Apparently he was attempting to wiretap the offices of Democratic Senator Mary Landrieu in New Orleans.
quote:"The FBI, alleging a plot to wiretap Democratic Sen. Mary Landrieu's office in downtown New Orleans, arrested four people Monday, including James O'Keefe, a conservative filmmaker whose undercover videos at ACORN field offices severely damaged the the advocacy group's credibility," the Times-Picayune reports.
I'm still not sure exactly what was going on here, but pretending to be the telephone repairmen in order to wiretap the offices of a senator... I dunno, part of me thinks were it Michael Moore doing it to a Republican I'd almost be cheering inside, so can I really hold this against him?
On the other hand, it holds a certain resemblance to Watergate and I've never heard of a liberal pulling this sort of stunt (doesn't mean it hasn't happened - I just haven't heard of it). I'm ambivalent. I can't decide whether to laugh and say "Better luck next time buddy.", or scream with frustration.
Posted by DarkKnight (Member # 7536) on :
They should have just set up a van outside of the office and monitored all the cell phone frequencies...and then claimed it was just a coincidence that they happened to be recording a specific frequency that just happened to have a phone call about blah blah blah. This was just dumb and they will most likely end up with jail time which should happen. You can't go in and tap other peoples phone systems like this. If they wanted to be like Michael Moore, they could have just spliced several of her speeches together to make up whatever point they wanted to show.
Posted by DSH (Member # 741) on :
Monitoring cell phone frequencies is illegal in the US (and down right impossible without specialized equipment).
Posted by Geraine (Member # 9913) on :
I applauded him when he did the films, and now with this have lost all respect for him.
Posted by Samprimary (Member # 8561) on :
Lol. So I guess illegal wiretapping is just kind of a party tradition with the conservatives at this point.
Posted by Samprimary (Member # 8561) on :
Breitbart is already trying to sever all ties desperately. This is hilarious. When you look at the FBI affadavit, they have already made enough statements to turn this into an open-and-shut case. They were not smart at all about what they admitted to the FBI. "false and fraudulent pretense attempted to enter, and did in fact enter, real property belonging to the United States for the purpose of willfully and maliciously interfering with a telephone system operated and controlled by the United States of America."
So of course freerepublic is claiming that they are innocent and they are being railroaded by the government because they embarrassed Obama. Man, I'm glad this happened. I needed more comedy in politics.
Someone analyzed O'Keefe's method of operation and noted that pretty much all of his prior projects have been sneaky little gotcha things where he makes it look like he found something bigger than he actually did, which is nonetheless feasted upon heartily by those elements of the conservative sphere who are predisposed to believe the worst of the Liberal Agenda.
And since he's been the darling of conservative media, he was planning to do the same here and figured he could get away with it.
SUPER FUN TIME: What he did technically probably allows patriot act based charges since it involves direct actions against the US government and I would bet you could hold them indefinitely without charges or contact with the outside world. I vote for this route to watch the GOP argue against its own weapons.
Posted by DarkKnight (Member # 7536) on :
quote: Monitoring cell phone frequencies is illegal in the US (and down right impossible without specialized equipment).
quote: Lol. So I guess illegal wiretapping is just kind of a party tradition with the conservatives at this point.
quote:Originally posted by DarkKnight: Or maybe it was the liberal party tradition...
Is this supposed to be an equivalence argument stating that "the liberals do/did it too" or is it just a 'i'm rubber and you're glue' styled response? Or what?
Posted by Kwea (Member # 2199) on :
Or maybe people are idiots.
There IS a difference between intercepting a call unintentionally and trying to deliberately tap someone line though.
You DO admit that, don't you?
Posted by MattP (Member # 10495) on :
quote: I vote for this route to watch the GOP argue against its own weapons.
You mean the same policies that Obama continued and expanded?
Posted by DarkKnight (Member # 7536) on :
quote: There IS a difference between intercepting a call unintentionally and trying to deliberately tap someone line though.
There is a difference...but in neither case was the interception unintentional.
Posted by Samprimary (Member # 8561) on :
quote:Originally posted by DarkKnight:
quote: I vote for this route to watch the GOP argue against its own weapons.
