Police Insanity

There's no fucking excuse for this kind of prosecution; we can only hope the courts also think so:

The ACLU of Maryland is defending Anthony Graber, who potentially faces sixteen years in prison if found guilty of violating state wiretap laws because he recorded video of an officer drawing a gun during a traffic stop. In a trend that we've seen across the country, police have become increasingly hostile to bystanders recording their actions. You can read some examples here, here and here.

However, the scale of the Maryland State Police reaction to Anthony Graber's video is unprecedented. Once they learned of the video on YouTube, Graber's parents house was raided, searched, and four of his computers were confiscated. Graber was arrested, booked and jailed. Their actions are a calculated method of intimidation. Another person has since been similarly charged under the same statute.

(snip) There's no reason that police officers should ever have an expectation of privacy when dealing with the public. Ever. The mere idea of it is authoritarian. I realize that videos and audio tapes don't always reflect the context, but the burden of proof is on the government, not the citizen and police have to factor that into their behavior.

The video in question (the key segment is at the very end):