-------- Original Message -------- Subject: California Supreme court prohibits recording Californians without their consent - regardless of where you are. Date: Thu, 13 Jul 2006 15:35:59 -0400 From: Ethan Ackerman <eackerma@private> To: David Farber <dave@private> Greetings Dave, Many people, especially reporters, are familiar with state laws prohibiting phone conversations from being recorded without the consent of one or both parties to the call. Some states, and federal law, require only 1 party to consent, other states require both or all parties to consent. California is one such 'all-party' consent state. (Think Linda Tripp recording Monica Lewinsky talking about her boss, or the floridian couple recording Newt Gingrich coordinating his ethics probe with John Boehner, as past examples of this distinction.) Well today, the California Supreme Court found that Georgia-based employees of the Solomon Smith Barney brokerage who were taping California customers with out notice or consent violated California laws, even if they might have been complying with Georgia's '1 party' consernt laws. While the court refused to fine the brokers, finding their reliance on Georgia law reasonable, it did enjoin them from taping Californians in the future. Case is here: http://www.courtinfo.ca.gov/opinions/documents/S124739.PDF This decision will likely have a large impact on investigative reporting, and has definite impacts on other areas of privacy and consumer protection law as well. -Ethan _______________________________________________ Politech mailing list Archived at http://www.politechbot.com/ Moderated by Declan McCullagh (http://www.mccullagh.org/)
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