Maryland Attorney General Sides with Anthony Graber

[Chris_]

The Maryland Attorney General has released an opinion  advising a state legislator that, contrary to the claims of Harford County State’s Attorney Joseph Cassilly, a traffic stop is probably not an instance where a police officer can claim a reasonable expectation of privacy.

The AG’s opinion provides a thorough survey of Maryland’s and other states’ decisions on the issue, giving three possible interpretations of the wiretap statute as applied to a citizen recording a traffic stop.

First, a court might agree with the theory that police encounters are private conversations, but the AG found that this “seems an unlikely conclusion … particularly when they occur in a public place and involve the exercise of police powers.” That sounds familiar.

http://www.cato-at-liberty.org/2010/08/06/maryland-attorney-general-sides-with-anthony-graber/