Wiretapping and teddy bears

Please read this story and offer your opinions

Link

As for mine I would like to offer this....

As a true red blooded American I would like to say that I am 100% for our privacy rights and the protection the constituion gives us regarding these rights. As In the state mentioned in the article as it is with I believe most other states it is against the law to record someone without the consent of at least 1 party of the conversation.

The problem with this law is that it allows for no loopholes nor does it allow for extra ordinary circumstances where it may indeed be nessesary to record without the other parties consent.

My example I give you is this, and I relate this story to you from a first hand account as I am in a very similar situation. I first want you to consider child abuse. Not the typical type of abuse you would first think of such as a child being beaten or burned or locked in a cage but abuse of a nature that has far more damaging and psycological effects. The abuse I mention is reffered to as verbal and emotional abuse.

Looking up the definition of verbal abuse you get the following clinical definition.....

Controllers use verbal abuse to subtly undermine their victim's perceptions, to manipulate them into doing what they want, to foster dependency, to isolate them from truth, from outside contact and even from their own children. They may withhold information while lying to their victim.. Controllers create confusion, emotional pain and mental anguish, while periodically "rescuing" their victim by seeming to offer the balm of love that alleviates the victim's pain drawing the victim ever closer. Controllers gain and maintain power over people while often presenting a perfect persona to the world

Thus becomes the problem, A spouse that verbally and emotionally abuses your children but maintains a perfect personification to the world. How then do you protect your children from such behaviors? The only answer is to covertly tape record the acts which according to the law is a felony wiretapping charge.

I recently contact my state senator and was told that they would not consider reviewing the case becasue even child abusers have rights. Well that may be the case but what about the rights of the children who are too young to speak for themselves.

Police, FBI, CIA and many other government authorities have the privlige of going before a judge to get a wiretap warrant. Why can not the general public have the same kind of access. In a suspected abuse case we should be able to pettition the judge for a warrant and then under review the judge could decide to allow the warant to continue or disallow that evidence.

I am frustrated. These laws need changed or amended to protect from this type of abuse towards children.

Can anyone reccommend procedures for introducing legislation?

What state do you live in, because in most (many?) states you absolutely CAN record someone without them knowing - especially if its in your own home. How do you think all those evil abusive babysitters get caught. How do you think private investigators are able to catch so much information [secretly] for their cases - all within the law Or people with security cameras attached to their home

I will tell you this. I have never left my daughter with ANYONE alone (she is young) but if I did, it would be in my home and I would most certainly have a hidden camera. I dont trust many and I would never trust just anyone to be left alone with my daughter. Sending her to school will be VERY hard for me.

Here is a link for you
www.ncsl.org...

I live in florida, YOur right about the nanny cam stuff we have one of those cases that pops up on teh news every once in a while. I just think that there needs to be some revisions in the law.

THanks for your reply I'm surrised this topic isn't getting any notice as it hit CNN tonight

reply to post by photobug


From your source:

The plan backfired, however, when the judge presiding over child custody proceedings refused to hear the recordings. Sarpy County District Judge David Arterburn noted that under Nebraska law, at least one person in a conversation must consent to a recording.

The trick is to record the situation, make the abuser aware that they are being recorded, without inviting more abuse.

I do think that this is a good precaution, since for every abuser that could be caught another innocent person could be set up, and the evidence should constitute a whole converstation--not just a contextless snippet of someone talking.

There would have to be a bit of trickery involved, especially since the emotional abusers are typically smart people and would be wise enough to realize that letting themselves be recorded is a bad idea.

If it were me I would pretend to be a bit more confused by the abuse than I was and, for a while, pretend to be confused whether it was my fault or his. I would keep this up until it was beleivable, thorugh several arguments, then say something like "Lets tape record our next argument then you can showme where I am going wrong."

Hopefully I would play into his ego, and be able to retain a copy of the tape.