Our first case of police overstepping their bounds comes from Nashua New Hampshire:

Michael Gannon, 39, of 26 Morgan St., was arrested Tuesday on two felony violations of state wiretapping law, for using his home audio and video security system to record conversations involving city police detectives investigating his 15-year-old son.

Though Gannon told police to “smile” for the camera, it wasn’t the video recording that landed him in trouble.

“It’s the audio portion, not the videotape,” Hefferan said. “People video people all the time. In fact, the police videotape people.”

Police have given records of the case, including a copy of the Gannons’ videocassette, to First Assistant Hillsborough County Attorney Roger Chadwick and asked him to review how the charges should be handled, Hefferan said.

“We don’t get it right all the time. Although I am not condemning the officers . . . I don’t have all the facts. If it turns out when I do have them all that we erred, then I will be the first to admit it,” Hefferan said.

“We wanted to be confident, early on. . . . We wanted a prosecuting source to look at it objectively,” Hefferan said. “Technically, the charge is an accurate one, but sometimes what’s technical and what’s good common sense is not necessarily mutual.”

If prosecution isn’t warranted, Hefferan said, it’s best to find out sooner rather than later.

“I don’t want to run him through the wringer here,” Hefferan said of Gannon. “If it isn’t there, I want to know about it and I want to know about it early.”

I noticed that the Telegraph does have a link to the state law in New Hampshire which is really odd, but may not actually apply. After reading the law, the section that seems to apply here is the following:

I-a. A person is guilty of a misdemeanor if, except as otherwise specifically provided in this chapter or without consent of all parties to the communication, the person knowingly intercepts a telecommunication or oral communication when the person is a party to the communication or with the prior consent of one of the parties to the communication, but without the approval required by RSA 570-A:2, II(d).

Like most states, the law seems to apply mostly to third parties intercepting communications that they’re not a party to. What doesn’t seem to make sense, however, is the part about intercepting a conversation. Intercepting the conversation implies that you’re hearing the conversation en route to its intended recipient. In fact, if you’re a party to a conversation, you cannot possibly be intercepting it, unless you split hairs down to the point where you can claim the device doing the recording is intercepting the conversation, but that seems like a weak argument and almost implies that any recording device in a conversation is a third party to it.

In any case, the Telegraph makes a point of noting the location of the camera:

Gannon’s video camera was mounted in plain view, on a beam supporting the porch roof, and Gannon had a warning sign posted outside his home, but the audio recording ran afoul of state law, police charge.

Pardon me if I have a real problem with this. Gannon has a great case here for implied consent, seeing as both the sign and camera are in plain view. He’s been freed on a $10,000 bond pending a probable cause hearing on July 12 before a judge. We’ll keep you updated on the story as details come in.

What troubles me about this story, however, is that Gannon recorded a conversation he was a party to on his property with warnings to that effect and a camera in plain sight, and yet the police still arrested him for doing so. I understand it violated the eavesdropping and wiretapping law, however, the idea that someone could be charged for intercepting their own conversations is laughable at best.

Our second story is even more bizarre, this one out of Clinton Missouri and we get it via my good friend Steve Safran at Lost Remote:

Sheffield and Erwin were reporting from the public side of the yellow tape, within the area people were allowed to stand. The police wanted the crew to move to an area they had set up for the media, and when the KYTV crew didn’t move - out came the cuffs. Erwin was arrested in the middle of the live shot, Sheffield immediately after. Both were charged with misdemeanors.

I don’t get this at all. Aside from the fact that reporters should be able to report from anywhere they choose to, Sheffield and her camera man were actually in public space covering the story. Why do police think they can coral people in public spaces?

Both of these incidents seem to set an awfully uncomfortable table for those of us who value a free press and freedom of speech. I’m under the impression that the mantra of police is slowly but surely becoming arrest first, figure out the crime later.

And it’s not a good thing for any of us.

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