You mean the same policies that Obama continued and expanded?
Okay, so that answers that question. You're going down a mechanically predictable equivalence argument route.
Well, you have fun with that.
Posted by Alcon (Member # 6645) on :
Yeah, DarkKnight. That's completely different and not remotely comparable. That was an accident. They weren't looking for the cellphone signal. Probably weren't even aware you could intercept cell signals with police scanners. When they first got it, they weren't sure what they had. After they recorded it, they realized that they probably shouldn't have and turned themselves in.
Very different from pretending to be phone repairmen in order to break into a senator's office and tap her phone.
Posted by James Tiberius Kirk (Member # 2832) on :
quote:They then told the staffer they needed to perform repair work on the main phone system and asked where the telephone closet was located. The staffer showed the men to the main General Services Administration office on the 10th floor, and Flanagan and Basel went in. There, a GSA employee asked for the men's credentials. They said they left them in their vehicle.
The U.S. Marshal's Service apprehended all four men shortly thereafter.
"Federal employees not nearly as stupid as many like to believe - news at eleven."
--j_k
Posted by DarkKnight (Member # 7536) on :
quote: Yeah, DarkKnight. That's completely different and not remotely comparable. That was an accident. They weren't looking for the cellphone signal. Probably weren't even aware you could intercept cell signals with police scanners. When they first got it, they weren't sure what they had. After they recorded it, they realized that they probably shouldn't have and turned themselves in.
Um, that is not at all what happened....
quote: Representative Boehner was in Florida when he joined the conference call. He spoke from a cellular telephone in his car. John and Alice Martin, who lived in Florida, used a police radio scanner to eavesdrop on the conversation, in violation of 18 U.S.C. § 2511(1)(a), which forbids unauthorized interception of "wire, oral, or electronic communication." (The Martins were later prosecuted, pled guilty and fined $500.) The Martins recorded the call and delivered the tape in a sealed envelope to Representative McDermott, the ranking Democrat on the Ethics Committee.
They knew exactly what they were doing, they knew exactly what they had, and they sent it to McDermott to be used against Gingrich. They were not just two simple people who happened to be sitting in a car, with a scanner and a tape recorder, and just happened to catch this conversation in a purely unintentional way. They were both very active in the local Democratic party. I think they were even invited to a Presidential inaguration.
quote: In April, the Martins pleaded guilty to using a radio scanner to intentionally intercept a call. They were fined $1,000 and agreed to cooperate with the Government in its investigation into how the transcripts of the tape wound up in reporters' hands.
Posted by Alcon (Member # 6645) on :
Where are those quotes sourced from Dark Knight? Because they don't agree with the article you linked earlier.
Posted by Kwea (Member # 2199) on :
quote:Originally posted by DarkKnight:
quote: There IS a difference between intercepting a call unintentionally and trying to deliberately tap someone line though.
There is a difference...but in neither case was the interception unintentional.
Did you read the article you linked to?
Do you really not see a difference between taking advantage of an unintended reception of a cell phone, which you could NOT have planned in advance, and breaking into a FEDERAL BUILDING to INTENTIONALLY WIRETAP a known political figure to gain information to use against him?
I am NOT defending the couple, or the guy who used the recording, but there is a cellar difference between the two, which is why THIS one is punishable by years in prison.
Posted by swbarnes2 (Member # 10225) on :
quote:Originally posted by Kwea:
Do you really not see a difference between taking advantage of an unintended reception of a cell phone, which you could NOT have planned in advance, and breaking into a FEDERAL BUILDING to INTENTIONALLY WIRETAP a known political figure to gain information to use against him?
I am NOT defending the couple, or the guy who used the recording, but there is a cellar difference between the two, which is why THIS one is punishable by years in prison.
I bet DK's argument is that they didn't coincidently have a tape recorder around that one time they were listening in on a police scanner. That they were waiting for a while for something interesting to come up. It's rather creepy.
But yes, privitizing warrantless wire-tapping is one thing, committing fraud in a federal building is quite a lot worse.
Posted by Darth_Mauve (Member # 4709) on :
You realize the first jab made about Republican's and taping was a Nixon reference. Seems he was totally forgotten since.