Helmet Cam Was Legal, Ditto Taping Arresting Officer, Judge Rules
A motorcyclist who was jailed and charged with violating Maryland’s wiretap law after he used a helmet cam to film the state trooper who had pulled him over for speeding is off the hook.
Hartford County Circuit Judge Emory Pitt Jr. ruled that a uniformed police officer doing his job in public has no reasonable expectation of privacy, eliminating a necessary element of the wiretap case against defendant Anthony Graber, reports the Story Lab blog of the Washington Post.
Pitt also threw out a charge against Graber for possessing a device whose primary purpose was intercepting oral communications. Under the government’s argument that the helmet cam fell within this definition, “almost every cell phone, BlackBerry, and every similar device, not to mention dictation equipment and other types of recording devices” would also be illegal, the judge said.
