y ago
It's very simple to understand. The person charged is a human rights and justice blogger who runs a site called CopBlock where for years he has posted videos of police brutality, lawlessness and thuggery. He is a thorn in the side of the police and they are highly aware of him and watch him closely looking for slip-ups. In November 2011 he recorded a 24 second long call devoid of content where the person on the other end was a desk officer in a two-party consent state. This act of recording gave them probable cause for arrest, and he is in fact guilty of the "crime". This is a popular tactic for dealing with social justice advocates in authoritarian regimes: watch them closely and surely they will be guilty of something eventually. As Cardinal Richelieu said, "Qu'on me donne six lignes écrites de la main du plus honnête homme, j'y trouverai de quoi le faire pendre." (If one would give me six lines written by the hand of the most honest man, I would find something in them to have him hanged.) In the US there are so many laws on the books, that all of us are violating some of them almost daily. This is discussed in Harvey Silverglate's book "Three Felonies a Day: How the Feds Target the Innocent", Gene Healy's "Go Directly to Jail: The Criminalization of Almost Everything", and Paul Rosenzweig's "One Nation Under Arrest: How Crazy Laws, Rogue Prosecutors, and Activist Judges Threaten Your Liberty". Much more shocking than this incident are the people who benefit from living in a free and just society, but who are supporting and defending the charges and proposed prison sentence in this travesty, this abomination, this violation of humanity and of human rights. 21 years in prison for a human rights activist, where he will be subjected to the endemic prison rape and violence that the inmates of the american justice system enjoy? All because of recording a 24 second call with police? To see members of the public supporting this in any way whatsoever is utterly nauseating and those people supporting even any sentence at all are vile monsters, devoid of any decency or reason.