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posted by martyb on Monday July 02 2018, @04:07PM   Printer-friendly
from the what-did-they-say? dept.

Illinois prosecutors have charged a 13-year-old student with felony eavesdropping for recording his conversation with two school administrators. Should he be found guilty and sentenced, a conviction could land him a minimum of one year in prison. According to TechDirt:

The [Illinois] law forbids recordings without all parties' consent. It would seem that the school officials' refusal to discuss anything further once they were informed they were being recorded should have been enough. The conversation was ended, along with the recording. If they were concerned they said something they shouldn't have during the previous ten minutes, maybe should have restrained themselves during the argument, rather than ruin a 13-year-old's life with a bad law Illinois legislators refuse to rewrite. Given how often this law is used to protect the powerful, it's hardly surprising legislators haven't expressed a serious interest in fixing it.

Everyone from the administrators to the prosecutors and those in between had a lot of discretion available to stop the chain of events, but all chose not to stop it.


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  • (Score: 4, Insightful) by frojack on Monday July 02 2018, @06:05PM

    by frojack (1554) on Monday July 02 2018, @06:05PM (#701504) Journal

    any conversation in a public building such as a school should have no expectation of privacy.

    You reach too far.

    Nothing in law dictates that every conversation outside your home is fair game for anyone with a microphone.
    That you believe it is, just shows how pathetically low your expectations of freedom really are.

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